Part 30

We entered Victoria Station. I opened the door of the compartment with hasty, trembling hands. I did not wait to change my French money, but hurried out into a street and got on to a 'bus.

London, with its subdued lights, lay all around me. It had not changed since I saw it last, and yet I felt it ought to have changed. The reason was that I had changed. And then I began to fear that I had changed beyond the power of recovery. The oppressive sensation that I was in a dream forced itself upon me. I felt that there was only one reality in the whole world--the war. Would I ever escape from the war? It would come to an end some day, and I would leave the army, but would not the war obsess me until the end of my life? Would I ever be myself again?

But this was not the way to enjoy my leave! I began to feel disappointed at not being so happy as I had expected to be. Why was I not full of rapture? Why did not every object fill me with delight? But I ought to have known that habitual discontent and bitterness and revolt are not shaken off in a few hours or a few days, and that they persist even after their immediate cause has been removed.

I looked round at the other people sitting on the 'bus. I had visited foreign countries in former years, but never before had I felt that I was amongst complete strangers. There are moments when a dog, a horse, or a bird fills us with a sense of the uncanny--its mind is an insoluble mystery, with depths so dark and inscrutable that one feels something that approaches fear and horror. And so it was as I sat on the 'bus. The civilians around me seemed like animals of a different species. They were not human at all--or was it I who was not human?

I went to another seat in order to listen to a man and woman who were talking together. I felt that if they were to talk about the war, the uncanny spell would be broken, the dream would dissolve and I would be restored to my own fellow creatures. But they spoke about trivial domestic matters and about a flower show. If they had only mentioned the word "war" I would have felt relieved by its familiarity, but they did not mention it once.

And then, in great mental agony, I said to myself: "I will be happy, I will enjoy my leave." But a number of invisible cobwebs hung between myself and the world around me. I tried to brush them away, but they were so impalpable that the movement of my hand did not disturb them at all.

I gave up the attempt. I would wait until I got home. Then I would talk and forget myself--only by forgetting myself would I enjoy the present. Only those who forget themselves are happy. The obsession of self is the most oppressive of all burdens.

I descended from a 'bus and took a train. A girl sitting opposite me stared at my blue chevrons and whispered to her fellow passenger: "He's just come from the front." So I too was regarded as a strange kind of animal. I got out at my home-station. I showed my leave-warrant to the ticket collector. He was a benevolent looking old man. He smiled and wished me good luck. Things began to seem a little less foreign. And then the thought of being home in a few minutes absorbed me entirely.

I hurried down the street. I knocked at the door, and it opened. The long yearned-for meeting took place at last.

I threw my pack, equipment and steel helmet contemptuously into a corner. I took an infantile delight in clean, furnished rooms, in the white table-cloth, the shining silver, the cut flowers, and the oil-paintings on the wall. And we talked until late into the night.

It was good to wake up the next morning and to know that the first day of my leave was still before me. I felt encouraged to face my new surroundings boldly. I would understand them and identify myself with them. If the sensation that I was dreaming came upon me again, I would welcome it and then I would destroy it once and for all. I would enjoy my leave at any cost. It would become my only reality, and when it was over it would be a reality which I would take back to the front. I would hoard it and always think of it out there, so that the war would seem like a dream, the end of which I could await with patience and resignation.

I went out to seek friends and acquaintances. I also hoped to meet some war enthusiasts. I would tell them something about the war. How would their theories be able to stand before my actual experiences!

I was soon disillusioned.

I dined with a wealthy kinsman. The slaughter of millions had brought him prosperity. He had never done any fighting except with his mouth, but it is precisely that kind of fighting that infuriates the spirit, engenders heroic ardour, and causes the nostrils to dilate. He was so bellicose that he even desired to do some real righting, not understanding the difference between the two. He thought of joining an infantry unit--the artillery were not good enough, he did not want to fire at an enemy he could not see, he wanted to use the bayonet and murder his fellow men in hand-to-hand encounters.

I began to understand why many men I had met were glad to come back from leave.

I tried to dissuade him, although I felt it would do him good to see something of the war and he would learn a much-needed lesson. And yet I did not want him killed or horribly mutilated, although I knew that he and those like him were alone responsible for the entire war, both at its origins and its continuance.

But he would not be persuaded. He said he was dying to go out and see the fun.

At the word "fun" I felt a sudden and violent contraction of all my muscles. I had an almost irresistible impulse to stand up and strike him across the face. But I was in a public restaurant and I controlled myself. He did not seem to notice anything.

The conversation drifted away from the war and became commonplace. I tried to relate a few of my experiences, but somehow or other they seemed unsuited to the occasion.

I had set out with the intention of destroying a mouldering, tottering edifice built up of illusions and ignorant prejudices, and I found myself face to face with towering, strong, unshakable walls, strong and unshakable precisely because it was built of illusions, lies, and prejudices.

I felt the burden of war descending upon me with all its crushing, annihilating weight. I fought a losing fight against the conviction that for the rest of my leave I would be able to talk of nothing else and think of nothing else but the war. If only I could talk to someone who would understand, that at least would bring relief!

I longed to see my two friends, although I felt some anxiety lest they might have changed, or rather lest they might not have changed with me.

It was in the evening of my first day that we met. At first the one embarrassed me a little by his apparent cold aloofness. But his caustic observations on the war soon made it clear that he had stood the test. I realized, from the hatred that lay behind them, that he had suffered as much as many a soldier in the trenches.

Then the other said to me:

"This is a thing I have never told anyone yet, but I will tell it to you now. There are times when I almost wish I could see German troops marching victoriously through the streets of London. It is not my reason that is speaking now, but my bitterness, which has become stronger than my reason."

I understood him far too well to make any comment.

And then after a long silence, I said: "I wonder if anybody else thinks like that."

And he answered: "Yes, there are many--more than you would believe."