reserved for him other than this, that he should have a home once
more? It was long since in foreign regions he had been able to command
enduring happiness. He could still at times grasp happiness, but for
a moment only; he could no longer hold it fast. His power over his
fellows, over women no less than over men, had vanished. Only where he
evoked memories could his words, his voice, his glance, still conjure;
apart from this, his presence was void of interest. His day was done!

He was willing to admit what he had hitherto been sedulous to conceal
from himself, that even his literary labors, including the polemic
against Voltaire upon which his last hopes reposed, would never secure
any notable success. Here, likewise, he was too late. Had he in youth
but had leisure and patience to devote himself seriously to the work of
the pen, he was confident he could have ranked with the leading members
of the profession of authorship, with the greatest imaginative writers
and philosophers. He was as sure of this as he was sure that, granted
more perseverance and foresight than he actually possessed, he could
have risen to supreme eminence as financier or as diplomat.

But what availed his patience and his foresight, what became of all his
plans in life, when the lure of a new love adventure summoned? Women,
always women. For them he had again and again cast everything to the
winds; sometimes for women who were refined, sometimes for women who
were vulgar; for passionate women and for frigid women; for maidens
and for harlots. All the honors and all the joys in the world had ever
seemed cheap to him in comparison with a successful night upon a new
love quest.

Did he regret what he had lost through his perpetual seeking and
never or ever finding, through this earthly and superearthly flitting