At the same time he felt humiliated by his own forgetfulness. Was he
about to lose his reason? All the previous day he had thought about the
words he should speak to his friends, and to the person who had made
her invisible presence so keenly felt. But if he lost his reason?
The Professor began to saturate him with quinine. At first Benedetto
accepted these painful injections and bitter doses willingly, in his
desire to grow a little stronger, and thus to ward off the darkening of
his spirit, and also because he wished to suffer. Oh yes! to suffer, to
suffer! During the preceding days he had suffered greatly, not from
any local pain, not from any acute pain, but his was an inexpressible
suffering, which extended from the roots of his hair to the soles of his
feet. It had been a beatitude for his soul to be able, in such moments,
to associate his own will with the Divine Will, to accept from this Love
all the pain which he was destined to suffer, without revealing to him
the mysterious reason, a reason hidden in the designs of the Universe,
certainly a reason bringing good; bringing good not only to him who
suffered, but universal good; a good radiating from his poor body, and
without known limits, like the movement of a vibrating atom of the
world.
Pages:
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565