And yet this was how he had been living all these days since his return
home, without suffering so acutely from the vacuity of his existence and
from inaction. How had he spent his time from rising in the morning till
bed-time?

He had loafed on the pier at high tide, loafed in the streets, loafed in
the cafes, loafed at Marowsko's, loafed everywhere. And on a sudden this
life, which he had endured till now, had become odious, intolerable. If
he had had any pocket-money, he would have taken a carriage for a long
drive in the country, along by the farm-ditches shaded by beech and elm
trees; but he had to think twice of the cost of a glass of beer or a
postage-stamp, and such an indulgence was out of his ken. It suddenly
struck him how hard it was for a man of past thirty to be reduced to ask
his mother, with a blush for a twenty-franc piece every now and then;
and he muttered, as he scored the gravel with the ferule of his stick:

"Christi, if I only had money!"

And again the thought of his brother's legacy came into his head like
the sting of a wasp; but he drove it out indignantly, not choosing to
allow himself to slip down that descent to jealousy.

Some children were playing about in the dusty paths. They were fair
little things with long hair, and they were making little mounds of sand
with the greatest gravity and careful attention, to crush them at once
by stamping on them.

It was one of those gloomy days with Pierre when we pry into every
corner of our souls and shake out every crease.