The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: all these years and that went out through her throbbing fingertips
to his that answered. She wondered if the hoydenish blood of some
lawless ancestor, long asleep, were calling out in her tonight,
some drop of a hotter fluid that the centuries had failed to cool,
and why, if this curse were in her, it had not spoken before. But
was it a curse, this awakening, this wealth before undiscovered,
this music set free? For the first time in her life her heart held
something stronger than herself, was not this worthwhile? Then she
ceased to wonder. She lost sight of the lights and the faces and
the music was drowned by the beating of her own arteries. She saw
only the blue eyes that flashed above her, felt only the
 The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |