the weather next day was glorious. a fine rain had fallen. the men now very clean and spruce, wandered about the village, with their caps cocked over their ears.

no danger threatened. no one would have thought we were at war. and as for the bosches, let them go hang! the natives had certainly said, shaking their heads, that they had already seen some uhlans on the neighbouring hills. absurd inventions. a dragoon whom we questioned burst out laughing in our faces. the bosches! they had indeed been across the frontier for twenty-four hours or so, over there towards longwy. they were soon sent to the right-about. we might sleep in peace! we had the regulars in front of us, about twenty regiments of them!

some trenches had been dug at the approaches to the village, the 21st had spent the night in them. it was one of the regular amusements to go and look over them during the day-time. they were very unconvincing, casually hewn out and occupied. orne's defensive organisation! who could take it seriously?

"blowed if i don't think our good time's beginning," said judsi.

[pg 161]

the villagers were really delightful. these poor dwellers by the meuse! they did not have much of a time afterwards. who would not have become embittered in their place? at the outset we were touched by their cordial, almost friendly reception. many of us went in search of a bed. i believe that but few were found which did not already boast an occupant. lamalou's experience was a case in point. other attachments were formed. on the other hand, playoust came to grief—the thing became known immediately—with the grocer's pretty wife. he revenged himself by attributing the mishap to the regimental sergeant-major.

the outstanding feature—which never varied throughout the campaign—was the catering. we n.c.o.'s messed together. but descroix and his lot were already dissatisfied with this arrangement and suggested that each platoon should fend for itself.

i was doubtful about this, but guillaumin took me aside.

"leave them alone! it will suit us much better!"

he explained that he had made a great find in the shape of a top-hole cook, a real professional. he had been chef at bernstein's!!! the fellow would perhaps consent to cook for three or four, but not a word!—or the officers would appropriate him. he made me acquainted with the prodigy, gaufrèteau, a smooth-skinned, cold creature, very much on his dignity, who would not bind himself in any way.

our comrades had managed somehow or other to get hold of some wine at twenty-four sous the litre, good pale lorraine wine, on which they feasted among themselves. you had to pay two francs everywhere else for a much inferior quality.

[pg 162]

guillaumin determined he would not be outdone, and went off in search of it. he ended by coming back triumphant, bringing the same wine at 1 franc 20, and the wine merchant was to have the bottles back!

he poured out several bumpers and made fun of de valpic for refusing to take any. i suggested adding some water to it. he ragged me in turn.

"what are you afraid of? if we've got to be knocked out at this job, at least let's have our money's worth first!"

this coarse tomfoolery maddened me. was it an attitude of mind assumed for war-time, to match that of those poor brutes of troopers. i sarcastically twitted him with it. he was not at all annoyed.

"just what i'm trying for!"

thereupon he invited his corporals and mine to empty new bottles. i could not leave him in the lurch. all these people were drinking and rotting with him round the table in the kitchen of our farm. the place was filled with the smell of burning fat. what a scene, and what a pastime! i was bored to death.

"i'll see you later!" i said, and went off making some excuse. i should have liked to meet fortin or someone of that calibre. a pity they'd left him at f——, but perhaps it might be lucky for him.

i took a turn round the neighbouring billets. nothing but men lying about and a lot of them had spread into the fields round about, and were taking a nap in the shade.

my foot was better. i had painted it with tincture of iodine that morning and the day before.

i got out of the village without any difficulty. a sentry, far from stopping me, asked me for some tobacco.

