Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/238

214 revolutionary, one of those torch-bearers, who pass for being in advance of their age and dream of a world of brotherhood, happiness and love. I consulted him on my state as though it concerned one of my friends. The man from whom I expected consolation, a reassuring word, a sign of tolerance, wrote me a letter of anathema and ban. He cried raca on the deserter of the ordinary moral love-code, showing himself as merciless to exceptional beings as the Pope of the legend was to the knight Tannhäuser. Ah! this pope of the new revolution vowed me for life to Venusberg, or rather to Uranienberg!

"This major excommunication, which should have made me despair, restored me to the sentiment of my personal dignity and my duties towards my own nature. I derived the strength to live conformably to my conscience and my needs, from the very injustice which was done me by humanity, but in my isolation I went through alternate crises of discouragement and revolt; and thou'lt understand now, dear one, my eccentric humours, my prodigalities and excesses, my break-neck exploits. Yes, I sought always for forgetfulness and more than once for death!"