The Story of Fifine by Bernard Capes — Read

It had all been such dear egregious folly, that contest of tempers and jealousies and wilful self-misrepresentations. We used to laugh about it together in those after days of perfect concord and understanding. It had been the ferment, we supposed, necessary to the rich wine of love we had come to drink so deeply. All restfullest things are born of unrest: the brawling stream ends in the quiet lake; there is no sky-blue like that that flowers out of storm; life itself is wrung from anguish into infant sleep; through strife and tumult we draw to death, the profoundest peace of all. So now, in proportion with the former riot in our souls was the lovely tranquillity that succeeded it. There was no question of conscience to disturb us; for conscience pricks through sense of guilt, and we knew of no evil in ourselves, but rather an excess of charity and lovingkindness towards all men and things. For the first time in our lives, perhaps, we were in near concord with the Christian concept of Grace. A greater force than convention had pronounced upon us; not we upon ourselves, or either on the other. We had but acquiesced in what was decreed, guiltless, both, of soliciting the issue. All that was over; the storm had been and it had passed, breaking into this heaven-born flower of serenity. Was that God's punishment on us or God's commendation? I only know that no thing on all the earth would we have harmed; that our hearts brimmed over with a universal tenderness; that we would have gone to martyrdom for the faith of infinite love that possessed us. It is difficult to think that sin which bears such divine fruit.

But, let that pass, I entreat you. Forget the flaw in our idyll, if such exists for you; take its rhapsodies as authorised -- really a minor point -- and grant it the full-blown licence accorded to conventionalised bonds. Then I shall be safe to expatiate intimately, if I wish to, on a tenderest subject.