Des Esseintes still has time to catch his train, but finds himself reflecting that when he had previously travelled abroad—to Holland—his expectation that Dutch life would be similar to Dutch art had been rudely unfulfilled. What if London life similarly fell short of his Dickensian preconceptions? “What was the point of moving,” he asks himself, “when a fellow could travel magnificently just by sitting in a chair? Wasn’t he already in London?” Why risk reality when the imagination can be equally, if not more, compelling? And so the faithful but expensive cabbie takes his fare back to the Gare de Sceaux, from where he returns home.
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