The Time of Contempt (The Witcher #2)

by Andrzej Sapkowski

But noble and naive disinterestedness, my anachronistic Witcher, strangely suits you. It’s your style, it’s so wonderfully and pathetically outmoded to let yourself be killed for nothing…”

“Geralt,” said the lawyer, closing his eyes. “What drives you? If you want to save Ciri… I wouldn’t have thought you could afford the luxury of contempt.

“And who am I free to despise?” interrupted the Witcher. “Am I to pay for what I love with contempt for myself?

Thus do I take you, to have and to hold, for the most wondrous and terrible of times, for the best and the worst of times, by day and by night, in sickness and in health. For I love you with all my heart and swear to love you eternally, until death do us part. Traditional marriage vows

“Do you mages always take sincerity for ostentation? Is that why you don’t believe in sincerity, even when you read it in someone’s mind?”

But do you know when stories stop being stories? The moment someone begins to believe in them.

“Their border,” explained the leader, looking around, “extends as far as their arrows do.

They were children of the time of contempt. And they had nothing but contempt for others. For them, only force mattered.