X.
The Portrait
But you must not let yourself think that instead of keeping my promise to describe my journey round my room, I am beating the bush to see how I can evade the difficulty. This would be a great mistake on your part. For our journey is really going on; and while my soul, falling back on her own resources, was in the last chapter threading the mazy paths of metaphysics, I had so placed myself in my arm-chair, that its front legs being raised about two inches from the floor, I was able, by balancing myself from left to right, to make way by degrees, and at last, almost without knowing it, to get close to the wall, for this is how I travel when not
