Just in order to prove to himself how ineffectual physical expression of his mental state was he tore a rail off the top of a nearby fence—he had wandered far out into the country again—and, raising it above his shoulders, brought it down with all his strength upon a rock. The rail happened to be a strong one and did not break, and the force of the blow made his hands smart. He took a certain fierce joy in the pain and repeated the blow two or three times, but long before his body tired with the exertion his soul sickened of the business. He threw the rail lightly over the fence and wandered hopelessly on into the hills.
After the first shock of surprise and disappointment had passed his feelings boiled down to a slow scorching hate of destiny. The thought of God occurred to him, among other things, and he laughed. Why did people ever take it into their heads to deny the existence of God? Of course there was a God; nothing but a divine will could possibly have arranged that he should be thwarted in an honest love—not merely once, mind you, but twice—by the one person in the world whom he could not oppose. Such things were beyond the realm of chance or reason. During one part of his wanderings he laughed aloud, several separate times, at the monumental humor of it all. A man such as he was, in the full pride of his youth and strength, strong in body, strong in mind, strong in will and character, twitched hither and yon by the lightest whimsical breath of an all-powerful divinity—it was supremely funny, in its coarse, horrible way.
"Oh, yes, it's a good joke, God," he said aloud once or twice; "it's a damned good joke."
It is significant that he thought very little of Madge now. He experienced none of the sudden sharp twinges of memory that he had known on a former occasion. At that time, as he now realized, only one side of his nature had been stirred, and that a rather silly, unimportant side. Now his whole being, or at least all that was best and strongest in his being, was affected. He had loved Beatrice only with his eyes and his imagination. He loved Madge with the full strength of his heart and soul and mind. And heart, soul and mind being cheated of their right, united in an alliance of hate and revenge against the fate that had cheated them.
He did not return to the house for dinner, and Aunt Selina supposed he had gone with Harry to the Gilsons'. He walked most of the night and when at last he reached home he found the door locked. Harry, of course, not finding him downstairs, had thought he had gone to bed and had locked everything. So he lay down in a cot hammock to await the coming of a hopeless day.
He got some sleep; he did not see that dawn, after all. Awakened shortly after seven by a housemaid opening doors and windows, he slipped unobserved up to his room, undressed and took a cold bath. He supposed nothing would ever keep him from taking a cold bath before breakfast; nothing, that is, except lack of cold water. Strange, that cold water could effect what love, jealousy and company could not. He glanced out of the window. The weather had changed during the night and the day was clear and windy and snapping, a true forerunner of autumn. The sun and wind between them were whipping the sea into all sorts of shades of blue and purple, rimming it with a line of white along the blue coast of Maine over to the left. There was cold water enough for any one, enough to drown all the wretched souls ever born into a world of pain. How strange it was to think of how many unwilling souls that sea drowned every year, and yet had not taken him, who was so eminently willing! He could not deliberately seek death for himself, but he would be delighted to die by accident. No such luck, though; the fate, God, destiny, whatever you chose to call it, that had brought him twice into the same corner of terrestrial hell would see to that....
As he was rubbing himself dry his eye fell on his reflection in a full-length mirror and almost involuntarily stopped there. He still had the pure Greek build of his college days, he noticed; the legs, the loins, the chest, the arms, the shoulders all showed the perfect combination of strength and freedom. He had not even the faults of over-development; his neck was not thick like a prize-fighter's nor did his calves bulge like those of many great athletes. And his head matched the rest of him, within and without. And all this perfection was brought to naught by the vagrant whim of a cynical power! A new wave of hate and rebellion, stronger than any he had yet felt, swept over him. Moved by a sudden impulse he threw aside his towel and advanced a step or two toward the mirror, raising his hands after the manner of a libation-pourer of old.
"I swear to you," he muttered between clenched teeth to the reflection that faced him; "I swear to you that nothing in me shall ever rest until I have got even with the Thing, god, devil or blind chance, that has brought me to this pass. It may come early or it may come late, but somehow, some day! I swear it."
There was something eminently satisfying in the juxtaposition of his nakedness of body to the stark intensity of his passion and the elemental fervor of his agnosticism. For James was now a thorough agnostic; turned into one overnight from a "good" Episcopalian—he had been confirmed way back in his school days—he realized his position and fairly reveled in the hopelessness and magnificence and bravery of it all. For it takes considerable bravery to become an agnostic, especially when you have a simple religious nature. James was in a state where the thought of being eternally damned gave him nothing but a savage joy. It was all very wicked, of course, but strong natures have a way of turning wicked when it becomes impossible for them to be good. There are some things that not even a schöne Seele can put up with.