Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (192 page)

My
will
was
free.
I
could
have
turned
and
walked
backwards,
and they
would
not
have
hindered
me
in
any
way.
But
they
might
have smiled
as
they
turned,
and
that
smile
would
be
deadly
as
an
arrow in
the
heart.

To
dare
be
a
coward
how
courageous
one
must
be!
I
thought
with envy
of
those
whose
resolution
is
so
firm
that
they
can
fly
from
danger while
there
is
yet
a
chance.
But
to
be
a
coward
and
to
be
afraid
to save
oneself!
Into
what
a
degradation
must
one
have
fallen
for
that!

I
clenched
my
hands,
and
at
the
contact
of
my
nails
I
went
cold to
the
bone.

1
0$fe>

At
a
certain
moment
each
of
those
silver-pale
faces
seemed
to
look forward
more
straitly,
more
distantly;
and
I,
withdrawing
my
eyes from
the
grey-toned
vegetation
at
my
feet,
looked
forward
also.

We
had
reached
the
extreme
of
the
park.
Beyond
was
a
rugged, moon-dozed
tumble
of
earth
and
bush
and
rock;
and
beyond
again was
the
vast
silver-shining
keep,
to
which,
in
years
long
gone,
we three
had
walked;
and
from
which,
and
in
what
agony,
I
once
had
fled.

In
the
miracle
we
call
memory
I
recovered
that
night,
and
was afflicted
again
with
the
recollection
of
clasping
and
unclasping
hands, of
swaying
bodies,
and
of
meeting
and
flying
eyes.

But
the
same
hands
made
now
no
mutual
movement.
Those
eyes regarded
nothing
but
distance;
and
those
bodies
but
walked
and
did no
more.
It
was
my
hands
that
twitched
and
let
go;
my
eyes
that stared
and
flinched
away;
my
body
that
went
forward
while
its
intuition
and
intention
was
to
go
back.

In
truth
I
did
halt
for
a
heart's
beat;
and
when
I
moved
again, I
was
a
pace
in
advance,
for
they
had
stayed
on
the
instant
and
could not
move
again
so
quickly
as
my
mood
drove.

I
looked
at
them
no
more.
I
looked
at
nothing.
My
eyes,
although wide,
were
blind
to
all
outward
things,
and
what
they
were
seeking within
me
it
would
be
hard
to
tell.

Was
I
thinking,
or
feeling
or
seeing
internally?
For
I
was
not
unoccupied.
Somewhere,
in
unknown
regions
of
my
being,
there
were busynesses
and
hurryings
and
a
whole
category
of
happenings,
as
out of
my
control
as
were
tire
moods
of
those
who
went
with
me.

All
thought
is
a
seeing.
No
idea
is
real
if
it
be
not
visualised.
To see
is
to
know;
to
know
is
to
see
clearly,
and
other
knowledge
than that
is
mechanical.
But
as
we
cannot
see
beyond
a
stated
range
of vision
so
we
cannot
speak
beyond
a
definite
range
of
thought.
Fear has
never
uttered
itself;
nor
has
joy;
nor
any
emotion
that
has
quickened
beyond
normality.
These
stir
in
a
mood
too
remote
for
expression
by
words
that
are
fashioned
to
tell
the
common
experiences
of sense
and
its
action.