157
THE VICTOR
He was the victor because he understood how deep was the rift between
them and how unbridgeable it was.
More strongly than ever before he realized what it was that had driven him from the one to the other — from the atmosphere of sickness and foulness, of stuffiness and stagnation, out and up into health and clarity, purity and freshness. As he loved to do, he set the two sides in sharp contrast. On one side was the idea of mutual obligation; on the other was that of mutual Freedom. On one side the impermanence of force in its everchanging forms: on the other the indestructibility of the evolving individual. There the abstract concept; here the concrete individual. There the "we"; here the "I". There the masses adjusted to power; here the individual adjusted to himself. There the offensive; here the defensive. There a phantom which men pursued like an unfulfillable dream; here the indestructable reality of Life. There the past; here the present and the future. In fact: there slavery; here Freedom. — In the eternal struggle between the two sides, between the sick and the healthy, between altruism and egoism, in the unceasing conflict between real and imagined interests, an immense drama was being played out, full of tragic heroism. It was the struggle of his times. There was no doubt as to who would be the final victor; out of a sick and dying world, and after dreadful labour, was being born a new, joyful, beautiful, free world. A light shone in the cool grey eyes of the victor when he thought of this victory — alas! still so far off. |