Two paragraphs from 'Disgrace', by J.M. Coetzee:
He has dinner with his ex-wife Rosalind. They have been apart for eight years; slowly, warily, they are growing to be friends again, of a sort. War veterans. It reassures him that Rosalind still lives nearby: perhaps she feels the same way about him. Someone to count on when the worst arrives: the fall in the bathroom, the blood in the stool.
"That's wonderful, then. I'm sorry, my child, I just find it hard to whip up an interest on the subject. It's admirable, what you do, what she does, but to me animal-welfare people are a bit like Christians of a certain kind. Everyone is so cheerful and well-intentioned that after awhile you itch to go off and do some raping and pillaging. Or to kick a cat."
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