Rebecca chapter2 part1

We can never go back again, that much is certain. The past is still too close to us. The things we have tried to forget and put behind us would stir again, and that sense of fear, of furtive unrest struggling at length to blind unreasoning panic—now mercifully stilled, thank God--might in some manner unforeseen become a living companion as it had been before.
He is wonderfully patient and never complains, not even when he remembers…… which happens, I think, much more often than he would have me know.
I can tell by the way he would look lost and puzzled suddenly, all expressions dying away from his dear face as though swept clean by an unseen hand, and in its place a mask will form, a sculptured thing, formal and cold, beautiful still but lifeless. He will fall to smoking, cigarette after cigarette, not bothering to extinguish them, and the glowing stub would lie around on the ground like petals. He will talk quickly and eagerly about nothing at all. Snatching at any subject as a panacea to pain. I believe there is a theory that men and women emerge finer and stronger after suffering, and that to advance in this or any world, we must endure ordeal by fire. This we have done in full measure, ironic though it seems. We have both known fear, and loneliness, and very great distress. I suppose sooner or later in the life of everyone comes a moment of trial. We all of us have our particular devil who rides us and torments us, and we must give battle in the end. We have conquered ours, or so we believe.
The devil does not ride us anymore. We have come through our crisis, not unscathed of course. His premotion of disaster was correct from the beginning, and like a ranting actress in an indifferent play, I might say that we had pay for freedom. But I have had enough melodrama in this life, and would willingly give my five senses if they could ensure us our present peace and security. Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind. Of course we have our moments of depression; but there are other moments too, when time, unmeasured by the clock, runs on into eternity, and catching his simile, I know we are together, we march in unison, no clash of thought or of opinion makes a barrier between us.