"No one living, you know, knew what war was; no one could imagine,
with all these new inventions, what horror war might bring. I believe
most people still believed it would be a matter of bright uniforms
and shouting charges and triumphs and flags and bands--in a time when
half the world drew its food supply from regions ten thousand miles
away--."
The man with the white face paused. I glanced at him, and his face
was intent on the floor of the carriage. A little railway station,
a string of loaded trucks, a signal-box, and the back of a cottage,
shot by the carriage window, and a bridge passed with a clap
of noise, echoing the tumult of the train.
"After that," he said, "I dreamt often. For three weeks of nights
that dream was my life. And the worst of it was there were nights
when I could not dream, when I lay tossing on a bed in THIS
accursed life; and THERE--somewhere lost to me--things were
happening--momentous, terrible things. . . . I lived at nights--my days,
my waking days, this life I am living now, became a faded, far-away
dream, a drab setting, the cover of the book."
He thought.
"I could tell you all, tell you every little thing in the dream,
but as to what I did in the daytime--no.
Pages:
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340