or many days. Every morning Charles-Norton went
out to his work full of emptiness (if that phrase is permissible), empty
of heart, empty of mind, without a desire, without an anger. The warm
June days had come; he had changed his underwear. He felt the season only
as a discomfort. The emerald explosions visible at the end of each street
as the L train passed along Central Park did not stir him; the tepid airs
drifting lazily from the sea, the fragrant whiffs from the depths of the
germinating land, passed over him as though he were made of asbestos. An
insulation was about him, removing him from all things that thrill, all
things that distend; there was no color, no vibration in the world;
iridescences had ceased; the chamber of his soul had been painted a dull
drab.

He had regained, though, the esteem of his fellows. The subtle and
unerring instinct which had made them suspicious in the days of
his--misfortune, now in the same inexplicable way told them that he was
normal again. They looked at him no longer askance. In fact, they did not
look at him at all. They accepted him without question in crush of street
and L; gave him his rightful space (nine and a half inches in diameter);
trod on his feet only when forced to (by the impulse to obtain a more
comfortable position); poked their elbows into his stomach only when
necessary (that is, when they had to get out or in ahead of him); and on
the whole surrounded him with that indifference which at the bottom is a
sort of regard, which means that one conforms, that one's derby,
sack-suits, socks and shoes, habits, ideas, morals and religion are just
exactly like the derbies, sack-suits, socks and shoes, habits, ideas,
morals and religion of everyone else, and hence right. At the office he
had regained the appreciation of his chiefs; his salary had been raised
to twenty-two dollars and a half a week and his working hours from eight
to nine hours. His home life was the standard ideal one. That is, he got
up at the same time every morning, left punctually at the same hour, took
the L, arrived at the office on the minute, worked with his nose close to
the ruled pages, steadily, without a distraction, till 12.30, had his
macaroon tart and cup of coffee at Konrad's Bakery, smoked his five-cent
cigar in the nearby square till 1.30, worked again till 5.30, returned
home on the L, pressed tight like a lamb on the way to the packing-house,
had a cozy little dinner upon which Dolly