Just in order to prove to himself how ineffectual physical expression of his mental state was he tore a rail off the top of a nearby fence--he had wandered far out into the country again--and, raising it above his shoulders, brought it down with all his strength upon a rock. The rail happened to be a strong one and did not break, and the force of the blow made his hands smart. He took a certain fierce joy in the pain and repeated the blow two or three times, but long before his body tired with the exertion his soul sickened of the business. He threw the rail lightly over the fence and wandered hopelessly on into the hills.
After the first shock of surprise and disappointment had passed his feelings boiled down to a slow scorching hate of destiny. The thought of God occurred to him, among other things, and he laughed. Why did people ever take it into their heads to deny the existence of God? Of course there was a God; nothing but a divine will could possibly have arranged that he should be thwarted in an honest love--not merely once, mind you, but twice--by the one person in the world whom he could not oppose. Such things were beyond the realm of chance or reason. During one part of his wanderings he laughed aloud, several separate times, at the monumental humor of it all. A man such as he was, in the full pride of his youth and strength, strong in body, strong in mind, strong in will and character, twitched hither and yon by the lightest whimsical breath of an all-powerful divinity--it was supremely funny, in its coarse, horrible way.
"Oh, yes, it's a good joke, God," he said aloud once or twice; "it's a damned good joke."
It is significant that he thought very little of Madge now. He experienced none of the sudden sharp twinges of memory that he had known on a former occasion. At that time, as he now realized, only one side of his nature had been stirred, and that a rather silly, unimportant side. Now his whole being, or at least all that was best and strongest in his being, was affected. He had loved Beatrice only with his eyes and his imagination. He loved Madge with the full strength of his heart and soul and mind. And heart, soul and mind being cheated of their right, united in an alliance of hate and revenge against the fate that had cheated them.
