I hurried down the street.  I knocked at the door, and it opened.  The long yearned-for meeting took place at last.

I threw my pack, equipment and steel helmet contemptuously into a corner.  I took an infantile delight in clean, furnished rooms, in the white table-cloth, the shining silver, the cut flowers, and the oil-paintings on the wall.  And we talked until late into the night.

It was good to wake up the next morning and to know that the first day of my leave was still before me.  I felt encouraged to face my new surroundings boldly.  I would understand them and identify myself with them.  If the sensation that I was dreaming came upon me again, I would welcome it and then I would destroy it once and for all.  I would enjoy my leave at any cost.  It would become my only reality, and when it was over it would be a reality which I would take back to the front.  I would hoard it and always think of it out there, so that the war would seem like a dream, the end of which I could await with patience and resignation.

I went out to seek friends and acquaintances.  I also hoped to meet some war enthusiasts.  I would tell them something about the war.  How would their theories be able to stand before my actual experiences!

I was soon disillusioned.

I dined with a wealthy kinsman.  The slaughter of millions had brought him prosperity.  He had never done any fighting except with his mouth, but it is precisely that kind of fighting that infuriates the spirit, engenders heroic ardour, and causes the nostrils to dilate.  He was so bellicose that he even desired to do some real righting, not understanding the difference between the two.  He thought of joining an infantry unit—­the artillery were not good enough, he did not want to fire at an enemy he could not see, he wanted to use the bayonet and murder his fellow men in hand-to-hand encounters.

I began to understand why many men I had met were glad to come back from leave.

I tried to dissuade him, although I felt it would do him good to see something of the war and he would learn a much-needed lesson.  And yet I did not want him killed or horribly mutilated, although I knew that he and those like him were alone responsible for the entire war, both at its origins and its continuance.

But he would not be persuaded.  He said he was dying to go out and see the fun.

At the word “fun” I felt a sudden and violent contraction of all my muscles.  I had an almost irresistible impulse to stand up and strike him across the face.  But I was in a public restaurant and I controlled myself.  He did not seem to notice anything.

The conversation drifted away from the war and became commonplace.  I tried to relate a few of my experiences, but somehow or other they seemed unsuited to the occasion.

I had set out with the intention of destroying a mouldering, tottering edifice built up of illusions and ignorant prejudices, and I found myself face to face with towering, strong, unshakable walls, strong and unshakable precisely because it was built of illusions, lies, and prejudices.