Solitude was becoming frightful to him.

He felt all at once strangely young, like a child, and a pitiful sense of injury was over him, but the sense of injury was not for himself alone, but for all mankind.

He realised that all mankind was enormously pitiful and injured, by the mere fact of their obligatory existence.

And he wished more than anything in the world for some understanding soul with whom to share his sense of the universal grievance.
But he continued to sit alone, and the cat slept in his golden coil of peace.

Then suddenly the cat sat up, and his jewel eyes glowed.