Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (187 page)

But
I
had
to
know
how
things
were,
and,
after
eating,
the
man of
whom
I
enquired,
replied
that
my
return
was
known
at
the
Castle (as
I
shall
call
it)
and
that
a
visit
from
its
châtelains
was
expected on
the
next
day
to
welcome
me
home.

With
this
news
my
alarm
vanished
and
an
almost
excessive
joy took
its
place.
My
mind
lightened,
and
poured
into
my
body,
as
from a
fountain,
well-being
and
energy.

For
how
long?
Was
it
more
than
ten
minutes?
ten
seconds?
The mind
that
can
hold
joy
must
be
strong
indeed.
I
could
no
more
contain
it
than
I
could
round
the
sea
in
my
palm;
and,
almost
as
it
had swirled
into
me,
it
swept
out;
leaving
behind
only
that
to
which
I
had a
right
and
which
was
my
own.

Nothing
happens
without
mental
acquiescence,
and
that
which
had emptied
my
mind
of
joy
and
my
body
of
buoyancy
was
the
memory that
I
should
see
them
on
the
morrow,
and,
with
that
memory,
egotism
pushed
up
its
head
and
I
thought—"They
will
not
meet
the unfledged
youngster
they
parted
from!"

That
was
all.
But
it
was
sufficient
to
ride
me
as
I
would
ride
a horse,
and
to
pull
me
round
to
its
direction,
and
to
the
vanity
I
imagined
to
have
left
behind.

I
chid
myself
for
a
fool.
I
looked
back
with
a
lightning
eye
on
the wasted
years;
the
useless
misery;
the
unnecessary
toil
and
sordid
excitement
through
which
I
had
passed;
and
at
a
stroke
my
mind
became filled
with
a
tumult
and
admixture
of
emotions
which
no
one
word would
synthesise,
nor
could
I
describe
them
in
many
words.

In
undisciplined
minds
a
conflict
of
thought
will
provoke
anger
or sleep;
but
in
almost
any
mind
a
conflict
of
emotion
will
breed
rage; and,
for
the
mind
is
lazy,
a
thought
will
seek
for
an
emotion
to
rest on,
and
will
lie
in
it
as
in
a
bed.
So
nobility
rots
in
dream,
and
action grows
stagnant
in
imagining
itself.
Behind
life
is
laziness,
and
from it,
in
direct
descent
or
ascent,
is
desire
and
lust
and
anger,
which master
words
describe
up
to
a
point
the
world
and
its
working.

Thus,
having
torn
myself
out
of
anger
as
from
a
pit,
I
hurried
back to
it,
and
I
found
that
I
was
thinking
of
my
coming
visitors
with
a dislike
which
was
as
near
to
hatred
as
I
could
arrive
at.

They
were
alive,
and
I
had
paid
for
their
death!
I
had
wasted
myself and
my
years
grieving
for
them;
repenting
for
them;
idealising
them in
a
dull
torment
and
agitation
of
nerve
and
brain!