CROME YELLOW

By

ALDOUS HUXLEY




CHAPTER I.

Along this particular stretch of line no express had ever passed.
All the trains--the few that there were--stopped at all the
stations. Denis knew the names of those stations by heart.
Bole, Tritton, Spavin Delawarr, Knipswich for Timpany, West
Bowlby, and, finally, Camlet-on-the-Water. Camlet was where he
always got out, leaving the train to creep indolently onward,
goodness only knew whither, into the green heart of England.

They were snorting out of West Bowlby now. It was the next
station, thank Heaven. Denis took his chattels off the rack and
piled them neatly in the corner opposite his own. A futile
proceeding. But one must have something to do. When he had
finished, he sank back into his seat and closed his eyes. It was
extremely hot.

Oh, this journey! It was two hours cut clean out of his life;
two hours in which he might have done so much, so much--written
the perfect poem, for example, or read the one illuminating book.
Instead of which--his gorge rose at the smell of the dusty