The first time I met Paul--
JEAN
What do you feel?
VERA
I wondered, afterward, what it really was. He seemed to impress me like a
powerful motor car stalled in a muddy road.
JEAN
Ah. I know!
VERA
Poor child.
JEAN
No. You don't understand, I _was_ unhappy, in the ordinary sense,
unbelievably so. But that wasn't all. I was alive! I lived as the man
lives who faints in the dark mine underground, and I lived as the aviator
lives, thrilling against the sun, and as the believer in a world of
infidels. That was what _he_ did for me. And slowly, as I learned how
deeply the very pain was making me live, I put my unhappiness by. It was
there, but it no longer seemed important. It was the lingering complaint
of my old commonplace soul standing fearfully on the brink of greater
things and hating the situation that led it there.
VERA
You are a big woman, Jean.
JEAN
No, I am a small woman in front of a big thing. One of the biggest,
genius. And the force of it, relentless as nature, made me what I am.
_Paul._ Oh, Vera, when I think of his music, tempestuous as the sea,
healing as spring.
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