The Waves Language/Art/Storytelling Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #10

"Blindness returns as one moves and one leaf repeats another. Loveliness returns as one looks, with all its train of phantom phrases. One breathes in and out substantial breath; down in the valley the train draws across the fields lop-eared with smoke… But for a moment I had sat on the turf somewhere high above the flow of the sea and the sound of the woods, had seen the house, the garden, and the waves breaking. The old nurse who turns the pages of the picture-book had stopped and had said, "Look. This is the truth." (9b.64-65)

This very abstract and very up-for-interpretation moment occurs toward the end of the book, when Bernard is experiencing feelings of intense detachment from the world. He describes being in a state somewhere "high" where a nurse points out the "truth" to him. It's not clear if Bernard thinks this revelation is a positive or negative event, however, as the world to which he returns after this event has "blindness" but also "loveliness."