e after,
but I must cautionize you that you're anielating everybody. We must
put ourselves in these people's places. Apropos of this, and apropos
of that, you make proposals of a tendicious character which doesn't
escape them. You aren't like the rest any more. If you go on you'll
look as silly as a giant, and if you're going to frighten folks, look
out for yourself!"

He plants himself before me in massive conviction. The full daylight
reveals more crudely the aging of his features. His skin is stretched
on the bones of his head, and the muscles of his neck and shoulders
work badly; they stick, like old drawers.

"And then, after all, what _do_ you want? We've got to carry the war
on, eh? We must give the Boches hell, to sum up."

With an effort, wearied beforehand, I ask, "And afterwards?"

"What--afterwards? Afterwards there'll be wars, naturally, but
civilized wars. Afterwards? Why, future posterity! Own up that you'd
like to save the world, eh, what? When you launch out into these great
machinations you say enormities compulsively. The future? Ha, ha!"

I turn away from him. Of what use to try to tell him that the past is
dead, that the present is passing, that the future alone is positive!

Through Crillon's paternal admonishment I feel the threat of the
others. It is not yet hostility around me; but it is already a
rupture. With this truth that clings to me alone, amid the world and
its phantoms, am I not indeed rushing into a sort of tragedy impossible
to maintain? They who surround me, filled to the lips, filled to the
eyes, with the gross acceptance which turns men into beasts, they look
at me mistrustfully, ready to be let loose against me. Little more was
lacking before I should be as much a reprobate as Brisbille, who, in
this very place, before the war, stood up alone before the multitude
and tried to tell them to their faces that they were going into the
gulf.

* * * * * *

I move away with Marie. We go down into the valley, and then climb
Chestnut Hill. I like these places where I used so often to come in
the days when everything around me was a hell which I did not see. Now
that I am a ghost returning from the beyond, this hill still draws me
through the streets and lanes. I remember it and it remembers me.
There is something which we share, which I took away with me yonder,
everywhere, like a secret. I hear that despoiled soldier who