He had made too many experiments with life.
After that his life had been all experiments, most of them failures.

But they served to separate him forever from his place and his people, from all the hateful humiliating past.

He could still say that he owed everything to himself.
Then his uncle's death gave him the means of realizing his supreme ambition.

By that time he had forgotten that he ever had an uncle.

His family had effaced itself.