accept death. If necessary, I will stretch my hands out
to it. Let the one moment of my life which wipes out the other moments
flow into nothingness. Take, strike, I am prepared....

But that "six years, no more," should be written on my face, that people
should see my face and I should hold it up smilingly like a ruthless
gift to those I love, that I should bear the signs upon me of dull
decay, wrinkles, falling hair, withered cheeks, and dimmed eyes.... What
if I refuse?...

I could no longer bear to look into the mirror and see what was going to
be. I held my face to the pane on which a dismal music was drumming.

I have had deep feelings as plentiful and coming as thick and fast as
these drops of rain; some feelings have been vaster than the soul
itself; but the only feeling truly like woman, the only feeling
essentially woman, which weds her soul while wedding her body, is the
immense desire to be beautiful. I have lived through my love of others,
I love my child as though I were still carrying it, yet all the time,
from waking up in the morning until going to bed at night, year in and
year out, from as far back as I can remember, I was cloaked and upheld
by a will to please.

I was not more beautiful than other women, but I wanted to be. In spite
of me and in spite of themselves, the men hovered about me, lavish of
their glances. I moved like a ray of joy, life was a festival redder
than war; I expressed myself without saying a word, all hearts were
ready, they gave me more love than I asked for and almost as much as I
needed.

That was the air I breathed and had to breathe. Is it good, is it bad?
It is an instinct which keeps turning rapidly round and round in you. If
you were to pull it up, it would sprout again.

Then how can it be that some day, though I shall have done nothing to
bring it on, the territory of this indestructible instinct will be
clouded over and made barren forever after? How can it be that I shall
no longer please if I still want to please?

* * * * *

The rain is beating upon the streaked window-pane and glides down
against my cheeks in long transparent tears. Every chink in the room is
an inlet for the wind. Around me there is a wailing as if drawn from a
sad, dreary bowstring.

Is it the woman of the mirror? Is it the woman that I am? You can't tell
which woman is speaking to the other woman....

"So you're of the sort to let yourself be dishear