PART II

CHAPTER XXI

It is some two years since I stood for the second time in the Pinacoteca of Verona and sought to read my fate in the simpering countenance of Morone’s Miseratrix Virginum Regina.  I met what might have been expected by a person of any sense—­the self-same expression on the painted face as I had angrily found there two months before when I began to write the foregoing pages.  But as I had no sense at all in those days I accepted the poor battered Madonna’s lack of sympathy for a sign and a token, went home, and prepared for dissolution.

Two years ago!  It is only for the last few months that I have been able to look back on that nightmare of a time in Verona with philosophic equanimity.  And this morning is the first occasion on which I have felt that dispassionate attitude towards a past self which enables a man to set down without the heartache the memories of days that are gone.  I sit upon the flat roof of this house in Mogador on the Morocco coast, shaded by an awning from the bright African sun which glints in myriad sparkles on the sea visible beyond the house-tops.  The atmosphere last night was somewhat heavy with the languorous, indescribable, and unforgettable smell of the East; but the morning is deliciously wind-swept by the Atlantic breeze, and the air tastes sweet.  And it is clear, dazzlingly clear.  The white square houses and the cupolas of the mosques stand out sharp against a sky of intense, ungradated blue.  I am away from the centre of the busy sea-port and the noise of its streets thronged with grain-laden camels and shouting drivers and picturesque, quarrelling, squabbling, haggling Moors and Jews and desert Arabs, and I am enveloped in the peace of the infinite azure.  Besides, yesterday afternoon, as I rode back to Mogador, across the tongue of desert which separates it from the Palm Tree House, and the town rose on the horizon, a dream city of pure snow set in the clear sunset amethyst against the still, pale lapis lazuli of the bay —­something happened.  And yesterday evening more happened still.

Two years ago, then, I faced in Verona the dissolution of my ineffectual existence.  I could see no reason for living.  My theory of myself in my relation to the cosmos had been upset by practical phenomena.  No other theory based on surer grounds presented itself.  But what about life, said I, without a theory?  Already it was life without a purpose, without work, without friends, without Judith and without Carlotta.  I could not endure it without even a theory to console me.  Beings do exist devoid of loves or theories.  But of such, I thought, are the beasts that perish.  I reflected further.  Supposing, on extended investigation, I found a new theory.  How far would it profit me?  How far could I trust it not to lead me through another series of fantastic emotions and futile endeavours to the sublime climax of murdering a one-eyed cat?  Self-abomination and contempt smote me as I thought of poor Polyphemus stretched dead on the hearthrug, and myself standing over him, sane, stupid, and remorseful, with the poker in my hand.