He had spent years
in patient study, and again for months he had experimented upon his own
incomprehensible sensations, by alternately procuring himself every
pleasure and amusement which money could command, and then seeking the
contrast of solitary asceticism. His iron constitution of body had
survived all, but his bright intelligence had wearied of the struggle,
bruising its keen edge against the rocky barriers of the eternal and
the unknown. Wiser than his fellows, he knew that he was no wiser than
before; stronger than they, he knew the weakness of all strength; brave
as the bravest, bravery seemed to him but a clumsy exhibition of vanity
at best, and altogether contemptible from the moment it began to seek
occasions for showing itself. He could have understood playing the
coward for sake of examining the sensation, and would have laughed at
his own vanity, when it led him to redeem his character the next moment
by some act of reckless daring. What was it all, but an amazing show of
puppets, an astounding dance of lay-figures, animated by strings of
which the ends opposite from men were lost in infinite distance? To
dance, or not to dance, was all the choice men had, and rather than
play a part in such a show as fell to his lot, it seemed better to
break the strings and let the miserable marionette fall into the black
hole behind the stage.
The possibility of adding a fourth link to the chain of death arrested
Rex's frenzy. Since it was so easy to die, the escape from an earthly
hell was always at hand.
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