The Heart's Invisible Furies

by John Boyne

“Fuck the ducks. We’re going to the pub.”

“I don’t know Pavlov and I don’t know his dog,” I said, “but unless either of them has been stabbed in the balls with a syringe I don’t think they can have any idea what I’m feeling right now.”

line came into my mind, something that Hannah Arendt had once said about the poet Auden: that life had manifested the heart’s invisible furies on his face.

“It makes you sound like someone who wanted to be in charge of her own destiny. Who didn’t want anyone telling her what to do ever again.”