Entragues consequently found himself arrived at that point of intellectuality where one commences to make himself obeyed: order, apparently incoercible, yielded to his dream. It was now a question of mastering the dream and will. This was quite different: never having cultivated that faculty, he only possessed it to a rudimentary degree. The method was clear, he should have known how to make use of it; he could not and the world, without a doubt, would escape him. His regret was moderate: his desires did not exceed potentiality. The ideal world, as he held it, sufficed for his activity which was entirely mental and too unarmed for the struggle. He had chosen the best part: should he be mad enough to consent to a disastrous exchange? Everything belonged to him in the sphere where he revolved: under logic's eye, he was the absolute master of a transcendent reality whose joyous domination did not give him leisure for a vulgar life and human preoccupations. To will? To will what? Ah! how much more interesting it is to watch oneself think: what spectacle equals that of the human brain, that marvelous hive where the ideal bees, in their nest of cells, distil thought: a fleeting activity, but which at least gives the illusion of duration. Ah! merely illusion, for only the eternal exists. At this point in his revery Entragues was bitten by a serpent: the external, disdained and almost disowned world was evoked in the image of Sixtine. It was necessary to admit it: he had interests in this part of the perceptible world. Then returned the same lamentations: fear, hope, doubt: love, composed of these three terms, ever arose, leading the trinity to unity and it was a circle, imperious as a circle. He lived a whole day in this prison, then towards evening a quite sharp sensation of indignity struck his heart and this obsession, poisoned by the arrow, inflamed the wound: "I am going to see Sixtine, I want to see her, but if she yields to my entreaty, the idea that she surprised me with another woman will make me fancy that only jealousy inclines her to unshared desires, and I will be paralyzed. I should do better to return to my home." But the image was stronger: he obeyed the suggestion. "Ah!" he told himself, always capable of strict reasoning, "I am afraid I looked at the work of the ideal bees from too near a view, I well know that I think, but I no longer know what I think." CHAPTER XVII THE ADORER II. Peacock Plumes "Aria Serena, guand'apar l'albore E bianca neve scender senza vento ... Ció passa la beltate ... De la mia donna ... ... Non po' 'maginare Ch'om d'esto monde l'ardisca amirare ... Ed i' s'i' la sguardasse, ne morira." Guido Cavalcanti. It rained peacock plumes, Pan, pan, pan, The multicolored door glowed with flames. The sky of the bed trembled towards an oarystis, It rained peacock plumes, Plumes of a white peacock.