in which memory had been little more than the consciousness of something gone. That city, which had been a weary labyrinth, was material that he could subdue to his purposes now: his mind glanced through its affairs with flashing conjecture; he was once more a man who knew cities, whose sense of vision was instructed with large experience, and who felt the keen delight of holding all things in the grasp of language. Names! Images!—his mind rushed through its wealth without pausing, like one who enters on a great inheritance.
But amidst all that rushing eagerness there was one End presiding in Baldassarre’s consciousness—a dark deity in the inmost cell, who only seemed forgotten while his hecatomb was being prepared.
And when the first triumph in the certainty of recovered power had had its way, his thoughts centred themselves on Tito.
That fair slippery viper could not escape him now; thanks to struggling justice, the heart that never quivered with tenderness for another had its sensitive selfish fibres that could be reached by the sharp point of anguish. The soul that bowed to no right, bowed to the great lord of mortals, Pain.
He could search into every secret of Tito’s life now: he knew some of the secrets already, and the failure of the broken dagger, which seemed like frustration, had been the beginning of achievement.
Doubtless that sudden rage had shaken away the obstruction which stifled his soul.
Twice before, when his memory had partially returned, it had been in consequence of sudden excitation:
- once when he had had to defend himself from an enraged dog:
- once when he had been overtaken by the waves, and had had to scramble up a rock to save himself.