Bernard Malamud

“Her body was young, soft, lovely, the breasts like small birds in flight, her ass like a flower…. He felt greedy as he gazed, all eyes at a banquet, hungry so long as he must look. But in looking he was forcing her out of reach, making her into a thing only of his seeing, her eyes reflecting his sins, rotten past, spoiled ideals, his passion poisoned by his shame…. He let himself down silently. In the cellar, instead of the grinding remorse he had expected to suffer, he felt a moving joy.”