He transacted it quickly, and then found himself with
nothing to do while he awaited Davidson, who was to take him back to his
solitude; for back to his solitude Heyst meant to go. He whom we used
to refer to as the Enchanted Heyst was suffering from thorough
disenchantment. Not with the islands, however. The Archipelago has a
lasting fascination. It is not easy to shake off the spell of island
life. Heyst was disenchanted with life as a whole. His scornful
temperament, beguiled into action, suffered from failure in a subtle way
unknown to men accustomed to grapple with the realities of common human
enterprise. It was like the gnawing pain of useless apostasy, a sort of
shame before his own betrayed nature; and in addition, he also suffered
from plain, downright remorse. He deemed himself guilty of Morrison's
death. A rather absurd feeling, since no one could possibly have
foreseen the horrors of the cold, wet summer lying in wait for poor
Morrison at home.
It was not in Heyst's character to turn morose; but his mental state was
not compatible with a sociable mood. He spent his evenings sitting
apart on the veranda of Schomberg's hotel. The lamentations of string
instruments issued from the building in the hotel compound, the
approaches to which were decorated with Japanese paper lanterns strung
up between the trunks of several big trees.
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