Feeling guilty's no reason for staying, or going. - Christopher Isherwood

He pictures the evening he might have spent, snugly at home, fixing the food he has bought, then lying down on the couch beside the bookcase and reading himself slowly sleepy. At first glance this is an absolutely convincing and charming scene of domestic contentment. Only after a few instants does George notice the omission that makes it meaningless. What is left out of the picture is Jim, lying opposite him at the other end of the couch, also reading; the two of them absorbed in their books yet so completely aware of each other's presence.

...I have had an unpleasant feeling, such as one has in a dream, that I myself do not exist.

His boredom was like a nostalgia for the whole world. He was homesick for everywhere but here.