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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Three Soldiers, by John Dos Passos
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Three Soldiers
+
+Author: John Dos Passos
+
+Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6362]
+Last Updated: March 16, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE SOLDIERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eve Sobol
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THREE SOLDIERS
+
+By John Dos Passos
+
+
+1921
+
+
+
+LIST OF CONTENTS
+
+PART ONE: MAKING THE MOULD
+
+PART TWO: THE METAL COOLS
+
+PART THREE: MACHINES
+
+PART FOUR: RUST
+
+PART FIVE: THE WORLD OUTSIDE
+
+PART SIX: UNDER THE WHEELS
+
+
+  “Les contemporains qui souffrent de certaines choses ne peuvent
+  s'en souvenir qu'avec une horreur qui paralyse tout autre plaisir,
+  meme celui de lire un conte.”
+
+                                            STENDHAL
+
+
+
+
+PART ONE: MAKING THE MOULD
+
+
+I
+
+The company stood at attention, each man looking straight before him
+at the empty parade ground, where the cinder piles showed purple with
+evening. On the wind that smelt of barracks and disinfectant there was
+a faint greasiness of food cooking. At the other side of the wide field
+long lines of men shuffled slowly into the narrow wooden shanty that was
+the mess hall. Chins down, chests out, legs twitching and tired from the
+afternoon's drilling, the company stood at attention. Each man stared
+straight in front of him, some vacantly with resignation, some trying
+to amuse themselves by noting minutely every object in their field of
+vision,--the cinder piles, the long shadows of the barracks and mess
+halls where they could see men standing about, spitting, smoking,
+leaning against clapboard walls. Some of the men in line could hear
+their watches ticking in their pockets.
+
+Someone moved, his feet making a crunching noise in the cinders.
+
+The sergeant's voice snarled out: “You men are at attention. Quit yer
+wrigglin' there, you!”
+
+The men nearest the offender looked at him out of the corners of their
+eyes.
+
+Two officers, far out on the parade ground, were coming towards them. By
+their gestures and the way they walked, the men at attention could see
+that they were chatting about something that amused them. One of the
+officers laughed boyishly, turned away and walked slowly back across
+the parade ground. The other, who was the lieutenant, came towards them
+smiling. As he approached his company, the smile left his lips and he
+advanced his chin, walking with heavy precise steps.
+
+“Sergeant, you may dismiss the company.” The lieutenant's voice was
+pitched in a hard staccato.
+
+The sergeant's hand snapped up to salute like a block signal. “Companee
+dis...missed,” he rang out.
+
+The row of men in khaki became a crowd of various individuals with dusty
+boots and dusty faces. Ten minutes later they lined up and marched in a
+column of fours to mess. A few red filaments of electric lights gave a
+dusty glow in the brownish obscurity where the long tables and benches
+and the board floors had a faint smell of garbage mingled with the smell
+of the disinfectant the tables had been washed off with after the last
+meal. The men, holding their oval mess kits in front of them, filed by
+the great tin buckets at the door, out of which meat and potatoes were
+splashed into each plate by a sweating K.P. in blue denims.
+
+“Don't look so bad tonight,” said Fuselli to the man opposite him as he
+hitched his sleeves up at the wrists and leaned over his steaming food.
+He was sturdy, with curly hair and full vigorous lips that he smacked
+hungrily as he ate.
+
+“It ain't,” said the pink flaxen-haired youth opposite him, who wore his
+broad-brimmed hat on the side of his head with a certain jauntiness:
+
+“I got a pass tonight,” said Fuselli, tilting his head vainly.
+
+“Goin' to tear things up?”
+
+“Man...I got a girl at home back in Frisco. She's a good kid.”
+
+“Yer right not to go with any of the girls in this goddam town.... They
+ain't clean, none of 'em.... That is if ye want to go overseas.”
+
+The flaxen-haired youth leaned across the table earnestly.
+
+“I'm goin' to git some more chow: Wait for me, will yer?” said Fuselli.
+
+“What yer going to do down town?” asked the flaxen-haired youth when
+Fuselli came back.
+
+“Dunno,--run round a bit an' go to the movies,” he answered, filling his
+mouth with potato.
+
+“Gawd, it's time fer retreat.” They overheard a voice behind them.
+
+Fuselli stuffed his mouth as full as he could and emptied the rest of
+his meal reluctantly into the garbage pail.
+
+A few moments later he stood stiffly at attention in a khaki row that
+was one of hundreds of other khaki rows, identical, that filled all
+sides of the parade ground, while the bugle blew somewhere at the other
+end where the flag-pole was. Somehow it made him think of the man behind
+the desk in the office of the draft board who had said, handing him the
+papers sending him to camp, “I wish I was going with you,” and had held
+out a white bony hand that Fuselli, after a moment's hesitation, had
+taken in his own stubby brown hand. The man had added fervently, “It
+must be grand, just grand, to feel the danger, the chance of being
+potted any minute. Good luck, young feller.... Good luck.” Fuselli
+remembered unpleasantly his paper-white face and the greenish look
+of his bald head; but the words had made him stride out of the office
+sticking out his chest, brushing truculently past a group of men in the
+door. Even now the memory of it, mixing with the strains of the national
+anthem made him feel important, truculent.
+
+“Squads right!” came an order. Crunch, crunch, crunch in the gravel. The
+companies were going back to their barracks. He wanted to smile but he
+didn't dare. He wanted to smile because he had a pass till midnight,
+because in ten minutes he'd be outside the gates, outside the green
+fence and the sentries and the strands of barbed wire. Crunch, crunch,
+crunch; oh, they were so slow in getting back to the barracks and he was
+losing time, precious free minutes. “Hep, hep, hep,” cried the sergeant,
+glaring down the ranks, with his aggressive bulldog expression, to where
+someone had fallen out of step.
+
+The company stood at attention in the dusk. Fuselli was biting the
+inside of his lips with impatience. Minutes at last, as if reluctantly,
+the sergeant sang out:
+
+“Dis...missed.”
+
+Fuselli hurried towards the gate, brandishing his pass with an important
+swagger.
+
+Once out on the asphalt of the street, he looked down the long row of
+lawns and porches where violet arc lamps already contested the faint
+afterglow, drooping from their iron stalks far above the recently
+planted saplings of the avenue. He stood at the corner slouched against
+a telegraph pole, with the camp fence, surmounted by three strands of
+barbed wire, behind him, wondering which way he would go. This was a
+hell of a town anyway. And he used to think he wanted to travel
+round and see places.--“Home'll be good enough for me after this,” he
+muttered. Walking down the long street towards the centre of town,
+where was the moving-picture show, he thought of his home, of the dark
+apartment on the ground floor of a seven-storey house where his aunt
+lived. “Gee, she used to cook swell,” he murmured regretfully.
+
+On a warm evening like this he would have stood round at the corner
+where the drugstore was, talking to fellows he knew, giggling when the
+girls who lived in the street, walking arm and arm, twined in couples or
+trios, passed by affecting ignorance of the glances that followed them.
+Or perhaps he would have gone walking with Al, who worked in the same
+optical-goods store, down through the glaring streets of the theatre
+and restaurant quarter, or along the wharves and ferry slips, where they
+would have sat smoking and looking out over the dark purple harbor, with
+its winking lights and its moving ferries spilling swaying reflections
+in the water out of their square reddish-glowing windows. If they had
+been lucky, they would have seen a liner come in through the Golden
+Gate, growing from a blur of light to a huge moving brilliance, like the
+front of a high-class theatre, that towered above the ferry boats. You
+could often hear the thump of the screw and the swish of the bow
+cutting the calm baywater, and the sound of a band playing, that came
+alternately faint and loud. “When I git rich,” Fuselli had liked to say
+to Al, “I'm going to take a trip on one of them liners.”
+
+“Yer dad come over from the old country in one, didn't he?” Al would
+ask.
+
+“Oh, he came steerage. I'd stay at home if I had to do that. Man, first
+class for me, a cabin de lux, when I git rich.”
+
+But here he was in this town in the East, where he didn't know anybody
+and where there was no place to go but the movies.
+
+“'Lo, buddy,” came a voice beside him. The tall youth who had sat
+opposite at mess was just catching up to him. “Goin' to the movies?”
+
+“Yare, nauthin' else to do.”
+
+“Here's a rookie. Just got to camp this mornin',” said the tall youth,
+jerking his head in the direction of the man beside him.
+
+“You'll like it. Ain't so bad as it seems at first,” said Fuselli
+encouragingly.
+
+“I was just telling him,” said the other, “to be careful as hell not to
+get in wrong. If ye once get in wrong in this damn army... it's hell.”
+
+“You bet yer life... so they sent ye over to our company, did they,
+rookie? Ain't so bad. The sergeant's sort o' decent if yo're in right
+with him, but the lieutenant's a stinker.... Where you from?”
+
+“New York,” said the rookie, a little man of thirty with an ash-colored
+face and a shiny Jewish nose. “I'm in the clothing business there. I
+oughtn't to be drafted at all. It's an outrage. I'm consumptive.” He
+spluttered in a feeble squeaky voice.
+
+“They'll fix ye up, don't you fear,” said the tall youth. “They'll make
+you so goddam well ye won't know yerself. Yer mother won't know ye, when
+you get home, rookie.... But you're in luck.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Bein' from New York. The corporal, Tim Sidis, is from New York, an' all
+the New York fellers in the company got a graft with him.”
+
+“What kind of cigarettes d'ye smoke?” asked the tall youth.
+
+“I don't smoke.”
+
+“Ye'd better learn. The corporal likes fancy ciggies and so does the
+sergeant; you jus' slip 'em each a butt now and then. May help ye to get
+in right with 'em.”
+
+“Don't do no good,” said Fuselli.... “It's juss luck. But keep neat-like
+and smilin' and you'll get on all right. And if they start to ride ye,
+show fight. Ye've got to be hard boiled to git on in this army.”
+
+“Ye're goddam right,” said the tall youth. “Don't let 'em ride yer....
+What's yer name, rookie?”
+
+“Eisenstein.”
+
+“This feller's name's Powers.... Bill Powers. Mine's Fuselli.... Goin'
+to the movies, Mr. Eisenstein?”
+
+“No, I'm trying to find a skirt.” The little man leered wanly. “Glad to
+have got ackwainted.”
+
+“Goddam kike!” said Powers as Eisenstein walked off up a side street,
+planted, like the avenue, with saplings on which the sickly leaves
+rustled in the faint breeze that smelt of factories and coal dust.
+
+“Kikes ain't so bad,” said Fuselli, “I got a good friend who's a kike.”
+
+
+
+They were coming out of the movies in a stream of people in which the
+blackish clothes of factory-hands predominated.
+
+“I came near bawlin' at the picture of the feller leavin' his girl to go
+off to the war,” said Fuselli.
+
+“Did yer?”
+
+“It was just like it was with me. Ever been in Frisco, Powers?”
+
+The tall youth shook his head. Then he took off his broad-brimmed hat
+and ran his fingers over his stubby tow-head.
+
+“Gee, it was some hot in there,” he muttered.
+
+“Well, it's like this,” said Fuselli. “You have to cross the ferry to
+Oakland. My aunt... ye know I ain't got any mother, so I always live
+at my aunt's.... My aunt an' her sister-in-law an' Mabe... Mabe's my
+girl... they all came over on the ferry-boat, 'spite of my tellin' 'em I
+didn't want 'em. An' Mabe said she was mad at me, 'cause she'd seen the
+letter I wrote Georgine Slater. She was a toughie, lived in our street,
+I used to write mash notes to. An' I kep' tellin' Mabe I'd done it juss
+for the hell of it, an' that I didn't mean nawthin' by it. An' Mabe said
+she wouldn't never forgive me, an' then I said maybe I'd be killed an'
+she'd never see me again, an' then we all began to bawl. Gawd! it was a
+mess.... ”
+
+“It's hell sayin' good-by to girls,” said Powers, understandingly. “Cuts
+a feller all up. I guess it's better to go with coosies. Ye don't have
+to say good-by to them.”
+
+“Ever gone with a coosie?”
+
+“Not exactly,” admitted the tall youth, blushing all over his pink face,
+so that it was noticeable even under the ashen glare of the arc lights
+on the avenue that led towards camp.
+
+“I have,” said Fuselli, with a certain pride. “I used to go with a
+Portugee girl. My but she was a toughie. I've given all that up now I'm
+engaged, though.... But I was tellin' ye.... Well, we finally made up
+an' I kissed her an' Mabe said she'd never marry any one but me. So when
+we was walkin” up the street I spied a silk service flag in a winder,
+that was all fancy with a star all trimmed up to beat the band, an' I
+said to myself, I'm goin' to give that to Mabe, an' I ran in an' bought
+it. I didn't give a hoot in hell what it cost. So when we was all
+kissin' and bawlin' when I was goin' to leave them to report to the
+overseas detachment, I shoved it into her hand, an' said, 'Keep that,
+girl, an' don't you forgit me.' An' what did she do but pull out a
+five-pound box o' candy from behind her back an' say, 'Don't make
+yerself sick, Dan.' An' she'd had it all the time without my knowin' it.
+Ain't girls clever?”
+
+“Yare,” said the tall youth vaguely.
+
+
+
+Along the rows of cots, when Fuselli got back to the barracks, men were
+talking excitedly.
+
+“There's hell to pay, somebody's broke out of the jug.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“Damned if I know.”
+
+“Sergeant Timmons said he made a rope of his blankets.”
+
+“No, the feller on guard helped him to get away.”
+
+“Like hell he did. It was like this. I was walking by the guardhouse
+when they found out about it.”
+
+“What company did he belong ter?”
+
+“Dunno.”
+
+“What's his name?”
+
+
+“Some guy on trial for insubordination. Punched an officer in the jaw.”
+
+“I'd a liked to have seen that.”
+
+“Anyhow he's fixed himself this time.”
+
+“You're goddam right.”
+
+“Will you fellers quit talkin'? It's after taps,” thundered the
+sergeant, who sat reading the paper at a little board desk at the door
+of the barracks under the feeble light of one small bulb, carefully
+screened. “You'll have the O. D. down on us.”
+
+Fuselli wrapped the blanket round his head and prepared to sleep.
+Snuggled down into the blankets on the narrow cot, he felt sheltered
+from the sergeant's thundering voice and from the cold glare of
+officers' eyes. He felt cosy and happy like he had felt in bed at home,
+when he had been a little kid. For a moment he pictured to himself the
+other man, the man who had punched an officer's jaw, dressed like he
+was, maybe only nineteen, the same age like he was, with a girl like
+Mabe waiting for him somewhere. How cold and frightful it must feel to
+be out of the camp with the guard looking for you! He pictured himself
+running breathless down a long street pursued by a company with guns, by
+officers whose eyes glinted cruelly like the pointed tips of bullets.
+He pulled the blanket closer round his head, enjoying the warmth and
+softness of the wool against his cheek. He must remember to smile at
+the sergeant when he passed him off duty. Somebody had said there'd be
+promotions soon. Oh, he wanted so hard to be promoted. It'd be so swell
+if he could write back to Mabe and tell her to address her letters
+Corporal Dan Fuselli. He must be more careful not to do anything that
+would get him in wrong with anybody. He must never miss an opportunity
+to show them what a clever kid he was. “Oh, when we're ordered overseas,
+I'll show them,” he thought ardently, and picturing to himself long
+movie reels of heroism he went off to sleep.
+
+ A sharp voice beside his cot woke him with a jerk.
+
+“Get up, you.”
+
+The white beam of a pocket searchlight was glaring in the face of the
+man next to him.
+
+“The O. D.” said Fuselli to himself.
+
+“Get up, you,” came the sharp voice again.
+
+The man in the next cot stirred and opened his eyes.
+
+“Get up.”
+
+“Here, sir,” muttered the man in the next cot, his eyes blinking
+sleepily in the glare of the flashlight. He got out of bed and stood
+unsteadily at attention.
+
+“Don't you know better than to sleep in your O. D. shirt? Take it off.”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“What's your name?”
+
+The man looked up, blinking, too dazed to speak. “Don't know your own
+name, eh?” said the officer, glaring at the man savagely, using his curt
+voice like a whip.--“Quick, take off yer shirt and pants and get back to
+bed.”
