. . . As if every day when
she wrote her mind was busy about something else.
Abruptly at last he understood. A fact that had never been stated,
never formulated, never in any way admitted, was suddenly pointed to
convergently by a thousand indicating fingers, and beyond question
perceived to be THERE. . . .
He left a record of that moment of realization.
"Suddenly one night I woke up and lay still, and it was as if I had
never seen Amanda before. Now I saw her plainly, I saw her with
that same dreadful clearness that sometimes comes at dawn, a
pitiless, a scientific distinctness that has neither light nor
shadow. . . .
"Of course," I said, and then presently I got up very softly. . . .
"I wanted to get out of my intolerable, close, personal cabin. I
wanted to feel the largeness of the sky. I went out upon the deck.
We were off the coast of Madras, and when I think of that moment,
there comes back to me also the faint flavour of spice in the air,
the low line of the coast, the cool flooding abundance of the Indian
moonlight, the swish of the black water against the side of the
ship.
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