Heyst sat down under
his father's portrait; and the abominable calumny crept back into his
recollection. The taste of it came on his lips, nauseating and corrosive
like some kinds of poison. He was tempted to spit on the floor, naively,
in sheer unsophisticated disgust of the physical sensation. He shook his
head, surprised at himself. He was not used to receive his intellectual
impressions in that way--reflected in movements of carnal emotion. He
stirred impatiently in his chair, and raised the book to his eyes with
both hands. It was one of his father's. He opened it haphazard, and
his eyes fell on the middle of the page. The elder Heyst had written of
everything in many books--of space and of time, of animals and of stars;
analysing ideas and actions, the laughter and the frowns of men, and the
grimaces of their agony. The son read, shrinking into himself, composing
his face as if under the author's eye, with a vivid consciousness of
the portrait on his right hand, a little above his head; a wonderful
presence in its heavy frame on the flimsy wall of mats, looking exiled
and at home, out of place and masterful, in the painted immobility of
profile.
And Heyst, the son, read:
Of the stratagems of life the most cruel is the consolation of love--the
most subtle, too; for the desire is the bed of dreams.
He turned the pages of the little volume, "Storm and Dust," glancing
here and there at the broken text of reflections, maxims, short phrases,
enigmatical sometimes and sometimes eloquent.
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