Alone, Elias persistently fought shy of himself, persistently shunned self-communion. He dared not open his eyes, and look himself squarely in the face. He knew that it would not be an inspiriting spectacle. His studio he had locked up, with the resolution never to touch his paints any more forever. He sought to escape from himself in reading; and, indeed, he read an astonishing multitude of books upon an astonishing multitude of subjects. But now and then, in spite of his efforts to be blind, the actual Elias Bacharach would loom up big before him, in all his ghastly demoralization; and sick with self-loathing, he would bury his face in his hands, and demand bitterly, impotently, why he had ever been born? what single earthly purpose he was good for? why he could not be abolished utterly forthwith? But these dark moods, or lucid intervals, were commonly of short duration. He was generally able to forget them in a novel. He watched his wedding-day draw near and nearer, without the slightest quickening of the pulse. As I have said, he took a certain insipid pleasure in the thought of his marriage. He fancied it would be rather agreeable than otherwise to have Tillie a constant inmate of his house. She would brighten it up, put a little electricity into its atmosphere, relieve the excessive tedium of life in it. But this pleasure was very mild indeed; the languid pleasure that one might experience at the prospect of becoming the owner of a languidly admired vase or piece of furniture. Yes, he was glad enough that it was going to be his; but he did not care a great deal one way or the other; and as the day approached which was to inaugurate his proprietorship, he felt no flutter of the heart, no accession of eagerness or interest. Tillie's excitement, on the contrary, intensified perceptibly. It had the effect of beautifying her, and of civilizing her. With heightened color and brightened eyes, she was an exceedingly pretty girl, one that any man might have been proud of for his bride. Then, she did not talk half so loudly as she had used to do; and her choice of words, phrases, and figures, underwent a notable modification for the better. The adjectives, _grand, ideal, elegant, fearful_, and such like, for example, dropped almost entirely out of her daily speech.