Wolf’s inmost soul seemed torn up, like a piece of turf under a sharp ploughshare, as, driven by a power beyond his resistance, he put one foot in front of the other in his obstinate march to the Malakite house.
As he moved on past the shopwindows oblivious of everything but the drama within him, he tried to anticipate the result of what he was projecting. His “mythology” had always implied for him some sort of mystic participation in a deep occult struggle going on in the hidden reservoirs of Nature. Stripped of it, there would be nothing left but a stoical endurance—endurance of his own misery and a few attempts to soften the misery of others! He would be left with a soul that had the power of moving his arms and legs, the power of throwing itself into other people’s tortured nerves—and that would be all! He would be able to deny himself this and that for the sake of these people, paying back what he owed, sharing the burden of the cruelty of the ultimate Power—but that would be all! The old Wolf, the old, obsessed medium for lovely, magical, invisible influences, would be gone forever!