At One O'Clock in the Morning

Alone at last! Nothing is to be heard but the rattle of a few tardy and / tired-out cabs. There will be silence now, if not repose, for several / hours at least. At last the tyranny of the human face has disappeared -- I / shall not suffer except alone. At last it is permitted me to refresh / myself in a bath of shadows. But first a double turn of the key in the / lock. It seems to me that this turn of the key will deepen my solitude / and strengthen the barriers which actually separate me from the world.

A horrible life and a horrible city! Let us run over the events of the / day. I have seen several literary men; one of them wished to know if he / could get to Russia by land (he seemed to have an idea that Russia was / an island); I have disputed generously enough with the editor of a / review, who to each objection replied: "We take the part of respectable / people," which implies that every other paper but his own is edited by a / knave; I have saluted some twenty people, fifteen of them unknown to me; / and shaken hands with a like number, without having taken the / precaution of first buying gloves; I have been driven to kill time, / during a shower, with a mountebank, who wanted me to design for her a / costume as Venusta; I have made my bow to a theatre manager, who said: / "You will do well, perhaps, to interview Z; he is the heaviest, / foolishest, and most celebrated of all my authors; with him perhaps you / will be able to come to something. See him, and then we'll see," I have / boasted (why? ) of several villainous deeds I never committed, and / indignantly denied certain shameful things I accomplished with joy, / certain misdeeds of fanfaronade, crimes of human respect; I have refused / an easy favour to a friend and given a written recommendation to a / perfect fool. Heavens! it's well ended.