ought off the realization of what he had done. He had prevented his
mind from taking it in, had suppressed, it along with his instincts,
and the conscious man had nothing to do with it. He felt only as after a
bout of intoxication, weak, but the affair itself all dim and not to
be recovered. Of the drunkenness of his passion he successfully refused
remembrance. And when his orderly appeared with coffee, the officer
assumed the same self he had had the morning before. He refused the
event of the past night--denied it had ever been--and was successful
in his denial. He had not done any such thing--not he himself. Whatever
there might be lay at the door of a stupid, insubordinate servant.

The orderly had gone about in a stupor all the evening. He drank some
beer because he was parched, but not much, the alcohol made his feeling
come back, and he could not bear it. He was dulled, as if nine-tenths of
the ordinary man in him were inert. He crawled about disfigured. Still,
when he thought of the kicks, he went sick, and when he thought of the
threat of more kicking, in the room afterwards, his heart went hot and
faint, and he panted, remembering the one that had come. He had been
forced to say, "For my girl." He was much too done even to want to
cry. His mouth hung slightly open, like an idiot's. He felt vacant,
and wasted. So, he wandered at his work, painfully, and very slowly and
clumsily, fumbling blindly with the brushes, and finding it difficult,
when he sat down, to summon the energy to move again. His limbs, his
jaw, were slack and nerveless. But he was very tired. He got to bed at
last, and slept inert, relaxed, in a sleep that was rather stupor
than slumber, a dead night of stupefaction shot through with gleams of
anguish.

In the morning were the manoeuvres. But he woke even before the bugle
sounded. The painful ache in his chest, the dryness of his throat, the
awful steady feeling of misery made his eyes come awake and dreary at
once. He knew, without thinking, what had happened. And he knew that the
day had come again, when he must go on with his round. The last bit of
darkness was being pushed out of the room. He would have to move his
inert body and go on. He was so young, and had known so little trouble,
that he was bewildered. He only wished it would stay night, so that
he could lie still, covered up by the darkness. And yet nothing would
prevent the day from coming, nothing would save him from having to get