But I didn’t understand then.l that I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover. That a person can, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair.
Izumi wasn’t the only one to be hurt. I hurt myself deeply, though at the time I had no idea how deeply. I should have learned many things from that experience, but when I look back on it, all I gained was one single, undeniable fact. That ultimately I am a person who can do evil. I never consciously tried to hurt anyone, yet good intentions notwithstanding, when necessity demanded, I could become complety self-centred, even cruel. I was the kind of person who could, using some plausible excuse, inflict on a person I cared for a wound that would never heal.
South of the Border, West of the Sun por Haruki Murakami