+
+The Officer of the Day moved on, flashing his light to one side and
+the other in his midnight inspection of the barracks. Intense blackness
+again, and the sound of men breathing deeply in sleep, of men snoring.
+As he went to sleep Fuselli could hear the man beside him swearing,
+monotonously, in an even whisper, pausing now and then to think of new
+filth, of new combinations of words, swearing away his helpless anger,
+soothing himself to sleep by the monotonous reiteration of his swearing.
+
+A little later Fuselli woke with a choked nightmare cry. He had dreamed
+that he had smashed the O. D. in the jaw and had broken out of the jug
+and was running, breathless, stumbling, falling, while the company on
+guard chased him down an avenue lined with little dried-up saplings,
+gaining on him, while with voices metallic as the clicking of rifle
+triggers officers shouted orders, so that he was certain to be caught,
+certain to be shot. He shook himself all over, shaking off the nightmare
+as a dog shakes off water, and went back to sleep again, snuggling into
+his blankets.
+
+
+
+                             II
+
+John Andrews stood naked in the center of a large bare room, of which
+the walls and ceiling and floor were made of raw pine boards. The air
+was heavy from the steam heat. At a desk in one corner a typewriter
+clicked spasmodically.
+
+“Say, young feller, d'you know how to spell imbecility?”
+
+John Andrews walked over to the desk, told him, and added, “Are you
+going to examine me?”
+
+The man went on typewriting without answering. John Andrews stood in
+the center of the floor with his arms folded, half amused, half angry,
+shifting his weight from one foot to the other, listening to the sound
+of the typewriter and of the man's voice as he read out each word of the
+report he was copying.
+
+“Recommendation for discharge”... click, click... “Damn this
+typewriter.... Private Coe Elbert”... click, click. “Damn these rotten
+army typewriters.... Reason... mental deficiency. History of Case....” At
+that moment the recruiting sergeant came back. “Look here, if you don't
+have that recommendation ready in ten minutes Captain Arthurs'll be mad
+as hell about it, Hill. For God's sake get it done. He said already that
+if you couldn't do the work, to get somebody who could. You don't want
+to lose your job do you?”
+
+“Hullo,” the sergeant's eyes lit on John Andrews, “I'd forgotten you.
+Run around the room a little.... No, not that way. Just a little so I
+can test yer heart.... God, these rookies are thick.”
+
+While he stood tamely being prodded and measured, feeling like a prize
+horse at a fair, John Andrews listened to the man at the typewriter,
+whose voice went on monotonously. “No... record of sexual dep.... O hell,
+this eraser's no good!... pravity or alcoholism; spent... normal... youth
+on farm. App-ear-ance normal though im... say, how many 'm's' in
+immature?”
+
+“All right, put yer clothes on,” said the recruiting sergeant. “Quick, I
+can't spend all day. Why the hell did they send you down here alone?”
+
+“The papers were balled up,” said Andrews.
+
+“Scores ten years... in test B,” went on the voice of the man at the
+typewriter. “Sen... exal ment... m-e-n-t-a-l-i-t-y that of child of eight.
+Seems unable... to either.... Goddam this man's writin'. How kin I copy
+it when he don't write out his words?”
+
+“All right. I guess you'll do. Now there are some forms to fill out.
+Come over here.”
+
+Andrews followed the recruiting sergeant to a desk in the far corner of
+the room, from which he could hear more faintly the click, click of the
+typewriter and the man's voice mumbling angrily.
+
+“Forgets to obey orders.... Responds to no form of per... suasion.
+M-e-m-o-r-y, nil.”
+
+“All right. Take this to barracks B.... Fourth building, to the right;
+shake a leg,” said the recruiting sergeant.
+
+Andrews drew a deep breath of the sparkling air outside. He stood
+irresolutely a moment on the wooden steps of the building looking down
+the row of hastily constructed barracks. Some were painted green, some
+were of plain boards, and some were still mere skeletons. Above his
+head great piled, rose-tinted clouds were moving slowly across the
+immeasurable free sky. His glance slid down the sky to some tall trees
+that flamed bright yellow with autumn outside the camp limits, and then
+to the end of the long street of barracks, where was a picket fence
+and a sentry walking to and fro, to and fro. His brows contracted for
+a moment. Then he walked with a sort of swagger towards the fourth
+building to the right.
+
+
+
+John Andrews was washing windows. He stood in dirty blue denims at the
+top of a ladder, smearing with a soapy cloth the small panes of the
+barrack windows. His nostrils were full of a smell of dust and of the
+sandy quality of the soap. A little man with one lined greyish-red cheek
+puffed out by tobacco followed him up also on a ladder, polishing the
+panes with a dry cloth till they shone and reflected the mottled cloudy
+sky. Andrews's legs were tired from climbing up and down the ladder, his
+hands were sore from the grittiness of the soap; as he worked he looked
+down, without thinking, on rows of cots where the blankets were all
+folded the same way, on some of which men were sprawled in attitudes of
+utter relaxation. He kept remarking to himself how strange it was that
+he was not thinking of anything. In the last few days his mind seemed to
+have become a hard meaningless core.
+
+“How long do we have to do this?” he asked the man who was working with
+him. The man went on chewing, so that Andrews thought he was not going
+to answer at all. He was just beginning to speak again when the man,
+balancing thoughtfully on top of his ladder, drawled out:
+
+“Four o'clock.”
+
+“We won't finish today then?”
+
+The man shook his head and wrinkled his face into a strange spasm as he
+spat.
+
+“Been here long?”
+
+“Not so long.”
+
+“How long?”
+
+“Three months.... Ain't so long.” The man spat again, and climbing down
+from his ladder waited, leaning against the wall, until Andrews should
+finish soaping his window.
+
+“I'll go crazy if I stay here three months.... I've been here a week,”
+ muttered Andrews between his teeth as he climbed down and moved his
+ladder to the next window.
+
+They both climbed their ladders again in silence.
+
+“How's it you're in Casuals?” asked Andrews again.
+
+“Ain't got no lungs.”
+
+“Why don't they discharge you?”
+
+“Reckon they're going to, soon.”
+
+They worked on in silence for a long time. Andrews stared at the upper
+right-hand corner and smeared with soap each pane of the window in turn.
+Then he climbed down, moved his ladder, and started on the next window.
+At times he would start in the middle of the window for variety. As he
+worked a rhythm began pushing its way through the hard core of his mind,
+leavening it, making it fluid. It expressed the vast dusty dullness, the
+men waiting in rows on drill fields, standing at attention, the monotony
+of feet tramping in unison, of the dust rising from the battalions going
+back and forth over the dusty drill fields. He felt the rhythm filling
+his whole body, from his sore hands to his legs, tired from marching
+back and forth from making themselves the same length as millions of
+other legs. His mind began unconsciously, from habit, working on it,
+orchestrating it. He could imagine a vast orchestra swaying with it. His
+heart was beating faster. He must make it into music; he must fix it in
+himself, so that he could make it into music and write it down, so that
+orchestras could play it and make the ears of multitudes feel it, make
+their flesh tingle with it.
+
+He went on working through the endless afternoon, climbing up and down
+his ladder, smearing the barrack windows with a soapy rag. A silly
+phrase took the place of the welling of music in his mind: “Arbeit
+und Rhythmus.” He kept saying it over and over to himself: “Arbeit und
+Rhythmus.” He tried to drive the phrase out of his mind, to bury his
+mind in the music of the rhythm that had come to him, that expressed the
+dusty boredom, the harsh constriction of warm bodies full of gestures
+and attitudes and aspirations into moulds, like the moulds toy soldiers
+are cast in. The phrase became someone shouting raucously in his ears:
+“Arbeit und Rhythmus,”--drowning everything else, beating his mind hard
+again, parching it.
+
+But suddenly he laughed aloud. Why, it was in German. He was being got
+ready to kill men who said that. If anyone said that, he was going to
+kill him. They were going to kill everybody who spoke that language, he
+and all the men whose feet he could hear tramping on the drill field,
+whose legs were all being made the same length on the drill field.
+
+
+
+                             III
+
+It was Saturday morning. Directed by the corporal, a bandy-legged
+Italian who even on the army diet managed to keep a faint odour of
+garlic about him, three soldiers in blue denims were sweeping up the
+leaves in the street between the rows of barracks.
+
+“You fellers are slow as molasses.... Inspection in twenty-five
+minutes,” he kept saying.
+
+The soldiers raked on doggedly, paying no attention. “You don't give a
+damn. If we don't pass inspection, I get hell--not you. Please queeck.
+Here, you, pick up all those goddam cigarette butts.”
+
+Andrews made a grimace and began collecting the little grey sordid ends
+of burnt-out cigarettes. As he leant over he found himself looking into
+the dark-brown eyes of the soldier who was working beside him. The eyes
+were contracted with anger and there was a flush under the tan of the
+boyish face.
+
+“Ah didn't git in this here army to be ordered around by a goddam wop,”
+ he muttered.
+
+“Doesn't matter much who you're ordered around by, you're ordered around
+just the same,” said Andrews. “Where d'ye come from, buddy?”
+
+“Oh, I come from New York. My folks are from Virginia,” said Andrews.
+
+“Indiana's ma state. The tornado country.... Git to work; here's that
+bastard wop comin' around the buildin'.”
+
+“Don't pick 'em up that-a-way; sweep 'em up,” shouted the corporal.
+
+Andrews and the Indiana boy went round with a broom and a shovel
+collecting chewed-out quids of tobacco and cigar butts and stained bits
+of paper.
+
+“What's your name? Mahn's Chrisfield. Folks all call me Chris.”
+
+“Mine's Andrews, John Andrews.”
+
+“Ma dad uster have a hired man named Andy. Took sick an' died last
+summer. How long d'ye reckon it'll be before us-guys git overseas?”
+
+“God, I don't know.”
+
+“Ah want to see that country over there.”
+
+“You do?”
+
+“Don't you?”
+
+“You bet I do.”
+
+“All right, what you fellers stand here for? Go and dump them garbage
+cans. Lively!” shouted the corporal waddling about importantly on his
+bandy legs. He kept looking down the row of barracks, muttering to
+himself, “Goddam.... Time fur inspectin' now, goddam. Won't never pass
+this time.”
+
+His face froze suddenly into obsequious immobility. He brought his hand
+up to the brim of his hat. A group of officers strode past him into the
+nearest building.
+
+John Andrews, coming back from emptying the garbage pails, went in the
+back door of his barracks.
+
+“Attention!” came the cry from the other end. He made his neck and arms
+as rigid as possible.
+
+Through the silent barracks came the hard clank of the heels of the
+officers inspecting.
+
+A sallow face with hollow eyes and heavy square jaw came close to
+Andrews's eyes. He stared straight before him noting the few reddish
+hairs on the officer's Adam's apple and the new insignia on either side
+of his collar.
+
+“Sergeant, who is this man?” came a voice from the sallow face.
+
+“Don't know, sir; a new recruit, sir. Corporal Valori, who is this man?”
+
+“The name's Andrews, sergeant,” said the Italian corporal with an
+obsequious whine in his voice.
+
+The officer addressed Andrews directly, speaking fast and loud. “How
+long have you been in the army?”
+
+“One week, sir.”
+
+“Don't you know you have to be clean and shaved and ready for inspection
+every Saturday morning at nine?”
+
+“I was cleaning the barracks, sir.”
+
+“To teach you not to answer back when an officer addresses you....” The
+officer spaced his words carefully, lingering on them. As he spoke he
+glanced out of the corner of his eye at his superior and noticed the
+major was frowning. His tone changed ever so slightly. “If this ever
+occurs again you may be sure that disciplinary action will be taken....
+Attention there!” At the other end of the barracks a man had moved.
+Again, amid absolute silence, could be heard the clanking of the
+officers' heels as the inspection continued.
+
+
+“Now, fellows, all together,” cried the “Y” man who stood with his arms
+stretched wide in front of the movie screen. The piano started jingling
+and the roomful of crowded soldiers roared out:
+
+     “Hail, Hail, the gang's all here;
+      We're going to get the Kaiser,
+      We're going to get the Kaiser,
+      We're going to get the Kaiser,
+      Now!”
+
+The rafters rang with their deep voices.
+
+The “Y” man twisted his lean face into a facetious expression.
+
+“Somebody tried to put one over on the 'Y' man and sing 'What the hell
+do we care?' But you do care, don't you, Buddy?” he shouted.
+
+There was a little rattle of laughter.
+
+“Now, once more,” said the “Y” man again, “and lots of guts in the get
+and lots of kill in the Kaiser. Now all together.... ”
+
+The moving pictures had begun. John Andrews looked furtively about him,
+at the face of the Indiana boy beside him intent on the screen, at the
+tanned faces and the close-cropped heads that rose above the mass of
+khaki-covered bodies about him. Here and there a pair of eyes glinted
+in the white flickering light from the screen. Waves of laughter or
+of little exclamations passed over them. They were all so alike, they
+seemed at moments to be but one organism. This was what he had sought
+when he had enlisted, he said to himself. It was in this that he would
+take refuge from the horror of the world that had fallen upon him. He
+was sick of revolt, of thought, of carrying his individuality like a
+banner above the turmoil. This was much better, to let everything go, to
+stamp out his maddening desire for music, to humble himself into the
+mud of common slavery. He was still tingling with sudden anger from the
+officer's voice that morning: “Sergeant, who is this man?” The officer
+had stared in his face, as a man might stare at a piece of furniture.
+
+“Ain't this some film?” Chrisfield turned to him with a smile that drove
+his anger away in a pleasant feeling of comradeship.
+
+“The part that's comin's fine. I seen it before out in Frisco,” said the
+man on the other side of Andrews. “Gee, it makes ye hate the Huns.”
+
+The man at the piano jingled elaborately in the intermission between the
+two parts of the movie.
+
+The Indiana boy leaned in front of John Andrews, putting an arm round
+his shoulders, and talked to the other man.
+
+“You from Frisco?”
+
+“Yare.”
+
+“That's goddam funny. You're from the Coast, this feller's from New
+York, an' Ah'm from ole Indiana, right in the middle.”
+
+“What company you in?”
+
+“Ah ain't yet. This feller an me's in Casuals.”
+
+“That's a hell of a place.... Say, my name's Fuselli.”
+
+“Mahn's Chrisfield.”
+
+“Mine's Andrews.”
+
+“How soon's it take a feller to git out o' this camp?”
+
+“Dunno. Some guys says three weeks and some says six months.... Say,
+mebbe you'll get into our company. They transferred a lot of men out
+the other day, an' the corporal says they're going to give us rookies
+instead.”
+
+“Goddam it, though, but Ah want to git overseas.”
+
+“It's swell over there,” said Fuselli, “everything's awful pretty-like.
+Picturesque, they call it. And the people wears peasant costumes.... I
+had an uncle who used to tell me about it. He came from near Torino.”
+
+“Where's that?”
+
+“I dunno. He's an Eyetalian.”
+
+“Say, how long does it take to git overseas?”
+
+“Oh, a week or two,” said Andrews.
+
+“As long as that?” But the movie had begun again, unfolding scenes of
+soldiers in spiked helmets marching into Belgian cities full of little
+milk carts drawn by dogs and old women in peasant costume. There were
+hisses and catcalls when a German flag was seen, and as the troops were
+pictured advancing, bayonetting the civilians in wide Dutch pants, the
+old women with starched caps, the soldiers packed into the stuffy Y. M.
+C. A. hut shouted oaths at them. Andrews felt blind hatred stirring like
+something that had a life of its own in the young men about him. He was
+lost in it, carried away in it, as in a stampede of wild cattle. The
+terror of it was like ferocious hands clutching his throat. He glanced
+at the faces round him. They were all intent and flushed, glinting with
+sweat in the heat of the room.
+
+As he was leaving the hut, pressed in a tight stream of soldiers moving
+towards the door, Andrews heard a man say:
+
+“I never raped a woman in my life, but by God, I'm going to. I'd give a
+lot to rape some of those goddam German women.”
+
+“I hate 'em too,” came another voice, “men, women, children and unborn
+children. They're either jackasses or full of the lust for power like
+their rulers are, to let themselves be governed by a bunch of warlords
+like that.”
+
+“Ah'd lahk te cepture a German officer an' make him shine ma boots an'
+then shoot him dead,” said Chris to Andrews as they walked down the long
+row towards their barracks.
