It is one of the sentences that Hanna, the female protagonist, wrote to Michael, the male protagonist, after she learned how to read and write in jail. The pages in my right hand became thinner and thinner, that is, it's near the end of the novel, The Reader. The weather outside seemed to take its cue, and began to unleash a thunderstorm, buckets of rain poring from the sky. I raised my head to observe the suddenly flooded streets, and cars splashing curtains of water as they sped by. Without an umbrella, I was stranded in a coffee shop waiting for the rain to ease up. In the company of the thunderstorm, I resumed my reading towards its tragic ending. There's a paragraph that is especially heartbreaking, when Michael visited Hanna for the first time after she had served 18 years in jail:
I saw the expectation in her face, saw it light up with joy when she recognized me, watched her eyes scan my face as I approached, saw them seek, inquire, then look uncertain and hurt, and saw the light go out of her face. When I reached her, she smiled a friendly, weary smile. "You've grown up, kid." I sat down beside her and she took my hand.
借用席慕蓉的詩來解釋：
當你走近 請你細聽
那顫抖的葉是我等待的熱情
而當你終於無視地走過
在你身後落了一地的
朋友啊 那不是花瓣
是我凋零的心
--「一棵開花的樹」
