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[Extract from "The Death of the Moth"]

[*Thoughts on Peace*]

[* " *] The searchlights, wavering across the flat, have picked up the plane now.  From this window one can see a little silver insect turning and twisting in the light.  The guns go pop pop pop.  They [sic] they cease.  Probably the raider was brought down behind the hill.  One of the pilots landed safe in a field near here the other day.  He said to his captors, speaking fairly good English, "How glad I am that the fight is over!".  Then an Englishman gave him a cigarette, and an Englishwoman made him a cup of tea,,, [* // *] At last all the guns have stopped firing.  All the searchlights have been extinguished.  The natural darkness of a summer's night returns.  The innocent sounds of the country are heard again.  An apple thuds to the ground.  An owl hoots, winging its way from tree to tree. ...And now, in the shadowed of the half world, to sleep.[* " *]

Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid. ^[*by*] Virginia Woolf.

[*by permission The Hogarth Press*]