The future! Yes, the future was in his power at last. As he lay there in the darkness he said to himself that all his ambitions were now almost within his grasp. He was young and well educated; he had proved ability and true courage; he had friends; he had a wife whom he loved and who loved him; his first-born was a son, already almost able to walk. Never before had his prospects appeared so smiling, and never before had he foreseen how his hopes might be fulfilled. And yet now, as he thought of the future, for the first time his pulse did not beat faster. When it was plain to him that he might soon have the most of the things he cared for, he found himself asking whether, after all, he really did care for them so much. He was happy, but just then his happiness was passive. The future might be left to take care of itself all in good time. He was wide awake, yet he had almost the languor of slumber; it surprised him to find himself thus unenergetic and not wanting to be roused to battle, even if the enemy were in sight. He thought of the Nirvana that the Oriental philosophers sought to gain as the final good; and he asked himself if perhaps the West had not still something to learn from the East. Afar, in the silence of the night, he heard the faint clang of an ambulance-bell, and he began to think of the huge city now sunk in slumber all around him. He had nearly four million fellow-citizens; and in an hour or two or three they would awaken and go forth to labor. They would fill the day with struggle, vying one with another, each trying to make his footing secure; and now and again one of them would fall and be crushed to the ground. They would go to bed again at night, wearied out, and they would sleep again, and waken again, and begin the battle again. Most of them would take part in the combat all in vain, since only a few of them could hope to escape from the fight unvanquished. Most of them would fall by the wayside or be trampled under foot on the highroad. Most of them would be beaten in the battle and would drop out of the fight, wounded unto death. And for the first time all this ceaseless turmoil and unending warfare seemed to him futile and purposeless.