I say that I was growing stronger. At night, in front of her poor
shelter, I sat and thought, and looked out at the stars. The stars said
to me that life and desire were one, that the world must go on, that all
the future of the world rested with us two. But at this I rebelled. "Ah,
prurient stars!" I cried, "and evil of mind! What matters it that you
suffer or that I suffer? Let the world end, yes, let the world end
before this strange new companion, gained in want, and poverty, and
suffering, and now lost by reason of comforts and health, shall shed one
tear of suffering!"
But sometimes, worn out by watching, I, too, must lie down. Again, in
her sleep, I felt her arm rest upon my neck. Now, God give me what He
listeth, but may not this thing come to me again.
For now, day by day, night by night, against all my will and wish,
against all my mind and resolution, I knew that I was loving this new
being with all my heart and all my soul, forsaking all others, and that
this would be until death should us part. I knew that neither here nor
elsewhere in the world was anything which could make me whole of
this--no principles of duty or honor, no wish nor inclination nor
resolve!
I had eaten.
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