For the meanness of heart

"Forgive me for deliberately and with malice aforethought scratching your Tebaldi record. And for more besides, so much more that the recital would take all day. For countless acts of meanness. For the meanness of heart in which those acts originated. In, sum, for all I have done since I was born, and with such success, to make your life a misery" Summertime, J M Coetzee