[pg 163]

a hill near by attracted me. i hoped to get a good view of the surrounding country from the top. my ideas on the topography of the neighbourhood were singularly confused. i knew the distance from orne to verdun, 18 km. 7., and i was inclined to think the valley of the meuse must lie somewhere near to southwards.

my walk was not at all satisfying. from the summit i had aimed at, i could see nothing but another ridge, crowned with a dark fringe of trees. there was no outlet through which i could get a view. i came back, tired and disappointed. up there i had tried for a moment to give rein to my imagination. here is my country—lorraine, i said to myself, and i looked in vain for that serene melancholy, that voluptuous calm, in the landscape.... it was obviously yet another example of poetic exaggeration. it was not unpleasing country, but it was more like—oh, anything you like to name, perche, or the country round paris.

i went back. on the way i heard myself hailed from behind a hedge. it was playoust's voice. i went up and found the whole set of sergeants from the 22nd. de valpic alone was missing. i was surprised to catch sight of guillaumin, with cards in his hands.

"what! you don't mean to say you're playing?" i said.

"yes, they're teaching me!"

he explained with great gusto that they had come to fetch him to make up a second four (frémont was there too). he had no gift for it. but he was sticking to it all the same. he had already lost one and threepence!

[pg 164]

"and what about you, old boy? do you know their blooming game?"

"yes," i replied coolly, "but it doesn't appeal to me, you know!"

i did not linger. i bore him a grudge. if he was going over to that lot he was quite at liberty to do so, of course, but he need no longer count, as a matter of course, on my society—oh dear, no!

i went to lie down. i yawned. i was bored to tears.

for the sake of something to do i emptied my pockets of their miscellaneous contents.

on pulling out the packet of letter cards which i had brought quite by chance, i thought: hello, why shouldn't i write a letter?

but to whom should it be?

not to my father. i had nothing to tell him.

as for my brother, i had not even got his complete address. i did not know what company he was in. my brother victor!... why should i be thinking of him particularly just now?... where was he?... somewhere in the woevre. not very far from me, no doubt.

what spirits was he in? war was the dream of their life, their goal, their one passion, to all these soldiers. what a bizarre idea it was. simply a case of suggestion! what did they hope for from it, after all? for the space of a second i had a strikingly clear vision of him, calm and resolute, with his cap well down over his eyes, issuing his orders.

the idea again occurred to me of writing to someone—whom i knew. but i counted on my fingers; it was only three days; and it would be better to wait until i had something worth writing about.

[pg 165]

when i went out again i found myself face to face with henriot.

"halloa, how are you getting on, dreher?" he said.

"pretty well, sir!"

"pity we get no papers!"

i saw that he was bursting to have a talk, and, by jove, it would be good policy to get on good terms with my immediate chief once and for all. i need only imitate playoust; i asked him slyly what he thought was happening.

he needed no persuasion! he was fully aware of the fact that i had not been among his audience the day before, and ingenuously expressed his regret. de valpic and i, he said, were the two best-read men in the company. he would so much like to exchange ideas with us!

as for exchanging ideas, all i was aiming at was to get him to trot his out ... to get at him in that way. at my request he went to fetch a map of the whole of our eastern frontier.

i led him on to various subjects which i wished to explore, without taking great pains about it: the composition of our army, the probable figure of our effectives, our system of fortified towns.

he replied at length, furnishing information collected and classed without much sense of criticism. he placed the ideas he had gleaned from the special courses for officers, on the same level with those picked up in certain technical reviews, and a great number of commonplaces borrowed from the daily papers.

but he fancied himself particular on the questions of strategy.

the german scheme was done for! everything was based, you see, on the complicity or, at all events,[pg 166] the passivity of belgium. they had concentrated four army corps in their camps in advance, trèves, malmédy, atles-lager. they would have hurled them simultaneously on to the left bank of the meuse, and they could have gone straight ahead across the flat country. in five days they would have been in the scheldt, on the way to valenciennes. they would have reached the valley of the oise, and from there have gone on to paris. and it might quite likely have succeeded!...

he warmed to his subject.

they came to grief. the belgians have demolished forty thousand men, a whole army corps. the english have had time to land, and we to fall into line. and what do you say to our retort in alsace the other day? we are getting the entire control of affairs into our hands.

his forefinger indicated mulhouse.

