3
It was late when I went away. The clouds had dispersed, the wind had dropped; the moonbeams were making pools of silver on the ground through the trees; and, when I reached the open fields, they appeared to me cold, immense, infinite under a molten sky.
The picture which I carry away with me seems to lose its colour before my eyes: it is harder and sadder, made up of harsh lights and darker shadows, like an etching. I see the rough hands on the white deal table, the bony faces brutally outlined by a crude light. I hear the cracked voice of the old madwoman, now raised in yells of abuse, now breaking into song ... and Rose ... my beautiful Rose....
But I have stolen this sight of a life which I was never meant to see. The dishonesty of my invisible presence makes a gulf between my actual vision and my perception; and it seems to me that, in this case, I must withhold my judgment even as we hold our breath before a flickering flame.