That they preferred to feed
upon the dead and dying, that they usually left substantial, uninjured
creatures alone, was robbed of all comforting assurance by the fact that
their perceptions were so dim, their mental development so limited, that
the actions of a given individual in a given situation could in no way
be safely predicted. Like life itself, there was just no telling. From
this experience these thriving, thoughtless killers became for him the
very symbol of the dark, violent side of nature that had always so
terrified and appalled him.
'There must be something more to life,' he said, on the thirteenth
night since their arrival. They sat before a driftwood fire in the
sand, protected from the wind by the high north wall, a short distance
from their cave. With the stars above and the soft murmur of the waves
before them, there was peace and sadness enough in his heart to speak of
it, and to admit the vague emptiness he found so hard and painful to
express. For he knew that she felt an emptiness, too.
'All the birth and dying,' he continued, 'The endless struggle
just to survive, and to create new beings to struggle and die when you
are gone. It is very hard for me to say this, Sylviana, but there are
times when I think Nature is very cruel, and I can see no wisdom in
living only by her laws.
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