lked back
up the garden-path. Not much need for consolation in that quarter. This
child was far ahead of him in her faith in life; there was nothing
further for him to say. He sat down on the bench at the edge of
the meadow, wishing to sun himself. How they loved life, these poor
children, and how they trusted it! Yes, and life wants that: to be
loved, so as to be cruel. Perhaps a good method, always supposing there
is a purpose in it. He gently passed his hand over brow and eyes: if
only sympathy were not so exhausting, always to share the lives of
others, although--to be sure, three-fourths of our life lies somewhere
in the lives of others. If we cannot share that, only one-fourth is
left to us, and that is too little for intoxication, that is almost
abstemiousness. Oh, very well, abstemiousness generally results in
comprehension, only in this case comprehension is not so simple. He
squeezed his eyelids together as if wishing to gather into his eyes and
crush to powder the flaming gold of the afternoon light. How _was_
that?--he was trying to recall a verse in Homer. His memory left him in
the lurch, too: how does it go where Hector's soul is wailing aloud
because it must give up its beloved life? He could not recall it. Poor
devil, by the way, right out of the midst of his intoxication. One of
the great flies now came flying past Count Hamilcar with softly buzzing
wings. He went "brrr" with his lips and smiled a really cheerful smile
as he watched how this queer bundle of gauzy wings and golden gossamer
floated deliriously through the sunshine. "Mad with life," he thought,
"if all this only has some object. At any rate there is more chance for
meaning than for the lack of it, although--if I am a digit in the great
calculation, then to be sure I have a meaning, but that is no reason at
all why the result under the black line must have a significance for
me." The point was to be a digit in the result under that line.
However, thinking exhausted him. Why must we always think?--another
prejudice. Let us not think, but breathe. He leaned back and opened his
mouth a little. Breathing too might have been made an easier and
simpler affair. He was cold, doubtless he would have to walk a little
further; he tried to rise, but his legs would not carry him. He
stretched out his long arms as if wishing to get an armful of sunshine,
and his face assumed a vexed, anxious expression; then he fell back,
became quite still, and collapse