Once in England again, the delight of an exile returning to his home provided new sensations. The porters were deferentially solicitous for his comfort; the Customs officers behaved with innate politeness, and the little squat train, with its separate compartments, brought a glow of happiness to him. He saw England as a stranger might see it for the first time: he observed the discipline and order of the railway station that came not from oppression but from high organization and planning. There were no mistakes made; the boy brought his tea-basket and did not overcharge him; the porter accepted sixpence and touched his hat, not obsequiously, but in acknowledgment, without a suggestion of haggling for more. It seemed incredible that he should find this perfection, where a year ago he could not see it....
There were Frenchmen in the carriage, and he sat with the conscious pride of an Englishman in his own country. The train moved out, giving a glimpse of the harbour and the sea breaking in white lines over the sloping beach; and then through a tunnel that emerged on fields. The first thing he noticed was the vivid green of the country, and the way it was cut up and divided into squares and oblongs: the small clumps of low-set trees, the fat cattle, and the peace brooding over the land. And then he noticed the little houses, low-storied and thatched, with a feather of blue smoke waving from their chimneys. The whole journey was a series of new impressions that elated him. Stations flashed and left behind a blurred memory of advertisements, and names that breathed of yeoman England: Ashford—Paddock Wood—Sevenoaks—Knockholt; and then the advertisement-boards stood out of the green fields, blatantly insisting on lung tonics and pills, marking off mile after mile that brought him nearer to London. The houses closed in on the railway line; the train ran now through larger stations of red brick, passing the peopled platforms with an echoing roar; other crowded trains passed them, going slowly to the suburbs they had left behind. A new note seemed to come into the journey as the evening descended, and the world outside was populous with lights.
The memory of the clean, sweet country, with its toy houses, was wiped away by a swift blot of darkness as the train flashed through New Cross, and out into the broad network of rails with which London begins.
He saw the factories and the sidings and the busy traffic of trains overtaking one another, running parallel for a space, and then swaying apart as one branched off to the south-eastern suburbs. He saw the smoke hanging in thick clouds on the far horizon; masts and rigging made spidery silhouettes against the sky; and the tall, factory chimneys thrust out their monstrous tongues of livid fire.
The city was before him right and left, overgrown and tremendous. They ran level with crooked chimney-pots and the scarred roofs of endless rows of houses. The upper windows were yellow with light, and he caught glimpses of women before mirrors and men in their shirt-sleeves. Dark masses of clouds rolled before the moon. Something wet splashed on his cheek.
A silent Englishman sitting next to him, said moodily: "Raining as usual. I've never once come home without it raining." He laughed as though it were a bitter joke.
Fantastic reflections wriggled on the wet, shining approach to London Bridge—a swift vision of bus-drivers, with oilcloth capes glinting in the rain, hurrying crowds, and something altogether new—a motor-omnibus.
Then the train, with a dignified, steady movement, swung slowly across Hungerford Bridge, and he saw the strong, resolute river, black and broad, flowing to the bridges, within the jewelled girdle of the Embankment.
The sense of England's greatness came to him, as the landmarks of London were set in a semicircle before him: the tall dome of St Paul's, the spires of churches, the turrets of great hotels, grey Government offices, culminating in the vague majesty of the Houses of Parliament.
How different the streets were from Paris! There was a force and an energy that seemed to be driving everything perpetually forward. This business of getting to dinner—it was about half-past seven—was a terribly earnest and crowded affair. The throng of motor-cars and omnibuses jammed and flocked together in the Strand, held in leash by a policeman's uplifted hand, and when it was released, it crawled sluggishly forward. Here and there, rare sight for Humphrey, one of the new motor-omnibuses lumbered forward heavily, threatening instant annihilation of everything. There was no chatter of voices in the crowd—no gesticulation—the people walked silently and hurriedly with a set concentration of purpose.