After May’s death, Marcher decided to quit London but first went to visit May’s grave where he found himself “powerless to penetrate the darkness of death” (James, 335). This darkness parallels the light that Marcher witnessed surrounding May before her death. Now that she is dead, Marcher finds that her light is gone, and yet, he is unable to do anything about it. Despite this, Marcher still holds onto hope that May’s spirit and light will reach him through her grave. Marcher “kneeled on the stones, however, in vane” and found that it was “like a pair of eyes that didn’t know him” and that “no palest light broke” (James, 335). It is almost as if Marcher went to May’s grave before he left in order to make sure that May could not reach him in London. Marcher held onto some semblance of hope after her death. A hope that maybe his beast was that May’s spirit was not completely gone, and that she could be the Beast in the Jungle watching him from afar. The act of May’s death may have been the great atrocity of his life and May’s spirit afterwards would always be present but not visible like a beast in a jungle.
After Marcher went to May’s grave and found that her light was completely gone, he finalized his decision to leave London. For the first time since meeting May, Marcher decided to run from his catastrophic fate. May kept him present in London and provided companionship for him through their shared confession of Marcher’s secret. As soon as she died Marcher decided to “stay away, after this, for a year” and found that “the state of mind in which he had lived for so many years shone out to him, in reflection, as a light that colored and refined” (James, 335). For the first time, Marcher reflected on his life without May in it and decided that without her he had lost everything. Marcher was now simply as common as everyone else, and his own light was nothing compared to May’s. Marcher’s decision to travel outside of London emphasizes his desire for an escape of the place where he and May lived together and a hope that he would find another light outside of London (to no avail).
I agree with you that after May’s death, Marcher pondered life without her, but not consciously. Did he feel grief that his only friend had died? Perhaps. Or perhaps He didn’t know he was mourning her and mistook it for something else. The thought of the beast overshadowed his supposed grief for her.
For example: two lovers buy a house to live together, then one of them die, and the one who remains feels it is too painful to continue living in the same place without the other, so they sell the house and move away.
He travelled the continent looking for new things or new connections, but he never found one. No world wonders sight could fill the empty space within him, because he didn’t have her to witness it with him. I think apart of him did feel that grief, he just didn’t know it yet.
And the “beast” was that he didn’t get to feel the full potential of passion – he could’ve become more than friends with May but didn’t.
But if we interpret this as a story about closeted queerness, then Marcher still has a chance to go out and seek true love with another man — if only he could realize that. The true “beast” in this case would be Marcher’s unawareness of his own orientation.