IX
Can we ever forget, my friend, that woman who was the lesson of your youth, your counsellor and your example?
She lived in that dark, low room where you so loved to go and to which you used to show me the way, a way that seemed to me that of veneration itself.
Disillusionments, griefs, sickness and, without doubt, a great need for renunciation had gradually sequestered her in that unlovely place of refuge, encumbered with old books and full of the odor of dust. She seemed cut off from the world; but in the shadow of that retreat her eye sparkled so vivaciously, she spoke with so melodious a voice that the world pursued her who had abandoned it even into her retirement: the friendship of young people, that friendship which is so pure and spontaneous, was for her a constant testimony. This was the only thing she would not renounce, her only ornament, her last elegance, her possession.
Year by year death came to snatch from her affection those of her own blood. Every sort of happiness withdrew from her as she retired into her abode, light itself she dreaded more and more, and more and more renounced.
Every time we passed through her little door, so slow in opening, we had at first an insurmountable feeling of being suffocated, for we were still intoxicated with our radiant life, our destiny and our ambitions.
But soon our eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, our souls recognized the humble, penetrating odor of the hangings, and we found again that beautiful, commanding glance, that voice with its supernatural freshness.
Her malady struck her new blows. This woman who still possessed the space of three rooms had to shut herself in one of them. And then, even of this she possessed no more than a corner. Her world was only a little wall and the wood of an old bed.
That ardent eye still shone. That spiritual voice still prevailed. One day the voice faltered and sank, like a ship disabled in a storm which gives up all resistance.
That day we were sad, sad, we who had not learned to renounce.