up, spiced with hot reproaches. I expected wet reproaches to follow; and expected rightly. She was getting tired of them when, having finished my grapes, I got up and went into the study.
I made an attempt to work, but failed: made another attempt, and failed again. I determined I would go out. Then, under the influence of a collapsing sense of tiredness and sleepiness, thought of bed: but bed meant Rosy, and I could not stand her just at present. I went into the dining-room. She was sitting knitting, in a chair. I told her that I was going out, and might not be in till late: to which she deigned no answer. I went into the hall and, taking my hat and stick, down and out. Which way to go? where to go to? I stood, whirling my stick about, considering. It was a beautiful night, clear and cool—no moon, with the heavens star-sown.
There was evil in me. I felt it in a little: and did not care to combat it. I walked to the right, a little jerkily like an actor. It was not now, 'Which way to go?' but, 'Where to?'
I began to think of piquant pictures of Grévin's—dumpy, strutting little cocottes of undeniable chic, and smiled at the thought. There was evil in me, and I did not care to combat it. Names I knew of the supposed haunts of said dumpy, strutting little cocottes—Rue Blanche, 'le Skating Théâtre' (the pronunciation of which, 'le Skatting Théâtre,' made me laugh) and the Folies-Bergères.
I took a cab to the Rue Blanche.
When I entered the hall there was a certain tremulousness in me, chiefly the result of an imperfect sense of wrong-doing, and a little, perhaps, of the music and the bright scene. I stalked round the rink, not quite daring to openly regard anyone: in fact, very self-conscious. At last I sat down at a table, and, having ordered a bock, began to argue with myself for a perfect fool. Here was I, who had pondered on Life and Death and Time and Space and God, and God knows what not, absolutely nervous in a hall filled with harlots and harlot-mongers! What more ludicrous? I paid the waiter; drank a little of my bock, and looked about me.
