To make his "shadowy recollections" more tangible, he resorted to pen and paper, even though the transcription should be but a poor caricature. Then one day, as he re-read the pages, his heart stopped beating. He had detected an echo of youthfully exuberant letters from Aunt Verona to his mother—letters which had lain undisturbed in old boxes for over forty years. Aunt Verona had seen visions and counted on realizing them. The future had lured her, hinted at benign auspices. But her future had turned out to be nothing but Paul's early present—now his past! Aunt Verona's light had gone out, leaving her in a fog of desolation, disease, delusion, and death. What assurance had he that his version of the truth was more authentic than those of his sweaty, psalm-singing fellow-convicts?
A mortal weariness seized on him, and he tore up his lyrical diary.
When the gates swung open he passed through with a mechanical nod of goodwill. He ignored the directions given by the man who closed the gates after him, and walked at haphazard until he came to a familiar grassy slope.
Above him stretched the hill where he had sat and ruminated one autumn afternoon—the afternoon on which he had defied the gym instructor. From the citadel he had gazed towards ships in the roads, free ships that roamed at will in search of exotit havens.
He was sorry for that far-away boy who had longed for freedom, only to learn that it entailed crushing obligations. The boy had shouldered them, earned his title-deeds, and when youth was gone handed the precious legacy to the man. The man in consequence was now free; his claim was beyond a shadow of doubt. And for that very reason the sight of noble ships lying at anchor
