Years later, recalling this period in his life, Lewis admitted that he “put the war on one side to a degree which some people will think shameful and some incredible.” He denied, though, that he was trying to evade reality. “I maintain that it was rather a treaty with reality,” he wrote, “the fixing of a frontier.” It seems that Lewis made a pact with his country that left him at least partially in control: “You shall have me on a certain date, not before. I will die in your wars if need be, but till then I shall live my own life. You may have my body, but not my mind.”36 Based on his letters
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