We walked along to the end, to Buckingham Palace, then we turned back, to the right, along the Mall.
I felt a new excitement and delight at Hugo’s presence; at being with him again after so many years, and so many changes. The sympathy and understanding that had been so much a part of our relation before seemed there as strong as ever, now we were together again. We spoke very little; there seemed no need for speech. From time to time we looked at each other and, as our eyes met, a sense of assurance and security seemed to pass from one to the other.
It seemed to me as we walked as though we two were alone in a world of desolation and ruin. I felt my thoughts and my emotions of the last three years rising up, formulating themselves, seeking expression. I was possessed by a sense of experience, of our separate experiences, to be shared now, to be unified, and made whole.
We crossed Piccadilly and turned into Bond Street.
Hugo had chosen an exhibition of Raemakers’ cartoons as the pictures we were to see. We took our tickets at the door, gave up our umbrellas, and were inside.
We walked round the two small rooms for a long time. Hugo looked at the pictures, dumbly, intensely, and I watched Hugo.
We stopped before a picture of a wood in autumn; the leaves falling from the trees, and a dead soldier, a German, lying on the ground.
‘When the leaves fall, you shall have peace.’
The words from a speech of the Kaiser’s were below it. I felt a cold grip at my heart, at my throat, and the picture swam before me . . .
‘When the leaves fall, you shall have peace.’ The words echoed through my brain, emptily, metallically. I saw the dead soldier, huddled, hunched up in the wet ditch, and the leaves falling over him, and I felt suddenly that I must cry out, scream, that it was more than could be borne.