I had had a
wound in my life, and with the natural instinct of all hurt creatures, I
wanted to hide and get close to the earth until it healed. I knew that
it must heal at last, but there are certain natures in which mental
torture must have a physical outcome, and we are happier afterward if we
have called in no Greek chorus of friends to the tragedy, to witness and
sing how the body comported itself under the soul's woe. But there is no
sense of shame when deep cries are wrenched from the throat under the
free sky, with only the sea to answer. One can let the body take half
the burden of pain, and writhe on the breast of the earth without
reproach. I took this relief that nature meant for such as I, wearing
myself into the indifference of exhaustion, to which must sooner or
later ensue the indifference brought by time. Sometimes a flock of small
brown sandbirds watched me curiously from a sodden bank of sea-weed,
but that was all.
This story is not of myself, however, or of the pain which I cured in
this natural way, and which is but a memory now.
One gray morning a white mist settled heavily, and I could see but a
short distance on the dark waters for the fog. A fresh access of the
suffering which I was fighting, the wildness of my grief and struggles,
wore me out, so that I fell asleep there on the rough sand, my mouth
laid against the salty pebbles, and my hands grasping the sharp,
yielding grains, crushed as if some giant foot had trodden me into the
earth.
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