running and wrestling. She finally conceived a strange feeling of pride in her body; she took a wonderful pleasure in her being; a serious dream made her feel that she was still alive, completely alive, and that she would have much more the feeling of being alive if she could wipe away the complacencies and the facile hopes. Mysterious moments during which, lacking all courage and incapable of movement, she seemed to be doing nothing, while, accomplishing an infinite task, she was incessantly climbing down to throw overboard the thoughts that belonged to her alive, the thoughts that belonged to her dead, to excavate within herself a refuge of extreme silence. Then the baneful stars appeared and she had to hurry: she gave up her last pleasures, got rid of her last sufferings.
What was uncertain was where she would come forth. She was already suffocating. My God, she is well; no, she is; she is perfect from the point of view of being; she has, elevated to the highest degree, the joy of the greatest spirit discovering his most beautiful thought. She is; no, she is well, she is slipping, the thunder of sensations falls upon her, she is smothered, she cries out, she hears herself, she lives. What joy! They give her something to drink, she cries, they console her. It is still night. Yet she could not help realizing it: around her, many things were changing, and a desolate climate surrounded her, as if gloomy spirits sought to draw her toward inhuman feelings. Slowly, by a pitiless protocol, they took from her the tenderness and friendship of the world. If she asked for the flowers she loved, they gave her artificial roses with no scent which, though they were the only beings more mortal than herself, did not reserve her the pleasure of wilting, fading and dying before her eyes. Her room became uninhabitable: given a northern exposure for the first time, with a single window which admitted only the late afternoon sun, deprived each day of another lovely object, this room gave every evidence of being secretly emptied in order to inspire in her the desire to leave it as soon as possible. The world too was devastated. They had exiled the pleasant seasons, asked the children to cry out in joy elsewhere, called into the street all the anger of cities, and it was an insurmountable wall of shattering sounds that separated her from mankind. Sometimes she opened her eyes and looked around with surprise: not only were things changing, but the beings most attached to her were changing as well. How could there be any doubt? There was a tragic lessening of tenderness for her. Henceforth her mother, plunged for hours on end in her armchair without a word, her face ashen, carefully deprived of everything which might have made her lovable, no longer revealed anything of her affection but a feeling which made her ugly, at the very moment when Anne, as never before in her life, needed young and beautiful things. What she had once loved in her mother, gaity, laughter and tears, all the expressions of childhood repeated in an adult, all had disappeared from this face which expressed only fatigue, and it was only far away from this place that she could imagine her again capable of crying, of laughing—laughing, what a wonder! no one ever laughed here—a mother to everyone but her daughter. Anne raised her voice and asked her if she had been swimming. "Be quiet," said her mother. "Don't talk, you'll tire yourself." Obviously, there were no confidences to be shared with a person about to die, no possible relationship between her and those who are enjoying themselves, those who are alive. She sighed. And yet her mother resembled her, and what is more every day added a new trait to this resemblance. Contrary to the rule, it was the mother who took her daughter's face as a model, made it old, showed what it would be like at sixty. This obese Anne, whose eyes had turned gray as well as her hair, this was surely Anne if she were foolish enough to escape
What was uncertain was where she would come forth. She was already suffocating. My God, she is well; no, she is; she is perfect from the point of view of being; she has, elevated to the highest degree, the joy of the greatest spirit discovering his most beautiful thought. She is; no, she is well, she is slipping, the thunder of sensations falls upon her, she is smothered, she cries out, she hears herself, she lives. What joy! They give her something to drink, she cries, they console her. It is still night. Yet she could not help realizing it: around her, many things were changing, and a desolate climate surrounded her, as if gloomy spirits sought to draw her toward inhuman feelings. Slowly, by a pitiless protocol, they took from her the tenderness and friendship of the world. If she asked for the flowers she loved, they gave her artificial roses with no scent which, though they were the only beings more mortal than herself, did not reserve her the pleasure of wilting, fading and dying before her eyes. Her room became uninhabitable: given a northern exposure for the first time, with a single window which admitted only the late afternoon sun, deprived each day of another lovely object, this room gave every evidence of being secretly emptied in order to inspire in her the desire to leave it as soon as possible. The world too was devastated. They had exiled the pleasant seasons, asked the children to cry out in joy elsewhere, called into the street all the anger of cities, and it was an insurmountable wall of shattering sounds that separated her from mankind. Sometimes she opened her eyes and looked around with surprise: not only were things changing, but the beings most attached to her were changing as well. How could there be any doubt? There was a tragic lessening of tenderness for her. Henceforth her mother, plunged for hours on end in her armchair without a word, her face ashen, carefully deprived of everything which might have made her lovable, no longer revealed anything of her affection but a feeling which made her ugly, at the very moment when Anne, as never before in her life, needed young and beautiful things. What she had once loved in her mother, gaity, laughter and tears, all the expressions of childhood repeated in an adult, all had disappeared from this face which expressed only fatigue, and it was only far away from this place that she could imagine her again capable of crying, of laughing—laughing, what a wonder! no one ever laughed here—a mother to everyone but her daughter. Anne raised her voice and asked her if she had been swimming. "Be quiet," said her mother. "Don't talk, you'll tire yourself." Obviously, there were no confidences to be shared with a person about to die, no possible relationship between her and those who are enjoying themselves, those who are alive. She sighed. And yet her mother resembled her, and what is more every day added a new trait to this resemblance. Contrary to the rule, it was the mother who took her daughter's face as a model, made it old, showed what it would be like at sixty. This obese Anne, whose eyes had turned gray as well as her hair, this was surely Anne if she were foolish enough to escape
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