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349
The Journal of a Disappointed Man
·
W. N. P. Barbellion
71
But
I
cannot
for
the
life
of
me
rake
up
any
excitement
over
my
own
immediate
decease--an
unobtrusive
passing
away
of
a
rancorous,
disappointed,
morbid,
and
self-assertive
entomologist
in
a
West
Kensington
Boarding
House--what
a
mean
little
tragedy!
It
is
hard
not
to
be
somebody
even
in
death.
A
sing-song
to-night
in
the
drawing-room;
all
the
boarding-house
present
in
full
muster.
There
was
a
German,
Schulz,
who
sat
and
leered
at
his
inamorata--a
sensual-looking,
pasty-faced
girl--while
she
gave
us
daggers-and-moonlight
recitations
with
the
most
unwarranted
self-assurance
(she
boasts
of
a
walking-on
part
at
one
of
the
theatres);
there
was
Miss
M----
listening
to
her
fiancé,
Capt.
O----
(home
from
India),
singing
Indian
Love
Songs
at
her;
there
was
Miss
T----,
a
sour
old
maid,
who
knitted
and
snorted,
not
fully
conscious
of
this
young
blood
coursing
around
her;
Mrs.
Barclay
Woods
pursued
her
usual
avocation
of
imposing
on
us
all
the
great
weight
of
her
immense
social
superiority,
clucking,
in
between,
to
her
one
chick--a
fluffy
girl
of
18
or
19,
who
was
sitting
now
in
the
draught,
now
too
close
to
a
"common"
musician
of
the
Covent
Garden
Opera;
finally
our
hostess,
a
divorcee,
who
hated
all
males,
even
Tom-cats.
We
were
a
pathetic
little
company--so
motley,
ill-assorted--who
had
come
together
not
from
love
or
regard
but
because
man
is
a
gregarious
animal.
In
fact,
we
sat
secretly
criticising
and
contemning
one
another
...
yet
outside
there
were
so
many
millions
of
people
unknown,
and
overhead
the
multitude
of
the
stars
was
equally
comfortless.
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