+
+“You would?”
+
+“But Ah'd a damn side rather shoot somebody else Ah know,” went on Chris
+intensely. “Don't stay far from here either. An' Ah'll do it too, if he
+don't let off pickin' on me.”
+
+“Who's that?”
+
+“That big squirt Anderson they made a file closer at drill yesterday.
+He seems to think that just because Ah'm littler than him he can do
+anything he likes with me.”
+
+Andrews turned sharply and looked in his companion's face; something in
+the gruffness of the boy's tone startled him. He was not accustomed to
+this. He had thought of himself as a passionate person, but never in his
+life had he wanted to kill a man.
+
+“D'you really want to kill him?”
+
+“Not now, but he gits the hell started in me, the way he teases me. Ah
+pulled ma knife on him yisterday. You wasn't there. Didn't ye notice Ah
+looked sort o' upsot at drill?”
+
+“Yes... but how old are you, Chris!”
+
+“Ah'm twenty. You're older than me, ain't yer?”
+
+“I'm twenty-two.”
+
+They were leaning against the wall of their barracks, looking up at the
+brilliant starry night.
+
+“Say, is the stars the same over there, overseas, as they is here?”
+
+“I guess so,” said Andrews, laughing. “Though I've never been to see.”
+
+“Ah never had much schoolin',” went on Chris. “I lef school when I was
+twelve, 'cause it warn't much good, an' dad drank so the folks needed me
+to work on the farm.”
+
+“What do you grow in your part of the country?”
+
+“Mostly coan. A little wheat an' tobacca. Then we raised a lot o'
+stock.... But Ah was juss going to tell ye Ah nearly did kill a guy
+once.”
+
+“Tell me about it.”
+
+“Ah was drunk at the time. Us boys round Tallyville was a pretty tough
+bunch then. We used ter work juss long enough to git some money to tear
+things up with. An' then we used to play craps an' drink whiskey. This
+happened just at coan-shuckin' time. Hell, Ah don't even know what it
+was about, but Ah got to quarrellin' with a feller Ah'd been right smart
+friends with. Then he laid off an' hit me in the jaw. Ah don't know what
+Ah done next, but before Ah knowed it Ah had a hold of a shuck-in' knife
+and was slashin' at him with it. A knife like that's a turruble thing
+to stab a man with. It took four of 'em to hold me down an' git it
+away from me. They didn't keep me from givin' him a good cut across
+the chest, though. Ah was juss crazy drunk at the time. An' man, if Ah
+wasn't a mess to go home, with half ma clothes pulled off and ma shirt
+torn. Ah juss fell in the ditch an' slep' there till daylight an' got
+mud all through ma hair.... Ah don't scarcely tech a drop now, though.”
+
+“So you're in a hurry to get overseas, Chris, like me,” said Andrews
+after a long pause.
+
+“Ah'll push that guy Anderson into the sea, if we both go over on the
+same boat,” said Chrisfield laughing; but he added after a pause: “It
+would have been hell if Ah'd killed that feller, though. Honest Ah
+wouldn't a-wanted to do that.”
+
+
+
+“That's the job that pays, a violinist,” said somebody.
+
+“No, it don't,” came a melancholy drawling voice from a lanky man who
+sat doubled up with his long face in his hands and his elbows resting on
+his knees. “Just brings a living wage... a living wage.”
+
+Several men were grouped at the end of the barracks. From them the
+long row of cots, with here and there a man asleep or a man hastily
+undressing, stretched, lighted by occasional feeble electric-light
+bulbs, to the sergeant's little table beside the door.
+
+“You're gettin' a dis-charge, aren't you?” asked a man with a brogue,
+and the red face of a jovial gorilla, that signified the bartender.
+
+“Yes, Flannagan, I am,” said the lanky man dolefully.
+
+“Ain't he got hard luck?” came a voice from the crowd.
+
+“Yes, I have got hard luck, Buddy,” said the lanky man, looking at the
+faces about him out of sunken eyes. “I ought to be getting forty dollars
+a week and here I am getting seven and in the army besides.”
+
+“I meant that you were gettin' out of this goddam army.”
+
+“The army, the army, the democratic army,” chanted someone under his
+breath.
+
+“But, begorry, I want to go overseas and 'ave a look at the 'uns,” said
+Flannagan, who managed with strange skill to combine a cockney whine
+with his Irish brogue.
+
+“Overseas?” took up the lanky man. “If I could have gone an' studied
+overseas, I'd be making as much as Kubelik. I had the makings of a good
+player in me.”
+
+“Why don't you go?” asked Andrews, who stood on the outskirts with
+Fuselli and Chris.
+
+“Look at me... t. b.,” said the lanky man.
+
+“Well, they can't get me over there soon enough,” said Flannagan.
+
+“Must be funny not bein' able to understand what folks say. They say
+'we' over there when they mean 'yes,' a guy told me.”
+
+“Ye can make signs to them, can't ye?” said Flannagan “an' they can
+understand an Irishman anywhere. But ye won't 'ave to talk to the 'uns.
+Begorry I'll set up in business when I get there, what d'ye think of
+that?”
+
+Everybody laughed.
+
+“How'd that do? I'll start an Irish House in Berlin, I will, and
+there'll be O'Casey and O'Ryan and O'Reilly and O'Flarrety, and begod
+the King of England himself'll come an' set the goddam Kaiser up to a
+drink.”
+
+“The Kaiser'll be strung up on a telephone pole by that time; ye needn't
+worry, Flannagan.”
+
+“They ought to torture him to death, like they do niggers when they
+lynch 'em down south.”
+
+A bugle sounded far away outside on the parade ground. Everyone slunk
+away silently to his cot.
+
+John Andrews arranged himself carefully in his blankets, promising
+himself a quiet time of thought before going to sleep. He needed to be
+awake and think at night this way, so that he might not lose entirely
+the thread of his own life, of the life he would take up again some day
+if he lived through it. He brushed away the thought of death. It was
+uninteresting. He didn't care anyway. But some day he would want to play
+the piano again, to write music. He must not let himself sink too deeply
+into the helpless mentality of the soldier. He must keep his will power.
+
+No, but that was not what he had wanted to think about. He was so bored
+with himself. At any cost he must forget himself. Ever since his first
+year at college he seemed to have done nothing but think about himself,
+talk about himself. At least at the bottom, in the utterest degradation
+of slavery, he could find forgetfulness and start rebuilding the fabric
+of his life, out of real things this time, out of work and comradeship
+and scorn. Scorn--that was the quality he needed. It was such a raw,
+fantastic world he had suddenly fallen into. His life before this
+week seemed a dream read in a novel, a picture he had seen in a shop
+window--it was so different. Could it have been in the same world at
+all? He must have died without knowing it and been born again into a
+new, futile hell.
+
+When he had been a child he had lived in a dilapidated mansion that
+stood among old oaks and chestnuts, beside a road where buggies and
+oxcarts passed rarely to disturb the sandy ruts that lay in the mottled
+shade. He had had so many dreams; lying under the crepe-myrtle bush
+at the end of the overgrown garden he had passed the long Virginia
+afternoons, thinking, while the dryflies whizzed sleepily in the
+sunlight, of the world he would live in when he grew up. He had planned
+so many lives for himself: a general, like Caesar, he was to conquer the
+world and die murdered in a great marble hall; a wandering minstrel,
+he would go through all countries singing and have intricate endless
+adventures; a great musician, he would sit at the piano playing, like
+Chopin in the engraving, while beautiful women wept and men with long,
+curly hair hid their faces in their hands. It was only slavery that
+he had not foreseen. His race had dominated for too many centuries for
+that. And yet the world was made of various slaveries.
+
+John Andrews lay on his back on his cot while everyone about him slept
+and snored in the dark barracks. A certain terror held him. In a week
+the great structure of his romantic world, so full of many colors and
+harmonies, that had survived school and college and the buffeting
+of making a living in New York, had fallen in dust about him. He was
+utterly in the void. “How silly,” he thought; “this is the world as it
+has appeared to the majority of men, this is just the lower half of the
+pyramid.”
+
+He thought of his friends, of Fuselli and Chrisfield and that funny
+little man Eisenstein. They seemed at home in this army life. They did
+not seem appalled by the loss of their liberty. But they had never lived
+in the glittering other world. Yet he could not feel the scorn of them
+he wanted to feel. He thought of them singing under the direction of the
+“Y” man:
+
+     “Hail, Hail, the gang's all here;
+      We're going to get the Kaiser,
+      We're going to get the Kaiser,
+      We're going to get the Kaiser,
+      Now!”
+
+He thought of himself and Chrisfield picking up cigarette butts and
+the tramp, tramp, tramp of feet on the drill field. Where was the
+connection? Was this all futile madness? They'd come from such various
+worlds, all these men sleeping about him, to be united in this. And what
+did they think of it, all these sleepers? Had they too not had dreams
+when they were boys? Or had the generations prepared them only for this?
+
+He thought of himself lying under the crepe-myrtle bush through the hot,
+droning afternoon, watching the pale magenta flowers flutter down into
+the dry grass, and felt, again, wrapped in his warm blankets among
+all these sleepers, the straining of limbs burning with desire to rush
+untrammelled through some new keen air. Suddenly darkness overspread his
+mind.
+
+
+He woke with a start. The bugle was blowing outside.
+
+“All right, look lively!” the sergeant was shouting. Another day.
+
+
+
+                             IV
+
+The stars were very bright when Fuselli, eyes stinging with sleep,
+stumbled out of the barracks. They trembled like bits of brilliant jelly
+in the black velvet of the sky, just as something inside him trembled
+with excitement.
+
+“Anybody know where the electricity turns on?” asked the sergeant in
+a good-humored voice. “Here it is.” The light over the door of the
+barracks snapped on, revealing a rotund cheerful man with a little
+yellow mustache and an unlit cigarette dangling out of the corner of his
+mouth. Grouped about him, in overcoats and caps, the men of the company
+rested their packs against their knees.
+
+“All right; line up, men.”
+
+Eyes looked curiously at Fuselli as he lined up with the rest. He had
+been transferred into the company the night before.
+
+“Attenshun,” shouted the sergeant. Then he wrinkled up his eyes and
+grinned hard at the slip of paper he had in his hand, while the men of
+his company watched him affectionately.
+
+“Answer 'Here' when your name is called. Allan, B.C.”
+
+“Yo!” came a shrill voice from the end of the line.
+
+“Anspach.”
+
+“Here.”
+
+Meanwhile outside the other barracks other companies could be heard
+calling the roll. Somewhere from the end of the street came a cheer.
+
+“Well, I guess I can tell you now, fellers,” said the sergeant with his
+air of quiet omniscience, when he had called the last name. “We're going
+overseas.”
+
+Everybody cheered.
+
+“Shut up, you don't want the Huns to hear us, do you?”
+
+The company laughed, and there was a broad grin on the sergeant's round
+face.
+
+“Seem to have a pretty decent top-kicker,” whispered Fuselli to the man
+next to him.
+
+“You bet yer, kid, he's a peach,” said the other man in a voice full of
+devotion. “This is some company, I can tell you that.”
+
+“You bet it is,” said the next man along. “The corporal's in the Red Sox
+outfield.”
+
+The lieutenant appeared suddenly in the area of light in front of the
+barracks. He was a pink-faced boy. His trench coat, a little too large,
+was very new and stuck out stiffly from his legs.
+
+“Everything all right, sergeant? Everything all right?” he asked several
+times, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
+
+“All ready for entrainment, sir,” said the sergeant heartily.
+
+“Very good, I'll let you know the order of march in a minute.”
+
+Fuselli's ears pounded with strange excitement. These phrases,
+“entrainment,” “order of march,” had a businesslike sound. He suddenly
+started to wonder how it would feel to be under fire. Memories of movies
+flickered in his mind.
+
+“Gawd, ain't I glad to git out o' this hell-hole,” he said to the man
+next him.
+
+“The next one may be more of a hell-hole yet, buddy,” said the sergeant
+striding up and down with his important confident walk.
+
+Everybody laughed.
+
+“He's some sergeant, our sergeant is,” said the man next to Fuselli.
+“He's got brains in his head, that boy has.”
+
+“All right, break ranks,” said the sergeant, “but if anybody moves away
+from this barracks, I'll put him in K. P. Till--till he'll be able to
+peel spuds in his sleep.”
+
+The company laughed again. Fuselli noticed with displeasure that the
+tall man with the shrill voice whose name had been called first on the
+roll did not laugh but spat disgustedly out of the corner of his mouth.
+
+“Well, there are bad eggs in every good bunch,” thought Fuselli.
+
+It gradually grew grey with dawn. Fuselli's legs were tired from
+standing so long. Outside all the barracks, as far as he could see up
+the street, men stood in ragged lines waiting.
+
+The sun rose hot on a cloudless day. A few sparrows twittered about the
+tin roof of the barracks.
+
+“Hell, we're not goin' this day.”
+
+“Why?” asked somebody savagely.
+
+“Troops always leaves at night.”
+
+“The hell they do!”
+
+“Here comes Sarge.”
+
+Everybody craned their necks in the direction pointed out.
+
+The sergeant strolled up with a mysterious smile on his face.
+
+“Put away your overcoats and get out your mess kits.”
+
+Mess kits clattered and gleamed in the slanting rays of the sun. They
+marched to the mess hall and back again, lined up again with packs and
+waited some more.
+
+Everybody began to get tired and peevish. Fuselli wondered where his old
+friends of the other company were. They were good kids too, Chris and
+that educated fellow, Andrews. Tough luck they couldn't have come along.
+
+The sun rose higher. Men sneaked into the barracks one by one and lay
+down on the bare cots.
+
+“What you want to bet we won't leave this camp for a week yet?” asked
+someone.
+
+At noon they lined up for mess again, ate dismally and hurriedly. As
+Fuselli was leaving the mess hall tapping a tattoo on his kit with two
+dirty finger nails, the corporal spoke to him in a low voice.
+
+“Be sure to wash yer kit, buddy. We may have pack inspection.”
+
+The corporal was a slim yellow-faced man with a wrinkled skin, though he
+was still young, and an arrow-shaped mouth that opened and shut like the
+paper mouths children make.
+
+“All right, corporal,” Fuselli answered cheerfully. He wanted to make
+a good impression. “Fellers'll be sayin' 'All right, corporal,' to me
+soon,” he thought. An idea that he repelled came into his mind. The
+corporal didn't look strong. He wouldn't last long overseas. And he
+pictured Mabe writing Corporal Dan Fuselli, O.A.R.D.5.
+
+At the end of the afternoon, the lieutenant appeared suddenly, his face
+flushed, his trench coat stiffer than ever.
+
+“All right, sergeant; line up your men,” he said in a breathless voice.
+
+All down the camp street companies were forming. One by one they marched
+out in columns of fours and halted with their packs on. The day was
+getting amber with sunset. Retreat sounded.
+
+Fuselli's mind had suddenly become very active. The notes of the bugle
+and of the band playing “The Star Spangled Banner” sifted into his
+consciousness through a dream of what it would be like over there. He
+was in a place like the Exposition ground, full of old men and women
+in peasant costume, like in the song, “When It's Apple Blossom Time in
+Normandy.” Men in spiked helmets who looked like firemen kept charging
+through, like the Ku-Klux Klan in the movies, jumping from their horses
+and setting fire to buildings with strange outlandish gestures, spitting
+babies on their long swords. Those were the Huns. Then there were flags
+blowing very hard in the wind, and the sound of a band. The Yanks were
+coming. Everything was lost in a scene from a movie in which khaki-clad
+regiments marched fast, fast across the scene. The memory of the
+shouting that always accompanied it drowned out the picture. “The guns
+must make a racket, though,” he added as an after-thought.
+
+“Atten-shun!
+
+“Forwa--ard, march!”
+
+The long street of the camp was full of the tramping of feet. They were
+off. As they passed through the gate Fuselli caught a glimpse of Chris
+standing with his arm about Andrews's shoulders. They both waved.
+Fuselli grinned and expanded his chest. They were just rookies still. He
+was going overseas.
