Each day these past several months, I’ve gotten up and tried to convince myself this will be the day the waiting will end, that by nighttime it will all be over. But nothing happened until yesterday. And then I’m not sure anything happened. Last night David came in, stood at the foot of my bed, looking down at me for a long time, looked down at me in the strangest way and said: “Camille, I’ve made a million mistakes. How’d you take it so long?” I couldn’t say anything. “Camille?…” But he didn’t go on. That’s all he said. Not that he loved me, or he hoped that I could still love him. That’s all he said. But it was something.

David Willson

FRIDAY, MAY 31, 1957:

Today started the same as many others, but veered into a triumphant day for me. I feel almost as if I have a new start! as if all these years of waste (I suddenly realize how thoroughly I have wasted them) have been given back to me to live over again. I have always felt what I needed and lacked most twenty years ago was courage and faith, and that I had neither. Not the slightest particle. Of course, I have excuses; I could always say I did the responsible thing, but that rationale never for an instant convinced me.

At times I have vainly (or so I thought) wished someone could have helped me, given me faith in myself and courage to do what I so wanted to do. But I have always believed too that no one person really gives another courage; the leaders of revolutions actually help their followers to find the courage already within themselves. If these followers did not already possess that courage, the leaders’ efforts would be in vain. Courage cannot be given like a Christmas present. But it seems I am wrong—and so thankful to be wrong!—because today I have been given courage I am certain I never possessed before. Or perhaps I did possess the courage, but in what deep abyss of my soul had it dwelt so many years? I despaired of ever finding it. Well, it has now been found, or given, or whatever.

Today, as usual, I left the house to walk to the Thomason Grocery Company and pick up my copy of the A-T. (I do not know why I have to read that particular paper every day, except that it brings back memories of better times. I enjoy reading it, looking for mistakes, errors of make-up; I enjoy seeing, every so often, names of men who started there about the same time as I did; I enjoy it, I imagine, because it is the best paper New Marsails offers and always has those stories, those tiny fillers that start small and work their way slowly toward the front page until they are important news.)