Rebecca

by Daphne du Maurier

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.

Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind.

I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, whatever the poets may say. They are not brave, the days when we are twenty-one. They are full of little cowardices, little fears without foundation, and one is so easily bruised, so swiftly wounded, one falls to the first barbed word.

If she doesn’t like you she’ll tell you so, to your face.’ I found this hardly comforting, and wondered if there was not some virtue in the quality of insincerity.

This moment was safe though, this could not be touched.

‘I don’t mind. I like being alone,’ I said.

But Rebecca would never grow old. Rebecca would always be the same.

It’s Rebecca who’s lying dead there on the cabin floor. Will you look into my eyes and tell me that you love me now?’

It’s gone forever, that funny, young, lost look that I loved. It won’t come back again. I killed that too, when I told you about Rebecca … It’s gone, in twenty-four hours. You are so much older …’