Explore "Forget-me-not" by Marjorie Bowen on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
During the time that she had been in the Conciergerie Lucille Debelleyme had contrived to reflect on nothing, to analyse nothing, to permit herself neither regrets nor hopes, to blot out her personality in her situation. She had lived from moment to moment, concerning herself only with maintaining her fortitude and baffling the efforts of her enemies to extort from her dangerous confessions. She had read stupid verses until she knew them by heart, she had counted up to fantastic numbers, she had made up poems, exercises in English, French and Italian, she had drawn elaborate geometric designs, she had arranged patterns for embroidery with the pencil and paper given her, and so she had contrived with mechanical actions of her hands and lips and by an exercise of an extraordinary willpower to keep realisation away from her.
Now the strain was over, she was free, she was not overlooked, not spied on, she did not need to keep herself taut and alert for fear the door would suddenly open and some unfriendly face look round hoping to surprise her in disorder, in despair.