+
+The weight of the pack tugged at his shoulders and made his feet heavy
+as if they were charged with lead. The sweat ran down his close-clipped
+head under the overseas cap and streamed into his eyes and down the
+sides of his nose. Through the tramp of feet he heard confusedly
+cheering from the sidewalk. In front of him the backs of heads and the
+swaying packs got smaller, rank by rank up the street. Above them flags
+dangled from windows, flags leisurely swaying in the twilight. But
+the weight of the pack, as the column marched under arc lights glaring
+through the afterglow, inevitably forced his head to droop forward. The
+soles of boots and legs wrapped in puttees and the bottom strap of the
+pack of the man ahead of him were all he could see. The pack seemed
+heavy enough to push him through the asphalt pavement. And all about him
+was the faint jingle of equipment and the tramp of feet. Every part of
+him was full of sweat. He could feel vaguely the steam of sweat that
+rose from the ranks of struggling bodies about him. But gradually he
+forgot everything but the pack tugging at his shoulders, weighing down
+his thighs and ankles and feet, and the monotonous rhythm of his feet
+striking the pavement and of the other feet, in front of him, behind
+him, beside him, crunching, crunching.
+
+
+
+The train smelt of new uniforms on which the sweat had dried, and of
+the smoke of cheap cigarettes. Fuselli awoke with a start. He had been
+asleep with his head on Bill Grey's shoulder. It was already broad
+daylight. The train was jolting slowly over cross-tracks in some dismal
+suburb, full of long soot-smeared warehouses and endless rows of freight
+cars, beyond which lay brown marshland and slate-grey stretches of
+water.
+
+“God! that must be the Atlantic Ocean,” cried Fuselli in excitement.
+
+“Ain't yer never seen it before? That's the Perth River,” said Bill Grey
+scornfully.
+
+“No, I come from the Coast.”
+
+They stuck their heads out of the window side by side so that their
+cheeks touched.
+
+“Gee, there's some skirts,” said Bill Grey. The train jolted to a stop.
+Two untidy red-haired girls were standing beside the track waving their
+hands.
+
+“Give us a kiss,” cried Bill Grey.
+
+“Sure,” said a girl,--“anythin' fer one of our boys.”
+
+She stood on tiptoe and Grey leaned far out of the window, just managing
+to reach the girl's forehead.
+
+Fuselli felt a flush of desire all over him.
+
+“Hol' onter my belt,” he said. “I'll kiss her right.”
+
+He leaned far out, and, throwing his arms around the girl's pink gingham
+shoulders, lifted her off the ground and kissed her furiously on the
+lips.
+
+“Lemme go, lemme go,” cried the girl. Men leaning out of the other
+windows of the car cheered and shouted.
+
+Fuselli kissed her again and then dropped her.
+
+“Ye're too rough, damn ye,” said the girl angrily.
+
+A man from one of the windows yelled, “I'll go an' tell mommer”; and
+everybody laughed. The train moved on. Fuselli looked about him proudly.
+The image of Mabe giving him the five-pound box of candy rose a moment
+in his mind.
+
+“Ain't no harm in havin' a little fun. Don't mean nothin',” he said
+aloud.
+
+“You just wait till we hit France. We'll hit it up some with the
+Madimerzels, won't we, kid?” said Bill Grey, slapping Fuselli on the
+knee.
+
+     “Beautiful Katy,
+      Ki-Ki-Katy,
+      You're the only gugugu-girl that I adore;
+      And when the mo-moon shines
+      Over the cowshed,
+      I'll be waiting at the ki-ki-ki-kitchen door.”
+
+Everybody sang as the thumping of wheels over rails grew faster. Fuselli
+looked about contentedly at the company sprawling over their packs and
+equipment in the smoky car.
+
+“It's great to be a soldier,” he said to Bill Grey. “Ye kin do anything
+ye goddam please.”
+
+
+
+“This,” said the corporal, as the company filed into barracks identical
+to those they had left two days before, “is an embarkation camp, but I'd
+like to know where the hell we embark at.” He twisted his face into a
+smile, and then shouted with lugubrious intonation: “Fall in for mess.”
+
+It was pitch dark in that part of the camp. The electric lights had a
+sparse reddish glow. Fuselli kept straining his eyes, expecting to see a
+wharf and the masts of a ship at the end of every alley. The line filed
+into a dim mess hall, where a thin stew was splashed into the mess
+kits. Behind the counter of the kitchen the non-coms, the jovial first
+sergeant, and the businesslike sergeant who looked like a preacher, and
+the wrinkled-faced corporal who had been on the Red Sox outfield, could
+be seen eating steak. A faint odor of steak frying went through the mess
+hall and made the thin chilly stew utterly tasteless in comparison.
+
+Fuselli looked enviously towards the kitchen and thought of the day
+when he would be a non-com too. “I got to get busy,” he said to himself
+earnestly. Overseas, under fire, he'd have a chance to show what he was
+worth; and he pictured himself heroically carrying a wounded captain
+back to a dressing tent, pursued by fierce-whiskered men with spiked
+helmets like firemen's helmets.
+
+The strumming of a guitar came strangely down the dark street of the
+camp.
+
+“Some guy sure can play,” said Bill Grey who, with his hands in his
+pockets, slouched along beside Fuselli.
+
+They looked in the door of one of the barracks. A lot of soldiers were
+sitting in a ring round two tall negroes whose black faces and chests
+glistened like jet in the faint light.
+
+“Come on, Charley, give us another,” said someone.
+
+“Do Ah git it now, or mus' Ah hesit-ate?”
+
+One negro began chanting while the other strummed carelessly on the
+guitar.
+
+“No, give us the 'Titanic.'”
+
+The guitar strummed in a crooning rag-time for a moment. The negro's
+voice broke into it suddenly, pitched high.
+
+“Dis is de song ob de Titanic, Sailin' on de sea.”
+
+The guitar strummed on. There had been a tension in the negro's
+voice that had made everyone stop talking. The soldiers looked at him
+curiously.
+
+     “How de Titanic ran in dat cole iceberg,
+      How de Titanic ran in dat cole iceberg
+      Sailin' on de sea.”
+
+His voice was confidential and soft, and the guitar strummed to the
+same sobbing rag-time. Verse after verse the voice grew louder and the
+strumming faster.
+
+     “De Titanic's sinkin' in de deep blue,
+      Sinkin' in de deep blue, deep blue,
+      Sinkin' in de sea.
+      O de women an' de chilen a-floatin' in de sea,
+      O de women an' de chilen a-floatin' in de sea,
+      Roun' dat cole iceberg,
+      Sung 'Nearer, my gawd, to Thee,'
+      Sung 'Nearer, my gawd, to Thee,
+      Nearer to Thee.'”
+
+The guitar was strumming the hymn-tune. The negro was singing with every
+cord in his throat taut, almost sobbing.
+
+A man next to Fuselli took careful aim and spat into the box of sawdust
+in the middle of the ring of motionless soldiers.
+
+The guitar played the rag-time again, fast, almost mockingly. The negro
+sang in low confidential tones.
+
+     “O de women an' de chilen dey sank in de sea.
+      O de women an' de chilen dey sank in de sea,
+      Roun' dat cole iceberg.”
+
+Before he had finished a bugle blew in the distance. Everybody
+scattered.
+
+Fuselli and Bill Grey went silently back to their barracks.
+
+“It must be an awful thing to drown in the sea,” said Grey as he rolled
+himself in his blankets. “If one of those bastard U-boats...”
+
+“I don't give a damn,” said Fuselli boisterously; but as he lay staring
+into the darkness, cold terror stiffened him suddenly. He thought for a
+moment of deserting, pretending he was sick, anything to keep from going
+on the transport.
+
+     “O de women an' de chilen dey sank in de sea,
+      Roun” dat cole iceberg.”
+
+He could feel himself going down through icy water. “It's a hell of a
+thing to send a guy over there to drown,” he said to himself, and he
+thought of the hilly streets of San Francisco, and the glow of the
+sunset over the harbor and ships coming in through the Golden Gate. His
+mind went gradually blank and he went to sleep.
+
+
+The column was like some curious khaki-colored carpet, hiding the road
+as far as you could see. In Fuselli's company the men were shifting
+their weight from one foot to the other, muttering, “What the hell a'
+they waiting for now?” Bill Grey, next to Fuselli in the ranks, stood
+bent double so as to take the weight of his pack off his shoulders. They
+were at a cross-roads on fairly high ground so that they could see the
+long sheds and barracks of the camp stretching away in every direction,
+in rows and rows, broken now and then by a grey drill field. In front
+of them the column stretched to the last bend in the road, where it
+disappeared on a hill among mustard-yellow suburban houses.
+
+Fuselli was excited. He kept thinking of the night before, when he had
+helped the sergeant distribute emergency rations, and had carried about
+piles of boxes of hard bread, counting them carefully without a mistake.
+He felt full of desire to do things, to show what he was good for.
+“Gee,” he said to himself, “this war's a lucky thing for me. I might
+have been in the R.C. Vicker Company's store for five years an' never
+got a raise, an' here in the army I got a chance to do almost anything.”
+
+Far ahead down the road the column was beginning to move. Voices
+shouting orders beat crisply on the morning air. Fuselli's heart was
+thumping. He felt proud of himself and of the company--the damn best
+company in the whole outfit. The company ahead was moving, it was their
+turn now.
+
+“Forwa--ard, march!”
+
+They were lost in the monotonous tramp of feet. Dust rose from the road,
+along which like a drab brown worm crawled the column.
+
+
+A sickening unfamiliar smell choked their nostrils.
+
+“What are they taking us down here for?”
+
+“Damned if I know.”
+
+They were filing down ladders into the terrifying pit which the hold of
+the ship seemed to them. Every man had a blue card in his hand with a
+number on it. In a dim place like an empty warehouse they stopped. The
+sergeant shouted out:
+
+“I guess this is our diggings. We'll have to make the best of it.” Then
+he disappeared.
+
+Fuselli looked about him. He was sitting in one of the lowest of three
+tiers of bunks roughly built of new pine boards. Electric lights placed
+here and there gave a faint reddish tone to the gloom, except at the
+ladders, where high-power lamps made a white glare. The place was full
+of tramping of feet and the sound of packs being thrown on bunks as
+endless files of soldiers poured in down every ladder. Somewhere down
+the alley an officer with a shrill voice was shouting to his men: “Speed
+it up there; speed it up there.” Fuselli sat on his bunk looking at the
+terrifying confusion all about, feeling bewildered and humiliated. For
+how many days would they be in that dark pit? He suddenly felt angry.
+They had no right to treat a feller like that. He was a man, not a bale
+of hay to be bundled about as anybody liked.
+
+“An' if we're torpedoed a fat chance we'll have down here,” he said
+aloud.
+
+“They got sentries posted to keep us from goin up on deck,” said
+someone.
+
+“God damn them. They treat you like you was a steer being taken over for
+meat.”
+
+“Well, you're not a damn sight more. Meat for the guns.”
+
+A little man lying in one of the upper bunks had spoken suddenly,
+contracting his sallow face into a curious spasm, as if the words had
+burst from him in spite of an effort to keep them in.
+
+Everybody looked up at him angrily.
+
+“That goddam kike Eisenstein,” muttered someone.
+
+“Say, tie that bull outside,” shouted Bill Grey good-naturedly.
+
+“Fools,” muttered Eisenstein, turning over and burying his face in his
+hands.
+
+“Gee, I wonder what it is makes it smell so funny down here,” said
+Fuselli.
+
+
+Fuselli lay flat on deck resting his head on his crossed arms. When he
+looked straight up he could see a lead-colored mast sweep back and
+forth across the sky full of clouds of light grey and silver and dark
+purplish-grey showing yellowish at the edges. When he tilted his head a
+little to one side he could see Bill Grey's heavy colorless face and the
+dark bristles of his unshaven chin and his mouth a little twisted to the
+left, from which a cigarette dangled unlighted. Beyond were heads
+and bodies huddled together in a mass of khaki overcoats and life
+preservers. And when the roll tipped the deck he had a view of moving
+green waves and of a steamer striped grey and white, and the horizon, a
+dark taut line, broken here and there by the tops of waves.
+
+“O God, I feel sick,” said Bill Grey, taking the cigarette out of his
+mouth and looking at it revengefully.
+
+“I'd be all right if everything didn't stink so. An' that mess hall.
+Nearly makes a guy puke to think of it.” Fuselli spoke in a whining
+voice, watching the top of the mast move like a pencil scrawling on
+paper, back and forth across the mottled clouds.
+
+“You belly-achin' again?” A brown moon-shaped face with thick black
+eyebrows and hair curling crisply about a forehead with many horizontal
+wrinkles rose from the deck on the other side of Fuselli.
+
+“Get the hell out of here.”
+
+“Feel sick, sonny?” came the deep voice again, and the dark eyebrows
+contracted in an expression of sympathy. “Funny, I'd have my sixshooter
+out if I was home and you told me to get the hell out, sonny.”
+
+“Well, who wouldn't be sore when they have to go on K.P.?” said Fuselli
+peevishly.
+
+“I ain't been down to mess in three days. A feller who lives on the
+plains like I do ought to take to the sea like a duck, but it don't seem
+to suit me.”
+
+“God, they're a sick lookin' bunch I have to sling the hash to,” said
+Fuselli more cheerfully. “I don't know how they get that way. The
+fellers in our company ain't that way. They look like they was askeered
+somebody was going to hit 'em. Ever noticed that, Meadville?”
+
+“Well, what d'ye expect of you guys who live in the city all your lives
+and don't know the butt from the barrel of a gun an' never straddled
+anything more like a horse than a broomstick. Ye're juss made to be
+sheep. No wonder they have to herd you round like calves.” Meadville got
+to his feet and went unsteadily to the rail, keeping, as he threaded his
+way through the groups that covered the transport's after deck, a little
+of his cowboy's bow-legged stride.
+
+“I know what it is that makes men's eyes blink when they go down to that
+putrid mess,” came a nasal voice.
+
+Fuselli turned round.
+
+Eisenstein was sitting in the place Meadville had just left.
+
+“You do, do you?”
+
+“It's part of the system. You've got to turn men into beasts before ye
+can get 'em to act that way. Ever read Tolstoi?”
+
+“No. Say, you want to be careful how you go talkin' around the way you
+do.” Fuselli lowered his voice confidentially. “I heard of a feller
+bein' shot at Camp Merritt for talkin' around.”
+
+“I don't care.... I'm a desperate man,” said Eisenstein.
+
+“Don't ye feel sick? Gawd, I do.... Did you get rid o' any of it,
+Meadville?”
+
+“Why don't they fight their ole war somewhere a man can get to on a
+horse?... Say that's my seat.”
+
+“The place was empty.... I sat down in it,” said Eisenstein, lowering
+his head sullenly.
+
+“You kin have three winks to get out o' my place,” said Meadville,
+squaring his broad shoulders.
+
+“You are stronger than me,” said Eisenstein, moving off.
+
+“God, it's hell not to have a gun,” muttered Meadville as he settled
+himself on the deck again. “D'ye know, sonny, I nearly cried when I
+found I was going to be in this damn medical corps? I enlisted for the
+tanks. This is the first time in my life I haven't had a gun. I even
+think I had one in my cradle.”
+
+“That's funny,” said Fuselli.
+
+The sergeant appeared suddenly in the middle of the group, his face red.
+
+“Say, fellers,” he said in a low voice, “go down an' straighten out the
+bunks as fast as you goddam can. They're having an inspection. It's a
+hell of a note.”
+
+They all filed down the gang planks into the foul-smelling hold, where
+there was no light but the invariable reddish glow of electric bulbs.
+They had hardly reached their bunks when someone called, “Attention!”
+
+Three officers stalked by, their firm important tread a little disturbed
+by the rolling. Their heads were stuck forward and they peered from side
+to side among the bunks with the cruel, searching glance of hens looking
+for worms.
+
+
+
+“Fuselli,” said the first sergeant, “bring up the record book to my
+stateroom; 213 on the lower deck.”
+
+“All right, Sarge,” said Fuselli with alacrity. He admired the first
+sergeant and wished he could imitate his jovial, domineering manner.
+
+It was the first time he had been in the upper part of the ship. It
+seemed a different world. The long corridors with red carpets, the white
+paint and the gilt mouldings on the partitions, the officers strolling
+about at their ease--it all made him think of the big liners he used to
+watch come in through the Golden Gate, the liners he was going to Europe
+on some day, when he got rich. Oh, if he could only get to be a sergeant
+first-class, all this comfort and magnificence would be his. He found
+the number and knocked on the door. Laughter and loud talking came from
+inside the stateroom.
