Between the Dark and the DaylightHowells, William Dean
General
Between the Dark and the Daylight
Howells, William Dean
Short stories
through the hazard of telling her what had befallen; that no such effect
as was to be desired could be anticipated from the outside.
If he turned to her father for counsel or instruction, or even a
participation in his responsibility, he was met by an optimistic
patience which exasperated him, if it did not complicate the case. Once,
when Lanfear forbearingly tried to share with him his anxiety for the
effect of a successful event, he was formed to be outright, and remind
him, in so many words, that the girl's restoration might be through
anguish which he could not measure.
Gerald faltered aghast; then he said: "It mustn't come to that; you
mustn't let it."
"How do you expect me to prevent it?" Lanfear demanded, in his vexation.
Gerald caught his breath. "If she gets well, she will remember?"
"I don't say that. It seems probable. Do you wish her being to remain
bereft of one-half its powers?"
"Oh, how do I know what I want?" the poor man groaned. "I only know that
I trust you entirely, Doctor Lanfear. Whatever you think best will be
best and wisest, no matter what the outcome is."
He got away from Lanfear with these hopeless words, and again Lanfear
perceived that the case was left wholly to him. His consolation was the
charm of the girl's companionship, the delight of a nature knowing
itself from moment to moment as if newly created. For her, as nearly as
he could put the fact into words, the actual moment contained the past
and the future as well as the present. When he saw in her the
persistence of an exquisite personality independent of the means by
which he realized his own continuous identity, he sometimes felt as if
in the presence of some angel so long freed from earthly allegiance that
it had left all record behind, as we leave here the records of our first
years. If an echo of the past reached her, it was apt to be trivial and
insignificant, like those unimportant experiences of our remotest
childhood, which remain to us from a world outlived.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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