Allied might, dark Indians, adventurers, even Germans, surrounded the
catafalque in the gloom. G.J. sympathised with the man in the coffin,
the simple little man whose non-political mission had in spite of
him grown political. He regretted horribly that once he, G.J., who
protested that he belonged to no party, had said of the dead man:
"Roberts! Well-meaning of course, but senile!" ... Yet a trifle! What
did it matter? And how he loathed to think that the name of the dead
man was now befouled by the calculating and impure praise of schemers.
Another trifle!

As the service proceeded G.J. was overwhelmed and lost in the grandeur
and terror of existence. There he sat, grizzled, dignified, with the
great world, looking as though he belonged to the great world; and
he felt like a boy, like a child, like a helpless infant before the
enormities of destiny. He wanted help, because of his futility. He
could do nothing, or so little. It was as if he had been training
himself for twenty years in order to be futile at a crisis requiring
crude action. And he could not undo twenty years. The war loomed about
him, co-extensive with existence itself. He thought of the sergeant
who, as recounted that morning in the papers, had led a victorious
storming party, been decorated--and died of wounds. And similar deeds
were being done at that moment. And the simple little man in the
coffin was being tilted downwards from the catafalque into the grave
close by. G.J. wanted surcease, were it but for an hour. He longed
acutely, unbearably, to be for an hour with Christine in her warm,
stuffy, exciting, languorous, enervating room hermetically sealed
against the war. Then he remembered the tones of her voice as she had
told her Belgian adventures.... Was it love? Was it tenderness? Was
it sensuality? The difference was indiscernible; it had no importance.
Against the stark background of infinite existence all human beings