Silently, I dressed, took leave of myself in the mirror, went down the stairs,
sneaked a look at the quiet street, and went out. The station was not far from my house,
but I thought it more prudent to take a cab. I told myself that I thus ran less chance of
being recognized. The truth is that, in the deserted street, I felt infinitely visible and
vulnerable. I recall that I told the driver to stop short of the main entrance. I got
out with a painful and deliberate slowness.
I was going to the village of Ashgrove, but took a ticket for a station further on. The train would
leave in a few minutes, at eight-fifty. I hurried, for the next would not go until half past nine.
There was almost no one on the platform. I walked through the carriages. I remember some farmers,
a woman dressed in mourning, a youth deep in Tacitus' Annals and a wounded, happy soldier.
At last the train pulled out. A man I recognized ran furiously, but vainly, the
length of the platform. It was Captain Richard Madden. Shattered, trembling, I huddled in the
distant corner of the seat, as far as possible from the fearful window.
From utter terror I passed into a state of almost abject happiness. I told myself that the
duel had already started and that I had won the first encounter by besting my adversary in
his first attack - even if it was only for forty minutes - by an accident of fate. I argued
that so small a victory prefigured a total victory. I argued that it was not so trivial,
that were it not for the precious accident of the train schedule, I would be in prison or
dead. I argued, with no less sophism, that my timorous happiness was proof that I was man
enough to bring this adventure to a successful conclusion. From my weakness I drew
strength that never left me.
I foresee that man will resign himself each day to new abominations, that
soon only soldiers and bandits will be left. To them I offer this advice: Whosoever would
undertake some atrocious enterprise should act as if it were already accomplished, should
impose upon himself a future as irrevocable as the past.
Thus I proceeded, while with the eyes of a man already dead, I contemplated the fluctuations
of the day which would probably be my last, and watched the diffuse coming of night.
The train crept along gently, amid ash trees. It slowed down and stopped, almost in the
middle of a field. No one called the name of a station. "Ashgrove?" I asked some children
on the platform. "Ashgrove," they replied. I got out.