(no subject)
"He was as well a lifelong bachelor, without wife or progeny; he was in fact almost a virgin. Almost. Excluded even from that company, yet he had never possessed anyone he had ever loved.
He felt now little anguish over all that. He had lived his whole life longing for unattainables, and such a life eventually achieves a balance, mad or sane."
And later:
"He had always imagined, without of course ever believing it, that he would know this moment. He imagined that it would come at their time, unphotographable twilight; and that years after he had surrendered it all, grown hopeless, bitter even, in that twilight one would come to him, stepping through the gloaming without sound and without causing the sleeping flowers to nod. A child, it would seem to be, discarnate flesh glowing as in an antique platinum print, whose silver hair would be as though on fire, lit by the sun which had just set or perhaps hadn't yet risen. He wouldn't speak to it, unable to, stone dead already it may be; but it would speak to him. It would say: "Yes, you knew us. Yes, you alone came close to the whole secret. Without you, none of the others could have come near us. Without your blindness, they couldn't have seen us; without your loneliness, they couldn't have loved each other [...] Without your disbelief, they couldn't have believed. I know it's hard for you to think the world could work in this strange way, but there it is."
He felt now little anguish over all that. He had lived his whole life longing for unattainables, and such a life eventually achieves a balance, mad or sane."
And later:
"He had always imagined, without of course ever believing it, that he would know this moment. He imagined that it would come at their time, unphotographable twilight; and that years after he had surrendered it all, grown hopeless, bitter even, in that twilight one would come to him, stepping through the gloaming without sound and without causing the sleeping flowers to nod. A child, it would seem to be, discarnate flesh glowing as in an antique platinum print, whose silver hair would be as though on fire, lit by the sun which had just set or perhaps hadn't yet risen. He wouldn't speak to it, unable to, stone dead already it may be; but it would speak to him. It would say: "Yes, you knew us. Yes, you alone came close to the whole secret. Without you, none of the others could have come near us. Without your blindness, they couldn't have seen us; without your loneliness, they couldn't have loved each other [...] Without your disbelief, they couldn't have believed. I know it's hard for you to think the world could work in this strange way, but there it is."