Her eyes filled with tears, but she said quietly, "I could die in peace, I think, if the world was beautiful. To know it's being ruined is hard."

Then, in the loss of all the world, when I might have said the words I had so long wanted to say, I could not say them. I saw that I was not going to be able to say them. I saw that I was not going to talk without crying, and so I cried.

She looked at me and held out her hand. She gave me the smile that I had never seen and will not see again in this world, and it covered me all over with light.