At work there was no
Clara. When he came home he could not take up his brushes again. There
was nothing left.
So he was always in the town at one place or another, drinking,
knocking about with the men he knew. It really wearied him. He talked to
barmaids, to almost any woman, but there was that dark, strained look in
his eyes, as if he were hunting something.
Everything seemed so different, so unreal. There seemed no reason why
people should go along the street, and houses pile up in the daylight.
There seemed no reason why these things should occupy the space, instead
of leaving it empty. His friends talked to him: he heard the sounds, and
he answered. But why there should be the noise of speech he could not
understand.
He was most himself when he was alone, or working hard and mechanically
at the factory. In the latter case there was pure forgetfulness, when he
lapsed from consciousness. But it had to come to an end. It hurt him so,
that things had lost their reality. The first snowdrops came.
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