THE THEATRE OF WAR


It is a far cry to Zermatt at the best of times, and that is not the
middle of August. The annual rush was at its height, the trains crowded,
the heat of them overpowering. I chose to sit up all night in my corner
of an ordinary compartment, as a lesser evil than the _wagon-lit_ in
which you cannot sit up at all. In the morning one was in Switzerland,
with a black collar, a rusty chin, and a countenance in keeping with its
appointments. It was not as though the night had been beguiled for me by
such considerations as are only proper to the devout pilgrim in his
lady's service.

On the contrary, and to tell the honest truth, I found it quite
impossible to sustain such a serious view of the very special service to
which I was foresworn: the more I thought of it, in one sense, the less
in another, until my only chance was to go forward with grim humour in
the spirit of impersonal curiosity which that attitude induces. In a
word, and the cant one which yet happens to express my state of mind to
a nicety, I had already "weakened" on the whole business which I had
been in such a foolish hurry to undertake, though not for one
reactionary moment upon her for whom I had undertaken it. I was still
entirely eager to "do her behest in pleasure or in pain"; but this
particular enterprise I was beginning to view apart from its
inspiration, on its intrinsic demerits, and the more clearly I saw it in
its own light, the less pleasure did the prospect afford me.

A young giant, whom I had not seen since his childhood, was merely
understood to be carrying on a conspicuous, but in all probability the