Who knows? Anyhow, there
was an end of Florence.
You have no idea how quite extraordinarily for me that was the
end of Florence. From that day to this I have never given her
another thought; I have not bestowed upon her so much as a sigh.
Of course, when it has been necessary to talk about her to
Leonora, or when for the purpose of these writings I have tried to
figure her out, I have thought about her as I might do about a
problem in algebra. But it has always been as a matter for study,
not for remembrance. She just went completely out of existence,
like yesterday's paper.
I was so deadly tired. And I dare say that my week or ten days of
affaissement--of what was practically catalepsy--was just the
repose that my exhausted nature claimed after twelve years of the
repression of my instincts, after twelve years of playing the
trained poodle. For that was all that I had been. I suppose that it
was the shock that did it--the several shocks. But I am unwilling
to attribute my feelings at that time to anything so concrete as a
shock. It was a feeling so tranquil. It was as if an immensely
heavy--an unbearably heavy knapsack, supported upon my
shoulders by straps, had fallen off and left my shoulders
themselves that the straps had cut into, numb and without
sensation of life.
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