Quotation from: The Valley of the Moon

Written by: Jack London


That night, in bed, Saxon experienced her first loneliness. Her
brain seemed in a whirl, and her sleep was broken by vain
gropings for the form of Billy she imagined at her side. At last,
she lighted the lamp and lay staring at the ceiling, wide-eyed,
conning over and over the details of the disaster that had
overwhelmed her. She could forgive, and she could not forgive.
The blow to her love-life had been too savage, too brutal. Her
pride was too lacerated to permit her wholly to return in memory
to the other Billy whom she loved. Wine in, wit out, she repeated
to herself; but the phrase could not absolve the man who had
slept by her side, and to whom she had consecrated herself. She
wept in the loneliness of the all-too-spacious bed, strove to
forget Billy's incomprehensible cruelty, even pillowed her cheek
with numb fondness against the bruise of her arm; but still
resentment burned within her, a steady flame of protest against
Billy and all that Billy had done. Her throat was parched, a dull
ache never ceased in her breast, and she was oppressed by a
feeling of goneness. WHY, WHY?--And from the puzzle of the world
came no solution.

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