Waiting for the Barbarians

by J.M. Coetzee

I know somewhat too much; and from this knowledge, once one has been infected, there seems to be no recovering. I ought never to have taken my lantern to see what was going on in the hut by the granary. On the other hand, there was no way, once I had picked up the lantern, for me to put it down again. The knot loops in upon itself; I cannot find the end.

“But surely,” he says, “if we are to be frank, that is what war is about: compelling a choice on someone who would not otherwise make it.”