nd
suicide stares you in the face. And things worse than suicide, that
suicide of self-respect which turns men to drugs and inflammatory vices
and the utmost outrageous defiance of the dreaming noble self that has
been so despitefully used. Into these same inky pools I have dipped my
feet, where other men have drowned. I understand why they drown. And my
taste of misdeed and resentment has given me just an inkling of what men
must feel who go to prison. I know what it is to quarrel with a world.

Sec. 3

My first plan when I went abroad was to change my Harbury French, which
was poor stuff and pedantic, into a more colloquial article, and then go
into Germany to do the same thing with my German, and then perhaps to
remain in Germany studying German social conditions--and the quality of
the German army. It seemed to me that when the term of my exile was over
I might return to England and re-enter the army. But all these were very
anaemic plans conceived by a tired mind, and I set about carrying them
out in a mood of slack lassitude. I got to Paris, and in Paris I threw
them all overboard and went to Switzerland.

I remember very clearly how I reached Paris. I arrived about sunset--I
suppose at St. Lazare or the Gare du Nord--sent my luggage to the little
hotel in the Rue d'Antin where I had taken rooms, and dreading their
loneliness decided to go direct to a restaurant and dine. I remember
walking out into the streets just as shops and windows and street lamps
were beginning to light up, and strolling circuitously through the clear
bright stir of the Parisian streets to find a dinner at the Cafe de la
Paix. Some day you will know that peculiar sharp definite excitement of
Paris. All cities are exciting, and each I think in a different way. And
as I walked down along some boulevard towards the centre of things I saw
a woman coming along a side street towards me, a woman with something in
her body and something in her carriage that reminded me acutely of Mary.
Her face was downcast, and then as we converged she looked up at me, not
with the meretricious smile of her class but with a steadfast, friendly
look. Her face seemed to me sane and strong. I passed and hesitated. An
extraordinary impulse took me. I turned back. I followed this woman
across the road and a little way along the opposite pavement. I remember
I did that, but I do not remember clearly what was in my mind at the
time; I think it was a vague rush toward