On
board the Kedarnath, now lying in our first berth beneath the
chenars near and yet far from the city, the last night had come.
Next morning I should begin the long ride to Baramula and beyond
that barrier of the Happy Valley down to Murree and the Punjab.
Where afterwards? I neither knew nor cared. My lesson was before
me to be learned. I must try to detach myself from all I had
prized - to say to my heart it was but a loan and no gift, and to
cling only to the imperishable. And did I as yet certainly know
more than the A B C of the hard doctrine by which I must live?
"Que vivre est difficile, 0 mon cocur fatigue!" - an immense
weariness possessed me - a passive grief.
Vanna would follow later with the wife of an Indian doctor. I
believed she was bound for Lahore but on that point she had not
spoken certainly and I felt we should not meet again.
And now my packing was finished, and, as far as my possessions
went, the little cabin had the soulless emptiness that comes with
departure. I was enduring as best I could. If she had held
loyally to her pact, could I do less.
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