He
looked different: he was just as different as Saul of Tarsus after he
saw the blinding light on the Damascus road. His nerves never cracked
now; the little meannesses of which both she and the boy had been
victims had disappeared; he gave her a kind of wistful, protecting love
that proved to her, more even than his frequent safe visits to the
township, that something radical had happened that day in the
Bush--something so radical that, if it were taken from him, he would not
be there at all. She felt that he was safe now; she felt that the boy
was safe; she felt that in everyone on earth who was sick and sad and
unhappy was the capacity for safety. But she did not know how they might
come by it.
But she knew, incontrovertibly, that she could never love Louis again
with any degree of happiness or self-satisfaction. That much Kraill had
shown her. She and Louis had no part in each other's spiritual nights
and days; the typhoon of physical passion that had swept her up for a
few minutes she saw now as a very cheap substitute for the apotheosis
Kraill had indicated. It was Louis's weakness that had been their
strongest bond in the past: now that that was gone there was little left
in him for her. But peace after pain was very beautiful.
It was not until after six months of sanity that he told her all about
the miracle.
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