In the distance, the soft, blue silhouette of the mountain ranges begins to appear. I recognize the characteristic outline of the Dolbenberg, a jagged comb, springing up precipitously from the limit of the forests. Behind it should lie the town. But now the sun streams through the world, dissolving everything in its golden-red light, the train swings round one curve and then another;--far away, in a long line one behind the other, stand the poplars, unsubstantial, swaying and dark, fashioned out of shadow, light, and desire. The field swings round as the train encircles it, and the intervals between the trees diminish; the trees become a block and for a moment I see one only--then they reappear from behind the foremost tree and stand out a long line against the sky until they are hidden by the first houses. A street-crossing. I stand at the window, I cannot drag myself away. The others put their baggage ready for getting out. I repeat to myself the name of the Street that we cross over--Bremerstrasse--Bremerstrasse-- Below there are cyclists, lorries, men; it is a grey street and a grey subway;--it embraces me as though it were my mother. Then the train stops, and there is the station with noise and cries and sentries. I pick up my pack and fasten the straps, I take my rifle in my hand and stumble down the steps. On the platform I look round; I know no one among all the people hurrying to and fro. A red-cross sister offers me something to drink. I turn away, she smiles at me too foolishly, so obsessed with her own importance: "Just look, I am giving a soldier coffee!"--She calls me "Comrade," but I will have none of it. Outside in front of the station the stream roars alongside the street, it rushes foaming from the sluices of the mill bridge. There stands the old, square watch-tower, in front of it the great mottled lime tree and behind it the evening. Here we have often sat--how long ago it is--; we have passed over this bridge and breathed the cool, acid smell of the stagnant water; we have leaned over the still water on this side of the lock, where the green creepers and weeds hang from the piles of the bridge;--and on hot days we rejoiced in the spouting foam on the other side of the lock and told tales about our school-teachers. I pass over the bridge, I look right and left; the water is as full of weeds as ever, and it still shoots over in gleaming arches; in the tower-building laundresses still stand with bare arms as they used to over the clean linen, and the heat from the ironing pours out through the open windows. Dogs trot along the narrow street, before the doors of the houses people stand and follow me with their gaze as I pass by, dirty and heavy laden.