Shoes, Shoes, Shoes

"Only rarely did he notice his own existence, when for example lack of breath—the revenge of a heavy body—forced him to halt with open mouth on a staircase, or when he had a toothache, or when at a late hour during his chess cogitations an outstretched hand shaking a matchbox failed to evoke in it the rattle of matches, and the cigarette that seemed to have been thrust unnoticed into his mouth by someone else suddenly grew and asserted itself, solid, soulless and static, and his whole life became concentrated in the single desire to smoke, although goodness knows how many cigarettes had already been unconsciously consumed. In general, life around him was so opaque and demanded so little effort of him that it sometimes seemed someone—a mysterious, invisible manager—continued to take him from tournament to tournament; but occasionally there were odd moments, such quietness all around, and when you looked out onto the corridor, shoes, shoes, shoes, standing at all the doors, and in your ears the roar of loneliness."

— from Nabokov's “The Defense”