He was alone, and I before him did
not know whether I stood on the ground or floated in the air. I've been
telling you what we said--repeating the phrases we pronounced--but
what's the good? They were common everyday words--the familiar, vague
sounds exchanged on every waking day of life. But what of that? They had
behind them, to my mind, the terrific suggestiveness of words heard in
dreams, of phrases spoken in nightmares. Soul! If anybody ever struggled
with a soul, I am the man. And I wasn't arguing with a lunatic either.
Believe me or not, his intelligence was perfectly clear--concentrated,
it is true, upon himself with horrible intensity, yet clear; and therein
was my only chance--barring, of course, the killing him there and then,
which wasn't so good, on account of unavoidable noise. But his soul was
mad. Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked within itself, and, by
heavens! I tell you, it had gone mad. I had--for my sins, I suppose--to
go through the ordeal of looking into it myself. No eloquence could
have been so withering to one's belief in mankind as his final burst of
sincerity. He struggled with himself, too. I saw it--I heard it. I saw
the inconceivable mystery of a soul that knew no restraint, no faith,
and no fear, yet struggling blindly with itself.
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