the fear that Santerre’s drums might cut off 
their talk untimely. 
I do not pity them, because I can see that 
their oratorial effusions procure for them 
pleasures equal to those which others draw 
from silence and contemplation; but I despise 
them. 
I wish above all that my cursed journalist 
would allow me to amuse myself as I like. “You 
never feel then,” says he to me, with a slightly 
apostolic snivel, “the need of sharing your en-
joyments with others?” Look what a subtle 
form of envy is his; he knows that I disdain his 
pleasures, and he wishes to sneak into mine, 
the ugly spoilsport! 
“This great misfortune of not being able to 
be alone,” says somewhere La Bruyère, “as if 
to shame those who run to forget themselves 
in the crowd, fearing doubtless that they will 
be unable to tolerate their own company.” 
“Nearly all our misfortunes come to us from 
our not having the sense to remain in our 
chamber,” says another wise man, Pascal, I 
think; thus summoning back into the cell of 
meditation all these wrong-headed persons 
who seek happiness in movement and in a 
prostitution which, if I were willing to speak 
the beautiful language of my epoch, I might 
call fraternitatal.