In this story of my bitter, restricted youth that I have been telling you, I have sought constantly to convey the narrowness, the intensity, the confusion, muddle, and dusty heat of the old world.  It was quite clear to me, within an hour of my awakening, that all that was, in some mysterious way, over and done.  That, too, was the common experience.  Men stood up; they took the new air into their lungs—­a deep long breath, and the past fell from them; they could forgive, they could disregard, they could attempt. . . .  And it was no new thing, no miracle that sets aside the former order of the world.  It was a change in material conditions, a change in the atmosphere, that at one bound had released them.  Some of them it had released to death. . . .  Indeed, man himself had changed not at all.  We knew before the Change, the meanest knew, by glowing moments in ourselves and others, by histories and music and beautiful things, by heroic instances and splendid stories, how fine mankind could be, how fine almost any human being could upon occasion be; but the poison in the air, its poverty in all the nobler elements which made such moments rare and remarkable—­all that has changed.  The air was changed, and the Spirit of Man that had drowsed and slumbered and dreamt dull and evil things, awakened, and stood with wonder-clean eyes, refreshed, looking again on life.

Section 4

The miracle of the awakening came to me in solitude, the laughter, and then the tears.  Only after some time did I come upon another man.  Until I heard his voice calling I did not seem to feel there were any other people in the world.  All that seemed past, with all the stresses that were past.  I had come out of the individual pit in which my shy egotism had lurked, I had overflowed to all humanity, I had seemed to be all humanity; I had laughed at Swindells as I could have laughed at myself, and this shout that came to me seemed like the coming of an unexpected thought in my own mind.  But when it was repeated I answered.

“I am hurt,” said the voice, and I descended into the lane forthwith, and so came upon Melmount sitting near the ditch with his back to me.

Some of the incidental sensory impressions of that morning bit so deeply into my mind that I verily believe, when at last I face the greater mysteries that lie beyond this life, when the things of this life fade from me as the mists of the morning fade before the sun, these irrelevant petty details will be the last to leave me, will be the last wisps visible of that attenuating veil.  I believe, for instance, I could match the fur upon the collar of his great motoring coat now, could paint the dull red tinge of his big cheek with his fair eyelashes just catching the light and showing beyond.  His hat was off, his dome-shaped head, with its smooth hair between red and extreme fairness, was bent forward in scrutiny of his twisted foot.  His back seemed enormous.  And there was something about the mere massive sight of him that filled me with liking.