PART ONE DECEMBER 22ND
Stephen pulled up the collar of his coat as he walked briskly along the platform. Overhead a dim
fog clouded the station. Large engines hissed¹ superbly, throwing off clouds of steam into the cold
raw air. Everything was dirty and smoke-grimed.
Stephen thought with revulsion:
“What a foul² country—what a foul city!”
His first excited reaction to London, its shops, its restaurants, its well-dressed, attractive
women, had faded. He saw it now as a glittering rhinestone³ set in a dingy⁴ setting.
Supposing he were back in South Africa now . . . He felt a quick pang⁵ of homesickness.
Sunshine—blue skies—gardens of flowers—cool blue flowers—hedges of plumbago—blue
convolvulus clinging to every little shanty⁶.
And here—dirt, grime, and endless, incessant⁷ crowds—moving, hurrying—jostling. Busy
ants running industriously⁹ about their anthill.
For a moment he thought, “I wish I hadn’t come. . . .”
Then he remembered his purpose and his lips set back in a grim line. No, by hell, he’d go on
with it! He’d planned this for years. He’d always meant to do—what he was going to do. Yes,
he’d go on with it!
That momentary¹⁰ reluctance¹¹, that sudden questioning of himself: “Why? Is it worth it? Why
dwell on the past? Why not wipe out the whole thing?”—all that was only weakness. He was not a

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