These preoccupations consumed my time till the dinner hour. Usually I ate at home, but this evening my apartment appeared to me so small, so dismal; it suffocated me, and I felt the need of space, of noise, of merriment.
At the restaurant I took an interest in everything: the coming and going of people, the gilding on the ceiling, the large mirrors which multiplied to infinity the parlors, waiters, electric globes, the flowers on ladies hats, the counters on which were spread dressed meats of all kinds, where pyramids of fruit, red and gold colored, rose amid salads and sparkling glassware. I watched the women above all, I studied their somewhat airy manner of eating, the joy in their eyes, the movement of their ungloved arms encircled by heavy bracelets of glittering gold, the exposed lines of their necks so delicate and tender, which gradually receded into the bosom, under the roseate lace napkin. This fascinated me, it affected me like something altogether new, like a landscape of some distant country suddenly glimpsed. I was wonder-struck, like a boy.
Ordinarily, impelled by the brooding disposition of my nature, I would fasten my attention on the intimate moral life of a human being, that is to say, I would point out its ugliness or suffering; at this moment, on the contrary, I abandoned myself to the joy of solely perceiving its physical charm: I was delighted to observe the magic spell cast by the women; even in the ugliest one I found some little detail such as a curve in the back of a neck, a languor in eyes, a suppleness of hands—always something or other—which made me happy, and I reproached myself for having until now arranged my life so badly, for having isolated myself like a barbarian in a dark melancholy chamber, for not having lived, while all this time Paris was offering me, at every step, joys so easily attained and so sweet to relish.
“Is Monsieur perhaps waiting for someone?” the waiter asked me.
Someone? Why no, I was not waiting for anyone. The door of the restaurant opened and I quickly turned around. Then I understood why the waiter had asked that question. Each time the door opened I would hastily turn around as I did just now and would stare anxiously at the people entering as if I knew that someone was about to enter, someone I was waiting for. … Someone! Well, for whom could I be waiting?
I very seldom went to the theatre; to force me there, a special occasion or obligation or inducement was required. I quite believe that of my own accord I would never think of going there. I even affected a supreme contempt for the kind of literary stuff offered for sale in these pushcart markets of mediocrity. Conceiving, as I did, the theatre as a place not of idle distraction but of serious art, it was repugnant to me to see human passion warbling one and the same sentimental tune amidst the mechanism of always identical scenes, to see gaiety, bedecked with tinsel, tumbling into the same pit of tomfoolery. A manufacturer of such plays, be they ever so applauded, seemed to me an artist gone astray; he bore the same relation to the poet that an unfrocked clergyman bears to a priest, or a deserter does to a soldier!
And I always remembered Lirat’s remark, so powerfully concise, so profoundly discerning. We had been attending the funeral of the painter M⸺. The celebrated dramatist D⸺ was the chief mourner. At the cemetery he delivered an address. This did not surprise anyone, for did not H⸺ and D⸺ enjoy a reputation of equal greatness? At the end of the ceremony Lirat took my arm and we walked back to Paris very sad. Lirat, who seemed lost in painful meditation, was silent. Suddenly he stopped, crossed his arms and, swaying his head with an irresistibly comical air because it was intended to be grave, exclaimed: “But why did that fellow D⸺ interfere, tell me?” And he was right. Why did he interfere, really? Did they come from the same stock and were they headed for the same glory—the one an ardent artist with grandiose thoughts and immortal works, and the other, whose sole ideal was to entertain with silly nonsense an assembly of wealthy and reputable bourgeois each evening. Yes, really, why did he interfere?
How removed I was from such morose sentiments when, after dinner, having sauntered along the boulevards, enjoying the feeling of physical well-being which gave to my movement a special lightness and elasticity, I seated myself in a chair at the Varieté, where a successful musical comedy was being played! With my face deliciously freshened by the cold air outside, my heart entirely won over to a sort of universal forebearance, I was really enjoying myself. With what? I did not know and little cared to know, not being in the mood for psychological self-analysis.
As was proper, I arrived during the intermission, when the crowd, very elegant in appearance, was filling the lobbies. After having left my overcoat at the check room, I passed through the parterre boxes with that same sweet impatience, that same delicious anguish, which I had already experienced at the Bois; on reaching the first balcony I
