Men passed him, walking rapidly, clad in greatcoats. Women
tripped by, wrapped in furs, eyes bright, cheeks glowing. And as they
passed, singly, in chattering pairs, in smiling groups, Hollister
observed them with a growing fury. They were so thoroughly insulated
against everything disagreeable. All of them. A great war had just
come to a dramatic close, a war in which staggering numbers of men had
been sacrificed, body and soul, to enable these people to walk the
streets in comfortable security. They seemed so completely unaware of
the significance of his disfigured face. It was simply a disagreeable
spectacle from which they turned with brief annoyance.
Most of these men and women honored the flag. In a theater, at any
public gathering, a display of the national colors caused the men to
bare reverently their heads, the women to clap their hands with
decorous enthusiasm. Without doubt they were all agreed that it was a
sacred duty to fight for one's country. How peculiar and illogical
then, he reflected, to be horrified at the visible results of fighting
for one's country, of saving the world for democracy.
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