An hour afterwards, his brain dominated by the new idea, he danced his way through the melancholy streets. Here, indeed, was salvation. Here he could live the life of Truth. Here was the glorious chance—although he would never see her on earth again—of justifying himself in Olivia’s eyes. And in itself it was a marvellous adventure. There would be endless days when he should live for the hour that he was alive, without thought of an unconjecturable to-morrow. Into the cause of Poland he would fling his soul. Yes, Boronowski was right. The sovereign remedy. His individual life—what did it matter to him? All the beloved things were past and gone. They lay already on the further side of the Valley of the Shadow of Death. His personality was merged into a self-annihilating creature that would henceforth be the embodiment of a spiritual idea.
Thus for the rest of the day, and during the night, his mind worked. Arrived in Poland, he would press for the fiercest section of the front. The bullet that killed him would be welcome. He would die gloriously. Olivia should know.
As John Briggs, with his papers in order, he found his passport a simple matter. Boronowski, with whom he spent most of his time, obtained a speedy visa at the Polish and other Consulates. During the period of waiting he went carefully through the contents of the suit-case and removed all traces of the name and initials of Alexis Triona. The little black book he burned page by page with matches in the empty grate of his room. When it was consumed, he felt himself rid of an evil thing. In strange East London emporiums, unknown to dwellers in the West End, and discovered by restless wandering, he purchased an elementary kit for the campaign. Much of his time he spent in Boronowski’s quarters in Somers Town, reading propaganda pamphlets and other literature dealing with Polish actualities. When the Polish Army welcomed him with open arms, they must find him thoroughly equipped. He bought a Polish grammar, and compiled with Boronowski a phrase-book so as to be prepared with an elementary knowledge of the language. The Pole marvelled at his fervour.
“You spring at things like an intellectual tiger,” said he, “and then fasten on to them with the teeth of a bulldog.”
“I’m a quick worker when I concentrate,” said Triona.
And for many days he concentrated, sleeping and eating little, till his cheeks grew gaunt and his eyes bright and haggard. In his interminable talks with Boronowski, he concentrated all his faculties, until the patriot would laugh and accuse him of a tigerish spring on the secrets of his soul.
“It’s true,” cried Triona, “it’s the soul of Poland I want to make enter my being. To serve you to any purpose I must see through Polish eyes and feel with a Polish heart, and feel my veins thrill with the spirituality of Poland.”
“Is that possible?”
“You shall see,” answered Triona.
And just as he had fallen under the obsession of the dead Krilov during the night watches in the North Sea, so did he fall under the obsession of this new Great Cause. Something fundamentally histrionic in his temperament flung him into these excesses of impersonation. Already he began to regret his resumption of the plain name of John Briggs. Even in the pre-war Russian days he had seldom been addressed by it. For the first social enquiry in Russia elicited the Christian name of a man’s father. And his father’s name being Peter, he was called by all and sundry Ivan Petrovitch. So that even then, in his fervent zeal to merge himself into the Russian spirit, he had grown to regard the two downright words of his name as meaningless monosyllables. But he strangled the regret fiercely as soon as it arose.