Everything is Illuminated

I finished Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated recently. Below is a passage I particularly enjoyed.

They say that people who live next to waterfalls don't hear the water.

They say that?

They do. Of course, your great-great-great-grandmother was right. It was terrible at first. We couldn't stand to be in the house for more than a few hours at a time. The first two weeks were filled with nights of intermittent sleep and quarelling for the sake of being heard over the water. We fought so much to remind ourselves that we were in love, and not in hate.

But the next weeks were a little better. It was possible to sleep a few good hours each night and eat in only mild discomfort. Your great-great-great-grandmother still cursed the water, but less frequently, and with less fury. Her attacks on me also quieted. It's your fault, she would say. You wanted to live here.

Life continued, as life continues, and time passed, as time passes, and after a little more than two months: Do you hear that? I asked her on one of the rare morning we sat at the table together. Hear it? I put down my coffee and rose from my chair. You hear that thing?

What thing? she asked.

Exactly! I said, running outside to pump my fist at the waterfall. Exactly!

We danced, throwing handfuls of water in the air, hearing nothing at all. We alternated hugs of forgiveness and shouts of human triumph at the water. Who wins the day? Who wins the day, waterfall? We do! We do!