After him went the white horse, slowly, picking his
steps, as if he were treading on dangerous and unknown ground and
would not trust his leader. Pierre was left to the loneliness of
the gorge.
The moonlight only served to make more visible its rocky nakedness,
and like that nakedness was the life of Pierre under his hopeless
inward eye. Over him loomed from either side the gleaming pinnacles of
the Twin Bears, and he remembered many a time when he had looked up
toward them from the crests of lesser mountains--looked up toward them
as a man looks to a great and unattainable ideal. Here he was come
to the crest of all the ranges; here he was come to the height and
limit of his life, and what had he attained? Only a cruel, cold
isolation. It had been a steep ascent; the declivity of the farther
side led him down to a steep and certain ruin and the dark night
below. But he stiffened suddenly and threw his head high as if he
faced his fate; and behind him the cream-colored mare raised her head
with a toss and whinnied softly.
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