party went on with the digging and laying down stones. It was
monotonous work. Contours altered, soil altered, even the rock beneath
it, but the desolation never; they always worked in desolation and
thunder. And so the road went on.

They came to a wide river. They went through a great forest. They
passed the ruins of what must have been quite fine towns, big
prosperous towns with universities in them. I saw the infantry working
party with their stumpy clay pipes, in my dream, a long way on from
where that shell had lit, which stopped the road for a day. And behind
them curious changes came over the road at X. You saw the infantry
going up to the trenches, and going back along it into reserve. They
marched at first, but in a few days they were going up in motors, grey
busses with shuttered windows. And then the guns came along it, miles
and miles of guns, following after the thunder which was further off
over the hills. And then one day the cavalry came by. Then stores in
wagons, the thunder muttering further and further away. I saw
farm-carts going down the road at X. And then one day all manner of
horses and traps and laughing people, farmers and women and boys all
going by to X. There was going to be a fair.

And far away the road was growing longer and longer amidst, as always,
desolation and thunder. And one day far away from X the road grew very
fine indeed. It was going proudly through a mighty city, sweeping in
like a river; you would not think that it ever remembered duck-boards.
There were great palaces there, with huge armorial eagles blazoned in
stone, and all along each side of the road was a row of statues of
kings. And going down the road towards the palace, past the statues of
the kings, a tired procession was riding, full of the flags of the
Allies. And I looked at the flags in my dream, out of national pride