Knew.

Rilke from "Requiem for a Friend"...

How short your life seems, if you now compare it with those empty hours you passed in silence, bending the abundant strengths of your abundant future out of their course, into the new child-seed that once again was fate. A painful task: a task beyond all strength. But you performed it day after day, you dragged yourself in front of it; you pulled the lovely weft out of the loom and wove your threads into a different pattern. And still had courage enough for celebration.When it was done, you wished to be rewarded, like children when they have swallowed down the draught of bittersweet tea that perhaps will make them well. So you chose your own reward, being still so far removed from people, even then, that no one could have imagined what reward would please you. But you yourself knew. You sat up in your child bed and in front of you was a mirror, which gave back everything. And this everything was you, and right in front; inside was mere deception, the sweet deception of every woman who smiles as she puts her jewelry on and combs her hair.