Brooke's grave with its 'Thy will be done,' and saw Balzac's bust, and de Morny's tomb (de Morny being a gilded rascal that interested me) and others, and stood and looked thoughtfully over the city that seemed like a great parasite that had driven its claws into the earth. Then there was the Louvre, and the Luxembourg, and, sometimes, theatres in the evenings with Rosy. A quietly happy time for me, made happier as the days stole on and found me still unshaken in my scheme of life.
One evening, Rosy having a headache and not caring to go out anywhere, I went for a ramble about the streets, observing the stirring multitude in a most delightfully philosophic way. The conviction of the general poorness of life was the deepest, but serenely deepest, conviction in me. My view of the matter was that, since I was alive and in certain circumstances, the only thing that was to be done was to make the best of them.
The dawn was breaking as I pulled at the concierge's bell. I was a little tired, mentally and bodily. I came upstairs; let myself in, and went into the study. All at once not only the general poorness, but also the general, and also the particular purposelessness of all life and of my own life came over me. I did not care to go to bed, I did not care to do anything. My eyes fell on my easy-chair: I went and lay back in it, in a state that kept, every now and then, rising to a level, over the edge of which lay disgust, and even despair. At last, I rose, with an impatient curse. Was there never to be an end of this foolery? was I never to have rest, peace, comfort, self-sufficiency, call it what you please,—that spiritual sailing with spread canvas before a full and unvarying wind? Why was it, why? Was it really because the strange shadow of Purposelessness played the perpetual-rising Banquo at Life's feast for me? Or was it that I was one who could not lack the Personal Deity with impunity? I didn't know, I didn't know! I wished that I were dead. I wished that I had never been born. What Personal Deity had I ever had?… My thoughts stood still. I saw a small child go to the bed and slip down on his knees
