IV

'And that greater world,' said the doctor, 'really exists for you, Keppel? In such general terms as you use. But it exists?'

'Practically.'

'Away ahead—not so hopelessly far perhaps?'

'Integral to this scheme of space and time.'

'One might even, in certain moods, Keppel, feel a kind of nostalgia—?'

'One might,' agreed Keppel compactly. And then: 'My God! one does.'

'And that music of theirs we shall never hear, that perfect health they will have we shall never enjoy, those enhanced senses—they are not for us; the whole world cared for lovingly, the very beasts subdued and trained by kindness and every living man and woman with an intelligible purpose in life. That distant world. Have you never had a glimpse of that sane world of yours—in anything more than general terms? Nothing concrete with colour and substance, Keppel—not even in a dream?'

'Yes. I do dream. I dream that I dream about it. I confess it. Often. And when I awake it escapes me, it vanishes…. Dissolves into the turbid current of present things and is lost altogether.'

For a moment Keppel spoke without restraint.

'Lost altogether,' he said. 'Leaving not a wrack behind…. Well, something is left. A sense of life frustrated. A sense of irreparable loss. Oh! The life that might be—the life that may be—the life that will be! This life that is not for us! This life we might have had, instead of these mere compromises and consolations which make up life today.'

'Keppel,' said the doctor, 'let us be plain about this—you are foretelling now the end of common humanity. No less. This would not be human life. This new world is something beyond all ordinary experience, something alien.'

'Yes,' said Keppel.

And then he said something that startled Davis.

'That is where my hate goes,' he said. 'I hate common humanity. This oafish crowd which tramples the ground whence my cloud–capped pinnacles might rise. I am tired of humanity—beyond measure. Take it away. This gaping, stinking, bombing, shooting, throat–slitting, cringing brawl of gawky, under–nourished riff–raff. Clear the earth of them!'

'You do not even pity poor humanity?'

'I pity it in myself and everywhere. But I hate it none the less. I hate it….'