+
+“Wait a sec!” came an unfamiliar voice.
+
+“Sergeant Olster here?”
+
+“Oh, it's one o' my gang,” came the sergeant's voice. “Let him in. He
+won't peach on us.”
+
+The door opened and he saw Sergeant Olster and two other young men
+sitting with their feet dangling over the red varnished boards that
+enclosed the bunks. They were talking gaily, and had glasses in their
+hands.
+
+“Paris is some town, I can tell you,” one was saying. “They say the
+girls come up an' put their arms round you right in the main street.”
+
+“Here's the records, sergeant,” said Fuselli stiffly in his best
+military manner.
+
+“Oh thanks.... There's nothing else I want,” said the sergeant, his
+voice more jovial than ever. “Don't fall overboard like the guy in
+Company C.”
+
+Fuselli laughed as he closed the door, growing serious suddenly on
+noticing that one of the young men wore in his shirt the gold bar of a
+second lieutenant.
+
+“Gee,” he said to himself. “I ought to have saluted.”
+
+He waited a moment outside the closed door of the stateroom, listening
+to the talk and the laughter, wishing he were one of that merry group
+talking about women in Paris. He began thinking. Sure he'd get private
+first-class as soon as they got overseas. Then in a couple of months he
+might be corporal. If they saw much service, he'd move along all right,
+once he got to be a non-com.
+
+“Oh, I mustn't get in wrong. Oh, I mustn't get in wrong,” he kept saying
+to himself as he went down the ladder into the hold. But he forgot
+everything in the seasickness that came on again as he breathed in the
+fetid air.
+
+
+
+The deck now slanted down in front of him, now rose so that he was
+walking up an incline. Dirty water slushed about from one side of the
+passage to the other with every lurch of the ship. When he reached the
+door the whistling howl of the wind through the hinges and cracks made
+Fuselli hesitate a long time with his hand on the knob. The moment he
+turned the knob the door flew open and he was in the full sweep of the
+wind. The deck was deserted. The wet ropes strung along it shivered
+dismally in the wind. Every other moment came the rattle of spray, that
+rose up in white fringy trees to windward and smashed against him like
+hail. Without closing the door he crept forward along the deck, clinging
+as hard as he could to the icy rope. Beyond the spray he could see huge
+marbled green waves rise in constant succession out of the mist. The
+roar of the wind in his ears confused him and terrified him. It seemed
+ages before he reached the door of the forward house that opened on a
+passage that smelt of drugs; and breathed out air, where men waited in
+a packed line, thrown one against the other by the lurching of the boat,
+to get into the dispensary. The roar of the wind came to them faintly,
+and only now and then the hollow thump of a wave against the bow.
+
+“You sick?” a man asked Fuselli.
+
+“Naw, I'm not sick; but Sarge sent me to get some stuff for some guys
+that's too sick to move.”
+
+“An awful lot o' sickness on this boat.”
+
+“Two fellers died this mornin' in that there room,” said another man
+solemnly, pointing over his shoulder with a jerk of the thumb. “Ain't
+buried 'em yet. It's too rough.”
+
+“What'd they die of?” asked Fuselli eagerly.
+
+“Spinal somethin'....”
+
+“Menegitis,” broke in a man at the end of the line.
+
+“Say, that's awful catchin' ain't it?”
+
+“It sure is.”
+
+“Where does it hit yer?” asked Fuselli.
+
+“Yer neck swells up, an' then you juss go stiff all over,” came the
+man's voice from the end of the line.
+
+There was a silence. From the direction of the infirmary a man with a
+packet of medicines in his hand began making his way towards the door.
+
+“Many guys in there?” asked Fuselli in a low voice as the man brushed
+past him.
+
+When the door closed again the man beside Fuselli, who was tall and
+broad shouldered with heavy black eyebrows, burst out, as if he were
+saying something he'd been trying to keep from saying for a long while:
+
+“It won't be right if that sickness gets me; indeed it won't.... I've
+got a girl waitin' for me at home. It's two years since I ain't touched
+a woman all on account of her. It ain't natural for a fellow to go so
+long as that.
+
+“Why didn't you marry her before you left?” somebody asked mockingly.
+
+“Said she didn't want to be no war bride, that she could wait for me
+better if I didn't.”
+
+Several men laughed.
+
+“It wouldn't be right if I took sick an' died of this sickness, after
+keepin' myself clean on account of that girl.... It wouldn't be right,”
+ the man muttered again to Fuselli.
+
+Fuselli was picturing himself lying in his bunk with a swollen neck,
+while his arms and legs stiffened, stiffened.
+
+A red-faced man half way up the passage started speaking:
+
+“When I thinks to myself how much the folks need me home, it makes
+me feel sort o' confident-like, I dunno why. I juss can't cash in my
+checks, that's all.” He laughed jovially.
+
+No one joined in the laugh.
+
+“Is it awfully catchin'?” asked Fuselli of the man next him.
+
+“Most catchin' thing there is,” he answered solemnly. “The worst of
+it is,” another man was muttering in a shrill hysterical voice, “bein'
+thrown over to the sharks. Gee, they ain't got a right to do that, even
+if it is war time, they ain't got a right to treat a Christian like he
+was a dead dawg.”
+
+“They got a right to do anythin' they goddam please, buddy. Who's goin'
+to stop 'em I'd like to know,” cried the red-faced man.
+
+“If he was an awficer, they wouldn't throw him over like that,” came the
+shrill hysterical voice again.
+
+“Cut that,” said someone else, “no use gettin' in wrong juss for the
+sake of talkin'.”
+
+“But ain't it dangerous, waitin' round up here so near where those
+fellers are with that sickness,” whispered Fuselli to the man next him.
+
+“Reckon it is, buddy,” came the other man's voice dully.
+
+Fuselli started making his way toward the door.
+
+“Lemme out, fellers, I've got to puke,” he said. “Shoot,” he was
+thinking, “I'll tell 'em the place was closed; they'll never come to
+look.”
+
+As he opened the door he thought of himself crawling back to his bunk
+and feeling his neck swell and his hands burn with fever and his arms
+and legs stiffen until everything would be effaced in the blackness
+of death. But the roar of the wind and the lash of the spray as he
+staggered back along the deck drowned all other thought.
+
+
+
+Fuselli and another man carried the dripping garbage-can up the ladder
+that led up from the mess hall. It smelt of rancid grease and coffee
+grounds and greasy juice trickled over their fingers as they struggled
+with it. At last they burst out on to the deck where a free wind blew
+out of the black night. They staggered unsteadily to the rail and
+emptied the pail into the darkness. The splash was lost in the sound of
+the waves and of churned water fleeing along the sides. Fuselli leaned
+over the rail and looked down at the faint phosphorescence that was
+the only light in the whole black gulf. He had never seen such darkness
+before. He clutched hold of the rail with both hands, feeling lost and
+terrified in the blackness, in the roaring of the wind in his ears
+and the sound of churned water fleeing astern. The alternative was the
+stench of below decks.
+
+“I'll bring down the rosie, don't you bother,” he said to the other man,
+kicking the can that gave out a ringing sound as he spoke.
+
+He strained his eyes to make out something. The darkness seemed to press
+in upon his eyeballs, blinding him. Suddenly he noticed voices near him.
+Two men were talking.
+
+“I ain't never seen the sea before this, I didn't know it was like
+this.”
+
+“We're in the zone, now.”
+
+“That means we may go down any minute.”
+
+“Yare.”
+
+“Christ, how black it is.... It'ld be awful to drown in the dark like
+this.”
+
+“It'ld be over soon.”
+
+“Say, Fred, have you ever been so skeered that...?”
+
+“D'you feel a-skeert?”
+
+“Feel my hand, Fred.... No.... There it is. God, it's so hellish black
+you can't see yer own hand.”
+
+“It's cold. Why are you shiverin' so? God, I wish I had a drink.”
+
+“I ain't never seen the sea before...I didn't know...”
+
+Fuselli heard distinctly the man's teeth chattering in the darkness.
+
+“God, pull yerself together, kid. You can't be skeered like this.”
+
+“O God.”
+
+There was a long pause. Fuselli heard nothing but the churned water
+speeding along the ship's side and the wind roaring in his ears.
+
+“I ain't never seen the sea before this time, Fred, an' it sort o'
+gits my goat, all this sickness an' all.... They dropped three of 'em
+overboard yesterday.”
+
+“Hell, kid, don't think of it.”
+
+“Say, Fred, if I... if I... if you're saved, Fred, an' not me, you'll
+write to my folks, won't you?”
+
+“Indeed I will. But I reckon you an' me'll both go down together.”
+
+“Don't say that. An' you won't forget to write that girl I gave you the
+address of?”
+
+“You'll do the same for me.”
+
+“Oh, no, Fred, I'll never see land.... Oh, it's no use. An' I feel so
+well an' husky.... I don't want to die. I can't die like this.”
+
+“If it only wasn't so goddam black.”
+
+
+
+
+PART TWO: THE METAL COOLS                            I
+
+It was purplish dusk outside the window. The rain fell steadily making
+long flashing stripes on the cracked panes, beating a hard monotonous
+tattoo on the tin roof overhead. Fuselli had taken off his wet slicker
+and stood in front of the window looking out dismally at the rain.
+Behind him was the smoking stove into which a man was poking wood, and
+beyond that a few broken folding chairs on which soldiers sprawled in
+attitudes of utter boredom, and the counter where the “Y” man stood with
+a set smile doling out chocolate to a line of men that filed past.
+
+“Gee, you have to line up for everything here, don't you?” Fuselli
+muttered.
+
+“That's about all you do do in this hell-hole, buddy,” said a man beside
+him.
+
+The man pointed with his thumb at the window and said again:
+
+“See that rain? Well, I been in this camp three weeks and it ain't
+stopped rainin' once. What d'yer think of that fer a country?”
+
+“It certainly ain't like home,” said Fuselli. “I'm going to have some
+chauclate.”
+
+“It's damn rotten.”
+
+“I might as well try it once.”
+
+Fuselli slouched over to the end of the line and stood waiting his turn.
+He was thinking of the steep streets of San Francisco and the glimpses
+he used to get of the harbor full of yellow lights, the color of amber
+in a cigarette holder, as he went home from work through the blue dusk.
+He had begun to think of Mabe handing him the five-pound box of candy
+when his attention was distracted by the talk of the men behind him. The
+man next to him was speaking with hurried nervous intonation. Fuselli
+could feel his breath on the back of his neck.
+
+“I'll be goddamned,” the man said, “was you there too? Where d'you get
+yours?”
+
+“In the leg; it's about all right, though.”
+
+“I ain't. I won't never be all right. The doctor says I'm all right now,
+but I know I'm not, the lyin' fool.”
+
+“Some time, wasn't it?”
+
+“I'll be damned to hell if I do it again. I can't sleep at night
+thinkin' of the shape of the Fritzies' helmets. Have you ever thought
+that there was somethin' about the shape of them goddam helmets...?”
+
+“Ain't they just or'nary shapes?” asked Fuselli, half turning round. “I
+seen 'em in the movies.” He laughed apologetically.
+
+“Listen to the rookie, Tub, he's seen 'em in the movies!” said the man
+with the nervous twitch in his voice, laughing a croaking little laugh.
+“How long you been in this country, buddy?”
+
+“Two days.”
+
+“Well, we only been here two months, ain't we, Tub?”
+
+“Four months; you're forgettin', kid.”
+
+The “Y” man turned his set smile on Fuselli while he filled his tin cup
+up with chocolate.
+
+“How much?”
+
+“A franc; one of those looks like a quarter,” said the “Y” man, his
+well-fed voice full of amiable condescension.
+
+“That's a hell of a lot for a cup of chauclate,” said Fuselli.
+
+“You're at the war, young man, remember that,” said the “Y” man
+severely. “You're lucky to get it at all.”
+
+A cold chill gripped Fuselli's spine as he went back to the stove to
+drink the chocolate. Of course he mustn't crab. He was in the war
+now. If the sergeant had heard him crabbing, it might have spoiled his
+chances for a corporalship. He must be careful. If he just watched out
+and kept on his toes, he'd be sure to get it.
+
+“And why ain't there no more chocolate, I want to know?” the nervous
+voice of the man who had stood in line behind Fuselli rose to a sudden
+shriek. Everybody looked round. The “Y” man was moving his head from
+side to side in a flustered way, saying in a shrill little voice:
+
+“I've told you there's no more. Go away!”
+
+“You ain't got no right to tell me to go away. You got to get me some
+chocolate. You ain't never been at the front, you goddam slacker.” The
+man was yelling at the top of his lungs. He had hold of the counter with
+two hands and swayed from side to side. His friend was trying to pull
+him away.
+
+“Look here, none of that, I'll report you,” said the “Y” man. “Is there
+a non-commissioned officer in the hut?”
+
+“Go ahead, you can't do nothin'. I can't never have nothing done worse
+than what's been done to me already.” The man's voice had reached a
+sing-song fury.
+
+“Is there a non-commissioned officer in the room?” The “Y” man kept
+looking from side to side. His little eyes were hard and spiteful and
+his lips were drawn up in a thin straight line.
+
+“Keep quiet, I'll get him away,” said the other man in a low voice.
+“Can't you see he's not...?”
+
+A strange terror took hold of Fuselli. He hadn't expected things to be
+like that. When he had sat in the grandstand in the training camp
+and watched the jolly soldiers in khaki marching into towns, pursuing
+terrified Huns across potato fields, saving Belgian milk-maids against
+picturesque backgrounds.
+
+“Does many of 'em come back that way?” he asked a man beside him.
+
+“Some do. It's this convalescent camp.” The man and his friend stood
+side by side near the stove talking in low voices.
+
+“Pull yourself together, kid,” the friend was saying.
+
+“All right, Tub; I'm all right now, Tub. That slacker got my goat, that
+was all.”
+
+Fuselli was looking at him curiously. He had a yellow parchment face and
+a high, gaunt forehead going up to sparse, curly brown hair. His eyes
+had a glassy look about them when they met Fuselli's. He smiled amiably.
+
+“Oh, there's the kid who's seen Fritzies' helmets in the movies.... Come
+on, buddy, come and have a beer at the English canteen.”
+
+“Can you get beer?”
+
+“Sure, over in the English camp.” They went out into the slanting
+rain. It was nearly dark, but the sky had a purplish-red color that was
+reflected a little on the slanting sides of tents and on the roofs
+of the rows of sheds that disappeared into the rainy mist in every
+direction. A few lights gleamed, a very bright polished yellow. They
+followed a board-walk that splashed mud up from the puddles under the
+tramp of their heavy boots.
+
+At one place they flattened themselves against the wet flap of a tent
+and saluted as an officer passed waving a little cane jauntily.
+
+“How long does a fellow usually stay in these rest camps?” asked
+Fuselli.
+
+“Depends on what's goin' on out there,” said Tub, pointing carelessly to
+the sky beyond the peaks of the tents.
+
+“You'll leave here soon enough. Don't you worry, buddy,” said the man
+with the nervous voice. “What you in?”
+
+“Medical Replacement Unit.”
+
+“A medic are you? Those boys didn't last long at the Chateau, did they,
+Tub?”
+
+“No, they didn't.”
+
+Something inside Fuselli was protesting; “I'll last out though. I'll
+last out though.”
+
+“Do you remember the fellers went out to get poor ole Corporal Jones,
+Tub? I'll be goddamned if anybody ever found a button of their pants.”
+ He laughed his creaky little laugh. “They got in the way of a torpedo.”
+
+The “wet” canteen was full of smoke and a cosy steam of beer. It was
+crowded with red-faced men, with shiny brass buttons on their khaki
+uniforms, among whom was a good sprinkling of lanky Americans.
+
+“Tommies,” said Fuselli to himself.
+
+After standing in line a while, Fuselli's cup was handed back to him
+across the counter, foaming with beer.
+
+“Hello, Fuselli,” Meadville clapped him on the shoulder. “You found the
+liquor pretty damn quick, looks like to me.”
+
+Fuselli laughed.
+
+“May I sit with you fellers?”
