Death and Love

For a long time Gerald preserved a perfect sang froid, he remained
quite collected. But at last, fear undermined him. He was afraid of
some horrible collapse in himself. He had to stay and see this thing
through. Some perverse will made him watch his father drawn over the
borders of life. And yet, now, every day, the great red-hot stroke of
horrified fear through the bowels of the son struck a further
inflammation. Gerald went about all day with a tendency to cringe, as
if there were the point of a sword of Damocles pricking the nape of his
neck.

There was no escape--he was bound up with his father, he had to see him
through. And the father's will never relaxed or yielded to death. It
would have to snap when death at last snapped it,--if it did not
persist after a physical death. In the same way, the will of the son
never yielded. He stood firm and immune, he was outside this death and
this dying.

It was a trial by ordeal. Could he stand and see his father slowly
dissolve and disappear in death, without once yielding his will,
without once relenting before the omnipotence of death. Like a Red
Indian undergoing torture, Gerald would experience the whole process of
slow death without wincing or flinching. He even triumphed in it. He
somehow WANTED this death, even forced it. It was as if he himself were
dealing the death, even when he most recoiled in horror. Still, he
would deal it, he would triumph through death.