“It wasn’t that Nell was weak. It was that the world was dangerous.”

“In August, an inescapable blanket of heat settled over Paducah, the last gasping breath of summer roaring its weight out over the populace.”

“It was a tribute to Raphael that lesser artists wanted to copy his work, but this… this was a travesty. The fresco consisted of Galatea’s apotheosis, wherein she is surrounded by mythical creatures. A beautiful scene, with all the potential in the world, but very poorly executed here. Galatea herself looked vapid and empty. The rest of the painting indicated pure ignorance on the part of the painter. I shook my head in confusion. The giant Polyphemus was depicted with two normal eyes, when clearly he ought to have but one. Triton, for his horn, was using not a shell but an actual trumpet of brass. I nearly laughed aloud at that observation; would not such an instrument be completely destroyed by seawater? Who the devil had painted this monstrosity?”

“He was an indecent man, I told myself - prayerfully - and then I prayed for him to become decent.”

“I was scarcely the first, nor the only current, girl of impressive derivation to be unceremoniously thrust through the iron gate at the entrance of Le Murate by parents whose aspirations for their daughters did not include marriage. Our paths to the convent were varied, but no matter. We all wound up in the same habit.”

“When some women felt fear, they covered it with an iron grate of courage, I thought. Men might be dangerous, but they were very often unperceptive. If fear only rumbled through a woman’s soul and glittered through her eyes, then perhaps the man she feared would not be aware it was there at all. He might even think that she was entirely confident, dauntless. He might believe her veneer of bravery.”

“The ground had opened up and spit out hell, Nell thought, and the detritus was Shiloh.”

“It wasn’t that Nell was weak. It was that the world was dangerous.”

“She was an afterthought, little Martha. She was treated the way many families treated pet dogs - she had to be fed and cleaned every now and then, but she was left to her own devices for the most part.”

“The war dragged on, as wars tend to do.”

“Pick a side? You done picked the wrong side.”