He stared into the fire. That was what made a man happy--to sit looking dreamily into a fire, at his own hearth, in his own home; that’s what he had always heard and read. He stared at the flames, unblinking, to force himself into a complete obedience to an established truth. Just one more minute of it and I will feel happy, he thought, concentrating. Nothing happened. He thought of how convincingly he could describe this scene to friends and make them envy the fullness of his contentment.
