These questions dont really make sense to me.

After finishing the decathlon, Gene says, “ It wasn’t the cider which made me surpass myself, It was this liberation we had torn from the gray encroachments of 1943, the escape we had concocted, this afternoon of momentary, illusory, special and separate peace.” What do you think Gene means in this passage? What is the separate peace that Gene is describing and how do the students achieve it on that day? At this point, how do you think the phrase “a separate peace” relates to the entire novel?