I had no plans for the evening. Still I spent more than the usual time in dressing myself. I did it with the greatest care, and, for the first time, the knot of my cravat seemed to me a matter of great importance, and I was very much absorbed in the process of tying it carefully. This unexpected discovery brought in its train others equally important. For example, I noticed that my shirt was ill cut, that the shirt front wrinkled disgracefully at the opening of the vest; that my dress coat looked very old and curiously out of style. In a word, I thought I looked very ridiculous and promised myself to change all that in the future. Without making elegant appearance an exacting and tyrannical law of my life, it was quite permissible, I thought, to look like the rest of the people. Simply because one dressed well, one was not necessarily a fool. These preoccupations consumed my time till the dinner hour. Usually I ate at home, but this evening my apartment appeared to me so small, so dismal; it suffocated me, and I felt the need of space, of noise, of merriment. At the restaurant I took an interest in everything: the coming and going of people, the gilding on the ceiling, the large mirrors which multiplied to infinity the parlors, waiters, electric globes, the flowers on ladies hats, the counters on which were spread dressed meats of all kinds, where pyramids of fruit, red and gold colored, rose amid salads and sparkling glassware. I watched the women above all, I studied their somewhat airy manner of eating, the joy in their eyes, the movement of their ungloved arms encircled by heavy bracelets of glittering gold, the exposed lines of their necks so delicate and tender, which gradually receded into the bosom, under the roseate lace napkin. This fascinated me, it affected me like something altogether new, like a landscape of some distant country suddenly glimpsed. I was wonder-struck, like a boy. Ordinarily, impelled by the brooding disposition of my nature, I would fasten my attention on the intimate moral life of a human being, that is to say, I would point out its ugliness or suffering; at this moment, on the contrary, I abandoned myself to the joy of solely perceiving its physical charm: I was delighted to observe the magic spell cast by the women; even in the ugliest one I found some little detail such as a curve in the back of a neck, a languor in eyes, a suppleness of hands--always something or other--which made me happy, and I reproached myself for having until now arranged my life so badly, for having isolated myself like a barbarian in a dark melancholy chamber, for not having lived, while all this time Paris was offering me, at every step, joys so easily attained and so sweet to relish. "Is Monsieur perhaps waiting for someone?" the waiter asked me.