‘Why does everyone say “When you are young”, as if things are going to change when I grow up and become a man? I am already a man, Camelot, though you all treat me like a child. You don't understand; there are some things I cannot help, some things which are never going to change. I don't want to be what I am, but I can't stop it.’
But although I couldn't tell him, I understood only too well. I had been blind not to see it before. That evening in the barn I had realized for the first time what was buried inside Jofre and it was something he both feared and despised. He loathed himself, loathed his own nature. I almost believed that Jofre wanted to be punished for what he carried inside himself. Perhaps that's why he had deliberately done those things that would anger Rodrigo the most. I wondered if Rodrigo had sensed that all along.
But Jofre spoke the truth when he did not answer my question, for we both knew that even if Rodrigo flogged every inch of skin from his body, it would not cure him. The only cure for his misery was to learn to embrace his own nature and he could only do that when he found someone who could give him the kind of love he both despised and craved. Until that happened, no punishment that God or man could devise would be able to stop him destroying himself.