Parade's End - Opening

Some Do Not...

Part One

THE TWO YOUNG MEN -- they were of the English public official class -- sat in the perfectly appointed railway carriage. The leather straps to the windows were of virgin newness; the mirrors beneath the new luggage racks immaculate as if they had reflected very little; the bulging upholstery in its luxuriant, regulated curves was scarlet and yellow in an intricate, minute dragon pattern, the design of a geometrician in Cologne. The compartment smelt faintly, hygenically of admirable varnish; the train ran as smoothly -- Tietjens remembered thinking -- as British gilt-edged securities. It travelled fast; yet had it swayed or jolted over the rail joints, except at the curve before Tonbridge or over the points at Ashford where these eccentricities are expected and allowed for, Macmaster, Tietjens felt certain, would have written to the company. Perhaps he would even have written to the Times.

The individual volumes of Parade's End were first published in Great Britain by Duckworth & Co. in 1924, 1925, 1926, 1928.

This edition published in Great Britain in 1997 by

Carcanet Press Limited

4th Floor, Conavon Court

12-16 Blackfriars Street

Manchester M3 5BQ

Text copyright Janice Biala 1924, 1925, 1926, 1928

Afterword copyright Gerald Hammond 1997

All rights reserved.

A CIP catalogue record for this book

is available from the British Library.

The publisher acknowledges financial assitance from the Arts Council of England.

Printed and bound in England by SRP Ltd, Exeter.