ound, and I lived as the aviator
lives, thrilling against the sun, and as the believer in a world of
infidels. That was what _he_ did for me. And slowly, as I learned how
deeply the very pain was making me live, I put my unhappiness by. It was
there, but it no longer seemed important. It was the lingering complaint
of my old commonplace soul standing fearfully on the brink of greater
things and hating the situation that led it there.

VERA

You are a big woman, Jean.

JEAN

No, I am a small woman in front of a big thing. One of the biggest,
genius. And the force of it, relentless as nature, made me what I am.
_Paul._ Oh, Vera, when I think of his music, tempestuous as the sea,
healing as spring.... And now where is it? He had what all the world wants
most, _flight_, and the world stalled him in its own mud. You saw it....
That's why I shall stay here. It's the only place with _his_ atmosphere.
All these things are _he_. I face them here in silence, and I bare my
breast to the arrow. Here I am, the only one who knows Paul's music in its
possibility. To the rest, it is a heap of stones by the roadside. The
architect is dead.

VERA

But didn't he ever ... why didn't he...?

JEAN

You ask it, of course. You have the right. Sometimes I ask it, too, why
Paul never _succeeded_. While we were struggling along, the things that
held him back seemed only details. Only now do I see them as a whole.

In the first place, Paul never aimed directly at success. He was
all-round. If it had been merely a question of exploiting his talent,
sticking to the one idea day in, day out, never letting an opportunity
slip by of meeting the right people and getting to the right places ...
that would have been easy. He had tremendous energy. I used to grudge his
interest in other things. I hated to see him lose the chances and let them
be snapped up by littler men. He seemed to waste himself, right and left,
prodigally. But it wasn't that, it wasn't waste. It was all as much a part
of him as his music. He detested the stupidity of wealth and poverty, he
rebelled against laws that aren't laws, but only interests enforced by
authority, he fought against the sheer deadness of prejudice. How he hated
all that! And why not? You see, Vera, he was sensitive to it not only as a
thinker, but as a musician, too. It was all a part of the discord, and
what I used to think his wasting himself was really an effort to create a
larger harmony. He used t