He stood for an hour, powerless to turn away and yet
powerless to penetrate the darkness of death; fixing with his eyes
her inscribed name and date, beating his forehead against the fact
of the secret they kept, drawing his breath, while he waited, as if
some sense would in pity of him rise from the stones. He kneeled
on the stones, however, in vain; they kept what they concealed; and
if the face of the tomb did become a face for him it was because
her two names became a pair of eyes that didn't know him. He gave
them a last long look, but no palest light broke.
CHAPTER VI
He stayed away, after this, for a year; he visited the depths of
Asia, spending himself on scenes of romantic interest, of
superlative sanctity; but what was present to him everywhere was
that for a man who had known what HE had known the world was vulgar
and vain. The state of mind in which he had lived for so many
years shone out to him, in reflexion, as a light that coloured and
refined, a light beside which the glow of the East was garish cheap
and thin. The terrible truth was that he had lost--with everything
else--a distinction as well the things he saw couldn't help being
common when he had become common to look at them.
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