This novel in print differs in some particulars from the same work in manuscript. To my astonishment, my publishers informed me that certain words, phrases, sentences, and even passages, are at present illegal in the United States. I have recorded nothing which I have not observed in human life, said nothing I do not believe to be true; and I had not the slightest intention of appealing to anyone’s salacious instincts. My theme was too seriously tragic for that. But I am bound to accept the advice of those who know the Law concerning the published word. I have therefore asked my publishers to delete everything they consider objectionable, and to substitute asterisks for every word deleted. I would rather have my book mutilated than say what I do not believe. En attendant mieux, R. A. P.S. I feel bound to add, in justice, that the expurgations required in the United States are much fewer and shorter than those demanded in England. _CONTENTS_ PROLOGUE: _MORTE D’UN EROE_ _ALLEGRETTO_ 3 PART ONE _VIVACE_ 33 PART TWO _ANDANTE CANTABILE_ 109 PART THREE _ADAGIO_ 239 EPILOGUE 397 PROLOGUE _MORTE D’UN EROE_ _ALLEGRETTO_ The casualty lists went on appearing for a long time after the Armistice—last spasms of Europe’s severed arteries. Of course, nobody much bothered to read the lists. Why should they? The living must protect themselves from the dead, especially the intrusive dead. But the twentieth century had lost its Spring with a vengeance. So a good deal of forgetting had to be done. Under the heading “Killed in Action,” one of these later lists contained the words: Winterbourne, Edward Frederick George, A./Capt., 2/9 Battn., R. Foddershire Regt. The small interest created by this item of news and the rapidity with which he was forgotten would have surprised even George Winterbourne; and he had that bottomless cynicism of the infantry subaltern which veiled itself in imbecile cheerfulness, and thereby misled a good many not very acute people. Winterbourne had rather hoped he would be killed, and knew that his premature demise in the middle twenties would be borne with easy stoicism by those who survived him. But his vanity would have been a little shocked by what actually happened.