Did it pay? The Flesh was shrieking this question now into the face of the Spirit?
He had met the One Woman his soul had desired above all others. There could be no mistake about that. And now she was failing him when he had laid at her feet his life. It made him sick to recall how utter had been his surrender.
Why should he longer deny the flesh, when the soul’s dream failed the test of pain and struggle?
Was it possible that he had been a fool and was missing the full expression of life, which is both flesh and spirit?
The world was full of sweet odours. He had delicate and powerful nostrils. Why not enjoy them? The world was full of beauty ravishing to the eye. He had keen eyes trained to see. Why should he not open his eyes and gaze on it all? The world was full of entrancing music. He had ears trained to hear. Why should he stuff them with dreams of a doubtful future, and not hear it all? The world was full of things soft and good to the touch. Why should he not grasp them? His hands were cunning, and every finger tingled with sensitive nerve tips. The world was full of good things sweet to the taste, why should he not eat and drink as others, as old and wise perhaps?
Was a man full-grown until he had seen, felt, smelled, tasted, and heard all life? Was there anything after all, in good or bad? Were these things not names? If not, how could we know unless we tried them? What was the good of good things?
“Am I not a narrow-minded fool, instead of a wise man, to throttle my impulses and deny the flesh for an imaginary gain?” he asked himself aloud.
She had written he was free.
“Well, by the eternal, I will be free!” he exclaimed, “I will sweep the whole gamut of human passion and human emotion. I will drink life to the deepest dregs of its red wine. I will taste, feel, see, touch, hear all! I will not be cheated. I will know for myself what it is to live.”
When he woke to the consciousness of time and place, he found he was seated at the Sulphur Spring where it gushed from the foot of the hill, and that the eastern horizon was grey with the dawn.