One
endures by instinct; but one must be trained to love.
February 6, 1891.
It is months since I have opened this book; it has lain on my table
all through the dreadful hours--I write the word down
conventionally, and yet it is not the right word at all, because I
have merely been stunned and numbed. I simply could not suffer any
more. I smiled to myself, as the man in the story, who was broken
on the wheel, smiled when they struck the second and the third
blow. I knew why he smiled; it was because he had dreaded it so
much, and when it came there was nothing to dread, because he
simply did not feel it.
To-night I just pick up idly the dropped thread. Perhaps it is a
sign, this faint desire to make a little record, of the first
tingling of returning life. Something stirs in me, and I will not
resist it; it may be read by some one that comes after me, by some
one perhaps who feels that his own grief is supreme and unique, and
that no one has ever suffered so before. He may learn that there
have been others in the dark valley before him, that the mist is
full of pilgrims stumbling on, falling, rising again, falling
again, lying stupefied in a silence which is neither endurance nor
patience.
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