me only the symbol of the best a man may be, in the next days. The universe is a nest of dragons, with a perfectly unfathomable life-mystery at the centre of it. If I call the mystery the Morning Star, surely it doesn’t matter! A man’s blood can’t beat in the abstract. And man is a creature who wins his own creation inch by inch from the nest of the cosmic dragons. Or else he loses it little by little, and goes to pieces. Now we are all losing it, in the ravishing and ravished disintegration. We must pull ourselves together, hard, both men and women, or we are all lost.—We must pull ourselves together, hard.”
“But are you a man who needs a woman in his life?” she said.
“I am a man who yearns for the sensual fulfilment of my soul, Señora,” he said. “I am a man who has no belief in abnegation of the blood desires. I am a man who is always on the verge of taking wives and concubines to live with me, so deep is my desire for that fulfilment. Except that now I know that is useless—not momentarily useless, but in the long run—my ravishing a woman with hot desire. No matter how much she is in love with me and desires me to ravish her. It is no good, and the very inside of me knows it is no good. Wine, woman, and song—all that—all that game is up. Our insides won’t really have it any more. Yet it is hard to pull ourselves together.”
“So that you really want a woman to be with you?” said Kate.
“Ah, Señora! If I could trust myself; and trust her! I am no longer a young man, who can afford to make mistakes. I