"I'll come back," I said earnestly, through the soft, intrusive darkness. "Perhaps you will"- I felt rather than saw her smile. "But even if you don'… - Willa Cather

Antonia came in and stood before me...It was a shock, of course. It always is, to meet people after long years, especially if they have lived as much and as hard as this woman had. We stood looking at each other. The eyes that peered anxiously at me were - simply Antonia's eyes..As I confronted her, the changes grew less apparent to me, her identity stronger. She was there in the full vigour of her personality, battered, but not diminished...

He was entirely rid of his nervous misgivings, of his forced aggressiveness, of the imperative desire to show himself different from his surroundings. He felt now that his surroundings explained him.

The soul cannot be humbled by fasts and prayer; it must be broken by mortal sin to experience forgiveness of sin and rise to a state of grace. Otherwise, religion is nothing but dead logic.