him
with profundity, that the contradiction lay not in herself, but in the
things she wanted.

"The lover then seized another healing wand and with desperate
eagerness, he explained, he shouted, 'Divine happiness has not the same
form as human happiness. Divine happiness is outside of ourselves.'

"The woman rose, trembling.

"'That is not true! That is not true!' she exclaimed. 'No, my
happiness is not outside of me, seeing it is /my/ happiness. The
universe is God's universe, but I am the god of my own happiness. What
I want,' she added, with perfect simplicity, 'is to be happy, I, just
as I am, and with all my suffering.'"

Amy started. The woman in the poem had put her problem in a clearer
and deeper manner, and Amy was more like that woman than herself.

"'I, with all my suffering,' the man repeated.

"Suffering--important word! It leads us to the heart of reality. Human
suffering is a positive thing, which requires a positive answer, and
sad as it is, the word is beautiful, because of the absolute truth it
contains. 'I, with all my suffering!' It is an error to believe that
we can be happy in perfect calm and clearness, as abstract as a
formula. We are made too much out of shadow and some form of
suffering. If everything that hurts us were to be removed, what would
remain?

"And the woman said, 'My God, I do not wish for heaven!'"

"Well, then," said Amy, trembling, "it follows that we can be miserable
in paradise."

"Paradise is life," said the poet.

Amy was silent and remained with her head lifted, comprehending at last
that the whole poem was simply a reply to her question and that he had
revived in her soul a loftier and a juster thought.

"Life is exalted to perfection as it ends," the poet went on. "'It is
beautiful to reach the end of one's days,' said the lover. 'It is in
this way that we have lived paradise.'

"There is the truth," the poet concluded. "It does not wipe out death.
It does not diminish space, nor halt time. But it makes us what we are
in essential. Happiness needs unhappiness. Joy goes hand in hand with
sorrow. It is thanks to the shadow that we exist. We must not dream
of an absurd abstraction. We must guard the bond that links us to
blood and earth. 'Just as I am!' Remember that. We are a great
mixture. We are more than we believe. Who knows what we are?"

On the woman's face, which the terror of death had rigidly contracted,
a smile dawned. She