+
+“Sure, come along,” said Fuselli proudly, “these guys have been to the
+front.”
+
+“You have?” asked Meadville. “The Huns are pretty good scrappers, they
+say. Tell me, do you use your rifle much, or is it mostly big gun work?”
+
+“Naw; after all the months I spent learnin' how to drill with my goddam
+rifle, I'll be a sucker if I've used it once. I'm in the grenade squad.”
+
+Someone at the end of the room had started singing:
+
+“O Mademerselle from Armenteers,      Parley voo!”
+
+The man with the nervous voice went on talking, while the song roared
+about them.
+
+“I don't spend a night without thinkin' o' them funny helmets the
+Fritzies wear. Have you ever thought that there was something goddam
+funny about the shape o' them helmets?”
+
+“Can the helmets, kid,” said his friend. “You told us all about them
+onct.”
+
+“I ain't told you why I can't forgit 'em, have I?”
+
+     “A German officer crossed the Rhine;
+          Parley voo?
+      A German officer crossed the Rhine;
+      He loved the women and liked the wine;
+          Hanky Panky, parley voo.... ”
+
+“Listen to this, fellers,” said the man in his twitching nervous voice,
+staring straight into Fuselli's eyes. “We made a little attack to
+straighten out our trenches a bit just before I got winged. Our barrage
+cut off a bit of Fritzie's trench an' we ran right ahead juss about dawn
+an' occupied it. I'll be goddamned if it wasn't as quiet as a Sunday
+morning at home.”
+
+“It was!” said his friend.
+
+“An' I had a bunch of grenades an' a feller came runnin' up to me,
+whisperin', 'There's a bunch of Fritzies playin' cards in a dugout. They
+don't seem to know they're captured. We'd better take 'em pris'ners!”
+
+“'Pris'ners, hell,' says I, 'We'll go and clear the buggars out.' So we
+crept along to the steps and looked down.... ”
+
+The song had started again:
+
+      “O Mademerselle from Armenteers,
+             Parley voo?
+
+“Their helmets looked so damn like toadstools I came near laughin'. An'
+they sat round the lamp layin' down the cards serious-like, the way I've
+seen Germans do in the Rathskeller at home.”
+
+      “He loved the women and liked the wine,
+             Parley voo?
+
+“I lay there lookin' at 'em for a hell of a time, an' then I clicked a
+grenade an' tossed it gently down the steps. An' all those funny helmets
+like toadstools popped up in the air an' somebody gave a yell an' the
+light went out an' the damn grenade went off. Then I let 'em have the
+rest of 'em an' went away 'cause one o' 'em was still moanin'-like. It
+was about that time they let their barrage down on us and I got mine.”
+
+     “The Yanks are havin' a hell of a time,
+            Parley voo?
+
+“An' the first thing I thought of when I woke up was how those goddam
+helmets looked. It upsets a feller to think of a thing like that.” His
+voice ended in a whine like the broken voice of a child that has been
+beaten.
+
+“You need to pull yourself together, kid,” said his friend.
+
+“I know what I need, Tub. I need a woman.”
+
+“You know where you get one?” asked Meadville. “I'd like to get me a
+nice little French girl a rainy night like this.”
+
+“It must be a hell of a ways to the town.... They say it's full of M.
+P.'s too,” said Fuselli.
+
+“I know a way,” said the man with the nervous voice, “Come on; Tub.”
+
+“No, I've had enough of these goddam frog women.”
+
+They all left the canteen.
+
+As the two men went off down the side of the building, Fuselli heard the
+nervous twitching voice through the metallic patter of the rain:
+
+“I can't find no way of forgettin' how funny the helmets looked all
+round the lamp... I can't find no way.... ”
+
+
+
+Bill Grey and Fuselli pooled their blankets and slept together. They lay
+on the hard floor of the tent very close to each other, listening to the
+rain pattering endlessly on the drenched canvas that slanted above their
+heads.
+
+“Hell, Bill, I'm gettin' pneumonia,” said Fuselli, clearing his nose.
+
+“That's the only thing that scares me in the whole goddam business. I'd
+hate to die o' sickness... an' they say another kid's kicked off with
+that--what d'they call it?--menegitis.”
+
+“Was that what was the matter with Stein?”
+
+“The corporal won't say.”
+
+“Ole Corp. looks sort o' sick himself,” said Fuselli.
+
+“It's this rotten climate” whispered Bill Grey, in the middle of a fit
+of coughing.
+
+“For cat's sake quit that coughin'. Let a feller sleep,” came a voice
+from the other side of the tent.
+
+“Go an' get a room in a hotel if you don't like it.”
+
+“That's it, Bill, tell him where to get off.”
+
+“If you fellers don't quit yellin', I'll put the whole blame lot of you
+on K. P.,” came the sergeant's good-natured voice.
+
+“Don't you know that taps has blown?”
+
+The tent was silent except for the fast patter of the rain and Bill
+Grey's coughing.
+
+“That sergeant gives me a pain in the neck,” muttered Bill Grey
+peevishly, when his coughing had stopped, wriggling about under the
+blankets.
+
+After a while Fuselli said in a very low voice, so that no one but his
+friend should hear:
+
+“Say, Bill, ain't it different from what we thought it was going to be?”
+
+“Yare.”
+
+“I mean fellers don't seem to think about beatin' the Huns at all,
+they're so busy crabbin' on everything.”
+
+“It's the guys higher up that does the thinkin',” said Grey
+grandiloquently.
+
+“Hell, but I thought it'd be excitin' like in the movies.”
+
+“I guess that was a lot o' talk.”
+
+“Maybe.”
+
+Fuselli went to sleep on the hard floor, feeling the comfortable warmth
+of Grey's body along the side of him, hearing the endless, monotonous
+patter of the rain on the drenched canvas above his head. He tried to
+stay awake a minute to remember what Mabe looked like, but sleep closed
+down on him suddenly.
+
+The bugle wrenched them out of their blankets before it was light. It
+was not raining. The air was raw and full of white mist that was cold as
+snow against their faces still warm from sleep. The corporal called the
+roll, lighting matches to read the list. When he dismissed the formation
+the sergeant's voice was heard from the tent, where he still lay rolled
+in his blankets.
+
+“Say, Corp, go an' tell Fuselli to straighten out Lieutenant Stanford's
+room at eight sharp in Officers' Barracks, Number Four.”
+
+“Did you hear, Fuselli?”
+
+“All right,” said Fuselli. His blood boiled up suddenly. This was the
+first time he'd had to do servants' work. He hadn't joined the army to
+be a slavey to any damned first loot. It was against army regulations
+anyway. He'd go and kick. He wasn't going to be a slavey.... He walked
+towards the door of the tent, thinking what he'd say to the sergeant.
+But he noticed the corporal coughing into his handkerchief with an
+expression of pain on his face. He turned and strolled away. It would
+get him in wrong if he started kicking like that. Much better shut his
+mouth and put up with it. The poor old corp couldn't last long at this
+rate. No, it wouldn't do to get in wrong.
+
+At eight, Fuselli, with a broom in his hand, feeling dull fury pounding
+and fluttering within him, knocked on the unpainted board door.
+
+“Who's that?”
+
+“To clean the room, sir,” said Fuselli. “Come back in about twenty
+minutes,” came the voice of the lieutenant.
+
+“All right, sir.”
+
+Fuselli leaned against the back of the barracks and smoked a cigarette.
+The air stung his hands as if they had been scraped by a nutmeg-grater.
+Twenty minutes passed slowly. Despair seized hold of him. He was so far
+from anyone who cared about him, so lost in the vast machine. He was
+telling himself that he'd never get on, would never get up where he
+could show what he was good for. He felt as if he were in a treadmill.
+Day after day it would be like this,--the same routine, the same
+helplessness. He looked at his watch. Twenty-five minutes had passed. He
+picked up his broom and moved round to the lieutenant's room.
+
+“Come in,” said the lieutenant carelessly. He was in his shirtsleeves,
+shaving. A pleasant smell of shaving soap filled the dark clapboard
+room, which had no furniture but three cots and some officers' trunks.
+He was a red-faced young man with flabby cheeks and dark straight
+eyebrows. He had taken command of the company only a day or two before.
+
+“Looks like a decent feller,” thought Fuselli.
+
+“What's your name?” asked the lieutenant, speaking into the small nickel
+mirror, while he ran the safety razor obliquely across his throat. He
+stuttered a little. To Fuselli he seemed to speak like an Englishman.
+
+“Fuselli.”
+
+“Italian parentage, I presume?”
+
+“Yes,” said Fuselli sullenly, dragging one of the cots away from the
+wall.
+
+“Parla Italiano?”
+
+“You mean, do I speak Eyetalian? Naw, sir,” said Fuselli emphatically,
+“I was born in Frisco.”
+
+“Indeed? But get me some more water, will you, please?”
+
+When Fuselli came back, he stood with his broom between his knees,
+blowing on his hands that were blue and stiff from carrying the heavy
+bucket. The lieutenant was dressed and was hooking the top hook of the
+uniform carefully. The collar made a red mark on his pink throat.
+
+“All right; when you're through, report back to the Company.” The
+lieutenant went out, drawing on a pair of khaki-colored gloves with a
+satisfied and important gesture.
+
+Fuselli walked back slowly to the tents where the Company was quartered,
+looking about him at the long lines of barracks, gaunt and dripping in
+the mist, at the big tin sheds of the cook shacks where the cooks and K.
+P.'s in greasy blue denims were slouching about amid a steam of cooking
+food.
+
+Something of the gesture with which the lieutenant drew on his gloves
+caught in the mind of Fuselli. He had seen peoople make gestures
+like that in the movies, stout dignified people in evening suits. The
+president of the Company that owned the optical goods store, where he
+had worked, at home in Frisco, had had something of that gesture about
+him.
+
+And he pictured himself drawing on a pair of gloves that way,
+importantly, finger by finger, with a little wave, of self-satisfaction
+when the gesture was completed.... He'd have to get that corporalship.
+
+“There's a long, long trail a-winding Through no man's land in France.”
+
+The company sang lustily as it splashed through the mud down a grey road
+between high fences covered with great tangles of barbed wire, above
+which peeked the ends of warehouses and the chimneys of factories.
+
+The lieutenant and the top sergeant walked side by side chatting, now
+and then singing a little of the song in a deprecating way. The corporal
+sang, his eyes sparkling with delight. Even the sombre sergeant who
+rarely spoke to anyone, sang. The company strode along, its ninety-six
+legs splashing jauntily through the deep putty-colored puddles. The
+packs swayed merrily from side to side as if it were they and not the
+legs that were walking.
+
+“There's a long, long trail a-winding Through no man's land in France.”
+
+At last they were going somewhere. They had separated from the
+contingent they had come over with. They were all alone now. They were
+going to be put to work. The lieutenant strode along importantly.
+The sergeant strode along importantly. The corporal strode along
+importantly. The right guard strode along more importantly than anyone.
+A sense of importance, of something tremendous to do, animated the
+company like wine, made the packs and the belts seem less heavy, made
+their necks and shoulders less stiff from struggling with the weight of
+the packs, made the ninety-six legs tramp jauntily in spite of the oozy
+mud and the deep putty-colored puddles.
+
+It was cold in the dark shed of the freight station where they waited.
+Some gas lamps flickered feebly high up among the rafters, lighting up
+in a ghastly way white piles of ammunition boxes and ranks and ranks of
+shells that disappeared in the darkness. The raw air was full of
+coal smoke and a smell of freshly-cut boards. The captain and the top
+sergeant had disappeared. The men sat about, huddled in groups, sinking
+as far as they could into their overcoats, stamping their numb wet feet
+on the mud-covered cement of the floor. The sliding doors were shut.
+Through them came a monotonous sound of cars shunting, of buffers
+bumping against buffers, and now and then the shrill whistle of an
+engine.
+
+“Hell, the French railroads are rotten,” said someone.
+
+“How d'you know?” snapped Eisenstein, who sat on a box away from the
+rest with his lean face in his hands staring at his mud-covered boots.
+
+“Look at this,” Bill Grey made a disgusted gesture towards the ceiling.
+“Gas. Don't even have electric light.”
+
+“Their trains run faster than ours,” said Eisenstein.
+
+“The hell they do. Why, a fellow back in that rest camp told me that it
+took four or five days to get anywhere.”
+
+“He was stuffing you,” said Eisenstein. “They used to run the fastest
+trains in the world in France.”
+
+“Not so fast as the 'Twentieth Century.' Goddam, I'm a railroad man and
+I know.”
+
+“I want five men to help me sort out the eats,” said the top sergeant,
+coming suddenly out of the shadows. “Fuselli, Grey, Eisenstein,
+Meadville, Williams... all right, come along.”
+
+“Say, Sarge, this guy says that frog trains are faster than our trains.
+What d'ye think o' that?”
+
+The sergeant put on his comic expression. Everybody got ready to laugh.
+
+“Well, if he'd rather take the side-door Pullmans we're going to get
+aboard tonight than the 'Sunset Limited,' he's welcome. I've seen 'em.
+You fellers haven't.”
+
+Everybody laughed. The top sergeant turned confidentially to the five
+men who followed him into a small well-lighted room that looked like a
+freight office.
+
+“We've got to sort out the grub, fellers. See those cases? That's three
+days' rations for the outfit. I want to sort it into three lots, one for
+each car. Understand?”
+
+Fuselli pulled open one of the boxes. The cans of bully beef flew under
+his fingers. He kept looking out of the corner of his eye at Eisenstein,
+who seemed very skilful in a careless way. The top sergeant stood
+beaming at them with his legs wide apart. Once he said something in
+a low voice to the corporal. Fuselli thought he caught the words:
+“privates first-class,” and his heart started thumping hard. In a few
+minutes the job was done, and everybody stood about lighting cigarettes.
+
+“Well, fellers,” said Sergeant Jones, the sombre man who rarely spoke,
+“I certainly didn't reckon when I used to be teachin' and preachin' and
+tendin' Sunday School and the like that I'd come to be usin' cuss words,
+but I think we got a damn good company.”
+
+“Oh, we'll have you sayin' worse things than 'damn' when we get you out
+on the front with a goddam German aeroplane droppin' bombs on you,” said
+the top sergeant, slapping him on the back. “Now, I want you five men to
+look out for the grub.” Fuselli's chest swelled. “The company'll be in
+charge of the corporal for the night. Sergeant Jones and I have got to
+be with the lieutenant, understand?”
+
+They all walked back to the dingy room where the rest of the company
+waited huddled in their coats, trying to keep their importance from
+being too obvious in their step.
+
+“I've really started now,” thought Fuselli to himself. “I've really
+started now.”
+
+
+
+The bare freight car clattered and rumbled monotonously over the rails.
+A bitter cold wind blew up through the cracks in the grimy splintered
+boards of the floor. The men huddled in the corners of the car, curled
+up together like puppies in a box. It was pitch black. Fuselli lay half
+asleep, his head full of curious fragmentary dreams, feeling through his
+sleep the aching cold and the unending clattering rumble of the wheels
+and the bodies and arms and legs muffled in coats and blankets pressing
+against him. He woke up with a start. His teeth were chattering. The
+clanking rumble of wheels seemed to be in his head. His head was being
+dragged along, bumping over cold iron rails. Someone lighted a match.
+The freight car's black swaying walls, the packs piled in the center,
+the bodies heaped in the corners where, out of khaki masses here and
+there gleamed an occasional white face or a pair of eyes--all showed
+clear for a moment and then vanished again in the utter blackness.
+Fuselli pillowed his head in the crook of someone's arm and tried to go
+to sleep, but the scraping rumble of wheels over rails was too loud;
+he stayed with open eyes staring into the blackness, trying to draw his
+body away from the blast of cold air that blew up through a crack in the
+floor.
+
+When the first greyness began filtering into the car, they all stood up
+and stamped and pounded each other and wrestled to get warm.
+
+When it was nearly light, the train stopped and they opened the sliding
+doors. They were in a station, a foreign-looking station where the walls
+were plastered with unfamiliar advertisements. “V-E-R-S-A-I-L-L-E-S”;
+Fuselli spelt out the name.
+
+“Versales,” said Eisenstein. “That's where the kings of France used to
+live.”
+
+The train started moving again slowly. On the platform stood the top
+sergeant.
