Oppressed by his thoughts,
he sought the obscurity and peace of his bedroom; but they were not
complete. The distant sounds of the concert reached his ear, faint
indeed, but still disturbing. Neither did he feel very safe in there;
for that sentiment depends not on extraneous circumstances but on our
inward conviction. He did not attempt to go to sleep; he did not even
unbutton the top button of his tunic. He sat in a chair and mused.
Formerly, in solitude and in silence, he had been used to think clearly
and sometimes even profoundly, seeing life outside the flattering
optical delusion of everlasting hope, of conventional self-deceptions,
of an ever-expected happiness. But now he was troubled; a light veil
seemed to hang before his mental vision; the awakening of a tenderness,
indistinct and confused as yet, towards an unknown woman.
Gradually silence, a real silence, had established itself round him. The
concert was over; the audience had gone; the concert-hall was dark; and
even the Pavilion, where the ladies' orchestra slept after its noisy
labours, showed not a gleam of light. Heyst suddenly felt restless in
all his limbs, as this reaction from the long immobility would not be
denied, he humoured it by passing quietly along the back veranda and out
into the grounds at the side of the house, into the black shadows under
the trees, where the extinguished paper lanterns were gently swinging
their globes like withered fruit.
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