"Our travels—all those bonds one leaves behind. All useless. Travelling does not make us greater. Why should the mere covering of ground make us greater?"
The man bowed his wasted head.
. . . . .
He who had just been in ecstasy now began to complain.
"I keep remembering—I keep remembering. My heart has no pity on me."
"Ah," he mourned, a moment afterwards, with a gesture of resignation, "we cannot say good-by to everything."
The woman was there, but she could do nothing, although so greatly adored. She was there with only her beauty. It was a superhuman vision that he evoked, heightened by regret, by remorse and greed. He did not want it to end. He wanted it back again. He loved his past.
Inexorable, motionless, the past is endowed with the attributes of divinity, because, for believers as well as for unbelievers, the great attribute of God is that of being prayed to.
. . . . .
The pregnant woman had gone out. I saw her go to the door, softly with maternal carefulness of herself.