Читать книгу The Plumed Serpent. Historical Novel - Life and Love after the Mexico Revolution онлайн

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Kate listened in silence. She knew the road he had gone, but she herself had not yet come to the end of it. As yet she was still strong in the pride of her own — her very own WILL.

‘Oh, people are repulsive!’ she cried.

‘My own will becomes even more repulsive at last,’ he said. ‘My own will, merely as my own will, is even more distasteful to me than other people’s wills. From being the god in my own machine, I must either abdicate, or die of disgust — self-disgust, at that.’

‘How amusing!’ she cried.

‘It is rather funny,’ he said sardonically.

‘And then?’ she asked, looking at him with a certain malevolent challenge.

He looked back at her slowly, with an ironical light in his eyes.

‘Then!’ he repeated. ‘Then! — I ask, what else is there in the world, besides human will, human appetite? because ideas and ideals are only instruments of human will and appetite.’

‘Not entirely,’ said Kate. ‘They may be disinterested.’

‘May they? If the appetite ISN’T interested, the will is.’

‘Why not?’ she mocked. ‘We can’t be mere detached blocks.’