And it was equally true that he was no
atheist, as he had sanctimoniously declared of himself. He admitted
the existence of the Power; he claimed the right to assail it, and he
grappled with the greatest, the most terrible, the most universal and
the most stupendous of Facts, which is the Fact that all men die. Unless
he conquered, he must die also. He was past theories, as he was beyond
most other human weaknesses, and facts had for him the enormous value
they acquire in the minds of men cut off from all that is ideal.
In Unorna he had found the instrument he had sought throughout half a
lifetime. With her he had tried the great experiment and pushed it to
the very end; and when he conducted Israel Kafka to his home, he already
knew that the experiment had succeeded. His plan was a simple one. He
would wait a few months longer for the final result, he would select his
victim, and with Unorna's help he would himself grow young again.
"And who can tell," he asked himself, "whether the life restored by such
means may not be more resisting and stronger against deathly influences
than before? Is it not true that the older we grow the more slowly
we grow old? Is not the gulf which divides the infant from the man of
twenty years far wider than that which lies between the twentieth and
the fortieth years, and that again more full of rapid change than the
third score? Take, too, the wisdom of my old age as against the folly
of a scarce grown boy, shall not my knowledge and care and forethought
avail to make the same material last longer on the second trial than on
the first?"
No doubt of that, he thought, as he walked briskly along the pavement
and entered his own house.
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