Many scenes from my Polchester days that I had long forgotten came back to me. I was indeed startled by the clearness with which I saw that earlier figure—the very awkward, careless, ugly boy, listening lazily to other people's plans, taking shelter from life under a vague love of beauty and an idle imagination; the man, awkward and ugly, sensitive because of his own self-consciousness, wasting his hours through his own self-contempt which paralysed all effort, still trusting to his idle love of beauty to pull him through to some superior standard, complaining of life, but never trying to get the better of it; then the man who came to Russia at the beginning of the war, still self-centred, always given up to timid self-analysis, but responding now a little to the new scenes, the new temperament, the new chances. Then this man, feeling that at last he was rid of all the tiresome encumbrances of the earlier years, lets himself go, falls in love, worships, dreams for a few days a wonderful dream—then for the first time in his life, begins to fight.
I saw all the steps so clearly and I saw every little thought, every little action, every little opportunity missed or taken, accumulating until the moment of climax four hours before. I seemed to have brought Polchester on my back to the war, and I could see quite clearly how each of us—Marie, Semyonov, Nikitin, Durward, every one of us—had brought their private histories and scenes with them. War is made up, I believe, not of shells and bullets, not of German defeats and victories, Russian triumphs or surrenders, English and French battles by sea and land, not of smoke and wounds and blood, but of a million million past thoughts, past scenes, streets of little country towns, lonely hills, dark sheltered valleys, the wide space of the sea, the crowded traffic of New York, London, Berlin, yes, and of smaller things than that, of little quarrels, of dances at Christmas time, of walks at night, of dressing for dinner, of waking in the morning, of meeting old friends, of sicknesses, theatres, church services, prostitutes, slums, cricket-matches, children, rides on a tram, baths on a hot morning, sudden unpleasant truth from a friend, momentary consciousness of God....
Death too.... How clear now it was to me! During these weeks I had wondered, pursued the thought of Death. Was it this? Was it that? Was it pain? Was it terror? I had feared it, as for instance when I had seen the dead bodies in the Forest, or stood under the rain at Nijnieff. I had laughed at it as when I had gone with the sanitars. I had cursed it as when Marie Ivanovna had died. I had sought it as I had done last night—and always, as I drew closer and closer to it, fancied it some fine allegorical figure, something terrible, appalling, devastating.... How, when I was, as I believed, at last face to face with it, I saw that one was simply face to face with oneself.
Four hours I have been writing, and no sign of the wagons.... I am writing everything down as I remember it, because these things are so clear to me now and yet I know that afterwards they will be changed, twisted.
I was drowsy. I saw Polchester High Street, Garth in Roselands, Clinton, Truxe, best of all Rafiel. I went down the high white hill, deep into the valley, then along the road beside the stream where the houses begin, the hideous Wesleyan Chapel on my right, "Ebenezer Villa" on my left, then the cottages with the gardens, then the little street, the post-office, the butcher's, the turn of the road and, suddenly, the bay with the fishing boats riding at anchor and beyond the sea.... England and Russia! to their strong and confident union I thought that I would give every drop of my blood, every beat of my heart, and as I lay there I seemed to see on one side the deep green lanes at Rafiel and on the other the shining canals, the little wooden houses, the cobbler and the tufted trees of Petrograd, the sea coast beyond Truxe and the wide snow-covered plains beyond Moscow, the cathedral at Polchester and the Kremlin, breeding their children, to the hundredth generation, for the same hopes, the same beliefs, the same desires.
I slept in the sun and had happy dreams.
I have re-read these last pages and I find some very fine stuff about—"giving every drop of blood," etc., etc. Of course I am not that kind of man. Men, like Durward and myself—he resembles me in many ways, although he is stronger than I am, and doesn't care what people think of him—are too analytical and self-critical to give much of their blood to anybody or to make their blood of very much value if they did.
I only meant that I would do my best.
Later in the morning the firing began again pretty close. Andrey Vassilievitch came to me and wanted to talk to me. I was rather short with him because I was busy. He wanted to tell me that he hoped I hadn't misunderstood his quarrel with Nikitin last night. It had been nothing at all. His nerves had been rather out of order. He was very much better to-day, felt quite another man. He looked another man and I said so. He said that I did.... Strange, but I felt as I looked at him that he was sickening for some bad illness. One feels that sometimes about people without being able to name a cause.
I have an affection for the little man—but he's an awful fool. Well, so am I. But fools never respect fools.... Strange to see Semyonov. I had expected him for some reason to be different to-day. Just the same, of course, very sarcastic to me. I had a hole in one of my pockets and was always forgetting and putting money and things into it. This seemed to annoy him. But to-day nothing matters. Even the flies do not worry me. All the morning Marie has seemed so close to me. I have a strange excitement, the feeling that one has when one is in a train that approaches the place where some one whom one loves is waiting.... I feel exactly as though I were going on a journey....