The breeze from the sea had died away outside, and the blossoms were
still. A yellow butterfly floated lazily past the window. The song of
the birds hushed--I smelt the sea--I smelt the perfume of heated summer
air rising from fields and flowers, the ineffable scents of June and of
the long days of the year--and with it, from countless green meadows
beyond, came the hum of myriad summer life, children's voices, sweet
pipings, and the sound of water falling.
I knew myself to be on the threshold of a new order of experience--of an
ecstasy. Something drew me forth with a sense of inexpressible yearning
towards the being of this strange old man in the window seat, and for a
moment I knew what it was to taste a mighty and wonderful sensation, and
to touch the highest pinnacle of joy I have ever known. It lasted for
less than a second, and was gone; but in that brief instant of time the
same terrible lucidity came to me that had already shown me how the past
and future exist in the present, and I realised and understood that
pleasure and pain are one and the same force, for the joy I had just
experienced included also all the pain I ever had felt, or ever could
feel.
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