"
"And then?"
"Ah," he said, smiling, "you ask me too much, Mr. Durward. We are
speaking of our own generation."
The curtain was up again and I was back in my other world. I cannot tell
you anything of the rest of the play--I remember nothing. Only I know
that I was actually living over again those awful days in the
forest--the heat, the flies, the smells, the glassy sheen of the trees,
the perpetual rumble of the guns, the desolate whine of the shells--and
then Marie's death, Trenchard's sorrow, Trenchard's death, that last
view of Semyonov... and I felt that I was being made to remember it all
for a purpose, as though my old friend, rich now with his wiser
knowledge, was whispering to me, "All life is bound up. You cannot leave
anything behind you; the past, the present, the future are one. You had
pushed us away from you, but we are with you always for ever. I am your
friend for ever, and Marie is your friend, and now, once more, you have
to take your part in a battle, and we have come to you to share it with
you. Do not be confused by history or public events or class struggle or
any big names; it is the individual and the soul of the individual alone
that matters.
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