Hate began to seep into Edgar's young soul that day – hate for his Aunt Helen who knew this terrible thing and used it as a weapon to humiliate and degrade his mother, hate for the priest who "did filthy things" to his mother, hate for the parish that made her feel poor and indebted, hate for the grandparents who abandoned his mother and him, and hate for himself because he couldn't protect his mother, couldn't defend her, couldn't guard her against whatever the priest did to her. If only I had been there, Edgar kept thinking to himself, too young to recognize the impossibility of preventing his own conception. And when his Aunt Helen's words reverberated in his mind, like a mocking chorus – "She let him do it, she let him do it, she let him do it." – Edgar almost hated his mother for her submission to whatever the priest did to her.