One day late in February I found myself in Vevey. I had come down with the break-up of the weather from Montana, where I had met some
men I knew and had learned to ski. I had made a few of those vague acquaintances one makes in a winter-sport hotel, but now all these people were going back to England and I was thrown back upon myself once more. I was dull and angry and unhappy still, full of self-reproaches and
indignations, and then very much as the sky will sometimes break surprisingly through storm clouds there began in me a new series of moods. They came to me by surprise. One clear bright afternoon I sat upon the wall that runs along under the limes by the lake shore, envying all these people who were going back to England and work and usefulness. I thought of myself, of my career spoilt, my honor
, my character tested and found wanting. So far as English politics went my
had closed for ever. Even after three years it was improbable that I should be considered by the party managers again. And besides, it seemed to me I was a man crippled. My other self, the mate and
of my mind, had gone from me. I was no more than a mutilated man. My life was a thing
; I had joined the ranks of loafing, morally-limping, English exiles.
I looked up. The sun was setting, a warm glow fell upon the dissolving mountains of Savoy and upon the shining mirror of the lake. The
,
breadth of it caught me and held me. "I am done for." The light upon the lake and upon the mountains, the downward
of a bird over the water and something in my heart, gave me the lie.
"What nonsense!" I said, and felt as if some dark cloud that had overshadowed me had been thrust back.
I stared across at Savoy as though that land had spoken. Why should I let all my life be ruled by the blunders and adventures of one short year of adventure? Why should I become the
of a train of consequences? What had I been dreaming of all this time? Over there were gigantic uplands I had never seen and trodden; and beyond were great plains and cities, and beyond that the sea, and so on, great spaces and multitudinous things all round about the world. What did the things I had done, the things I had failed to do, the hopes crushed out of me, the tears and the anger, matter to that? And in some amazing way this thought so took possession of me that the question seemed also to carry with it the still more startling
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