My beloved, the knowledge of misfortune is not the misfortune itself; the knowledge of death is not death itself. When we were together we never imagined I should suffer so much. When people are together, they can't imagine what it is to be alone.
It is like childbirth over again, I assure you: I remember your face when I shrieked in travail. I am more torn now, and you are not here to hold my hands.
Why do they all say suffering is necessary and ennobling? I can testify that suffering doesn't do any good.
I used to be a gay, active woman, who went about with chest expanded, a body full of pleasure, lips like kisses, and cheeks alive with color. I used to get up at five o'clock in the morning and stay up until late at night. After the day's work in the evening I'd say "to-morrow" as if anticipating the loveliest day in the world. I had poverty, laughter, an appetite, I had a perfect union with another, and I maintain that this counts. I led a life according to my own will; I had a bright child. I had all this, I _was_ all this, this was my lot....
To-day I am a woman whose eyes are swollen and corroded with salt tears, whose features are sharpened, whose shoulders stoop, whose black dress bags on her reduced figure, whose eyes are turned inward, whose house is untidy and whose evenings drop into darkness without the lamplight. My little one has to call me.... I love him without a smile, and as for myself, I hate myself.
I used to try to be kind and make it pleasant for people in my home. I am like a thistle withered on its stem, I am like a fruit cut open and thrown out on the street. I am useless and bitter--I am bad.
When people come to me, I feel the pricking of their thorns, and I wallow in gall. They are all enveloped in an awful respect for death. It revolts me.
My family comes to visit me, each one of them chockful of advice and dropping honied words.... Yet I was more worthwhile when I was happy. Why didn't they incline themselves when there was still time? They seem to send up a cry of relief. "At last! You're suffering! At last a person can approach you!" They console me and lull me; they are crows quarreling over the remains of a charnel-house.
But when they have the effrontery to extol his virtues, it is too much; my grief springs to the attack. The idea! They hated him while he lived! Keep quiet, don't insult him! I wish to be alone with the knowledge that he is dead.