Page:Madame Butterfly; Purple eyes; A gentleman of Japan and a lady; Kito; Glory (1904).djvu/210

 Lord of Life, the sweet, dead calm of the face possessed him. He began to experience that ineffable death-in-life trance which scarcely contemplates, only waits for that nameless absorption which shall be but a deeper and more tranquil death-in-life—life-in-death.

Almost, in the passage of the years, Kito had attained to the extinction of passion. As to desire, there yet was one. Heaven could not be his as long as that remained. Nor should he have wished for heaven without it. Had that desire but been fulfilled he would have had his heaven. But for this, the priests told him, his title was clear. Could he not abandon this desire? He must!

Kito shook his head and went out.

It was not quite the same after that. He was more often hungry and cold. And there were women and children, who had felt his sudden scrutiny, who wondered why he was not confined.

That he might have food, that he might have offerings for the altars, that he might follow his vigil at the temple of Shiba, he had become a 'rikisha-man.