The amber
mouthpiece of a magnificent Indian hookah lay on his knee; the
enameled coils lay like a serpent in the room, but he had forgotten to
draw out its fresh perfume. And yet there was a complete contradiction
between the general feebleness of his young frame and the blue eyes,
where all his vitality seemed to dwell; an extraordinary intelligence
seemed to look out from them and to grasp everything at once.
That expression was painful to see. Some would have read despair in
it, and others some inner conflict terrible as remorse. It was the
inscrutable glance of helplessness that must perforce consign its
desires to the depths of its own heart; or of a miser enjoying in
imagination all the pleasures that his money could procure for him,
while he declines to lessen his hoard; the look of a bound Prometheus,
of the fallen Napoleon of 1815, when he learned at the Elysee the
strategical blunder that his enemies had made, and asked for
twenty-four hours of command in vain; or rather it was the same look
that Raphael had turned upon the Seine, or upon his last piece of gold
at the gaming-table only a few months ago.
He was submitting his intelligence and his will to the homely
common-sense of an old peasant whom fifty years of domestic service
had scarcely civilized.
Pages:
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288