The Secret History

by Donna Tartt

extolling

“There is nothing wrong with the love of Beauty. But Beauty—unless she is wed to something more meaningful—is always superficial. It is not that your Julian chooses solely to concentrate on certain, exalted things; it is that he chooses to ignore others equally as important.”

veneration

he could be silly and vain and remote and often cruel and still we loved him, in spite of, because.

auspices

with the certainty I knew that night follows day,

It was a beautiful night, full moon, the meadow like silver and the housefronts throwing square black shadows sharp as cutouts on the grass.

the bitterness and disappointment in his voice cut me to the heart.

He turned his blind, unseeing eyes upon me.

We were utterly dependent on this man, who was not only deluded and ignorant, but incompetent in every way.

Who is in control here? I thought, dismayed. Who is flying this plane?

I had seen her cry only once before, and then only, I think, from nerves and exhaustion.

and there was despair in the set of her features.

not, as he told anyone who would listen, because he had any affection for Henry but because he was sick of being blamed for things that weren’t his fault, and if Henry lost his license he’d never hear the end of it.

he suddenly and quite without warning lost his head.

This judge is not going to be particularly amenable to them even if they walk in there like a pair of lambs.

Francis was ashen-faced.

You can’t get a Hampden taxi driver to pick you up for love nor money.”

arranged with perverse neatness,

A lithe shadow darted across the kitchen counter, twisting through the dirty pans and empty milk cartons:

organdy

A shaft of dusty cathedral light filtered through the stained-glass porthole that faced the front of the house.

davenport

The warm air smelled like lilac.

It was a hazy,

gorgeous summer twilight and the gravel parking lots were packed with trucks but none of the trucks was Mr. Hatch’s.

frenetic

Alas, poor gentleman, He look’d not like the ruins of his youth But like the ruins of those ruins.

but I remember thinking dimly that it was sort of like the first time I got drunk, or slept with a girl; not quite what one expected, really, but once it happened one realized it couldn’t be any other way.

Duty, piety, loyalty, sacrifice.

Beauty is harsh.

imagining myself a hero, rushing fearlessly for the gun, instead of merely loitering in the bullet’s path like the bystander which I so essentially am.

sequestered

I felt they cut right to the heart of the matter, to the essential rottenness of the world.

Then again, the Athenians think death to be merely sleep. Soon I will know for myself.

“She’s stupid,” said Francis passionately. “I hate her. Do you know what my cousins call her? The Black Hole.” “Why is that?” “Because the conversation turns into a vacuum whenever she walks into the room.”

but to see her, wan but still beautiful, in the flesh, my heart gave

such a glad and violent leap that I thought it would burst, I thought I would die, right there.

Dust thou art, to dust thou shalt return.

We loitered all afternoon in a dark little bar on Boylston Street, smoking cigarettes and drinking Irish whiskey.

As I stood with her on the platform—she impatient, tapping her foot, leaning forward to look down the tracks—it seemed more than I could bear to see her go.

She looked at me with her rain-colored eyes.

“Camilla, I love you,” I said. “Let’s get married.”

her gaze hit me hard and sweet as a shot of morphine.

“I’ll get down on my knees if you want me to,” I said. “Really, I will.”

She closed her eyes, dark-lidded, dark shadows beneath them; she really was older, not the glancing-eyed girl I had fallen in love with but no less beautiful for that; beautiful now in a way th...

I had said goodbye to her once before, but it took everything I had to say goodbye to her then, again, for the last time, like poor Orpheus turning for a last backwards glance at the ghost of his only love and in the same heartbeat losing her forever: hinc illae lacrimae, hence those tears.

bevy

Hampdenians

supplant