The most astonishing things in that house were the chairs. Viennese chairs with proud, elegantly curved backs. They held themselves so proudly in that setting. Absolute symbols of life.

Not long before that, Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, introduced the concept of the noumenon — that which exists independently of our knowledge and understanding. An invisible factor. Something that could explain everything, the missing element of the system.

What if we accept the existence of a higher purpose, a design — and the subordination of all events to it? Perhaps that is the very force that makes one hold one's back so high. Maybe this understanding is itself the ladder to acceptance — and to finding the strength to live through any circumstance.