He could not now have plucked out steel to hew down men,
as he had done on that spring morning among the flowers of the Tuscan
valley, only because it was good to see the dazzling red line follow
the long quick sword-stroke, and to ride weight at weight to overthrow
it, swinging the death-scythe through the field of life. He wanted the
cause and the end now, where once he had desired only the deed, and he
had risen another step above the self that had been.
He knew it, and nevertheless, as he sat still after he had eaten his
midday meal, he saw that his years had been very sad since his first
great sorrow; and each time when he thought he had gone forward some
strong thing had driven him back, or some great grief had fallen upon
him, and he himself had almost been forced down. He had been proud of
his arms and his boyish skill at Faringdon, and before his eyes his
father had been foully slain; he had faced the murderer in the cause of
right, and he himself had been half killed; he had believed in his
mother as in heaven, and she had defiled his father's memory and robbed
her son of his inheritance; he had sought peace in Rome, and had found
madness and strife; he had desired to do knightly deeds and had killed
men for nothing; he loved a maiden with a maiden heart, and at the
touch of a faithless woman his blood rose in his throat, and for a look
of hers and a tone of her voice he had put forth his hands to grapple
with sudden death, forgetting the other, the better, the dearer.
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