look, we're back there again and firmly based there, for good, believe me! it's obviously ours. take strassburg? no, not at once. invest it perhaps, that's all. but push straight on across the rhine. it's not so easy, but we should spare nothing in order to do that! just think! once past the rhine all we should have to do would be to go straight ahead, and cut germany in half. separate the northern provinces under prussia, from bavaria, which is not nearly so antagonistic to us really, and the russians, after having taken cracow and prague, will soon be shaking hands with us!

he stopped talking and wiped his forehead. gazing at his map he seemed to regret that it did not include the theatre of to-morrow's victories.

i gazed at him with surprise and mistrust. but he[pg 167] seemed so sure of his ground! i knew these theories were current in higher military circles. these daring anticipations reminded me of those expressed so many times in my presence by my father and brother.

how the thought of victor pursued me! i could not restrain myself from mentioning him.

"oh! what is he in?" said henriot.

"the 161st st. mihiel."

"a crack regiment that!"

"have they been in action yet?"

"probably!"

"and what about us?" i said. "do you think we shall soon be engaged?"

"i should hardly think so. what is there ahead of us? luxembourg. they violated it on august 2nd. a lot of good it did them! their offensive turned northwards. now they've got to defend themselves. i don't think they'll attempt anything much against the stenay gap. i don't think we're much exposed!"

so much the better! i thought.

"i personally should have liked to fight in this part of the country."

"do you come from near here?"

"yes, from villers-sur-meuse, about fifty miles from here."

he added a few details. it was only his second post, and he asked for nothing better than to stay there as long as possible. his father had been master there before him, and was buried there.

we are lorrains, you see, that's why i made such a point of being in the reserves.

i asked him na?vely if he had ever thought of war.

"what! we never thought of anything else!"

i suddenly recognised in him, the obstinacy and[pg 168] exaltation which had surprised me, as a child, in the inhabitants of emberménil.

i had honestly forgotten that such rancour survived. after more than forty years! revenge then was not simply an abstract pretext, it corresponded actually, to a desire, a hatred! the old furnace still threw out sparks in the new generation capable of setting the conflagration alight at any moment.

i could not help blaming this fury. the stupid dislike of resignation and discretion, of that which constituted men's happiness.

did i not, however, vaguely envy this impassioned tone and face?

why did i announce:

"i'm a lorrain too, you know!"

"really?" he said; "oh well, i had suspected it, just from your name. what part do you come from?"

i told him. he was delighted. he had relations round about lunéville.

"we are the only ones in the platoon. that ought to make us good friends, what?"

i felt that he was moved. i pretended to be. but i was chilled again. i only thought like the other evening, under my father's gaze: "i a lorrain! in what am i a lorrain?" and the idea that i should have brothers and foes, just because i was born on this side, and not on that side of a certain line, seemed to me grotesque.

it was about time for "cookhouse door" to go. our card-players reappeared. i enjoyed first their surprise, then their only thin-veiled annoyance. it was particularly aggravating for the schoolmasters. henriot, with his hand on my shoulder, was talking to me as to an intimate confidant. they began to[pg 169] wander round, anxious to interrupt us, but withheld from doing so by their deeply-rooted respect for rank.

great heavens! if i had guessed what would put an end to our conversation!

henriot stopped abruptly in the middle of a sentence.

"hsh! what's that...?"

"that dull distant rumble...."

the men scattered about in the road and in the yard, were listening intently. corporal bouguet who was passing muttered:

"no, it can't be...?"

it began again, like the echo of a peal of thunder....

then the subaltern pronounced the word i had expected:

"the guns!"

"what?"

it ran along repeated from mouth to mouth. the guns! the guns! i shuddered with physical anguish. a battle in progress over there, quite near by, which i felt would draw us in and swallow us up. the guns! were they the ones which would make a pulp of my body?

guillaumin suddenly appeared and seized me by the arm.

"my heart's beating. how queer it is!"

i was stupid enough to swagger.

"it reminds me of the camp of chalons!"