rument of that revenge, as something merely external
and subservient to his true life, that he bent down again to examine
himself with hard curiosity--not, he thought, because he had any care
for a withered, forsaken old man, whom nobody loved, whose soul was like
a deserted home, where the ashes were cold upon the hearth, and the
walls were bare of all but the marks of what had been. It is in the
nature of all human passion, the lowest as well as the highest, that
there is a point where it ceases to be properly egoistic, and is like a
fire kindled within our being to which everything else in us is mere
fuel.

He looked at the pale black-browed image in the water till he identified
it with that self from which his revenge seemed to be a thing apart; and
he felt as if the image too heard the silent language of his thought.

"I was a loving fool--I worshipped a woman once, and believed she could
care for me; and then I took a helpless child and fostered him; and I
watched him as he grew, to see if he would care for me only a little--
care for _me_ over and above the good he got from me. I would have torn
open my breast to warm him with my life-blood if I could only have seen
him care a little for the pain of my wound. I have laboured, I have
strained to crush out of this hard life one drop of unselfish love.
Fool! men love their own delights; there is no delight to be had in me.
And yet I watched till I believed I saw what I watched for. When he was
a child he lifted soft eyes towards me, and held my hand willingly: I
thought, this boy will surely love me a little: because I give my life
to him and strive that he shall know no sorrow, he will care a little
when I am thirsty--the drop he lays on my parched lips will be a joy to
him... Curses on him! I wish I may see him lie with those red lips
white and dry as ashes, and when he looks for pity I wish he may see my
face rejoicing in his pain. It is all a lie--this world is a lie--there
is no goodness but in hate. Fool! not one drop of love came with all
your striving: life has not given you one drop. But there are deep
draughts in this world for hatred and revenge. I have memory left for
that, and there is strength in my arm--there is strength in my will--and
if I can do nothing but kill him--"

But Baldassarre's mind rejected the thought of that brief punishment.
His whole soul had been thrilled into immediate unreasoning belief in
that eternity of vengeance wh