First the Blade: A Comedy of Growth

‘Once upon a time’—and we pull in our deep chairs, you quietly, I with a quick impatient jerk that scrabbles up the hearth-rug and worries your tidy soul. But you yourself have forgotten the blinds! Draw them close, lest the Zeppelins catch us at our story-telling, whilst I put the carpet to rights again and pile up logs (we sawed them ourselves, didn’t we?) upon the fire. One must save the electricity these hard times. And now—you have your knitting and I the fountain-pen you gave me: it has not run out, for a wonder! pen and fat, blank scribbling book. Are you ready? The postman has gone by for the last time tonight—no letters—but the news was not so bad today—the Russians have taken prisoners—our front is quiet—we dare forget the war for an hour.

Think—we are beginning a book! Do you remember our breathless hour three years ago? We were overwhelmed by our own daring—such grubs as we, to dream of spreading wings, real, published, book-cover wings, black or red (you were soberly for black, of course, and I for red) with gilt lettering across them. In anticipation we enjoyed ourselves so hugely that the book itself had much ado to get written at all. But the war has ended that keen pleasure of ours, as it has ended better things. We begin soberly now-a-days—‘Once upon a time——’