And it was after that that I found out the truth. I learnt the
truth last November - on the third of November, to be precise
- and I remember every instant since. It was a gloomy
evening, one of the gloomiest possible evenings. I was going
home at about eleven o'clock, and I remember that I thought
that the evening could not be gloomier. Even physically.
Rain had been falling all day, and it had been a cold, gloomy,
almost menacing rain, with, I remember, an unmistakable
spite against mankind. Suddenly between ten and eleven it
had stopped, and was followed by a horrible dampness,
colder and damper than the rain, and a sort of steam was
rising from everything, from every stone in the street, and
from every by-lane if one looked down it as far as one could.
A thought suddenly occurred to me, that if all the street
lamps had been put out it would have been less cheerless,
that the gas made one's heart sadder because it lighted it all
up. I had had scarcely any dinner that day, and had been
spending the evening with an engineer, and two other friends
had been there also. I sat silent - I fancy I bored them. They
talked of something rousing and suddenly they got excited
over it. But they did not really care, I could see that, and
only made a show of being excited. I suddenly said as much
to them. "My friends," I said, "you really do not care one
way or the other." They were not offended, but they laughed
at me. That was because I spoke without any not of
reproach, simply because it did not matter to me. They saw
it did not, and it amused them.
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