I gave up the attempt. I would wait until I got home. Then I would talk and forget myself--only by forgetting myself would I enjoy the present. Only those who forget themselves are happy. The obsession of self is the most oppressive of all burdens.
I descended from a 'bus and took a train. A girl sitting opposite me stared at my blue chevrons and whispered to her fellow passenger: "He's just come from the front." So I too was regarded as a strange kind of animal. I got out at my home-station. I showed my leave-warrant to the ticket collector. He was a benevolent looking old man. He smiled and wished me good luck. Things began to seem a little less foreign. And then the thought of being home in a few minutes absorbed me entirely.
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 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.