Only page of title Fairly Easy
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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.
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.
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.
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