Fingersmith

by Sarah Waters

should

should

You’re not selling violets.

I should be sorry to think you that; and Sue should also be sorry—shouldn’t you, Sue?

should

should

should

Give photographs to your grandson: he will study them and think them quaint. He will laugh at the wax tips of your moustaches! But words, Hawtrey, words—hmm? They seduce us in darkness, and the mind clothes and fleshes them to fashions of its own. Don’t you think so, Rivers?

make me a thing of points and hooks, a burr, a splinter in the gullet of the house.