Hugo was waiting for me on the platform. We made our way through
the hurrying crowds of people, and out of the station, hardly
speaking a word.
It was a grey day, a heavy overcast sky threatened rain. We crossed
Trafalgar Square, to the Admiralty Arch; then we went through
it, and turned to the left, across the open space of the Horse
Guards Parade. We walked along where the water used to be, by
the War Trades Intelligence Department, those strange piles of
Government buildings that usurped the bright coolness of the
water. In one small remaining corner the pelicans still lived,
crowding with ruffled feathers on their little clumps of rock.
We walked along to the end, to Buckingham Palace, then we turned
back, to the right, along the Mall.
I felt a new excitement and delight at Hugo’s presence; at being
with him again after so many years, and so many changes. The
sympathy and understanding that had been so much a part of our
relation before seemed there as strong as ever, now we were together
again. We spoke very little; there seemed no need for speech.
From time to time we looked at each other and, as our eyes met,
a sense of assurance and security seemed to pass from one to
the other.
It seemed to me as we walked as though we two were alone in a
world of desolation and ruin. I felt my thoughts and my emotions
of the last three years rising up, formulating themselves, seeking
expression. I was possessed by a sense of experience, of our
separate experiences, to be shared now, to be unified, and made
whole.
We crossed Piccadilly and turned into Bond Street.
Hugo had chosen an exhibition of Raemakers’ cartoons as the pictures
we were to see. We took our tickets at the door, gave up our
umbrellas, and were inside.
We walked round the two small rooms for a long time. Hugo looked
at the pictures, dumbly, intensely, and I watched Hugo.
We stopped before a picture of a wood in autumn; the leaves falling
from the trees, and a dead soldier, a German, lying on the ground.
‘When the leaves fall, you shall have peace.’
The words from a speech of the Kaiser’s were below it. I felt
a cold grip at my heart, at my throat, and the picture swam before
me . . .
‘When the leaves fall, you shall have peace.’ The words echoed
through my brain, emptily, metallically. I saw the dead soldier,
huddled, hunched up in the wet ditch, and the leaves falling
over him, and I felt suddenly that I must cry out, scream, that
it was more than could be borne.
I turned to Hugo: his eyes were fixed on the picture, and again
I saw that haunted, terrified expression that had struck me when
I saw him first, but it was more now. I felt suddenly, that my
own emotion was somehow a reflection of his emotion, that my
own despair was an echo of his despair.
‘You shall have peace . . . You shall have peace . . .’
I felt at that moment that I was seeing with his eyes and feeling
with his mind. I was fascinated, horrified, paralysed; then I
broke the spell:
‘No, Hugo,’ I said, and my voice sounded rough and unnatural
to myself, ‘come away, come away quickly!’
I seized hold of his arm and pulled him after me, through the
swinging glass doors, and down the steps.
Outside, the rain had begun to fall, a thin, drizzling rain . . .
we paused here and drew breath: I felt as though I had woken
up from a very ghastly dream.