a kiss to absolve us in secret, and sometimes, gritting your
teeth and darting the defiance of a she-wolf from your eyes, you'd say:
"I would forgive you all your faults. I would say you are right when you
are wrong."

But see here, mother, this is what I have done: will you forgive me
this:

I have invoked the truth, I have taken pains, I have climbed up, I have
striven, I have had radiant moments, days of flowering, and happiness
was the same age as myself. Mother, have you forgiven me this?

I am not better-hearted than you, but it is the life about me which
demands that one do more, love more. This is what differentiates and
actually divides us.

Everything that sings and invites one out into the good old world, the
"out-of-doors," seems pernicious to you. What you would have wanted was
to stand barring the door with your arms crossed and refuse me the fresh
air. You yourself avaricious but destitute would have liked me to salute
your avarice and praise your destitution. "Will you set yourself up in
judgment over your father and mother?"

Mother, when children grow up, their eyes open.... And if my son sees me
fallen lower than his love, lower than my own love, let him accuse and
condemn me.

No, it will not always be the same thing, as you say, for that depends
neither upon him nor you, but only upon me. You do not know, you do not
know!

With its expiring breath the lamp sends out a blackish, leaping light,
which splashes shadows on the pendulous surroundings.

I had never noticed the puffiness of her lids, nor the sharpness of her
cheekbones, nor the drooping corners of her tender mouth, nor the
flatness and thinness of her hair, which used to be full and flaming as
my own. Never before had I remarked the tragic similarity between the
dead and the sleeping. And I did not know that immutable Truth sometimes
has the ring of a curse and makes you cry, and yet is Truth.

* * * * *

The scissors gliding to the floor awakened her with a start. "What,
still crying?"

She gave the lamp a shake to force a bit of light and said in her
resigned tone, instinctively but unconsciously touching my horrible
thought: "Wipe your eyes, dear ... the dead have to be forgotten...."

XV

The storm raked the streets and stunned the houses.... All night long it
raged; and once the thunder crashed so close by that I jumped out of bed
terror-stricken to make sure the shutters were closed.