It was two o’clock when I returned to my lodgings¹; my dinner, just brought in from a neighbouring hotel, smoked on the table; I sat down thinking to eat — had the plate been heaped with potsherds and broken glass, instead of boiled beef and haricots, I could not have made a more signal failure: appetite had forsaken⁴ me. Impatient of seeing food which I could not taste, I put it all aside into a cupboard, and then demanded, “What shall I do till evening?” for before six P.M. it would be vain to seek the Rue⁵ Notre Dame⁶ aux Neiges; its inhabitant (for me it had but one) was detained by her vocation⁷ elsewhere. I walked in the streets of Brussels, and I walked in my own room from two o’clock till six; never once in that space of time did I sit down. I was in my chamber⁸ when the last-named hour struck; I had just bathed my face and feverish⁹ hands, and was standing¹⁰ near the glass; my cheek was crimson¹¹, my eye was flame, still all my features looked quite settled and calm. Descending¹² swiftly the stair and stepping out, I was glad to see Twilight¹³ drawing on in clouds; such shade was to me like a grateful screen, and the chill of latter Autumn, breathing in a fitful wind from the north-west, met me as a refreshing¹⁴ coolness. Still I saw it was cold to others, for the women I passed were wrapped in shawls, and the men had their coats buttoned close.

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