Absolute mental confusion must have come by such gradual transitions that I have no memory of the stages of the change. I do recall that at a certain time and place I came to an understanding with myself that Billy Harrowby had been blown to bits by a shell near Bourg-la-Comtesse, and that I, who wore his uniform and carried his letter of credit in my pocket, was no more than his astral shape stalking through a world from which he had departed. To get rid of this astral shape, to get rid of everything that pertained to the man who had passed through horrors that would turn all future living into nightmare, began to seem to me a necessary task. Only by doing this could Billy Harrowby's ghost be laid, and the phantasms that walked with it dispelled. By the time I reached Tours the hallucination had assumed the form of a consecrated duty, and to it I applied myself as to some holy ceremonial rite.
In narrating this to Wolf some of the old vividness came back to me. I saw myself again inspecting all the environs of Tours—Plessis-lès-Tours, Marmoutiers, Laroche-sur-Loire, and as far away as the junction at St.-Pierre—for suitable spots in which to lay Billy Harrowby down and become my real self. In the end I selected a small stream, the Padrille I think it is called, which flows into the Loire a mile or two beyond Plessis. There is a spot there where the stream flows through a wood, and there is a spot on the stream's bank where wood is denser than it is elsewhere.
Having selected this as the scene of Billy Harrowby's exit, the rest of my plans became easy. For two or three days I busied myself with discreetly purchasing a new outfit. I remember that it was a point of honor with me not to be too spendthrift with Billy Harrowby's cash, seeing that for the man who was to survive, anything, however modest, would be enough. Further than separating myself from the unhappy ambulance-driver who had seen such dreadful things since arriving in France I had no ambitions.
The purchases made, it was a simple matter to carry them to the bank of the Padrille and change completely. A soldier entered on one side of the Bois de Guènes, a civilian came out on the other. Neither soldier nor civilian was of interest to a people rejoicing in the news that the French had captured that morning the whole line of the Dent de la Ponselle.
From the Bois de Guènes I walked to the junction with the main line at St.-Pierre, and there the trail of my memories is lost. I have no recollection of taking the name of Jasper Soames, though I can see easily enough why I should have done it. When it became necessary to call myself something I seized the first bit of wreckage from the past that my mind could catch hold of. The name was there as a name, even when all its associations had disappeared beneath the waves that had swept over me.
Of the interval between taking the train at St.-Pierre, probably to go southward toward Bordeaux, and my waking on board the Auvergne I have as yet only such fragments of memory as one retains of dreams. Even that which stands out is shadowy, uncertain, evanescent. It is without context. No one fragment is substantial enough for me to be sure of it as pertaining to a fact.
Facts began for me anew at the instant when I opened my eyes in the cabin and saw Drinkwater shaving.
"Funny, isn't it?"
Wolf did not make this observation till some minutes after I had ceased. During the interval of silence, as during the half-hour of my narrative, his grin played on me like a searchlight. As I have already said, I didn't resent this because of knowing his smile to be a kind of nervous rictus of the lips which he was no longer able to control; and yet the silly comment nettled me.
"What's funny about it?" I asked, coldly.