“ It was so good that at times she would tell herself: I must remember, I must record for myself, how good it is, in case things go wrong again. But she knew in her heart that it was as impossible to recall the good times during the bad, as it was to recall the bad during the good. One moved from one state to another helplessly, in forgetfulness, with merely a dry shadowy knowledge of the other, as unlike the real thing as a dried hard seed pod, a hard dry brittle box full of small black seeds of forgetfulness, is unlike the living flower. At times, during the flowering, one could hear the dry seeds rattle, ominously; moods, depressions, meaningless distortions of consciousness. This was why she persevered, and tried to make a conscious effort to control the process, remember the moments, to store them and preserve them, as though she could in some way carry them with her through the dark winter when it closed in; like  a talisman, a seed, a pledge of unimaginable spring. For how had the first sowers ever learnt to trust the wheat to survive the winter? On such acts of faith has human life been built. And if the spring were never to come again, she told herself, I must at least know that it has been.