"No longer a dream. It is a settled purpose. Hear me. I am going to be a statesman. I shall play the highest game of all. I shall go into the House. I shall rise—slowly at first, but steadily."
"And I?"
"You are a log tied to my heel, but you shall be an obedient log. If you were not—"
Indolence shivered and crouched. "Am I then—all my life—to be your servant?"
"INDOLENCE SHIVERED."
"Your life? No—my life." The two glared at each other. "Silence, Log. Let me work."
"I shall not be silent," cried Indolence, roused to momentary self-assertion. "I have no enjoyment left in life. You have taken all—all—"
"You have left what you loved best of all—your sloth. Lie down—and take your rest. Why, you do nothing all day. A stalled ox is not more lazy. You eat and drink and take exercise and sleep. What more, for such as you, has life to give? You are now an animal. My half has absorbed all the intellectual part of you. Lie down, I say—lie down, and let me work."
The Animal could not lie down. He was restless. He walked about the room. He was discontented. He was jealous. The other Half, he saw plainly, was getting the better share of things. That Half was admired and envied. By accident, as he paced the room, he looked in the glass; and he started, for his face had grown heavy: there was a bovine look about the cheeks: the eyes were dull: the mouth full. Then the other Half rose and stood beside him. Together they looked at their own faces. "Ha!" cried Ambition, well satisfied at the contrast. "It works already. Mine is the face intended for me: yours is the face into which this degenerate mould might sink. Mine contains the soul; yours—the animal. You have got what you wanted, Sloth. Your dreams are gone from you. I have got them, though, and I am turning them into action. As time goes on, your face will become more bovine, your eyes duller. What will be the end?" His brow darkened. "I don't know. We are like the Siamese twins."