“On one of those black days, I stared from behind the darkness and beheld a diaphanous ray of light shining from my eye upon a youth walking alone on the paths of life, a youth who lived alone with his papers and books in this small house. I shut my eyes so as not to see that ray and said to my soul, ‘Your lot is the darkness of the tomb. Do not covet the light!’ Then I cried out and heard an exalted song, a song whose sweetness made my limbs tremble and whose purity seized my whole being. I covered my ears and said to my soul, ‘Your lot is the hellfire that roars in your ears. Do not desire song!’ I closed my eyes so as not to see and I blocked my ears so as not to hear, but my eyes still saw that ray, though they were closed, and my ears still heard that song, though blocked. At first I felt the terror of the poor man who finds a jewel near the palace of the prince. In his fear he dares not pick it up, yet his poverty will not let him leave it. I wept like a thirsty man who has seen a sweet spring guarded by wild beasts and who throws himself on the ground to wait and despair.”

Mistress Rose fell silent for a moment and closed her eyes. The past stood before her, and she dared not look me in the face. Once again she spoke: “Some people come forth from eternity and then return to it without having tasted of true life. They cannot apprehend the essence of a woman’s pain when her soul stands between the man she loves by the decree of heaven and the man to whom she is bound by earthly law. It is a tragedy written with a woman’s blood and tears, but a man reads it as comedy because he does not understand it. And should he come to understand it, his laughter becomes debauchery and cruelty. His anger pours down upon the woman’s head like the fires of hell, and he fills her ears with blasphemy.