He laid down the magazine and thought for a while about these diverse
men. In the days of his integrity he would have defended his attitude to
the last--an Epicurus in Nirvana, he would have cried that to struggle
was to believe, to believe was to limit. He would as soon have become a
churchgoer because the prospect of immortality gratified him as he would
have considered entering the leather business because the intensity of
the competition would have kept him from unhappiness. But at present he
had no such delicate scruples. This autumn, as his twenty-ninth year
began, he was inclined to close his mind to many things, to avoid prying
deeply into motive and first causes, and mostly to long passionately for
security from the world and from himself. He hated to be alone, as has
been said he often dreaded being alone with Gloria.
Because of the chasm which his grandfather's visit had opened before
him, and the consequent revulsion from his late mode of life, it was
inevitable that he should look around in this suddenly hostile city for
the friends and environments that had once seemed the warmest and most
secure. His first step was a desperate attempt to get back his old
apartment.
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