But, as a rule, with this particular period of his life from which
he was emerging, when he made an effort, if not to remain in it, at least
to obtain, while still he might, an uninterrupted view of it, he
discovered that already it was too late; he would have looked back to
distinguish, as it might be a landscape that was about to disappear, that
love from which he had departed, but it is so difficult to enter into a
state of complete duality and to present to oneself the lifelike spectacle
of a feeling which one has ceased to possess, that very soon, the clouds
gathering in his brain, he could see nothing, he would abandon the
attempt, would take the glasses from his nose and wipe them; and he told
himself that he would do better to rest for a little, that there would be
time enough later on, and settled back into his corner with as little
curiosity, with as much torpor as the drowsy traveller who pulls his cap
down over his eyes so as to get some sleep in the railway-carriage that is
drawing him, he feels, faster and faster, out of the country in which he
has lived for so long, and which he vowed that he would not allow to slip
away from him without looking out to bid it a last farewell.
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