+
+“How d'ye sleep,” he shouted as the car passed him. “Say, Fuselli,
+better start some grub going.”
+
+“All right, Sarge,” said Fuselli.
+
+The sergeant ran back to the front of the car and climbed on. With a
+delicious feeling of leadership, Fuselli divided up the bread and the
+cans of bully beef and the cheese. Then he sat on his pack eating dry
+bread and unsavoury beef, whistling joyfully, while the train
+rumbled and clattered along through a strange, misty-green
+countryside,--whistling joyfully because he was going to the front,
+where there would be glory and excitement, whistling joyfully because he
+felt he was getting along in the world.
+
+
+
+It was noon. A pallid little sun like a toy balloon hung low in the
+reddish-grey sky. The train had stopped on a siding in the middle of a
+russet plain. Yellow poplars, faint as mist, rose slender against the
+sky along a black shining stream that swirled beside the track. In
+the distance a steeple and a few red roofs were etched faintly in the
+greyness.
+
+The men stood about balancing first on one foot and then on the other,
+stamping to get warm. On the other side of the river an old man with an
+oxcart had stopped and was looking sadly at the train.
+
+“Say, where's the front?” somebody shouted to him.
+
+Everybody took up the cry; “Say, where's the front?”
+
+The old man waved his hand, shook his head and shouted to the oxen. The
+oxen took up again their quiet processional gait and the old man walked
+ahead of them, his eyes on the ground.
+
+“Say, ain't the frogs dumb?”
+
+“Say, Dan,” said Bill Grey, strolling away from a group of men he had
+been talking to. “These guys say we are going to the Third Army.”
+
+“Say, fellers,” shouted Fuselli. “They say we're going to the Third
+Army.”
+
+“Where's that?”
+
+“In the Oregon forest,” ventured somebody.
+
+“That's at the front, ain't it?”
+
+At that moment the lieutenant strode by. A long khaki muffler was thrown
+carelessly round his neck and hung down his back.
+
+“Look here, men,” he said severely, “the orders are to stay in the
+cars.”
+
+The men slunk back into the cars sullenly.
+
+A hospital train passed, clanking slowly over the cross-tracks. Fuselli
+looked fixedly at the dark enigmatic windows, at the red crosses, at
+the orderlies in white who leaned out of the doors, waving their hands.
+Somebody noticed that there were scars on the new green paint of the
+last car.
+
+“The Huns have been shooting at it.”
+
+“D'ye hear that? The Huns tried to shoot up that hospital train.”
+
+Fuselli remembered the pamphlet “German Atrocities” he had read one
+night in the Y. M. C. A. His mind became suddenly filled with pictures
+of children with their arms cut off, of babies spitted on bayonets,
+of women strapped on tables and violated by soldier after soldier. He
+thought of Mabe. He wished he were in a combatant service; he wanted
+to fight, fight. He pictured himself shooting dozens of men in green
+uniforms, and he thought of Mabe reading about it in the papers. He'd
+have to try to get into a combatant service. No, he couldn't stay in the
+medics.
+
+The train had started again. Misty russet fields slipped by and dark
+clumps of trees that gyrated slowly waving branches of yellow and brown
+leaves and patches of black lace-work against the reddish-grey sky.
+Fuselli was thinking of the good chance he had of getting to be
+corporal.
+
+
+
+At night. A dim-lighted station platform. The company waited in two
+lines, each man sitting on his pack. On the opposite platform crowds
+of little men in blue with mustaches and long, soiled overcoats that
+reached almost to their feet were shouting and singing. Fuselli watched
+them with a faint disgust.
+
+“Gee, they got funny lookin' helmets, ain't they?”
+
+“They're the best fighters in the world,” said Eisenstein, “not that
+that's sayin' much about a man.”
+
+“Say, that's an M. P.,” said Bill Grey, catching Fuselli's arm. “Let's
+go ask him how near the front we are. I thought I heard guns a minute
+ago.”
+
+“Did you? I guess we're in for it now,” said Fuselli. “Say, buddy, how
+near the front are we?” they spoke together excitedly.
+
+“The front?” said the M. P., who was a red-faced Irishman with a
+crushed nose. “You're 'way back in the middle of France.” The M. P.
+spat disgustedly. “You fellers ain't never goin' to the front, don't you
+worry.”
+
+“Hell!” said Fuselli.
+
+“I'll be goddamned if I don't get there somehow,” said Bill Grey,
+squaring his jaw.
+
+A fine rain was falling on the unprotected platform. On the other side
+the little men in blue were singing a song Fuselli could not understand,
+drinking out of their ungainly-looking canteens.
+
+Fuselli announced the news to the company. Everybody clustered round
+him cursing. But the faint sense of importance it gave him did not
+compensate for the feeling he had of being lost in the machine, of being
+as helpless as a sheep in a flock. Hours passed. They stamped about the
+platform in the fine rain or sat in a row on their packs, waiting for
+orders. A grey belt appeared behind the trees. The platform began to
+take on a silvery gleam. They sat in a row on their packs, waiting.
+
+
+
+                             II
+
+The company stood at attention lined up outside of their barracks, a
+long wooden shack covered with tar paper, in front of them was a row of
+dishevelled plane trees with white trunks that looked like ivory in the
+faint ruddy sunlight. Then there was a rutted road on which stood a
+long line of French motor trucks with hunched grey backs like elephants.
+Beyond these were more plane trees and another row of barracks covered
+with tar paper, outside of which other companies were lined up standing
+at attention.
+
+A bugle was sounding far away.
+
+The lieutenant stood at attention very stiffly. Fuselli's eyes followed
+the curves of his brilliantly-polished puttees up to the braid on his
+sleeves.
+
+“Parade rest!” shouted the lieutenant in a muffled voice.
+
+Feet and hands moved in unison.
+
+Fuselli was thinking of the town. After retreat you could go down the
+irregular cobbled street from the old fair-ground where the camp was
+to a little square where there was a grey stone fountain and a gin-mill
+where you could sit at an oak table and have beer and eggs and fried
+potatoes served you by a girl with red cheeks and plump white appetizing
+arms.
+
+“Attention!”
+
+Feet and hands moved in unison again. They could hardly hear the bugle,
+it was so faint.
+
+“Men, I have some appointments to announce,” said the lieutenant, facing
+the company and taking on an easy conversational tone. “At rest!...
+You've done good work in the storehouse here, men. I'm glad I have such
+a willing bunch of men under me. And I certainly hope that we can manage
+to make as many promotions as possible--as many as possible.”
+
+Fuselli's hands were icy, and his heart was pumping the blood so fast to
+his ears that he could hardly hear.
+
+“The following privates to private first-class, read the lieutenant in
+a routine voice: “Grey, Appleton, Williams, Eisenstein,
+Porter...Eisenstein will be company clerk.... “ Fuselli was almost ready
+to cry. His name was not on the list. The sergeant's voice came after a
+long pause, smooth as velvet.
+
+“You forget Fuselli, sir.”
+
+“Oh, so I did,” the lieutenant laughed--a small dry laugh.--“And
+Fuselli.”
+
+“Gee, I must write Mabe tonight,” Fuselli was saying to himself. “She'll
+be a proud kid when she gets that letter.”
+
+“Companee dis... missed!”, shouted the sergeant genially.
+
+     “O Madermoiselle from Armenteers,
+           Parley voo?
+      O Madermoiselle from Armenteers,
+
+struck up the sergeant in his mellow voice.
+
+The front room of the cafe was full of soldiers. Their khaki hid the
+worn oak benches and the edges of the square tables and the red tiles
+of the floor. They clustered round the tables, where glasses and bottles
+gleamed vaguely through the tobacco smoke. They stood in front of the
+bar, drinking out of bottles, laughing, scraping their feet on
+the floor. A stout girl with red cheeks and plump white arms moved
+contentedly among them, carrying away empty bottles, bringing back full
+ones, taking the money to a grim old woman with a grey face and eyes
+like bits of jet, who stared carefully at each coin, fingered it with
+her grey hands and dropped it reluctantly into the cash drawer. In the
+corner sat Sergeant Olster with a flush on his face, and the corporal
+who had been on the Red Sox outfield and another sergeant, a big
+man with black hair and a black mustache. About them clustered, with
+approbation and respect in their faces, Fuselli, Bill Grey and
+Meadville the cowboy, and Earl Williams, the blue-eyed and yellow-haired
+drug-clerk.
+
+“O the Yanks are having the hell of a time,     Parley voo?”
+
+They pounded their bottles on the table in time to the song.
+
+“It's a good job,” the top sergeant said, suddenly interrupting the
+song. “You needn't worry about that, fellers. I saw to it that we got
+a good job.... And about getting to the front, you needn't worry about
+that. We'll all get to the front soon enough.... Tell me--this war is
+going to last ten years.”
+
+“I guess we'll all be generals by that time, eh, Sarge?” said Williams.
+“But, man, I wish I was back jerkin' soda water.”
+
+“It's a great life if you don't weaken,” murmured Fuselli automatically.
+
+“But I'm beginnin' to weaken,” said Williams. “Man, I'm homesick. I
+don't care who knows it. I wish I could get to the front and be done
+with it.”
+
+“Say, have a heart. You need a drink,” said the top sergeant, banging
+his fist on the table. “Say, mamselle, mame shows, mame shows!”
+
+“I didn't know you could talk French, Sarge,” said Fuselli.
+
+“French, hell!” said the top sergeant. “Williams is the boy can talk
+French.”
+
+“Voulay vous couchay aveck moy.... That's all I know.”
+
+Everybody laughed.
+
+“Hey, mamzelle,” cried the top sergeant. “Voulay vous couchay aveck moy?
+We We, champagne.” Everybody laughed, uproariously.
+
+The girl slapped his head good-naturedly.
+
+At that moment a man stamped noisily into the cafe, a tall
+broad-shouldered man in a loose English tunic, who had a swinging
+swagger that made the glasses ring on all the tables. He was humming
+under his breath and there was a grin on his broad red face. He went
+up to the girl and pretended to kiss her, and she laughed and talked
+familiarly with him in French.
+
+“There's wild Dan Cohan,” said the dark-haired sergeant. “Say, Dan,
+Dan.”
+
+“Here, yer honor.”
+
+“Come over and have a drink. We're going to have some fizzy.”
+
+“Never known to refuse.”
+
+They made room for him on the bench.
+
+“Well, I'm confined to barracks,” said Dan Cohan. “Look at me!” He
+laughed and gave his head a curious swift jerk to one side. “Compree?”
+
+“Ain't ye scared they'll nab you?” said Fuselli.
+
+“Nab me, hell, they can't do nothin' to me. I've had three
+court-martials already and they're gettin' a fourth up on me.”
+
+Dan Cohan pushed his head to one side and laughed. “I got a friend. My
+old boss is captain, and he's goin' to fix it up. I used to alley around
+politics chez moy. Compree?”
+
+The champagne came and Dan Cohan popped the cork up to the ceiling with
+dexterous red fingers.
+
+“I was just wondering who was going to give me a drink,” he said. “Ain't
+had any pay since Christ was a corporal. I've forgotten what it looks
+like.”
+
+The champagne fizzed into the beer-glasses.
+
+“This is the life,” said Fuselli.
+
+“Ye're damn right, buddy, if yer don't let them ride yer,” said Dan.
+
+“What they got yer up for now, Dan?”
+
+“Murder.”
+
+“Murder, hell! How's that?”
+
+“That is, if that bloke dies.”
+
+“The hell you say!”
+
+“It all started by that goddam convoy down from Nantes...Bill Rees an'
+me.... They called us the shock troops.--Hy! Marie! Ancore champagne,
+beaucoup.--I was in the Ambulance service then. God knows what rotten
+service I'm in now.... Our section was on repo and they sent some of us
+fellers down to Nantes to fetch a convoy of cars back to Sandrecourt. We
+started out like regular racers, just the chassis, savey? Bill Rees
+an' me was the goddam tail of the peerade. An' the loot was a hell of a
+blockhead that didn't know if he was coming or going.”
+
+“Where the hell's Nantes?” asked the top sergeant, as if it had just
+slipped his mind.
+
+“On the coast,” answered Fuselli. “I seen it on the map.”
+
+“Nantes's way off to hell and gone anyway,” said wild Dan Cohan, taking
+a gulp of champagne that he held in his mouth a moment, making his mouth
+move like a cow ruminating.
+
+“An' as Bill Rees an' me was the tail of the peerade an' there was lots
+of cafes and little gin-mills, Bill Rees an' me'd stop off every now and
+then to have a little drink an' say 'Bonjour' to the girls an' talk to
+the people, an' then we'd go like a bat out of hell to catch up. Well, I
+don't know if we went too fast for 'em or if they lost the road or what,
+but we never saw that goddam convoy from the time we went out of Nantes.
+Then we thought we might as well see a bit of the country, compree?...
+An' we did, goddam it.... We landed up in Orleans, soused to the gills
+and without any gas an' with an M. P; climbing up on the dashboard.”
+
+“Did they nab you, then?”
+
+“Not a bit of it,” said wild Dan Cohen, jerking his head to one side.
+“They gave us gas and commutation of rations an' told us to go on in
+the mornin'. You see we put up a good line of talk, compree?... Well,
+we went to the swankiest restaurant.... You see we had on those bloody
+British uniforms they gave us when the O. D. gave out, an' the M. P.'s
+didn't know just what sort o' birds we were. So we went and ordered up a
+regular meal an' lots o' vin rouge an' vin blank an' drank a few cognacs
+an' before we knew it we were eating dinner with two captains and a
+sergeant. One o' the captains was the drunkest man I ever did see....
+Good kid! We all had dinner and Bill Rees says, 'Let's go for a
+joy-ride.' An' the captains says, 'Fine,' and the sergeant would have
+said, 'Fine,' but he was so goggle-eyed drunk he couldn't. An' we
+started off!... Say, fellers, I'm dry as hell! Let's order up another
+bottle.”
+
+“Sure,” said everyone.
+
+     “Ban swar, ma cherie,
+      Comment allez vous?”
+
+“Encore champagne, Marie, gentille!”
+
+“Well,” he went on, “we went like a bat out of hell along a good state
+road, and it was all fine until one of the captains thought we ought to
+have a race. We did.... Compree? The flivvers flivved all right, but
+the hell of it was we got so excited about the race we forgot about the
+sergeant an' he fell off an' nobody missed him. An' at last we all pull
+up before a gin-mill an' one captain says, 'Where's the sergeant?' an'
+the other captain says there hadn't been no sergeant. An' we all had a
+drink on that. An' one captain kept sayin', 'It's all imagination.
+Never was a sergeant. I wouldn't associate with a sergeant, would I,
+lootenant?' He kept on calling me lootenant.... Well that was how they
+got this new charge against me. Somebody picked up the sergeant an' he
+got concussion o' the brain an' there's hell to pay, an' if the poor
+buggar croaks.... I'm it.... Compree? About that time the captains start
+wantin' to go to Paris, an' we said we'd take 'em, an' so we put all the
+gas in my car an' the four of us climbed on that goddam chassis an' off
+we went like a bat out of hell! It'ld all have been fine if I wasn't
+lookin' cross-eyed.... We piled up in about two minutes on one of those
+nice little stone piles an' there we were. We all got up an' one o' the
+captains had his arm broke, an' there was hell to pay, worse than losing
+the sergeant. So we walked on down the road. I don't know how it got to
+be daylight. But we got to some hell of a town or other an' there was
+two M. P.'s all ready to meet us.... Compree?... Well, we didn't mess
+around with them captains. We just lit off down a side street an' got
+into a little cafe an' went in back an' had a hell of a lot o' cafe o'
+lay. That made us feel sort o' good an' I says to Bill, 'Bill, we've got
+to get to headquarters an' tell 'em that we accidentally smashed up
+our car, before the M. P.'s get busy.' An' he says, 'You're goddamned
+right,' an' at that minute I sees an M. P. through a crack in the door
+comin' into the cafe. We lit out into the garden and made for the wall.
+We got over that, although we left a good piece of my pants in the
+broken glass. But the hell of it was the M. P.'s got over too an' they
+had their pop-guns out. An' the last I saw of Bill Rees was--there was a
+big fat woman in a pink dress washing clothes in a big tub, an' poor
+ole Bill Rees runs head on into her an' over they both goes into the
+washtub. The M. P.'s got him all right. That's how I got away. An' the
+last I saw of Bill Rees he was squirming about on top of the washtub
+like he was swimmin', an' the fat woman was sittin' on the ground
+shaking her fist at him. Bill Rees was the best buddy I ever had.”
