Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (183 page)

For
I
was
not
quite
a
man.
I
was
an
inertia
...
or
I
was
the
horse. I
was
something
that
ran;
and
my
whole
being
was
an
unexpressed wish
to
run
and
never
stop.
I
did
not
even
wish
to
come
to
my
place; for,
arriving
there,
I
must
halt
and
dismount,
and
fumble
and
totter among
obstacles
of
doors
and
people.
.
.
.

That
halt
had
to
come;
and
I
dismounted
in
a
mood
that
merged rapidly
from
impatience
to
anger,
and
from
that
to
almost
blind
fury. In
a
little
while
my
dispositions
were
made,
and
i
was
on
the
road again
on
a
fresh
beast,
a
bag
of
money
and
valuables
strapped
on
the nag,
and
behind
me
two
servants
coming
on
at
a
gallop.

I
was
running
away
from
the
country.
I
was
running
away
from those
two
mewed
in
the
prison
to
which
nobody
knew
they
had
gone. But
more
urgently
even
than
that
I
was
running
away
from
myself.

There
comes
an
interval
which
my
recollection
would
figure
as
ten or
twelve
years.
During
this
time
I
did
not
return
to
my
own
country, and,
so
far
as
was
possible,
I
did
not
even
think
of
it.

For
it
was
in
my
nature
to
forget
easily;
or,
by
an
effort
of
the
will, to
prevent
myself
remembering
whatever
I
considered
inconvenient or
distressing.
I
could
put
trouble
to
one
side
as
with
a
gesture,
and this
trouble
I
put
away
and
did
not
again
admit
into
mind.

But
a
trouble
that
is
buried
is
not
disposed
of.
Be
the
will
ever
so willing,
the
mind
ever
so
obedient,
a
memory
cannot
be
destroyed until
it
has
reached
its
due
time
and
evolved
in
its
proper
phases.

A
memory
may
die
in
the
mind
as
peacefully
as
an
old
man
dies
in his
bed;
and
it
will
rest
there
tranquilly,
and
moulder
into
true
forget-fulness,
as
the
other
debris
moulders
into
dust.
But
a
memory
cannot be
buried
alive;
for
in
this
state
of
arrested
being,
where
it
can
neither grow
old
nor
die,
it
takes
on
a
perpetual
unused
youth,
and
lies
at
the base
of
one's
nature
as
an
unheard
protest;
calling
to
the
nerves
instead
of
to
the
brain,
and
strumming
on
these
with
an
obstinate
patience
and
an
unending
fertility
of
resource.

It
has
been
banished
from
the
surface
to
the
depths;
and
in
the
deep of
being,
just
beyond
the
borders
of
thought,
it
lies,
ready
as
at
the lifting
of
a
finger
to
leap
across
these
borders,
as
new
and
more
poignant
than
at
its
creation.

Upon
those
having
the
gift
of
mental
dismissal
a
revenge
is
taken. They
grow
inevitably
irritable;
and
are
subject
to
gusts
of
rage
so unrelated
to
a
present
event
that
their
contemporaries
must
look
upon them
as
irresponsible.