And it struck me that nowadays I nearly always do have a morose kind of feeling in the early morning.
“Fatty,” “Tubby,” “the life and soul of the party” were the right words to describe George Bowling’s personality. However, at that moment he didn’t feel like “the life and soul of the party.” It struck him that nowadays he nearly always had “a morose kind of feeling.” The main reason of it was “those bloody false teeth.” The things were “magnified by the water in the tumbler, and they were grinning at” him like “the teeth in the skull.” The time when he could “kid” himself that he was “a Hollywood sheikh” was coming to its end.
I had no illusions about myself that morning.
George Bowling was a man who was not afraid of admitting the truth, no matter how bitter and unpleasant it was. He had “no illusions” about himself “that morning.” It was almost as if he could “stand at a distance” and watch himself coming down the road, with his “fat, red face” and his “false teeth” and his “vulgar clothes.” “A chap” like him was “incapable of looking like a gentleman.” Everyone could tell that he was “in the insurance business.” That morning was special for him, for he was going to get his false teeth. He felt that he wasn’t getting younger; the future wouldn’t hold a lot for him.
But how about five years from now?
George looked “at the great sea” of “roofs stretching on and on.” There were “miles and miles of streets, fried-fish shops, tin chapels,” and “picture house.” There were “little printing-shops up back alleys, factories, blocks of flats, whelk stalls, dairies,” and “power stations.” George couldn’t pick up a better word to describe what he saw than “enormous.” What impressed him even more was “the peacefulness of it.” The landscape looked like “a great wilderness with no wild beasts.” “No guns firing, nobody beating anybody else up with a rubber truncheon.” However, no one could guarantee that that peacefulness would last. George couldn’t help thinking, “but how about five years from now?”
