The roll of vehicles and hum of voices filled the
air, a mighty morning-choir mingled with the footsteps of the pedestrians,
and the crack of the hack-drivers' whips. The clamorous traffic everywhere
exhilarated me at once, and I began to feel more and more contented.
Nothing was farther from my intention than to merely take a morning walk
in the open air. What had the air to do with my lungs? I was strong as a
giant; could stop a dray with my shoulders. A sweet, unwonted mood, a
feeling of lightsome happy-go-luckiness took possession of me. I fell to
observing the people I met and who passed me, to reading the placards on
the wall, noted even the impression of a glance thrown at me from a
passing tram-car, let each bagatelle, each trifling incident that crossed
or vanished from my path impress me.
If one only had just a little to eat on such a lightsome day! The sense of
the glad morning overwhelmed me; my satisfaction became ill-regulated, and
for no definite reason I began to hum joyfully.
At a butcher's stall a woman stood speculating on sausage for dinner. As I
passed her she looked up at me. She had but one tooth in the front of her
head. I had become so nervous and easily affected in the last few days
that the woman's face made a loathsome impression upon me. The long yellow
snag looked like a little finger pointing out of her gum, and her gaze was
still full of sausage as she turned it upon me.
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