even be slept through; and you do not know when it comes, but you know well enough when it has passed.
For me, it has passed: and now I look behind me. Though I should prefer to look nowhere at all. I look back, and I think all that was perhaps not worth such a fuss. … And yet! …
In any case, I have learned some wisdom, and wisdom is eternal. There remains of it enough for me to smile in my solitude. And there remains some pride, too,—the pride of knowing that I am what I am.
On returning from a concert, I went with my friend, Wiazewski, to Lipka, to meet the company jwe usually see there.
I take some interest in the atmosphere, reeking and tainted though it is, of a high-class restaurant, crowded with "gilded youth," old financiers, beautiful actresses, and demimondaines. The saloon is a large one, lit with wide-branched chandeliers. The air is thick with tobacco-smoke, through which the sparkles of a thousand lights and the brilliant notes of the merry orchestra assail both eye and ear. The ceiling is painted in antique
