For he knew now, with the clear certainty of a man who has searched
down to the bottom of his soul, that in that silent area his whole
life, his one hope of happiness was bound up, and waited, with those
who were fighting stubbornly, heroically, against the end--its
destruction beneath his own sword. He was fighting against himself.
With his own hands he was tearing down that which seemed an
inseparable, incorporate part of himself. Anger and contempt were
dead. In their place the old love had rekindled and grown brighter
before the sight of a courage, dignified and silent, which had held
back the tide of furious fanaticism and thwarted his own despair. He
had seen, with eyes which burned with an indescribable emotion, a
regiment of wearied, weakened men, led by a man he had once despised,
burst through the densest squares of his own soldiers; he had heard
their cheers as they had clasped hands with the defenders; he had
looked aghast into his own heart, afire with admiration, aching with a
strange, broken-hearted gratitude to God who had made such men. It was
in vain that, lashing himself with the knowledge of his own weakness
and of his disloyalty to those who followed him, he had flung himself
against the defenses of the little garrison.
Day after day they drove him back, fighting hand to hand in the
earthworks they had thrown up in a few hours of miraculous labor. He
fought against them like a man possessed of an unquenchable hatred;
but at night, when he was at last alone, he had slipped out on to his
balcony and held out his hands toward them in an unspeakable wordless
greeting.
Pages:
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391