“She remained locked in her house for three days, alone. Her only companions were three bottles of gin and the bathroom where the large mirror reflected her image, while a hundred masks danced before her.
She had never known physical pain or the eternal pain of the soul, never had her belly thundered with hunger or her throat suffered from thirst, even though she was surrounded by fresh water or fruit, which receded when she tried to grab them, because she had revealed the secrets of the gods with whom she had feasted. That mirror reflected the madness that had always distinguished her in facing life, that had always saved her on a hundred occasions and that had made her a soulless woman, shameless, perverse, without maternal instinct. She had never kissed a child or heard a wail, never touched a baby’s tiny hands.”