The first evening after settling in my new quarters I am overcome by a terrible depression, as though the air were poisoned. I go to my mother-in-law: "If I sleep up there you will find me dead in bed to-morrow. Shelter a pilgrim for this night, my good mother!"
The rose-coloured room is at once placed at my disposal, but, good heavens! how it has altered since my aunt's departure! There is black furniture in it; the empty pigeon-holes of a bookcase gape like so many jaws; a tall iron oven, ornamented with ugly devices of salamanders and dragons, confronts me like a spectre. In a word, there reigns such a disharmony in the room as makes me feel poorly. Moreover, every irregularity upsets my nerves, for I am a man of ordered habits who does everything at stated hours. In spite of my efforts to conceal my dissatisfaction, my mother-in-law reads my thoughts.
"Always dissatisfied, my child?"
She does her best to allay my discontent, but when the spirit of dissension is once aroused, everything is in vain. She tries to remember my favourite dishes, but everything goes wrong. There is nothing I dislike more than calf's head with brown butter.
"Here is something nice," she says to me, "expressly for you," and sets calf's head with brown butter before me. I understand that it is an unconscious mistake on her part, but can only eat with scarcely-concealed repugnance and simulated appetite.
"You are not eating anything!"
It is too much! Formerly I attributed these annoyances to feminine malice; now I acquit everyone and say, "It is the Devil!"
From my early days I am accustomed to plan out the day's work during my morning walk. No one, not even my wife, has ever been allowed to accompany me on it. And, as a matter of fact, in the morning my mind rejoices in a feeling of harmony and happy elevation which borders on ecstasy. My corporeal part seems to have disappeared, my griefs to have fled; I am all soul. The early morning is my time of self-collection, my hour of prayer, my matins.
Now I must sacrifice it all, and give up my most innocent pleasure. The powers compel me to renounce this last and purest enjoyment. My little daughter wishes to accompany me. I embrace her tenderly, and tell her why I wish to be alone, but she does not understand it. She cries, and I have not the heart to sadden her to-day, but make a firm resolve not to allow her again to misuse her rights. She is certainly thoroughly fascinating as a child, with her originality, her cheerfulness, her gratitude for trifles, that is, when one has leisure to be occupied with her. But when one is absent-minded and distracted, it is intensely annoying to be plagued with endless questions and changes of mood about mere nothings.