It
is the force, the vividness of one's sentiments. A monastery will do
that too; but in the unholy claustration of a jail you are thrown back
wholly upon yourself--for God and Faith are not there. The people
outside disperse their affections, you hoard yours, you nurse them into
intensity. What they let slip, what they forget in the movement and
changes of free life, you hold on to, amplify, exaggerate into a rank
growth of memories. They can look with a smile at the troubles and pains
of the past; but you can't. Old pains keep on gnawing at your heart, old
desires, old deceptions, old dreams, assailing you in the dead stillness
of your present where nothing moves except the irrecoverable minutes of
your life.
De Barral was out and, for a time speechless, being led away almost
before he had taken possession of the free world, by his daughter. Flora
controlled herself well. They walked along quickly for some distance.
The cab had been left round the corner--round several corners for all I
know. He was flustered, out of breath, when she helped him in and
followed herself.
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