I could put a name to every set of rooms, flash an incident to
every door and window. In my heavy, apathetic mood the memory of my
life there seemed like a memory of some one else, moving in golden
light, talking and laughing in firelit rooms, lingering in moonlit
nights by the bridge, wondering what life was going to bring. It
seemed like turning the pages of some old illuminated book with
bright pictures, where the very sunlight is the purest and stiffest
gold. The men I knew, the friends I lived with, admired, loved--
where are they? scattered to all parts of the earth, parted utterly
from me, some of them dead, alas! and silent. It came over me with
a thrill of sharpest pain to think how I had pictured Alec here,
living the same free and beautiful life, tasting the same innocent
pleasures, with the bright, sweet world opening upon him. In that
calm, sunny afternoon, life seemed a strange phantasmal business,
and I myself a revenant from some thin, unsubstantial world. A door
opened, and an old Don, well known to me in those days, hardly
altered, it seemed, came out and trotted across the court, looking
suspiciously to left and right as he used to do. Had he been doing
the same thing ever since, reading the same books, talking the same
innocent gossip? I had not the heart to greet him, and he passed me
by unrecognising.
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