Perhaps even now she only thinks of herself, is impressed
because it is herself who feels it, dresses herself in moonbeams,
restfulness, and magnolia scent as in a new shawl or bonnet. But all
the same the dress suits her splendidly. Were it not that my heart is
full of Aniela, I should fall under the spell of the picture. Besides
this, she said things which not many could have conceived.
All the same, whenever I am present at these _causeries Romaines_
I have always a feeling that my father, I, such as Mrs. Davis, and
generally speaking, all the people of the so-called upper classes do
not live a true, real life. Below us something is always going
on, something always happens; there is the struggle for life, for
bread,--a life full of diligent work, animal necessities, appetites,
passions, every-day efforts,--a palpable life, which roars, leaps, and
tumbles like ocean waves; and we are sitting eternally on terraces,
discussing art, literature, love, woman, strangers to that other
life far removed from it, obliterating, out of the seven, the six
work-days. Without being conscious of it, our inclinations,
nerves, and soul are fit only for holidays. Immersed into blissful
dilettantism as in a warm bath, we are half awake, half dreaming.
Consuming leisurely our wealth, and our inherited supply of nerves and
muscles, we gradually lose our foothold upon the soil.
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