He was simply
now one of them himself--he was in the dust, without a peg for the
sense of difference; and there were hours when, before the temples
of gods and the sepulchres of kings, his spirit turned for
nobleness of association to the barely discriminated slab in the
London suburb. That had become for him, and more intensely with
time and distance, his one witness of a past glory. It was all
that was left to him for proof or pride, yet the past glories of
Pharaohs were nothing to him as he thought of it. Small wonder
then that he came back to it on the morrow of his return. He was
drawn there this time as irresistibly as the other, yet with a
confidence, almost, that was doubtless the effect of the many
months that had elapsed. He had lived, in spite of himself, into
his change of feeling, and in wandering over the earth had
wandered, as might be said, from the circumference to the centre of
his desert. He had settled to his safety and accepted perforce his
extinction; figuring to himself, with some colour, in the likeness
of certain little old men he remembered to have seen, of whom, all
meagre and wizened as they might look, it was related that they had
in their time fought twenty duels or been loved by ten princesses.
Pages:
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95