The heavy weights of
life and activity so suddenly withdrawn left painful lightness akin to
emptiness. The broken chains trailed noisily after me. The time hung
heavily which I had so long prayed for. Long years of monotonous
servitude had made a very machine of me. I could only rust in
inaction. Some other power, to rack and grind and urge me on, was
necessary to my very existence.
So it happened, that, at last, my holiday having spun out to the end
of my means, I left the city, and engaged work at very low wages in
a country-village. The situation and the remuneration were not in
the least calculated to stimulate ambition or avarice; and I remained
obscurely housed, incessantly busy, and coarsely clothed and fed, in
this place, for two years. They were not long years either. I had
no hard taskmaster, however hard my task, no uneasy, unexplainable
apprehensions, no moody forebodings of evil, no troublesome children
to distress me. At the end of that time I heard of a better situation,
and returned to the city.
I had been engaged about a twelvemonth in my new place, a very
pleasant little shop, though the pay was less and the work harder
than I had had with Monsieur C----, when, one morning, standing at the
shop-window, I saw that gentleman pass: very brisk, very spruce, very
plump he looked.
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