The Journal of a Disappointed Man

The man I dare not look at: I sat beside him and merely imagined. At ----, I got a decent seat and arrived at T---- jaded, but still alive, with no one to meet me. Decent rooms on the sea-front. Next morning J---- went away for the week end and I could not possibly explain how ill I was: she might have stayed at home. To preserve my sanity, Saturday afternoon, took a desperate remedy by hiring a motor-car and travelling to Torquay and back via Babbacombe.... On the Sunday, feeling suddenly ill, I sent for the local medico whom I received in the drab little room by lamplight after dinner. "I've a tingling in my right hand," I said, "that drives me nearly silly." "And on the soles of your feet?" he asked at once. I assented, and he ran thro' at once all the symptoms in series. "I see you know what my trouble is," I said shyly. And we chatted a little about the War, about disease, and I told him of the recent memoir on the histology of the disease ---- in the Trans. Roy. Soc, Edin. which interested him. Then he went away again--very amiable, very polite --an obvious non possumus.... On Monday at 4 went up to ---- to tea as previously arranged, but found the house shut up so returned to my rooms in a rage. After tea, having read the newspapers inside out, sat by the open window looking out on to the Marine Parade. It was dusk, a fine rain was falling, and the parade and sea-front were deserted save for an occasional figure hurrying past with mackintosh and umbrella. Suddenly as I sat looking out on this doleful scene, a dirge from nowhere in particular sounded on my ears which I soon recognised as "Robin Adair," sung very lento and very maestoso by a woman, with a flute obligato played by some second person. The tide was right up, and the little waves murmured listlessly at long intervals: never before I think have I been plunged into such an abyss of acute misery.