A sort of mute, craven respect

"This is all intolerable," I say.

I fall to my knees by the bed. I bury my burning face in the mattress, pressing Ange's hand to my forehead, my hair.

"You see, you see," I say, as softly as I can, and there's almost a rusted sound to my voice, a withered sound, "we're respectful people, my darling, and it's a fact, yes, that we couldn't help respecting even the wrongs that were done to us, yes, a sort of mute, craven respect, and we felt that respect even for those set out to hurt us, because whenever there's a rule or a semblance of a rule we respect it, that's right, and if that rule offends us, if it attacks us and makes us unhappy, we tell ourselves that rules aren't made to please absolutely and necessarily everyone, that rules, and even semblances of rules, don't have to make us happy, us specifically, and that on the other hand there are already a great many rules that do suit us, or favor us. And isn't that just what you were thinking, my love, my poor darling, when you were walking behind me, trying to hide your wound with your satchel, isn't that more or less what you were thinking: after all, nobody's expected to want to please me by treating me exactly as I deserve, there are times, unquestionably, when I have to accept being treated in ways I don't deserve, for the sake of a greater good I don't see? Oh yes, it's true, that's more or less what you were thinking, out of pride, and that's not good, that's not good at all..."

— from My Heart Hemmed In, by Marie Ndiaye.

I can't remember the last time I read a book that affected me so deeply, burrowed under my skin like this one. All week I've been feeling paranoid, anxious, weak, claustrophobic. And I know it's this book bringing be down and distracting me, it's a scab I keep picking at, I have to know what's going on.

I'm about halfway, and, like the narrator, I have no idea what's going on, why this is happening. (Although, maybe she's deluding herself.) It's a bit of a meta experience as a reader, I'm questioning my own understanding and assumptions with each turn of a page.