“[...]
And then she fell in love. She fell in love silently, obstinately –
perhaps
helplessly. It came slowly, but when it came it worked like a
powerful spell; it was love
as the Ancients understood it: an
irresistible and fateful impulse – a possession! Yes, it
was in
her to become haunted and possessed by a face, by a presence,
fatally, as
though she had been a pagan worshipper of form under a
joyous sky - and to be
awakened at last from that mysterious
forgetfulness of self, from that enchantment,
from that transport,
by a fear resembling the unaccountable terror of a brute...”
Joseph
Conrad, “Amy Foster”
|
From the 1997 film, based on the story, Swept from the sea, starring Rachel Weisz and Vincent Pérez. |