The young man came to a sudden stop, and slowly lifted his head. Through
the sullen, unhappy, and resentful cloud that darkened his eyes, there
glimmered doubtfully a light such as can be reflected only from what is
most divine in man. It was a strange moment for it to appear, for at no
time had Bressant's moral level been so low as now; but, happily, the
phenomenon is by no means without precedent in human nature. God is
never ashamed to declare the share He holds in a sinner's heart, however
black the heart may be.
"No, no!" said he; and, as he said it, the first tears that he had ever
known glistened for a moment in his eyes; "such as I am, I must never
marry her."
The point on which this sudden and momentous resolve turned was so
subtle and delicately evanescent as scarcely to be susceptible of
clearer portrayal. To be consistent, the weight of his revengeful
sentiments should have been directed upon Sophie, for she it was who had
played the most effective part in changing his nature, and swerving him
from his cold but sublime ambitions. By teaching Bressant love, she
had, by implication, done him deadly injury, yet was the love itself so
pure and genuine as to prompt him to resign its object; he being
rendered unworthy of her by that same moral dereliction which she
herself had occasioned.
But the very quality which enables us to do a noble deed dulls our
appreciation of our own praiseworthiness. Bressant took no encouragement
or pleasure from what he had done; probably, also, his realization of
the extensive and fearful consequences of the action, to others as well
as to himself, was as yet but rudimentary; so soon as the momentary glow
was passed, he fell back into a yet darker mood than before, and felt
yet more adrift and reckless. To make a sacrifice is well, but does not
hinder the need of what is given up from crippling us.
Again the young man turned to the window, and, raising the sash, he
secured it by the little button used for the purpose, and leaned out
into the snow-storm. The flakes fell and melted upon his face, and
caught in his bushy beard, and rested lightly upon his twisted hair.
They flew into his eyes, and made little drifts upon the collar of his
coat and in the folds of his sleeves. He gazed up toward the dull, gray
cloud whence they came, and presently, out of the confusion, and
carelessness, and morbid impatience of his heart, he put forth a prayer
that some awfully stirring event might come to pass; let a sword pass
through his life! let him be smitten down and trampled upon! let his
mind be continually occupied with the extreme of active, living
suffering! let there be no cessation till the end! He could accept it
and exult in it; but to live on as he was living now was to walk
open-eyed into insanity. Rather than that, he would commit some capital
crime, and subject himself to the penalty. Let God take at least so much
pity upon him, and grant him physical agony!