The
appearances of life are there so especially gay, it is
so much a magnified beer-garden, the houses are so
ornate, the theatres so numerous, the very pace of the
vehicles is so brisk, that a man in any deep concern of
mind or pain of body is constantly driven in upon
himself. In his own eyes, he seems the one serious
creature moving in a world of horrible unreality;
voluble people issuing from a cafe, the QUEUE at
theatre-doors, Sunday cabfuls of second-rate pleasure-
seekers, the bedizened ladies of the pavement, the show
in the jewellers' windows--all the familiar sights
contributing to flout his own unhappiness, want, and
isolation. At the same time, if he be at all after my
pattern, he is perhaps supported by a childish
satisfaction. "This is life at last," he may tell
himself; "this is the real thing. The bladders on
which I was set swimming are now empty; my own weight
depends upon the ocean: by my own exertions I must
perish or succeed; and I am now enduring, in the vivid
fact, what I so much delighted to read of in the case
of Lousteau or Lucien, Rodolphe or Schaunard.
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