It filled for him, this
tone of hers, all the air; yet it struck him at the same time as
the hum of vain things. This latter effect was what he tried to
justify--and with the success that, grave though the appearance,
he at last lighted on a form that was happy. He arrived at it by
the inevitable recognition of his having been a fortnight before
one of the weariest of men. If ever a man had come off tired
Lambert Strether was that man; and hadn't it been distinctly on
the ground of his fatigue that his wonderful friend at home had so
felt for him and so contrived? It seemed to him somehow at these
instants that, could he only maintain with sufficient firmness his
grasp of that truth, it might become in a manner his compass and
his helm. What he wanted most was some idea that would simplify,
and nothing would do this so much as the fact that he was done for
and finished. If it had been in such a light that he had just
detected in his cup the dregs of youth, that was a mere flaw of
the surface of his scheme. He was so distinctly fagged-out that it
must serve precisely as his convenience, and if he could but
consistently be good for little enough he might do everything he
wanted.
Everything he wanted was comprised moreover in a single boon--the
common unattainable art of taking things as they came.
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