Most women have watched some woman slip from the
purity and hope and innocence of girlhood into the faded hunger and
painted and wrinkled energies of animalism. Such tragedies are no more
unfamiliar to us than are the tragedies of Shakespeare. And such a
tragedy--not complete yet, but at a third-act point, perhaps--now faced
Doctor Levillier in Julian. The wall that had been so straight and trim,
so finely built and carefully preserved, was crumbling fast to decay. A
ragged youth slunk in the face, beggared of virtue, of true cheerfulness,
of all lofty aspiration and high intent. It was youth still, for nothing
can entirely massacre that gift of the gods, except inevitable Time. But
it was youth sadder than age, because it had run forward to meet the
wearinesses that dog the steps of age but that should never be at home
with age's enemy. Julian had been the leaping child of healthy energy.
He was now quite obviously the servant of lassitude. His foot left the
ground as if with a tired reluctance, and his hands were fidgetty, yet
nerveless. The eyes, that looked at the doctor and looked away by swift
turns, burned with a haggard eagerness unutterably different from their
former bright vivacity. Beneath them wrinkles crept on the puffy white
face as worms about a corpse.
Pages:
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480