He took
off his fur cap and threw open the breast of his pea-jacket. His
exuberant physical sensations wrought a corresponding effect upon his
previous mental gloom: he found himself looking to the future with
dawnings of a new hope and cheerfulness. At no time in his life had he
felt himself existing through so wide and full a range. He was a man now
in full breadth and height, and, as he looked back upon his previous
life, he could trace, as from a lofty vantage-ground, the plan and
bearing of his former thoughts and deeds.
He remarked the wide discrepancies between what he had proposed and what
he had accomplished. How insignificant circumstances had effected
momentous results! He saw how, whenever failure and dishonor had
filtered in, it was where weakness, self-indulgence, or untruthfulness,
had left an opening. He saw how one wrong had been a sure and easy path
to another, until in the end he had groveled face downward in the mire.
His mind turned on the two women between whom his path had lain: how
highly he had aimed, and how low he had fallen! How enviable would have
been his fate had he consistently kept to either! for each had been
peerless in her way. How despicable was his position having greedily
grasped at both! And now the one was dying, and the other degraded like
himself.
Pages:
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419