Silence

~It has been said silence is a strength, in quite a different sense it is a terrible strength in the hands who are loved. It increases the anxiety of the one who waits. Nothing so tempts us to approach another person as what is keeping us apart; and what barrier is so insurmountable as silence? But what an even greater torture than that of having to keep silence it is to have endure the silence of the person one loves.~

~Besides, more cruel than the silence of prisons, that kind of silence is in itself a prison. It is an intangible enclosure, true, but an impenetrable one. This interposed slice of empty atmosphere through which nevertheless the visual rays of the abandoned lover cannot pass.~

While reading the third tome of Proust's "A la Recherche du Temp Perdu", I came across this passage. I had complete resonance with every word, because I was the unaware prisoner a few years back. I had no clue as to what I had done or not done to deserve this treatment.

The reason is totally inconsequential now. Oh, but how I admire the depth of Proust's writing. Tears welled in my eyes when I read it. How could he know the torments of silence had he not felt it first? I believed he had seen it, heard it, smelled it, tasted it and touched it. Much more so, felt it. So have I.

A friend was right in saying that "not knowing" was the cruelest because you could not be rid of the questions surrounding "why". She was also right in saying that to just disappear, the person had to be heartless, selfish and cowardice. I used to disagree, but after reading what Proust described, silence was mental torture.

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(~Excerpts: The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust)