Of the
wounds of his body he was never healed; died of them gradually,
with clear-eyed resignation; of his wounded pride, we knew only
from his silence. He returned to that city where he had lorded it
in his ambitious youth; lived there alone, seeing few; striving to
retrieve the irretrievable; at times still grappling with that
mortal frailty that had brought him down; still joying in his
friend's successes; his laugh still ready but with kindlier music;
and over all his thoughts the shadow of that unalterable law which
he had disavowed and which had brought him low. Lastly, when his
bodily evils had quite disabled him, he lay a great while dying,
still without complaint, still finding interests; to his last step
gentle, urbane and with the will to smile.
The tale of this great failure is, to those who remained true to
him, the tale of a success. In his youth he took thought for no
one but himself; when he came ashore again, his whole armada lost,
he seemed to think of none but others. Such was his tenderness for
others, such his instinct of fine courtesy and pride, that of that
impure passion of remorse he never breathed a syllable; even regret
was rare with him, and pointed with a jest. You would not have
dreamed, if you had known him then, that this was that great
failure, that beacon to young men, over whose fall a whole society
had hissed and pointed fingers.
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