Perhaps she was not a writer, after all. Had the years and years of night-study been in vain? Choked with discouragement, the cry broke from her, “O—God—God help me! I feel—I see, but it all dies in me—dumb!”
Tedious days passed into weeks. Again Sophie sat staring into her notebook. “There’s nothing here that’s alive. Not a word yet says what’s in me …
“But it is in me!” With clenched fist she smote her bosom. “It must be in me! I believe in it! I got to get it out—even if it tears my flesh in pieces—even if it kills me!…
“But these words—these flat, dead words …
“Whether I can write or can’t write—I can’t stop writing. I can’t rest. I can’t breathe. There’s no peace, no running away for me on earth except in the struggle to give out what’s in me. The beat from my heart—the blood from my veins—must flow out into my words.”
She returned to her unfinished essay, “Believe in Yourself.” Her mind groping—clutching at the misty incoherence that clouded her thoughts—she wrote on.
“These sentences are yet only wood—lead; but I can’t help it—I’ll push on—on—I’ll not eat—I’ll not sleep—I’ll not move from this spot till I get it to say on the paper what I got in my heart!”
Slowly the dead words seemed to begin to breathe. Her eyes brightened. Her cheeks flushed. Her very pencil trembled with the eager onrush of words.
Then a sharp rap sounded on her door. With a gesture of irritation Sophie put down her pencil and looked into the burning, sunken eyes of her neighbor, Hanneh Breineh.