The world turned upside down,' Beauvoir continued. 'It was at once more beautiful and more frightening than you'd been led to believe. And suddenly y… - Louise Penny

Clara Morrow had painted Ruth as the elderly, forgotten Virgin Mary. Angry, demented, the Ruth in the portrait was full of despair, of bitterness. Of a life left behind, of opportunities squandered, of loss and betrayals real and imagined and created and caused. She clutched at a rough blue shawl with emaciated hands. The shawl had slipped off one bony shoulder and the skin was sagging, like something nailed up and empty.
“And yet the portrait was radiant, filling the room from one tiny point of light. In her eyes. Embittered, mad Ruth stared into the distance, at something very far off, approaching. More imagined than real.
Hope.
Clara had captured the moment despair turned to hope. The moment life began. She’d somehow captured Grace.

And while forgetting the past might condemn people to repeat it, remembering it too vividly condemned them to never leave.

Gabri plugged the oven and the espresso machine into the generator,’ explained Olivier. ‘No lights, but we have the necessities.