The Bay of Foxes: A Novel

He looks at them with smoldering rage, as though they were the ones responsible for all this carnage. He realizes he has said too much, with too much vehemence; he has shown them what he feels, and he hates them for their indiscreet, probing questions, their idle curiosity. He feels empty, as though he has lost something precious, his pride.

[...] He has revealed more than he wanted to, more than they wanted to hear, caught up in the bright light of their interest and what he took for sympathy. He has felt obliged to entertain them, and now he has spoken of these deaths, which mean more than anything else in his life. He has spoken in order to sing for his supper. Now they turn from him, from the emptied shell. They talk among themselves about something entirely unconnected to his tragic tale. [...] He has made a fool of himself, speaking of something intimate that they could never really share. He feels deflated, humiliated, pricked and airless like a balloon. He and his most intimate feelings, the tragedy of his young life, his country, are but a moment of diversion. [pp.64-66]

Generally, he takes care of all the mundane details of her life, leaving her free to write, like so many literary couples before them. He considers himself naturally easygoing, pliable up to a point. He aims to please. He is used to trying to ingratiate himself, to question, to listen, and to give good advice. He was an only child who was often in the company of intelligent adults, courtiers in the various palaces of the Emperor or on trips abroad. He learned at an early age what to say to please his sophisticated father, who had loved him in a distracted, distant way, and how to calm his mother's constant anxiety. Only Solo, though older, followed him around the palace gardens and into the hills. Only Solo deferred to him completely, obeying his every wish.

Dawit adapts to M's schedule, her way of life. He listens to her, gives her good advice, and makes himself available to her. But there is a part of him she never reaches, a secret part that watches her with ironic detachment. Mentally he takes notes on the movements of her fine hands, her every expression, her particular words. He speaks her language perfectly, but she does not know a word of his. Despite her upbringing in Somalia, she has never taken the trouble to learn any of the languages of the country, he notes. He comes to know all about her intimate life, her work, her desires, but she knows very little about him. Like all colonizers, he thinks, she is ultimately the dupe. [p.54]

Everywhere he looks, history was made, Italian history, with all its ambiguity. He thinks of the efforts the Italians made to colonize his country and his countrymen's brave resistance: his grandfather's stories of the Battle of Adwa, where the Italians expected an easy conquest and instead suffered a humiliating defeat. How proud his grandfather was of the soldiers he had led as a very young man into battle. How ironic that Dawit should be here now. [p.176]