It is so funny now, to remember that we all thought we were welcoming victory.
We marched, and only a dishonest fool will look back on his boyhood and say he knew even then that there was no meaning in any of it. We had gone on marches of victory and I do not think there was anyone mean enough in spirit to ask whether we knew what we were celebrating. I saw it, not very clearly, because I had no way of understanding it, but it frightened me. When the war was over the soldiers came back to homes broken in their absence and they themselves brought murder in their hearts and gave it to those nearest them. Strange, because when I can think soberly about it all, with out pushing any later joys into the deepr past, I can remember that things were terrible then. Old harsh distresses are now merely pictures and tastes which hurt no more, like itching scars which can only give pleasure now.
It is so surprising, is it not, how even the worst happenings of the past acquire a sweetness in the memory. I will not be entranced, since I have seen the destruction of the promises it made. I will not be entranced by the voice, even if it should swell as it did in the days of hope. Maybe there are other lonely voices despairing now. I have heard this pain before, only then it was multiplied many, many times, but that may only be because at that time I was not so alone, so far apart. And even in the decline into the end there are things that remind the longing mind of old beginnings and hold out the promise of new ones, things even like your despair itself. “And where is my solid ground these days? Let us say just that the cycle from birth to decay has been short.
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