see.'

'I have been so busy with my own work--Yes, I shall be glad to

see.'

The patient regarded the surgeon for a time with interested eyes.

'You work here always?' he asked abruptly.

'No,' said Fowler.

'But mostly you work here?'

'I have worked about seven years out of the past ten. At times I

go away-down there. One has to. At least I have to. There is a

sort of grayness comes over all this, one feels hungry for life,

real, personal passionate life, love-making, eating and drinking

for the fun of the thing, jostling crowds, having adventures,

laughter-above all laughter--'

'Yes,' said Karenin understandingly.

'And then one day, suddenly one thinks of these high mountains

again…'

'That is how I would have lived, if it had not been for

my-defects,' said Karenin. 'Nobody knows but those who have

borne it the exasperation of abnormality. It will be good when

you have nobody alive whose body cannot live the wholesome

everyday life, whose spirit cannot come up into these high places

as it wills.'

'We shall manage that soon,' said Fowler.

'For endless generations man has struggled upward against the

indignities of his body-and the indignities of his soul. Pains,

incapacities, vile fears, black moods, despairs. How well I've

known them. They've taken more time than all your holidays. It

is true, is it not, that every man is something of a cripple and

something of a beast? I've dipped a little deeper than most;

that's all. It's only now when he has fully learnt the truth of

that, that he can take hold of himself to be neither beast nor

cripple. Now that he overcomes his servitude to his body, he can

for the first time think of living the full life of his body…

Before another generation dies you'll have the thing in hand.

You'll do as you please with the old Adam and all the vestiges

from the brutes and reptiles that lurk in his body and spirit.

Isn't that so?'

'You put it boldly,' said Fowler.

Karenin laughed cheerfully at his caution… 'When,' asked

Karenin suddenly, 'when will you operate?'

'The day after to-morrow,' said Fowler. 'For a day I want you to

drink and eat as I shall prescribe. And you may think and talk

as you please.'

'I should like to see this place.'

'You shall go through it this afternoon. I will have two men

carry you in a litter. And to-morrow you shall lie out upon the

terrace. Our mountains here are the most beautiful in the

world…'

Section 3

The next morning Karenin got up early and watched the sun rise

over the mountains, and breakfasted lightly, and then young

Gardener, his secretary, came to consult him upon the spending of

his day. Would he care to see people? Or was this gnawing pain

within him too much to permit him to do that?

'I'd like to talk,' said Karenin. 'There must be all sorts of

lively-minded people here. Let them come and gossip with me. It

will distract me-and I can't tell you how interesting it makes

everything that is going on to have seen the dawn of one's own

last day.'

'Your last day!'

'Fowler will kill me.'

'But he thinks not.'

'Fowler will kill me. If he does not he will not leave very much

of me. So that this is my last day anyhow, the days afterwards if

they come at all to me, will be refuse. I know…'

Gardener was about to speak when Karenin went on again.

'I hope he kills me, Gardener. Don't be-old-fashioned. The

thing Iam most afraid of is that last rag of life. I may just go

on-a scarred salvage of suffering stuff. And then-all the

things I have hidden and kept down or discounted or set right

afterwards will get the better of me. I shall be peevish. I may

lose my grip upon my own egotism. It's never been a very firm

grip. No, no, Gardener, don't say that! You know better, you've

had glimpses of it. Suppose I came through on the other side of

this affair, belittled, vain, and spiteful, using the prestige I

have got among men by my good work in the past just to serve some

small invalid purpose…'

He was silent for a time, watching the mists among the distant

precipices change to clouds of light, and drift and dissolve

before the searching rays of the sunrise.

'Yes,' he said at last, 'I am afraid of these anaesthetics and

these fag ends of life. It's life we are all afraid of.

Death!-nobody minds just death. Fowler is clever-but some day

surgery will know its duty better and not be so anxious just to

save something… provided only that it quivers. I've tried to

hold my end up properly and do my work. After Fowler has done

with me Iam certain I shall be unfit for work-and what else is

there for me?… I know I shall not be fit for work…