She bore her old age well, he said; still, he himself was absolutely ancient—nearly forty!
And they both laughed.
The good man smoked a cigarette; she flipped through an illustrated paper; they sipped liqueurs; called the waiter at last; paid the reckoning; exchanged a jest or so, and departed, he lifting his hat to the house.
Others came and went.
Noll brooded on.
What had been all the frantic ecstasy of art for art’s sake to the world at large? An absolute nothing. And what was this ascetic hatred of life?
The aim of life is not to live in poet’s rhyme—nor does our neighbour pass feverish nights fearful of losing immortality. The poet may be shaken with such fears for his verse; the ambitious may see in dreams their names writ in flashing jewels on the face of time, glittering like stars beyond their daily lusting; but the man of the street scratches his poll to no such questionings. He has to live. He asks, and he has the right to ask, that he may live his life in hope and happiness and all becoming jollity. There will be rough stones enough beneath his feet, walk he ever so nicely. Why be jealous of worldly fame? The names and fames of the ancient masters of the world, king and conqueror, are vanished—their very gods have taken wing. There are some chipped relics—the rest is in the spindrift of time....
What was all this abstract pity of the world? what did it affect? What was it but the conceit of sheer egoism?
In the darkness beyond the flare of the café, on the benches that skirted the roadway, sat several shabby fellows—frayed, down-at-heels, haggard. Their pale faces stared out of the darkness at the festive loungers along the café’s front. Out of the gloom their hungry eyes sullenly followed the shifting figures that passed to and fro across the golden flare of the brightly lighted place. The younger ones scowled, brooding pensively—one now and then muttering a rough jest to the others. But they were mostly silent. The elder, dirtier, and more ragged, with hands deep-thrust into pockets of filthy trousers, shrugged stooped shoulders, and watched the shifting comedy that passed unwittingly before their eyes. A tattered fellow from amongst them would rise and pick up a cigarette-end that fell upon the pavement from light discarding fingers.
The ranks of chairs along the café’s front began to empty.