experience, whom he commanded to search independently, turned out a
hundred times less expert than Chilo. Meanwhile there rose in him,
besides his love for Lygia, the stubbornness of a player resolved to
win. Vinicius had been always a person of this kind. From earliest
youth he had accomplished what he desired with the passionateness of one
who does not understand failure, or the need of yielding something. For
a time military discipline had put his self-will within bounds, but also
it had engrafted into him the conviction that every command of his to
subordinates must be fulfilled; his prolonged stay in the Orient, among
people pliant and inured to slavish obedience, confirmed in him the
faith that for his "I wish" there were no limits. At present his
vanity, too, was wounded painfully. There was, besides, in Lygia's
opposition and resistance, and in her flight itself, which was to him
incomprehensible, a kind of riddle. In trying to solve this riddle he
racked his head terribly. He felt that Acte had told the truth, and
that Lygia was not indifferent. But if this were true, why had she
preferred wandering and misery to his love, his tenderness, and a
residence in his splendid mansion? To this question he found no answer,
and arrived only at a kind of dim understanding that between him and
Lygia, between their ideas, between the world which belonged to him and
Petronius, and the world of Lygia and Pomponia, there existed some sort
of difference, some kind of misunderstanding as deep as an abyss, which
nothing could fill up or make even. It seemed to him, then, that he
must lose Lygia; and at this thought he lost the remnant of balance
which Petronius wished to preserve in him. There were moments in which
he did not know whether he loved Lygia or hated her; he understood only
that he must find her, and he would rather that the earth swallowed her
than that he should not see and possess her. By the power of
imagination he saw her as clearly at times as if she had been before his
face. He recalled every word which he had spoken to her; every word