“It is possible to dance on broken glass”

It is possible to dance on broken glass is an image of endurance and its limits, spoken by Lea Marquis during a conversation with Edgar Allan Poe. Her metaphor suggests that what a person has endured from the beginning can come to feel ordinary, but that even long familiarity cannot make hardship bearable forever; Poe’s reply turns the image into a moment of recognition between him and Artemus Marquis.

The Expression in Context

Lea introduces the image while reflecting on Artemus, whom she says consents to visit their world for long intervals. She wonders whether it is possible to keep dancing on broken glass, then doubts that anyone could do so forever. The contrast within her observation matters: endurance is possible, but it is not limitless.

Poe’s Reply and Lea’s Recognition

Poe answers by imagining someone raised from infancy to tread on broken glass. Such a person, he reasons, might count it no worse than the gentlest turf. His response shifts the image from a general statement about suffering to one about adaptation: a painful condition can become a person’s measure of what is normal when it is all they have known. Lea considers his observation before replying, “Yes. I can see you two hold much in common.” The exchange links Poe’s perspective with Artemus’s, without spelling out every point of likeness.

Meaning and Narrative Role

The image holds two ideas together rather than resolving one into the other. Familiarity may change how hardship is experienced, as Poe’s reply suggests, but Lea’s qualification insists that adaptation does not abolish its cost. In the scene, the metaphor also marks a thaw in her conversation with Poe: after his response, she acknowledges a connection between him and Artemus. The expression thus works both as a compact reflection on endurance and as a figure through which Lea recognizes an affinity between two men.