“It was if the charming theatrical curtain had dropped away and I saw him for the first time as he really was: not the benign old sage, the indulgent and protective good-parent of my dreams, but ambiguous, a moral neutral, whose beguiling trappings concealed a being watchful, capricious, and heartless.”
“He’s my dear Nutcracker and you can’t have him. See the sad way he looking at me and showing me his sore little mouth. You’re a heartless brute- you beat your houses, and you’ve even had one of your soldiers shot.”