When it looks as if you had made up your mind finally to stay at home for the
evening
When you have put on your house jacket and sat down after supper with a light
on the table to the piece of work or the game that usually precedes your going
to bed
When the weather outside is unpleasant so that staying indoors seems natural,
and when you have already been sitting quietly at the table for so long that
your departure must occasion surprise to everyone
When, besides, the stairs are in darkness and the front door locked,
and in spite of all that you have started up in a sudden fit of restlessness,
changed your jacket, abruptly dressed yourself for the street, explained that
you must go out and with a few curt words of leave-taking actually gone out,
banging the flat door more or less hastily according to the degree of displeasure you think you have left behind you, and when you find yourself once
more in the street with limbs swinging extra freely in answer to the unexpected
liberty you have procured for them
When as a result of this decisive action you feel concentrated within yourself
all the potentialities of decisive action
When you recognize with more than usual significance that your strength is greater than your need to accomplish effortlessly the swiftest of changes and
to cope with it When in this frame of mind you go striding down the long streets — then for
that evening you have completely got away from your family, which fades into
insubstantiality, while you yourself, a firm, boldly drawn black figure,
slapping yourself on the thigh, grow to your true stature
All this is still heightened if at such a late hour in the evening you look up a friend to see how she is getting on