‘I must get away . . . I cannot bear these people . . .’
It was beginning to rain now. I turned down a side street, away
from the crowd and the noise. The rain beat against my face,
cold, steady October rain. I thought of the open country, in
France, as I had seen it in pictures. Shell holes half full of
water, distorted piles of wire, stunted remnants of trees . . .
and the cold rain beating down. . . .
I walked on, faster and faster; I was almost running now. I knocked
into some one . . . a policeman . . . I begged his pardon and
hurried on. I felt that I must get away, by myself, alone, and
the longing for this, superseded everything else. But there was
nowhere to go . . . only houses, and streets, and people . . .
and at home, there was no room where I could be alone.
I began to be out of breath. I stood still. My skirt was all
wet now, it clung about my knees. I leaned with my hand against
a lamp post. There was a seat beside it, and I sat down. I bent
down in the shadow, and covered my eyes; and still I could not
think. The rain beat down on the nape of my neck. It trickled
down my back under the collar of my coat . . . and then, I was
calling Hugo. . . . I called to him through the rain and the
darkness, across the expanse of sea and land. . . . I stretched
out my hands to him, and called again, and I felt that he must
hear me, if he was anywhere. Was he somewhere lying alone, deserted,
and wounded? I pressed my hands against my eyes, trying to see
in the dark, to force myself to see, to hear his voice, answering
me through the emptiness of the night. But I saw and heard nothing.
Only whirligigs of light, as my fingers pressed against my eyeballs,
and the splashing sound of rain on the pavement and in the puddles,
and it was very cold.
I got up again from the seat, and turned to go home. I had come
much farther than I knew, and it took a long time to find the
way.
When I got home, Walter opened the door. There was light behind
him in the hall, and I saw him black against the light.
He said:
‘Where in the world have you been? I waited an hour for dinner!’
The rain dripped off from my clothes, in a pool, on the step
where I stood. I saw it dark, like a blot, growing bigger, in
the light from the door.