Ostensible Innocence

[An excerpt from Perfume, by Patrick Suskind, whose character’s opinions do not necessarily reflect those of mine. Except when Ian’s missed his nap.]

‘…but now he seems much younger to me; he looks as if he were three or four; looks just like one of those unapproachable, incomprehensible, willful littler prehuman creatures, who in their ostensible innocence think only of themselves, who want to subordinate the whole world to their despotic will, and would do it, too, if one let them pursue their megalomaniacal ways and did not apply the strictest pedagogical principles to guide them to a disciplined, self-controlled, fully human existence.’

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