I don’t believe in harmony and people loving one another.  I believe in the fight and in nothing else.  I believe in the fight which is in everything.  And if it is a question of women, I believe in the fight of love, even if it blinds me.  And if it is a question of the world, I believe in fighting it and in having it hate me, even if it breaks my legs.  I want the world to hate me, because I can’t bear the thought that it might love me.  For of all things love is the most deadly to me, and especially from such a repulsive world as I think this is. . . .”

Well, here was a letter for a poor old man to receive.  But, in the dryness of his withered mind, Aaron got it out of himself.  When a man writes a letter to himself, it is a pity to post it to somebody else.  Perhaps the same is true of a book.

His letter written, however, he stamped it and sealed it and put it in the box.  That made it final.  Then he turned towards home.  One fact remained unbroken in the debris of his consciousness:  that in the town was Lilly:  and that when he needed, he could go to Lilly:  also, that in the world was Lottie, his wife:  and that against Lottie, his heart burned with a deep, deep, almost unreachable bitterness.—­Like a deep burn on his deepest soul, Lottie.  And like a fate which he resented, yet which steadied him, Lilly.

He went home and lay on his bed.  He had enough self-command to hear the gong and go down to dinner.  White and abstract-looking, he sat and ate his dinner.  And then, thank God, he could go to bed, alone, in his own cold bed, alone, thank God.  To be alone in the night!  For this he was unspeakably thankful.

CHAPTER XIX

CLEOPATRA, BUT NOT ANTHONY

Aaron awoke in the morning feeling better, but still only a part himself.  The night alone had restored him.  And the need to be alone still was his greatest need.  He felt an intense resentment against the Marchesa.  He felt that somehow, she had given him a scorpion.  And his instinct was to hate her.  And yet he avoided hating her.  He remembered Lilly—­and the saying that one must possess oneself, and be alone in possession of oneself.  And somehow, under the influence of Lilly, he refused to follow the reflex of his own passion.  He refused to hate the Marchesa.  He did like her.  He did esteem her.  And after all, she too was struggling with her fate.  He had a genuine sympathy with her.  Nay, he was not going to hate her.

But he could not see her.  He could not bear the thought that she might call and see him.  So he took the tram to Settignano, and walked away all day into the country, having bread and sausage in his pocket.  He sat for long hours among the cypress trees of Tuscany.  And never had any trees seemed so like ghosts, like soft, strange, pregnant presences.  He lay and watched tall cypresses