I wonder whether I should be happier now if I had lived in a garret “in the brave days when I was twenty-one,” if I had undergone the lessons of misery with the attendant compensations of “une folle maitresse, de francs amis et l’amour des chansons,” and had joyous-heartedly mounted my six flights of stairs. I lived modestly, it is true; but never for a moment was I doubtful as to my next meal, and I have always enjoyed the creature comforts of the respectable classes; never did Lisette pin her shawl curtain-wise across my window. Sometimes, nowadays, I almost wish she had. I never dreamed of glory, love, pleasure, madness, or spent my lifetime in a moment, like the singer of the immortal song. Often the weary moments seemed a lifetime.
And now that I am forty, “it is too late a week.” Boon companions, of whom I am thankful to say I have none, would drive me crazy with their intolerable heartiness. I once spent an evening at the Savage Club. As for the folle maitresse—as a concomitant of my existence she transcends imagination.
“What are you thinking of?” asked Judith.
“I was thinking how the ‘Dans un grenier qu’on est bien a vingt ans’’ principle would have worked in my own case,” I answered truthfully, for the above reflections had been Passing through my mind.
Judith laughed.
“You in a garret? Why, you haven’t got a temperament!”
I suppose I haven’t. It never occurred to me before. Beranger omitted that from his list of attendant compensations.
“That’s the difference between us,” she added, after a pause. “I have a temperament and you haven’t.”
“I hope you find it a great comfort.”
“It is ten times more uncomfortable than a conscience. It is the bane of one’s existence.”