A Happy Death

And to have accepted that solitude, to know that henceforth he was the master of all his days to come, filled him with the melancholy that is attached to all greatness.

If he had kept it till now, it was because in certain circles a man keeps his thoughts to himself, knowing they will offend the prejudices and stupidity of others.

“You make the mistake of thinking you have to choose, that you have to do what you want, that there are conditions for happiness. What matters—all that matters, really—is the will to happiness, a kind of enormous, ever-present consciousness. The rest—women, art, success—is nothing but excuses. A canvas waiting for our embroideries.”

Beyond the curve of the days he glimpsed neither superhuman happiness nor eternity—happiness was human, eternity ordinary. What mattered was to humble himself, to organize his heart to match the rhythm of the days instead of submitting their rhythm to the curve of human hopes.

Happiness implied a choice, and within that choice a concerted will, a lucid desire.

he had become as alien and remote to them as an uninhabited planet.

Believe me, there is no such thing as great suffering, great regret, great memory … Everything is forgotten, even a great love. That’s what’s sad about life, and also what’s wonderful about it. There is only a way of looking at things, a way that comes to you every once in a while. That’s why it’s good to have had love in your life after all, to have had an unhappy passion—it gives you an alibi for the vague despairs we all suffer from.” After a pause, he added

at the windows of their house, on images and appearances, consented to a kind of game they played with each other, receiving with laughter, friendship, and affection alike, but returning to the dance of sea and sky, rediscovered the secret color of their fate and finally confronted the deepest part of themselves.

it had taken him abroad, and would deposit him somewhere, draw him out of a life the very memory of which he wanted to erase and lead him to the threshold of a new world where desire would be king.

Inside him widened a great lake of solitude and silence above which ran the sad song of his deliverance.