And then their conversation! How dull!—how lacking in point, in originality! These unhappy people appear to have in their heads no ideas that are not either trivial, tedious, or merely absurd. They do not appear to be interested in any matters that could interest a reasonable man. They babble, saying over and over again the same things. Or if they do not babble they giggle, or they may do both, which is worse; and, indeed, the uproarious way in which some of them laugh, upon no sufficient provocation, is disagreeable, especially in a woman. Or, if they neither babble, giggle, nor deafen the room with their outrageous mirth, they sit glum, speaking not a word, glowering upon humanity. How English that is—and how rude!
Commonplace—‘that is what these people are! It is not their fault, but it is nevertheless a pity; and you resent it. Indubitably you are not in a sympathetic environment; you are not among kindred spirits. You grow haughty, within. When two late comers enter breezily and take seats near to you, and one of them begins at once by remarking that he is going to Port Erin for the day, and asks you if you know Port Erin, you reply “No”; the fact being that you have visited Port Erin, but the fact also being that you shirk the prospect of a sustained conversation with any of these too commonplace, uncomprehending strangers.
You rise and depart from the table, and you endeavour to make your exit as majestic as possible; but there is a suspicion in your mind that your exit is only sheepish.
You meet someone on the stairs, a woman less like a guy than those you have seen, and still youthful. As you are going upstairs and she is coming down, and the two of you are staying in the same house, you wonder whether it would not be well to greet her. A simple “Good-morning.” You argue about this in your head for some ten years—it is only in reality three seconds, but it seems eternal. You feel it would be nice to say good-morning to her. But at the critical point, at the psychological moment, a hard feeling comes into your heart, and a glazed blind look into your eyes, and you glance away. You perceive that she is staring straight in front of her; you perceive that she is deliberately cutting you. And so the two of you pass like ships in the night, and yet not quite like ships in the night, because ships do not hate, detest, and despise.
You go out into the sunshine (if sunshine there happens to be), between the plash of the waves and the call of the boatman on the right hand, and the front doors of all the other boarding-houses on the left, and you see that the other boarding-houses are frequented by a much superior, smarter, more intelligent, better-mannered set of pleasure-seekers than yours. You feel by a sure premonition that you are in for a dull time.