but impersonally sorry ... as if
something nice in the world had been gone ... a swan shot....

"And my little people, Shane, they were very nice little people.... I
was fond of them, but as I might be fond of some terrier dogs.... I was
good to them.... Often I sit here and wonder: Was I good enough? And,
Shane, God is my witness and this garden, and the moon above, there is
nothing I could give them I held back....

"You know how they died, Shane?... I was playing and my house went on
fire, and the servants fled.... When I came back from the theater a
policeman said: 'We got everything all right, Miss O'Malley. Your dogs,
your piano.' ... 'Where did you put the babies?' I asked.... They said:
'What babies?'

"Shane, I knew after a little while that I cried too easily ... a little
sweet rain of affection ... April ... I didn't forget them.... I
wouldn't let myself.... And then I thought: God! if I had loved my
husband my heart would have been like a cracked cup when he died.... And
when my babies died, I could not have lived.... And all I shed of tears
was a little shower of April.... O Shane, one isn't like that when one
is hurt.... Do you remember David, Shane, when he went up to the chamber
over the gate ... and as he went thus he said, 'O my son Absalom, my son
Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!' ...
And he was only a man, Shane....

"Am I bothering you, Shane? No? I am just thinking aloud, with you
there.... I never thought I could, with any human being....

"And then I knew, Shane.... Part of me was not alive.... That was
terrible to know, like finding out a horrible deformity, or knowing you
are insane.... And I began to watch people.... I could say: There is a
woman who knows she is loved, Shane.... There is a radiance in her face,
an indescribable something.... You remember the Bible word 'Shechinah,'
the glory of the Lord!... And there were women with children ... that
had lost themselves in the joy of giving ... would always have that joy
of giving.... And it made me feel strange, shameful ... as though I had
no breasts....

"I must have been a little insane then, Shane. I would go along the
streets, looking at people, and saying: 'That person looks as if they
would understand,' and thinking of stopping them with: 'Please, a
moment, there is something wrong with me!' But I knew they wouldn't
understand ... wouldn't believe it real.... Even if they were kind, all
they wo