He thought of Réveillaud's criticism, and his sudden startled spurt of admiration: "Mais! Vous l'avez trouvée, la beauté de la ligne droite."
And Réveillaud's question: "Vraiment? Vous n'avez jamais lu un seul vers de mes poèmes? Alors, c'est étonnant." And then: "C'est que la réalité est plus forte que nous."
The revolting irony of it! After stumbling and fumbling for years by himself, like an idiot, trying to get it, the clear hard Reality; trying not to collapse into the soft heap of contemporary rottenness; and, suddenly, to get it without knowing that he had got it, so that, but for Réveillaud, he might easily have died in his ignorance; and then, in the incredible moment of realization, to have to let go, to turn his back on Paris, where he wanted to live, and on Réveillaud whom he wanted to know, and to be packed in a damnable train, like a parcel, and sent off to Germany, a country which he did not even wish to see.
He wondered if he could have done it if he had not loved his father? He wondered if his father would ever understand that it was the hardest thing he had ever yet done or could do?
But the trees would be beautiful. He would rather like seeing the trees.
Trees--
He wondered whether he would ever care about a tree again.
Trees--
He wondered whether he would ever see a tree again, ever smell tree-sap, or hear the wind sounding in the ash-trees like a river and in the firs like a sea.
Trees--