sep. 20, 1900.

i woke at last, swimming upwards, like a diver out of a deep sea, from some dark abyss of weakness. i opened my eyes—i saw that i was in a downstairs room, where it seemed that a bed must have been improvised; but at first i was too weak even to inquire with myself what had happened. my mother sate by me, with a look on her face that i had never seen; but i could not care. i seemed to have passed a ford, and to see life from the other side; to have shut a door upon it, and to be looking at it from the dark window. i neither cared nor hoped nor felt. i only wished to lie undisturbed—not to be spoken to or noticed, only to lie.

i revived a little, and the faint flow of life brought back with it, as upon a creeping tide, a regret that i had opened my eyes upon the world again—that was my first thought. i had been so near the dark passage—the one terrible thing that lies in front of all living[244] things—why had i not been permitted to cross it once and for all; why was i recalled to hope, to suffering, to fear? then, as i grew stronger, came a fuller regret for the good, peaceful days. i had asked, i thought, so little of life, and that little had been denied. then as i grew stronger still, there came the thought of the great treasure that had been within my grasp, and my spirit faintly cried out against the fierce injustice of the doom. but i soon fell into a kind of dimness of thought, from which even now i can hardly extricate myself—a numbness of heart, an indifference to all but the fact that from moment to moment i am free from pain.