Nobody asked him to speak, only that he should hand over his money, but he didn’t, saying he had none, and carried on speaking, hesitantly at first, then more fluently, and finally continuously and unstoppably, because the eyes of the seven children had plainly scared him, or, as he himself put it, his stomach had turned in fear, and, as he said, once his stomach was gripped by fear he absolutely had to speak, and furthermore, since the fear had not passed—after all, how could he know whether they were carrying weapons or not—he grew ever more absorbed in his speech, or rather he became ever more absorbed by the idea of telling them everything from beginning to end, of telling someone in any case,"
-- Narration / Korin (I)

Importance: The passage from the opening of the novel, when Korin is surrounded by the gang of children, establishes Korin’s compulsion to...