all
sense of inferiority. And why? Of course the carelessness and the
ignorance of youth had something to do with that. But there was
something else besides. Looking at Dona Rita, her head leaning on her
hand, with her dark lashes lowered on the slightly flushed cheek, I felt
no longer alone in my youth. That woman of whom I had heard these things
I have set down with all the exactness of unfailing memory, that woman
was revealed to me young, younger than anybody I had ever seen, as young
as myself (and my sensation of my youth was then very acute); revealed
with something peculiarly intimate in the conviction, as if she were
young exactly in the same way in which I felt myself young; and that
therefore no misunderstanding between us was possible and there could be
nothing more for us to know about each other. Of course this sensation
was momentary, but it was illuminating; it was a light which could not
last, but it left no darkness behind. On the contrary, it seemed to have
kindled magically somewhere within me a glow of assurance, of
unaccountable confidence in myself: a warm, steady, and eager sensation
of my individual life beginning for good there, on that spot, in that
sense of solidarity, in that seduction.

CHAPTER II

For this, properly speaking wonderful, reason I was the only one of the
company who could listen without constraint to the unbidden guest with
that fine head of white hair, so beautifully kept, so magnificently
waved, so artistically arranged that respect could not be felt for it any
more than for a very expensive wig in the window of a hair-dresser. In
fact, I had an inclination to smile at it. This proves how unconstrained
I felt. My mind was perfectly at liberty; and so of all the eyes in that
room mine was the only pair able to look about in easy freedom. All the
other listeners' eyes were cast down, including Mills' eyes, but that I
am sure was only because of his perfect and delicate sympathy. He could
not have been concerned otherwise.

The intruder devoured the cutlets--if they were cutlets. Notwithstanding
my perfect liberty of mind I was not aware of what we were eating. I
have a notion that the lunch was a mere show, except of course for the
man with the white hair, who was really hungry and who, besides, must
have had the pleasant sense of dominating the situation. He stooped over
his plate and worked his jaw deliberately while his blue eyes rolled
incessantly