Alone at last! Nothing is to be heard but the rattle of a few tardy
and tired-out cabs. There will be silence now, if not repose, for
several hours at least. At last the tyranny of the human face has
disappeared--I shall not suffer except alone. At last it is permitted
me to refresh myself in a bath of shadows. But first a double turn of
the key in the lock. It seems to me that this turn of the key will
deepen my solitude and strengthen the barriers which actually separate
me from the world.
A horrible life and a horrible city! Let us run over the events of the
day. I have seen several literary men; one of them wished to know if
he could get to Russia by land (he seemed to have an idea that Russia
was an island); I have disputed generously enough with the editor of a
review, who to each objection replied: "We take the part of respectable
people," which implies that every other paper but his own is edited by
a knave; I have saluted some twenty people, fifteen of them unknown
to me; and shaken hands with a like number, without having taken the
precaution of first buying gloves; I have been driven to kill time,
during a shower, with a mountebank, who wanted me to design for her
a costume as Venusta; I have made my bow to a theatre manager, who
said: "You will do well, perhaps, to interview Z; he is the heaviest,
foolishest, and most celebrated of all my authors; with him perhaps
you will be able to come to something. See him, and then we'll see."
I have boasted (why?) of several villainous deeds I never committed,
and indignantly denied certain shameful things I accomplished with
joy, certain misdeeds of fanfaronade, crimes of human respect; I have
refused an easy favour to a friend and given a written recommendation
to a perfect fool. Heavens! it's well ended.
Discontented with myself and with everything and everybody else, I
should be glad enough to redeem myself and regain my self-respect in
the silence and solitude.
Souls of those whom I have loved, whom I have sung, fortify me;
sustain me; drive away the lies and the corrupting vapours of this
world; and Thou, Lord my God, accord me so much grace as shall produce
some beautiful verse to prove to myself that I am not the last of men,
that I am not inferior to those I despise.