rs
from beyond the stars. The air was full of sweet scent, of the scent
charming, penetrating and violent like the impulse of love. He looked
into that great dark place odorous with the breath of life, with the
mystery of existence, renewed, fecund, indestructible; and he felt
afraid of his solitude, of the solitude of his body, of the loneliness
of his soul in the presence of this unconscious and ardent struggle,
of this lofty indifference, of this merciless and mysterious purpose,
perpetuating strife and death through the march of ages. For the second
time in his life he felt, in a sudden sense of his significance, the
need to send a cry for help into the wilderness, and for the second time
he realized the hopelessness of its unconcern. He could shout for help
on every side--and nobody would answer. He could stretch out his hands,
he could call for aid, for support, for sympathy, for relief--and nobody
would come. Nobody. There was no one there--but that woman.

His heart was moved, softened with pity at his own abandonment. His
anger against her, against her who was the cause of all his misfortunes,
vanished before his extreme need for some kind of consolation.
Perhaps--if he must resign himself to his fate--she might help him to
forget. To forget! For a moment, in an access of despair so profound
that it seemed like the beginning of peace, he planned the deliberate
descent from his pedestal, the throwing away of his superiority, of
all his hopes, of old ambitions, of the ungrateful civilization. For
a moment, forgetfulness in her arms seemed possible; and lured by that
possibility the semblance of renewed desire possessed his breast in a
burst of reckless contempt for everything outside himself--in a savage
disdain of Earth and of Heaven. He said to himself that he would not
repent. The punishment for his only sin was too heavy. There was no
mercy under Heaven. He did not want any. He thought, desperately, that
if he could find with her again the madness of the past, the strange
delirium that had changed him, that had worked his undoing, he would be
ready to pay for it with an eternity of perdition. He was intoxicated by
the subtle perfumes of the night; he was carried away by the suggestive
stir of the warm breeze; he was possessed by the exaltation of the
solitude, of the silence, of his memories, in the presence of that
figure offering herself in a submissive and patient devotion; coming to
him in the name of the