And now, with extreme clarity, without passion or malice, I saw what life really is. It had something, I remember, to do with the revolving sunshade.
Intoxicated by champagne in the company of Arthur and Baron, William, the narrator of “Mr. Norris”, has a vision of what life really is. The narrator of the story seems a passive character, who is attracted to the company of eccentric Mr. Norris because of the excitement it brings into his life.
I was, I flattered myself, more profound, more humane, an altogether subtler connoisseur of human nature than they.
William gets occasionally warned by Arthur’s acquaintances of Arthur’s shady nature. Despite it, the narrator of Mr. Norris’s story believes to see through Arthur as a reckless but also calm, aware of himself. He will soon discover that he gave him too much credit, because Arthur himself is more often than not unaware of the trouble he brings himself in.
“Tell me, William,” his last letter concluded, “what have I done to deserve all this?”
In a final evidence of Arthur’s blissful unawareness of his actions, being chased by the malicious secretary Schmidt, Arthur stays true to his nature and breaks William’s perception of him as of a man who knows the consequences of his questionable actions.
