Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (281 page)

the
days
before
that
when
he
sat
smoking
far
into
the
night
in
the gloomy
old
Button
house
on
Monroe
Street
with
his
grandfather—all these
had
faded
like
unsubstantial
dreams
from
his
mind
as
though they
had
never
been.

He
did
not
remember.
He
did
not
remember
clearly
whether
the milk
was
warm
or
cool
at
his
last
feeding
or
how
the
days
passed— there
was
only
his
crib
and
Nana's
familiar
presence.
And
then
he remembered
nothing.
When
he
was
hungry
he
cried—that
was
all. Through
the
noons
and
nights
he
breathed
and
over
him
there
were soft
mumblings
and
murmurings
that
he
scarcely
heard,
and
faintly differentiated
smells,
and
light
and
darkness.

Then
it
was
all
dark,
and
his
white
crib
and
the
dim
faces
that moved
above
him,
and
the
warm
sweet
aroma
of
the
milk,
faded
out altogether
from
his
mind.

Reprinted
by permission of William Heinemann Ltd., and the Estate of Maurice Baring.

Tke
Alternative

By MAURICE BARING

I
WAS
READING HISTORY, AND NOT FOR FUN. I WAS READING FOR MY

schools.
My
third
year
at
Balliol
was
drawing
to
an
end,
and
I
was expected
to
do
well,
and
at
the
back
of
my
dreams
there
was
a
vision of
a
fellowship
and
a
quiet
life
in
the
security
of
Oxford.

I
had
been
reading
until
late
in
the
night.
I
was
tired.
I
had
been reading
about
Napoleon
and
the
Russian
Campaign
of
1812.
And
now I
had
stopped
reading
and
had
fallen
into
an
abstraction.
I
noticed that
the
time
by
the
clock
was
1.15.
1
was
thinking
of
great
men
and the
part
they
played
in
history,
and
to
what
extent
events
were
modified
by
phenomena,
such
as
Caesar
or
Napoleon;
as
to
whether
they made
a
difference,
or
whether
writers
such
as
Tolstoi
were
right,
who maintained
that
they
made
no
difference.
I
thought
of
many
things: of
William
James's
Essay
on
Great
Men,
of
Carlyle's
Heroes,
of Ferrerio,
of
Mr.
Wells's
Outline
of
History.
What
would
have
happened,
I
said
to
myself,
if
Napoleon's
father
had
sent
his
son
into
the British
Navy,
as
he
wanted
to
do
at
one
moment,
instead
of
into the
French
Army?
Would
everything
have
been
different,
or
would everything
have
been
exactly
the
same?

"Everything
would
have
been
different,
but
the
result
would
have been
just
the
same,"
said
a
voice
at
my
elbow.

I
looked
up
and
saw
sitting
in
the
armchair
which
stood
on
the
left of
my
writing
table
a
little
old
man.
He
was
old
and
yet
he
did
not look
old.
He
was
ageless.
He
had
a
thick
head
of
hair,
and
you
could not
tell
whether
it
was
white
or
grey.
His
eyes
were
clear
and
luminous.
There
were
no
lines
on
his
face.
There
were
none
of
the
usual signs
of
old
age
about
him,
and
yet
he
gave
the
impression
of
immense
old
age,
and
of
an
almost
infinite
experience.