they called me selga 's bastard and gave me pennies to lead them to the beds of my mother and my sisters and cuffed me and spat on me and laughed at me when i cried and they lusted after my mother and my sisters and all around me the hissing in my ears - and i smell the sound - that sweet cloying sound of rotten flesh and stale lust all purple and writhing with the liquid hiss of their whispers and - ' then his mad eyes filled with terror , and he cringed back from her and fell , grovelling in the mud .