I tried to comfort her by speaking of the many ways in which she might
still find happiness. She listened patiently until I was obliged to
stop for want of words, then she said:
"This is all very well, but you know you are talking nonsense. What is
the use of offering people everything but the one thing needful? What I
say to myself is:
Well, I have had my turn, have been
Raised from the darkness of the clod,
And for a glorious moment seen
The brightness of the skirts of God.
And I try to think I have no right to complain, but still I am not
better satisfied than the child that has eaten its cake and wants to
have it too. And I suppose there are many who would call me wretched,
and say that my life, with my sorrowful marriage--which was no
marriage, but a desecration of that holy state, and a sin--and my
hopeless love, is a broken life. Certainly _I_ feel it so. And yet I
don't know. With his nature it seems to me that some wrong-doing was
inevitable. Do you think my suffering might be taken as expiation for
his sins? Do you think we are allowed the happiness of bearing each
other's burdens in that way if we will? If I were sure of that I
should not fancy, as I used to, that I had a work to do in the world;
I should know that my work is done, and that now I may rest.
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