I turn violently away.

I have no use for the hand of this sort of outsider, this sort of traitor.
They lie.

That ludicrous person who talks of taking the long view while there are still in the world only a few superb martyrs who have dared to do it, he who is satisfied to contemplate, beyond the present misery of men, the misery of their children; and the white-haired man who was extolling slavery just now, and trying to turn aside the demands of the people and switch them on to traditional massacre; and he who from the height of his bunting and trestles would have put a glamour of beauty and morality on battles; and he, the attitudinizer, who brings to life the memory of the dead only to deny with word trickery the terrible evidence of death, he who rewards the martyrs with the soft soap of false promises--all these people tell lies, lies, lies! Through their words I can hear the mental reservation they are chewing over--"Around us, the deluge; and after us, the deluge." Or else they do not even lie; they see nothing and they know not what they say.
They have opened the red barrier.

Applause and congratulations cross each other.

Some notabilities come down from the rostrum, they look at me, they are obviously interested in the wounded soldier that I am, they advance towards me.