He secured a room and went out again to fill his lungs with the atmosphere of the beloved place, his soul with its beauty and its meaning. He wandered, at first like a man distraught, his eyes far above the pavement, wrapt in the familiar glories of stone and brick; the majesty of Trinity, the twin-towered, blazoned gateway of St. John’s, the venerable round church of the Holy Sepulchre. . . . He walked on past Sidney, Christ’s, Emmanuel; turned up Downing Street. At the sight of the vast piles of modern science buildings, he came down to earthly things. Thenceforward he became aware of something new and strange and alien to the academic spirit that once spread its brooding wings over the town. The quiet streets were filled with soldiery. Khaki, khaki, on roads and pavements; khaki, khaki, in college courts. There seemed to be regiments of rank and file. Officers, gaitered and spurred, clanked along as in a garrison city. Much youth, whose status he could not determine, wearing a white band round its cap, laughed and jested, undergraduate-like, on its way. He wandered through the river-nest of colleges, Queen’s, Clare, Trinity Hall, through courts and gateways, and it was the same story of military occupation. A bevy of nurses flitted about the courts of King’s. A group of men in hospital blue lounged over the balustrade of Clare Bridge. It was a wondrous metamorphosis. Almost the only young men in civilian attire were a few Indian students. He came across them carrying notebooks under their arms, on their return from morning lecture. Lectures, then, were still going on. College authorities were still in residence; he had, in fact, passed many unmistakable dons. But dons and Indians seemed but the relics of a past civilization. In a spasm of amazement he realized that the University, as he had conceived it, a seat of learning, no longer existed. The three thousand young men, the average undergraduate population, who afforded the University its reason of being, were fighting for their country or being trained in the arts of war. Yet the colleges through which he passed seemed to be alive. No sign anywhere of desolation or decay. Pembroke and Emmanuel had the appearance of barracks. He strode hither and thither, in his impetuous way, his mind exercised with the wonder of it all; saw Midsummer Common filled with troops at drill, found himself on the river. The tow-path was overgrown with grass. War everywhere. The very boat-houses were incorporated into the military system. On the familiar front of his own college boat-house was nailed an inscription. Such and such a regiment. Officers’ mess.