"The cost of oblivious daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realignment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse. Her reverie, once rich in plausible details, had become a passing silliness before the hard mass of the actual. It is difficult to come back. (...) Briony had lost her godly power of creation, but it was only at this moment of return that the loss became evident; part of a daydream's enticement was the illusion that she was helpless before its logic: forced by international rivalry to compete at the highest level among the world's finest and to accept the challenges that came with pre-eminence in her field - her field of nettle slashing - driven to push beyond her limits to assuage the roaring crowd, and to be the best, and, most importantly, unique. But of course, it had all been her - by her and about her, and now she was back in the world, not one she could make, but the one that had made her, and she felt herself shrinking under the early evening sky. She was weary of being outdoors, but she was not ready to go in. Was that really all there was in life, indoors or out? Wasn't there somewhere else for people to go? (...) In a spirit of mutinous resistance, she climbed the steep grassy slope to the bridge, and when she stood on the driveway,she decided she would stay there and wait until something significant happened to her. This was the challenge she was putting to existence - she would not stir, not for dinner, not even for her mother calling her in. She would simply wait on the bridge, calm and obstinate, until events, real events, not her own fantasies, rose to her challenge, and dispelled her insignificance."

Ian McEwan, Atonement

Etichette: parole in prestito