the Marquis de Sade, alongside Clarice Lispector’s The Passion According to G.H.—

Tarare rises from his haunches to stand over the doctor. Very well, he says. I am exceedingly sorry, monsieur, for all the trouble I have caused you. Long live the Republic. And then, before the doctor can answer, he takes the water flask in his right hand and strikes the prone citizen-doctor once, hard, round the head.

That no one cares to hear of whatever dreams bloom like nepenthes in your sickly sleeping mind?

wistful

lassitude

punctilious

goliards

cynosure

You may not think you remember a time before fire, Lozeau continues, grasping Bonfils’s shoulder as they walk. But your soul does. Children, raw and unreformed, innocents, remember it better. This is why they squall when they are left alone in darkness. Think about it, he says. Men huddled in the cold and the black of the cave mouth, while monsters