Quotation

.... the leaden languor that possessed the body after it had been forced to dive almost beyond endurance ... All these things become sharper and sharper in the remembering; the terror had all the more intense in the repeating. And often sudden nightmares would awaken the girls from sleep so deep as seemingly to leave no room for dreams to creep in... It was different with the older divers, with those who had husbands. Coming out of the water from diving, they would sing and laugh and talk in loud voices. It seemed as though work and play had become united in a single whole for them. Watching them enviously, the young girls would tell themselves that they could never become like that, and yet as the years passed they would be surprised to discover that , without their quite realizing it, they themselves had reached the point where they too could be counted among those lighthearted, veteran divers. p.136