His cumbersome mind clung to an obscure ideal, shared by many people of limited intellect and venerated with unthinking respect: to let a branch sprout from the main trunk, an extension of himself.

I understand you well. Now we have no need to dispute: you are awake, and so you have seen the difference between us, the difference between men akin to their father and those who take their destiny from a woman; the difference between spirit and intellect.

...and the vessel was not full, his intellect was not satisfied, his soul was not at peace, his heart was not still.

All being, it seemed, was built on opposites, on division. Man or woman, vagabond or citizen, lover or thinker — no breath could both be in and out, none could be man and wife, free and yet orderly, knowing the urge of life and the joy of intellect. Always the one paid for the other, though each was equally precious and essential.