He was not a monster, she said. People say he was a monster, but he was not one. What could she have been thinking about? Not much, I guess; not back then, not at the time. She was thinking about how not to think. The times were abnormal. She took pride in her appearance. She did not believe he was a monster. He was not a monster, to her. Probably he had some endearing trait: he whistled, off key, in the shower, he had a yen for truffles, he called his dog Liebchen and made it sit up for little pieces of raw steak. How easy to invent a humanity, for anyone at all. What an available temptation. A big child, she would have said to herself. Her heart would have melted, she'd have smoothed the hair back from his forehead, kissed him on the ear, and not just to et something out of him either. The instinct to soothe, to make it better. There there, she'd say as he awoke from a nightmare. Things are so hard for you. All this she believed, because otherwise how could she keep on living? She was very ordinary, under that beauty.
( Margaret Atwood )
[ The Handmaid's Tale ]
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