Light in August

by William Faulkner

is because a fellow is more afraid of the trouble he might have than he ever is of the trouble he’s already got. He’ll cling to trouble he’s used to before he’ll risk a change.

‘She is trying to make me cry,’ he thought, lying cold and rigid in his bed, his hands beneath his head and the moonlight falling across his body, hearing the steady murmur of the man’s voice as it mounted the stairway on its first heavenward stage; ‘She was trying to make me cry. Then she thinks that they would have had me.’