Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee

at the clinic. They are desperate for volunteers.'
              'You mean help Bev Shaw.'
              'Yes.'
              'I don't think she and I will hit it off.'
              'You don't need to hit it off with her. You have only to help her. But don't expect to be paid. You will have to do it out of the goodness of your heart.'
              'I'm dubious, Lucy. It sounds suspiciously like community service. It sounds like someone trying to make reparation for past misdeeds.'
              'As to your motives, David, I can assure you, the animals at the clinic won't query them. They won't ask and they won't care.'
              'All right, I'll do it. But only as long as I don't have to become a better person. I am not prepared to be reformed. I want to go on being myself; I'll do it on that basis.' His hand still rests on her foot; now he grips her ankle tight. 'Understood?'
              She gives him what he can only call a sweet smile. 'So you are determined to go on being bad. Mad, bad, and dangerous to know. I promise, no one will ask you to change.'
              She teases him as her mother used to tease him. Her wit, if anything, sharper. He has always been drawn to women of wit. Wit and beauty. With the best will in the world he could not find wit in Meláni. But plenty of beauty.
              Again it runs through him: a light shudder of voluptuousness. He is aware of Lucy observing him. He does not appear to be able to conceal it. Interesting.
              He gets up, goes out into the yard. The younger dogs are delighted to see him: they trot back and forth in their cages, whining eagerly. But the old bulldog bitch barely stirs.
              He enters her cage, closes the door behind him. She raises her head, regards him, lets her head fall again; her old dugs hang slack.
              He squats down, tickles her behind the ears. 'Abandoned, are we?' he murmurs.
              He stretches out beside her on the bare concrete. Above is the pale blue sky. His limbs relax.
              This is how Lucy finds him. He must have fallen asleep: the first he knows, she is in the cage with the water-can, and the bitch is up, sniffing her feet.
              'Making friends?' says Lucy.
              'She's not easy to make friends with.'
              'Poor old Katy, she's in mourning. No one wants her, and she knows it. The irony is, she must have offspring all over the district who would be happy to share their homes with her. But it's not in their power to invite her. They are part of the furniture, part of the alarm system. They do us the honour of treating us like gods, and we respond by treating them like things.'
              They leave the cage. The bitch slumps down, closes her eyes.
              'The Church Fathers had a long debate about them, and decided they don't have proper souls,' he observes. 'Their souls are tied to their bodies and die with them.'
              Lucy shrugs. 'I'm not sure that I have a soul. I wouldn't know a soul if I saw one.'
              'That's not true. You are a soul. We are all souls. We are souls before we are born.'
              She regards him oddly.
              'What will you do with her?' he says.
              'With Katy? I'll keep her, if it comes to that.'
              'Don't you ever put animals down?'
              'No, I don't. Bev does. It is a job no one else wants to do, so she has taken it upon herself. It cuts her up terribly. You underestimate her. She is a more interesting person than you think. Even in your own terms.'
              His own terms: what are they? That dumpy little women with ugly voices deserve to be ignored? A shadow of grief falls over him: for Katy, alone in her cage, for himself, for everyone. He sighs deeply, not stifling the sigh. 'Forgive me, Lucy,' he