Now and then a woman's head in
oils or pencil peeped out from the abundant ornaments. I recalled
then another thing he said at that time of which I write:
"I have never juggled with my conscience--never 'made believe'
with it. My will was always stronger than my wish for anything,
always stronger than temptation. I have chosen this way or that
deliberately. I am ever ready to face consequences, and never to
cry out. It is the ass who does not deserve either reward or
punishment who says that something carried him away, and, being
weak, he fell. That is a poor man who is no stronger than his
passions. I can understand the devil fighting God, and taking the
long punishment without repentance, like a powerful prince as he
was. I could understand a peasant, killing King Louis in the
palace, and being ready, if he had a hundred lives, to give them
all, having done the deed he set out to do. If a man must have
convictions of that sort, he can escape everlasting laughter--the
final hell--only by facing the rebound of his wild deeds."
These were strange sentiments in the mouth of a man who was ever
the mannered courtier, and as I sat there alone, while he was gone
elsewhere for some minutes, many such things he had said came back
to me, suggested, no doubt, by this new, inexplicable attitude
towards myself.
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