But even
that vision fades, and we become aware, at sad moments, that the
comradeship is over; the soul that came so close to us, smiled in
our eyes, was clasped to our heart, has left us, has passed into
the darkness, or if it still lives and breathes, has drawn away
into the crowd. And then one sees that no fusion is possible, that
half the secrets of the heart must remain unguessed and untold.
That even if one had the words to do it, one could not express the
sense of our personality, much of which escapes even our own
conscious and critical thought. One has, let us say, a serious
quarrel with a close friend, and one hears him explaining and
protesting, and yet he does not know what has happened, cannot
understand, cannot even perceive where the offence lay; and at such
a moment it may dawn on us that we too do not know what we have
done; we have exhibited some ugly part of ourselves, of which we
are not conscious; we have stricken and wounded another heart, and
we cannot see how it was done. We did not intend to do it, we cry.
Or again we realise that we regard some one with a causeless
aversion, and cannot give any reason for it; or we see that we
ourselves have the same freezing and disconcerting effect upon
another; and so after hundreds of such experiences, we become aware
at last that no real, free, entire communication is possible; that
however eagerly we tell our thoughts and display our temperaments,
there must always remain something which is wrapped in darkness,
the incommunicable essence of ourself that can blend with no other
soul.
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