Life as a Dark Passage
In my memory all my life before the Change has the quality of a dark passage, with the dimmest side gleams of beauty that come and go. The rest is dull pain and darkness. Then suddenly the walls, the bitter confines, are smitten and vanish, and I walk, blinded, perplexed, and yet rejoicing, in this sweet, beautiful world, in its fair incessant variety, its satisfaction, its opportunities, exultant in this glorious gift of life.
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Context: The elderly narrator compares his early life with the years that followed.
Not in a duel yet
Source: In the Days of the Comet, Book the Third, Chapter the First (Love After the Change), § 1