While Constance went in and out of the shops, on her numberless errands, Paul never left her side:
“You see,” he said, glad to have some one to listen to him for the first time in his life, “what I call human wretchedness is not confined to the social question, but exists everywhere, everywhere. . . . Look around you, in the street. It’s raining; and people are walking under dripping umbrellas. Look at those women in front of us: wet skirts; muddy shoes, worn at heel, splashing through the puddles: that is human wretchedness. . . . Look at that man over there: fat stomach; squinting eyes; gouty fingers clutching a shabby umbrella-handle: that is human wretchedness. . . . Everything that is ugly, squalid, muddy, drab, abnormal from any one point of view is human wretchedness. . . . Look at all those shops, where you buy—or don’t buy—trashy manufactured things that have blood clinging to them, things which you are now pretending that you need for your house: that is human wretchedness. . . . It’s all ugly; and the trail of a morbid civilization shows through it all. . . . Look around you, at those big, lying letters, those gaudy posters: that is human wretchedness. One cheats the other; and the whole thing has become such a matter of system that nobody is really taken in. It’s the same with politics and religion as with a pound of sugar or a
