Nevertheless it had been a pleasant evening. This imperceptible radiation of warmth from the mother which thawed the frigid thoughts, this atmosphere of cordiality and childishness in the young woman, which made him grow young again, this childish belief in that which in his youth was the naïve idea of the day to lift up that which was cast down, to protect what was dwarfed, sick and frail, all of which he now knew was directly against everything that could promote humanity's happiness and increase, and which he hated from instinct, when he saw how all strength, every burst of originality was persecuted by the unfortunate. And now he would form an alliance with them against himself, work to his own destruction, lower himself to their level, dissemble feeling for the enemy, bestow the war cash on the antagonists. The thought of the enjoyment these proofs of power would give intoxicated him, and he turned his footsteps towards the beach that in the solitude he might recall himself. And when he now in the still, mild summer night wandered on the sand, where he recognized his own footsteps from previous days, where he knew every stone and could tell where this or that herb grew, he noticed that everything looked differently, had assumed a new form and gave entirely different impressions than when he had walked there the day before. A change had occurred, something new had intervened. He could no longer evolve the great feeling of solitude, where he had felt as though alone before nature and humanity, for somebody stood at his side or behind him. The isolation was abolished, and he was soldered to the little banal life, threads had been spun round his soul, considerations began to bind his thoughts, and the cowardly fear of harboring other thoughts than those his friends harbored clutched him. To build happiness on a false foundation he dared not, for if he had it all hewn even to the ridge pole it might sometime tumble, and then the fall would be greater, the grief deeper, and still it must come to pass if he would own her, and that he would do with all the mighty power of a mature man. Lift her up to him? But how to do it? Not that he could make her from woman to man, or redeem her from the uncurable propensities her sex had given her. Not that he could give her his own education which had taken him thirty years to acquire, nor could he give her the same evolution he had passed through, the experiences and the knowledge he had battled for and won. Therefore he must sink down to her, but the thought of this sinking tormented him as the greatest possible evil, as sinking, going down, beginning over again, which besides was impossible. It only remained for him to make himself double, split himself in two, create a personality, intelligible and easy of access to her, play the duped lover, learn to admire her inferiority, get used to a role as she liked to have it, and so in silence live the other half of his life in secret and to himself, sleep with one eye and keep the other open.
He had mounted the skerry without observing it. And now he saw the lights down in the fishing village and heard wild shrieks, the cries of jubilee over the beaten foe, who would raise their children and their children's children from poverty, save them labor, give them new enjoyments. Once again there awoke in him the desire to see these savages tamed, to see these worshipers of Thor kneeling for the white Christ, the giants falling before the pale Asas. The barbarian must pass through Christianity as a purgatory, learn veneration for the power of the spirit in the frail bundles of muscles, the remainder of the wandering tribes must have their middle age before they can reach the renaissance of thinking and revolution of action.
Here should the chapel be raised on the highest ridge of the skerry and its little spire point upwards over the look-out and flag pole to greet the sailors at long distance as a reminder of.... Here he stopped and reflected. With a look of scorn on his pale face, he bent over and picked up four gneiss scales, which he laid in a rectangle from east to west, after having measured thirty steps in length and twenty in breadth.
"What an excellent landmark for the sailors!" he thought as he descended the hill and went home to bed.
[CHAPTER SIXTH]
The commissioner had confined himself to his room two days to work, and when on the morning of the third day he went out for a stroll on the beach, he met by chance the widow of the deceased officer of the exchequer. She had an anxious look, and when the commissioner inquired after her daughter's health, he learned that she was indisposed.
"It is lack of entertainment," said he at random.
"Yes, but what shall one do in this solitude?" responded the anxious mother.
"The lady must go out to sea, fishing and yachting and get exercise," prescribed he without thinking of what he said.