The Song of Achilles

by Madeline Miller

seconds, half seconds, that the line of our gaze connected, were the only moment in my day that I felt anything at all. The sudden swoop of my stomach, the coursing anger. I was like a fish eyeing the hook.

He said what he meant; he was puzzled if you did not. Some people might have mistaken this for simplicity.

But is it not a sort of genius to cut always to the heart?

We were like gods at the dawning of the world, and our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.

When he died, all things swift and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.

I lay back and tried not to think of the minutes passing. Just yesterday we had had a wealth of them. Now each was a drop of heartsblood lost.

You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.”

THE DARKNESS, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.