matlaporte:

“She blinded herself, in short, by pretending for a while that human beings are not divided into exterminators and exterminatees, with the former, at any given moment, predominating. Will power is useless without a sense of direction. Hers was at such a  low ebb that it no longer gave her the instructions for survival.

It revived, however, without any effort on her part, and within the space of ten minutes on a Tuesday morning at the end of March. The weather was curious, and reminded her of the day she saw the flying heron trying to swallow the eel. While the washing on the lines was blowing to the west with the inshore breeze, the pumping mill on the marshes had caught the land breeze and was turning east. The rooks circled in the warring currents of the air.”

- from The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald