Yet night after night he came to this place,
to be tortured afresh by the ridicule of the sordid frequenters, and
by the careless music of the orchestra which told him of a flowerless
spring and of a morning which held for him no hope. For his last
emotion rested in this self-inflicted pain; he could only breathe
freely under the lash of his own contempt.
Idly he let his dull eyes stray about the room, from table to table,
from face to face. Many there he knew by sight, from none could he
hope for sympathy or even companionship. In his bitterness he envied
the courage of the cowards who were brave enough to seek oblivion or
punishment in death. Dropping his eyes to his soft, unlovely hands,
he marvelled that anything so useless should throb with life, and yet
he realised that he was afraid of physical pain, terrified at the
thought of death. There were dim ancestors of his whose valour had
thrilled the songs of minstrels and made his name lovely in the
glowing folly of battles. But now he knew that he was a coward, and
even in the knowledge he could find no comfort. It is not given to
every man to hate himself gladly.
The music and the laughter beat on his sullen brain with a mocking
insistence, and he trembled with impotent anger at the apparent
happiness of humanity. Why should these people be merry when he was
miserable, what right had the orchestra to play a chorus of triumph
over the stinging emblems of his defeat? He drank brandy after
brandy, vainly seeking to dull the nausea of disgust which had
stricken his worn nerves; but the adulterated spirit merely maddened
his brain with the vision of new depths of horror, while his body
lay below, a mean, detestable thing.
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