4
She leant forward and I saw glittering under the electric lamp the little silver chain which she wore round her neck on the day when I saw her first, in the Normandy cornfields, standing amid the tall golden sheaves; and, as I recalled that first impression, the difference between then and now came like a blinding flash. In the cool morning breeze, the sickles advance with the sound and the surge of waves; and the golden expanse bows before the oncoming death. The sky is blue, the village steeple shimmers in the sunlight, a great calm reigns ... and a woman stands there, bending over the ground. What have I done? What have I done? Was not everything better so?