XIII
Suspense is the hardest thing to bear—what a ridiculous truism! It has been said a thousand times before and will be said a thousand times again!—because it has come to everyone at some moment, and so its pain is universally understood. To have attained serenity would mean that one was strong enough not to allow suspense to cause one a moment's doubt or distress. I am far from serenity, I fear—for I am filled with unrest—I try to tell myself that Alathea Sharp does not matter in my life at all—that this is the end—that I am not to be influenced by her movements or her thoughts, or her comings and goings—I try not to think of her even as "Alathea"—And then when I have succeeded in some measure in all this, a hideous feeling of sinking comes over me—that physical sensation of a lead weight below the heart. What on earth is the good of living an ugly maimed life?
It was ten times easier to carry on under the most disgusting and fearsome circumstances when I was fighting, than it is now when everything is done for my comfort, and I have all that money can buy.
What money cannot buy is of the only real consequence though. I must read Henley again, and try to feel the thrill of pride I used to feel when I was a boy at the line "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul."
——What if she does not come back, and I do not hear any more of her?
Stop! Nicholas Thormonde, this is contemptible weakness!
This evening it was wonderful on the terrace, the sun set in a blaze of crimson and purple and gold, every window in the Galerie des Glasses seemed to be on fire—strange ghosts of by-gone courtiers appeared to be flitting past the mirrors.
What do they think of the turmoil they have left behind them, I wonder? Each generation torn by the same anguish which the worries of love bring?—And what is love for?—Just to surround the re-creative instinct with glamour and render it æsthetic?
Did cave men love?—They were exempt from pain of the mind at all events. Civilization has augmented the mental anguishes, and pleasures of love, and when civilization is in excess it certainly distorts and perverts the whole passion.