groundlessly

 H   I even kept my forays, pushed further every day, a secret from my family, as if they were a vice, something pointless, at the very least selfish, unworthy of an adult responsible for himself and his kin. . . . If at home I was asked where I had been so long, I would lie, saying, for instance, that I had gone to a movie on the Right Bank, . . . . unnecessarily and inexplicably, as I have often lied in my life, groundlessly, without enjoyment, simply because of being asked and having to open my mouth.  124

for instance the Eiffel Tower, which, discovered outside the city, suddenly appeared as astonishing as it probably is.  126

Was that possible, for a person to be crazy about or infatuated with a place to live, . . . 127

at first that I liked the place only because, as usual, I wanted the opposite of everyone else;  I felt comfortable only in the role of the loner, the solitary understood by no one, wronged time and again . . . .