A mass within Ian made a slow
turn, with effort, with thrilling, changed its inclination. He saw
that disdain, that it was shallow and streaked with ebony. He moved
with a kind of groan. "Was there--is there--wickedness?... What, O
God, is wickedness?"
He pressed the rock with his hand--sat up. The old taskmaster,
alarmed, gathered his forces. "I say that it is just that--pride,
vengefulness, hard misunderstanding!"
A voice within him answered. "Even so, is it not still yourself?"
He stared after the meteor track. There was a conception here that he
had not dreamed of.
It seemed best to keep still upon the rock. He sat in inner wonder.
There was a sense of purity, of a fresh coolness not physical, of
awe. He was in presence of something comprehensive, immortal.
"Is it myself? Then let it pour out and make of naught the old poison
of myself!"
The perception could not hold. It flagged and sank, echoing down into
the caves. He sat still and felt the old taskmaster stir. But this
time he found strength to resist. There resulted, not the divine
novelty and largeness of that one moment, but a kind of dim and bare
desert waste of wide extent. And as it ate up all width, so it seemed
timeless. Across this, like a person, unheralded, came and went two
lines from "Richard III"
Clarence is come--false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,
That stabbed me in the field by Tewksbury.
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