I would have smiled at my absurdity if all, even the most intimate,
vestige of gaiety had not been crushed out of my heart by the
intolerable weight of my love for Rita. It crushed, it
overshadowed, too, it was immense. If there were any smiles in the
world (which I didn't believe) I could not have seen them. Love
for Rita . . . if it was love, I asked myself despairingly, while I
brushed my hair before a glass. It did not seem to have any sort
of beginning as far as I could remember. A thing the origin of
which you cannot trace cannot be seriously considered. It is an
illusion. Or perhaps mine was a physical state, some sort of
disease akin to melancholia which is a form of insanity? The only
moments of relief I could remember were when she and I would start
squabbling like two passionate infants in a nursery, over anything
under heaven, over a phrase, a word sometimes, in the great light
of the glass rotunda, disregarding the quiet entrances and exits of
the ever-active Rose, in great bursts of voices and peals of
laughter. . . .
I felt tears come into my eyes at the memory of her laughter, the
true memory of the senses almost more penetrating than the reality
itself.
Pages:
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228