The butcher-boys are
partisans. Every _gamin_ in the gutter is all for one boat or for the
other, and dances excitedly to know the result. London, in fact, loses
several wrinkles on boat-race day, and smiles itself into a very pleasant
appearance of briskness and of youth. As a rule, Julian went to see the
race and to lunch with his friends at Putney or elsewhere, without either
abnormal experience of excitement or any unusual vivacity. He was
naturally full of life, and had hot blood in his veins, loved a
spectacle, and especially a struggle of youth against youth. But no
boat-race day had ever stirred him as this one did--found him so
attentive to outside influence, so receptive of common things. For
Julian had recently been half-conscious that he was progressing, and with
increasing rapidity, though he knew not in what exact direction. Simply,
he had the feeling of motion, of journeying, and it seemed to him that he
had been standing comparatively still for years. And this boat-race day
came to him like a flashing milestone upon the road of life. He felt as
if it held in its hours a climax of episodes or of emotions, as if upon
it either his body or his mind must prepare to undergo some large
experience, to meet the searching eyes of a face new and unfamiliar.
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