Since then many years have passed, and in those years I have often thought how strange are the ways of Fate. Set on one's waylay a single ill-considered spontaneous remark, one is led into a course of action that cannot be stopped whether one wants to or not. At the moment of departure we do not even dream of where our voyage will take us. Even when we have started we deluded ourselves for an unconscionable time that in a short while it will soon be over, and we shall be free again to do as we please. Sometimes, in forests, one meets two such paths that, although divided perhaps by a stream or ditch, seem at first sight to run parallel to one another. One imagines that whichever one chooses will lead us to the same place. However, slowly the paths diverge...and never meet again.
Miklós Bánffy, The Phoenix Land
fate