mind plunged away from me, and I suddenly
found myself thinking of the places and people
of my own infinitesimal past. They stood out
strengthened and simplified now, like the
image of the plough against the sun. They
were all I had for an answer to the new appeal.
I begrudged the room that Jake and Otto and
Russian Peter took up in my memory, which I
wanted to crowd with other things. But when-
ever my consciousness was quickened, all
those early friends were quickened within it,
and in some strange way they accompanied
me through all my new experiences. They
were so much alive in me that I scarcely
stopped to wonder whether they were alive
anywhere else, or how.

[[297]]

p296 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p297w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p298

v?