BOOK I

THE CONSCRIPT




CHAPTER I


It was an evening late in November. The fog that during the afternoon
had been lying like a crouching beast between the closely built
houses had now risen. It was as though it had waited till nightfall
for its prey, and then departed, leaving a sense of sulkiness in the
atmosphere that weighed persistently on the spirits. A slight
drizzling rain was wetting the pavements. It clung in a mist to the
glass panes of the street lamps, dimming the glow of the light within.

In the windows of all the houses the electric lights were burning.
You could see clerks, male and female, bent up over their desks
beneath them. Some worked steadily, never looking up from their
occupations; others gazed with expressionless faces out into the
street. Occasionally the figure of a man would move out of the
apparent darkness of the room beyond. The light would fan in patches
on his face. You could see his lips moving as he spoke to the occupant
of the desk; you might even trace the faint animation as it crept
into the face of the person thus addressed. But it would only last
for a few moments. The man would move away and the look of tired apathy
settle itself once more upon the clerk's features as soon as he or