Then, in the exaltation of love, more than ever it seemed to
him to mean death, the only other thing as strong as love. Under the
moon, under the cold, splendid stars, there were only those two things
awake and sleepless; death and love, the rushing river and his burning
heart.
Alexander sat up and looked about him. The train was tearing on through
the darkness. All his companions in the day-coach were either dozing or
sleeping heavily, and the murky lamps were turned low. How came he here
among all these dirty people? Why was he going to London? What did it
mean--what was the answer? How could this happen to a man who had lived
through that magical spring and summer, and who had felt that the stars
themselves were but flaming particles in the far-away infinitudes of his
love?
What had he done to lose it? How could he endure the baseness of life
without it? And with every revolution of the wheels beneath him, the
unquiet quicksilver in his breast told him that at midsummer he would be
in London. He remembered his last night there: the red foggy darkness,
the hungry crowds before the theatres, the hand-organs, the feverish
rhythm of the blurred, crowded streets, and the feeling of letting
himself go with the crowd. He shuddered and looked about him at the poor
unconscious companions of his journey, unkempt and travel-stained, now
doubled in unlovely attitudes, who had come to stand to him for the
ugliness he had brought into the world.
And those boys back there, beginning it all just as he had begun it; he
wished he could promise them better luck.
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