Over there, in front of the fireplace in the library, the little mother
had lain in her last sleep. The heavy scent of tuberoses, the rumble of
wheels, the slow sound of many feet, and the tiny, wailing cry that
followed them when he and she went out of their house together for the
last time--it all came back, but, mercifully, without pain.

Were it not for this divine forgetting, few of us could bear life. One
can recall only the fact of suffering, never the suffering itself. When
a sorrow is once healed, it leaves only a tender memory, to come back,
perhaps, in many a twilight hour, with tears from which the bitterness
has been distilled.

Slowly, too, by the wonderful magic of the years, unknown joys reveal
themselves and stand before us, as though risen from the dead. At such
and such a time, we were happy, but we did not know it. In the midst of
sorrow, the joy comes back, not reproachfully, but to beckon us on, with
clearer sight, to those which lie on the path beyond.

He remembered, too, that after the first sharp agony of bereavement was
over; when he had learned that even Death does not deny Love, he had
seemed to enter some mysterious fellowship. Gradually, he became aware
of the hidden griefs of others, and from many unsuspected sources came
consolation. Even those whom he had thought hard and cold cherished some
holy of holies--some sacred altar where a bruised heart had been healed
and the bitterness taken away.

He had come to see that the world was full of kindness; that through the
countless masks of varying personalities, all hearts beat in perfect
unison, and that joy, in reality, is immortal, while pain dies in a day.