And I? I am a man like every other man, just as that evening was like
every other evening.

. . . . .

I had been travelling since morning. Hurry, formalities, baggage, the
train, the whiff of different towns.

I fell into one of the armchairs. Everything became quieter and more
peaceful.

My coming from the country to stay in Paris for good marked an epoch in
my life. I had found a situation here in a bank. My days were to
change. It was because of this change that I got away from my usual
thoughts and turned to thoughts of myself.

I was thirty years old. I had lost my father and mother eighteen or
twenty years before, so long ago that the event was now insignificant.
I was unmarried. I had no children and shall have none. There are
moments when this troubles me, when I reflect that with me a line will
end which has lasted since the beginning of humanity.

Was I happy? Yes, I had nothing to mourn or regret, I had no
complicated desires. Therefore, I was happy. I remembered that since
my childhood I had had spiritual illuminations, mystical emotions, a
morbid fondness for shutting myself up face to face with my past. I
had attributed exceptional importance to myself and had come to think
that I was more than other people. But this had gradually become
submerged in the positive nothingness of every day.