+
+He paused and poured the rest of the champagne in his glass and wiped
+the sweat off his face with his big red hand.
+
+“You ain't stringin' us, are you?” asked Fuselli.
+
+“You just ask Lieutenant Whitehead, who's defending me in the
+court-martial, if I'm stringin' yer. I been in the ring, kid, and you
+can bet your bottom dollar that a man's been in the ring'll tell the
+truth.”
+
+“Go on, Dan,” said the sergeant.
+
+“An' I never heard a word about Bill Rees since. I guess they got him
+into the trenches and made short work of him.”
+
+Dan Cohan paused to light a cigarette.
+
+“Well, one o' the M. P.'s follows after me and starts shootin'. An'
+don't you believe I ran. Gee, I was scared! But I was in luck 'cause
+a Frenchman had just started his camion an' I jumped in and said the
+gendarmes were after me. He was white, that frog was. He shot the juice
+into her an' went off like a bat out of hell an' there was a hell of a
+lot of traffic on the road because there was some damn-fool attack or
+other goin' on. So I got up to Paris.... An' then it'ld all have been
+fine if I hadn't met up with a Jane I knew. I still had five hundred
+francs on me, an' so we raised hell until one day we was havin' dinner
+in the cafe de Paris, both of us sort of jagged up, an' we didn't have
+enough money to pay the bill an' Janey made a run for it, but an M. P.
+got me an' then there was hell to pay.... Compree? They put me in the
+Bastille, great place.... Then they shipped me off to some damn camp
+or other an' gave me a gun an' made me drill for a week an' then they
+packed a whole gang of us, all A. W. O. L's, into a train for the front.
+That was nearly the end of little Daniel again. But when we was in
+Vitry-le-Francois, I chucked my rifle out of one window and jumped out
+of the other an' got on a train back to Paris an' went an' reported to
+headquarters how I'd smashed the car an' been in the Bastille an' all,
+an' they were sore as hell at the M. P.'s an' sent me out to a section
+an' all went fine until I got ordered back an' had to alley down to this
+goddam camp. Ah' now I don't know what they're goin' to do to me.”
+
+“Gee whiz!”
+
+“It's a great war, I tell you, Sarge. It's a great war. I wouldn't have
+missed it.”
+
+Across the room someone was singing.
+
+“Let's drown 'em out,” said the top sergeant boisterously.
+
+     “O Mademerselle from Armenteers,
+      Parley voo?”
+
+“Well, I've got to get the hell out of here,” said wild Dan Cohan,
+after a minute. “I've got a Jane waitin' for me. I'm all fixed up,...
+Compree?”
+
+He swaggered out singing:
+
+     “Bon soir, ma cherie,
+      Comment alley vous?
+      Si vous voulez
+      Couche avec moi....”
+
+The door slammed behind him, leaving the cafe quiet.
+
+Many men had left. Madame had taken up her knitting and Marie of the
+plump white arms sat beside her, leaning her head back among the bottles
+that rose in tiers behind the bars.
+
+Fuselli was staring at a door on one side of the bar. Men kept opening
+it and looking in and closing it again with a peculiar expression on
+their faces. Now and then someone would open it with a smile and go into
+the next room, shuffling his feet and closing the door carefully behind
+him.
+
+“Say, I wonder what they've got there,” said the top sergeant, who had
+been staring at the door. “Mush be looked into, mush be looked into,” he
+added, laughing drunkenly.
+
+“I dunno,” said Fuselli. The champagne was humming in his head like a
+fly against a window pane. He felt very bold and important.
+
+The top sergeant got to his feet unsteadily.
+
+“Corporal, take charge of the colors,” he said, and walked to the door.
+He opened it a little, peeked in; winked elaborately to his friends and
+skipped into the other room, closing the door carefully behind him.
+
+The corporal went over next. He said, “Well, I'll be damned,” and walked
+straight in, leaving the door ajar. In a moment it was closed from the
+inside.
+
+“Come on, Bill, let's see what the hell they got in there,” said
+Fuselli.
+
+“All right, old kid,” said Bill Grey. They went together over to the
+door. Fuselli opened it and looked in. He let out a breath through his
+teeth with a faint whistling sound.
+
+“Gee, come in, Bill,” he said, giggling.
+
+The room was small, nearly filled up by a dining table with a red cloth.
+On the mantel above the empty fireplace were candlesticks with dangling
+crystals that glittered red and yellow and purple in the lamplight,
+in front of a cracked mirror that seemed a window into another dingier
+room. The paper was peeling off the damp walls, giving a mortuary smell
+of mildewed plaster that not even the reek of beer and tobacco had done
+away with.
+
+“Look at her, Bill, ain't she got style?” whispered Fuselli.
+
+Bill Grey grunted.
+
+“Say, d'ye think the Jane that feller was tellin' us he raised hell with
+in Paris was like that?”
+
+At the end of the table, leaning on her elbows, was a woman with black
+frizzy hair cut short, that stuck out from her head in all directions.
+Her eyes were dark and her lips red with a faint swollen look. She
+looked with a certain defiance at the men who stood about the walls and
+sat at the table.
+
+The men stared at her silently. A big man with red hair and a heavy
+jaw who sat next her kept edging up nearer. Someone knocked against the
+table making the bottles and liqueur glasses clustered in the center
+jingle.
+
+“She ain't clean; she's got bobbed hair,” said the man next Fuselli.
+
+The woman said something in French.
+
+Only one man understood it. His laugh rang hollowly in the silent room
+and stopped suddenly.
+
+The woman looked attentively at the faces round her for a moment,
+shrugged her shoulders, and began straightening the ribbon on the hat
+she held on her lap.
+
+“How the hell did she get here? I thought the M. P.'s ran them out of
+town the minute they got here,” said one man.
+
+The woman continued plucking at her hat.
+
+“You venay Paris?” said a boy with a soft voice who sat near her. He had
+blue eyes and a milky complexion, faintly tanned, that went strangely
+with the rough red and brown faces in the room.
+
+“Oui; de Paris,” she said after a pause, glancing suddenly in the boy's
+face.
+
+“She's a liar, I can tell you that,” said the red-haired man, who by
+this time had moved his chair very close to the woman's.
+
+“You told him you came from Marseilles, and him you came from Lyon,”
+ said the boy with the milky complexion, smiling genially. “Vraiment de
+ou venay vous?”
+
+“I come from everywhere,” she said, and tossed the hair back from her
+face.
+
+“Travelled a lot?” asked the boy again.
+
+“A feller told me,” said Fuselli to Bill Grey, “that he'd talked to a
+girl like that who'd been to Turkey an' Egypt I bet that girl's seen
+some life.”
+
+The woman jumped to her feet suddenly screaming with rage. The man with
+the red hair moved away sheepishly. Then he lifted his large dirty hands
+in the air.
+
+“Kamarad,” he said.
+
+Nobody laughed. The room was silent except for feet scraping
+occasionally on the floor.
+
+She put her hat on and took a little box from the chain bag in her lap
+and began powdering her face, making faces into the mirror she held in
+the palm of her hand.
+
+The men stared at her.
+
+“Guess she thinks she's the Queen of the May,” said one man, getting to
+his feet. He leaned across the table and spat into the fireplace. “I'm
+going back to barracks.” He turned to the woman and shouted in a voice
+full of hatred, “Bon swar.”
+
+The woman was putting the powder puff away in her jet bag. She did not
+look up; the door closed sharply.
+
+“Come along,” said the woman, suddenly, tossing her head back. “Come
+along one at a time; who go with me first?”
+
+Nobody spoke. The men stared at her silently. There was no sound except
+that of feet scraping occasionally on the floor.
+
+
+
+                              III
+
+The oatmeal flopped heavily into the mess-kit. Fuselli's eyes were still
+glued together with sleep. He sat at the dark greasy bench and took a
+gulp of the scalding coffee that smelt vaguely of dish rags. That woke
+him up a little. There was little talk in the mess shack. The men, that
+the bugle had wrenched out of their blankets but fifteen minutes before,
+sat in rows, eating sullenly or blinking at each other through the misty
+darkness. You could hear feet scraping in the ashes of the floor
+and mess kits clattering against the tables and here and there a man
+coughing. Near the counter where the food was served out one of the
+cooks swore interminably in a whiny sing-sing voice.
+
+“Gee, Bill, I've got a head,” said Fuselli.
+
+“Ye're ought to have,” growled Bill Grey. “I had to carry you up into
+the barracks. You said you were goin' back and love up that goddam
+girl.”
+
+“Did I?” said Fuselli, giggling.
+
+“I had a hell of a time getting you past the guard.”
+
+“Some cognac!... I got a hangover now,” said Fuselli.
+
+“I'm goddamned if I can go this much longer.”
+
+“What?”
+
+They were washing their mess-kits in the tub of warm water thick with
+grease from the hundred mess-kits that had gone before, in front of the
+shack. An electric light illumined faintly the wet trunk of a plane tree
+and the surface of the water where bits of oatmeal floated and coffee
+grounds,--and the garbage pails with their painted signs: WET GARBAGE,
+DRY GARBAGE; and the line of men who stood waiting to reach the tub.
+
+“This hell of a life!” said Bill Grey, savagely.
+
+“What d'ye mean?”
+
+“Doin' nothin' but pack bandages in packin' cases and take bandages out
+of packin' cases. I'll go crazy. I've tried gettin' drunk; it don't do
+no good.”
+
+“Gee; I've got a head,” said Fuselli.
+
+Bill Grey put his heavy muscular hand round Fuselli's shoulder as they
+strolled towards the barracks.
+
+“Say, Dan, I'm goin' A. W. O. L.”
+
+“Don't ye do it, Bill. Hell, look at the chance we've got to get ahead.
+We can both of us get promoted if we don't get in wrong.”
+
+“I don't give a hoot in hell for all that.... What d'ye think I got in
+this goddamed army for? Because I thought I'd look nice in the uniform?”
+
+Bill Grey thrust his hands into his pockets and spat dismally in front
+of him.
+
+“But, Bill, you don't want to stay a buck private, do you?”
+
+“I want to get to the front.... I don't want to stay here till I get in
+the jug for being spiffed or get a court-martial.... Say, Dan, will you
+come with me?”
+
+“Hell, Bill, you ain't goin'. You're just kiddin', ain't yer? They'll
+send us there soon enough. I want to get to be a corporal,”--he puffed
+out his chest a little--“before I go to the front, so's to be able to
+show what I'm good for. See, Bill?”
+
+A bugle blew.
+
+“There's fatigue, an' I ain't done my bunk.”
+
+“Me neither.... They won't do nothin', Dan.... Don't let them ride yer,
+Dan.”
+
+They lined up in the dark road feeling the mud slopping under their
+feet. The ruts were full of black water, in which gleamed a reflection
+of distant electric lights.
+
+“All you fellows work in Storehouse A today,” said the sergeant, who had
+been a preacher, in his sad, drawling voice. “Lieutenant says that's all
+got to be finished by noon. They're sending it to the front today.”
+
+Somebody let his breath out in a whistle of surprise.
+
+“Who did that?”
+
+Nobody answered.
+
+“Dismissed!” snapped the sergeant disgustedly.
+
+They straggled off into the darkness towards one of the lights, their
+feet splashing confusedly in the puddles.
+
+Fuselli strolled up to the sentry at the camp gate. He was picking his
+teeth meditatively with the splinter of a pine board.
+
+“Say, Phil, you couldn't lend me a half a dollar, could you?” Fuselli
+stopped, put his hands in his pockets and looked at the sentry with the
+splinter sticking out of a corner of his mouth.
+
+“Sorry, Dan,” said the other man; “I'm cleaned out. Ain't had a cent
+since New Year's.”
+
+“Why the hell don't they pay us?”
+
+“You guys signed the pay roll yet?”
+
+“Sure. So long!”
+
+
+
+Fuselli strolled on down the dark road, where the mud was frozen into
+deep ruts, towards the town. It was still strange to him, this town of
+little houses faced with cracked stucco, where the damp made grey stains
+and green stains, of confused red-tiled roofs, and of narrow cobbled
+streets that zigzagged in and out among high walls overhung with
+balconies. At night, when it was dark except for where a lamp in
+a window spilt gold reflections out on the wet street or the light
+streamed out from a store or a cafe, it was almost frighteningly unreal.
+He walked down into the main square, where he could hear the fountain
+gurgling. In the middle he stopped indecisively, his coat unbuttoned,
+his hands pushed to the bottom of his trousers pockets, where they
+encountered nothing but the cloth. He listened a long time to the
+gurgling of the fountain and to the shunting of trains far away in the
+freight yards. “An' this is the war,” he thought. “Ain't it queer? It's
+quieter than it was at home nights.” Down the street at the end of the
+square a band of white light appeared, the searchlight of a staff car.
+The two eyes of the car stared straight into his eyes, dazzling him,
+then veered off to one side and whizzed past, leaving a faint smell of
+gasoline and a sound of voices. Fuselli watched the fronts of houses
+light up as the car made its way to the main road. Then the town was
+dark and silent again.
+
+He strolled across the square towards the Cheval Blanc, the large cafe
+where the officers went.
+
+“Button yer coat,” came a gruff voice. He saw a stiff tall figure at the
+edge of the curve. He made out the shape of the pistol holster that
+hung like a thin ham at the man's thigh. An M. P. He buttoned his coat
+hurriedly and walked off with rapid steps.
+
+He stopped outside a cafe that had “Ham and Eggs” written in white paint
+on the window and looked in wistfully. Someone from behind him put two
+big hands over his eyes. He wriggled his head free.
+
+“Hello, Dan,” he said. “How did you get out of the jug?”
+
+“I'm a trusty, kid,” said Dan Cohan. “Got any dough?”
+
+“Not a damn cent!”
+
+“Me neither.... Come on in anyway,” said Cohan. “I'll fix it up with
+Marie.” Fuselli followed doubtfully. He was a little afraid of Dan
+Cohan; he remembered how a man had been court-martialed last week for
+trying to bolt out of a cafe without paying for his drinks.
+
+He sat down at a table near the door. Dan had disappeared into the back
+room. Fuselli felt homesick. He was thinking how long it was since, he
+had had a letter from Mabe. “I bet she's got another feller,” he told
+himself savagely. He tried to remember how she looked, but he had to
+take out his watch and peep in the back before he could make out if
+her nose were straight or snub. He looked up, clicking the watch in his
+pocket. Marie of the white arms was coming laughing out of the inner
+room. Her large firm breasts, neatly held in by the close-fitting
+blouse, shook a little when she laughed. Her cheeks were very red and
+a strand of chestnut hair hung down along her neck. She picked it up
+hurriedly and caught it up with a hairpin, walking slowly into the
+middle of the room as she did so with her hands behind her head. Dan
+Cohan followed her into the room, a broad grin on his face.
+
+“All right, kid,” he said. “I told her you'ld pay when Uncle Sam came
+across. Ever had any Kummel?”
+
+“What the hell's that?”
+
+“You'll see.”
+
+They sat down before a dish of fried eggs at the table in the corner,
+the favoured table, where Marie herself often sat and chatted, when
+wizened Madame did not have her eye upon her.
+
+Several men drew up their chairs. Wild Dan Cohan always had an audience.
+
+“Looks like there was going to be another offensive at Verdun,” said Dan
+Cohan. Someone answered vaguely.
+
+“Funny how little we know about what's going on out there,” said one
+man. “I knew more about the war when I was home in Minneapolis than I do
+here.”
+
+“I guess we're lightin' into 'em all right,” said Fuselli in a patriotic
+voice.
+
+“Hell! Nothin' doin' this time o' year anyway,” said Cohan. A grin
+spread across his red face. “Last time I was at the front the Boche had
+just made a coup de main and captured a whole trenchful.”
+
+“Of who?”
+
+“Of Americans--of us!”
+
+“The hell you say!”
+
+“That's a goddam lie,” shouted a black-haired man with an ill-shaven
+jaw, who had just come in. “There ain't never been an American captured,
+an' there never will be, by God!”
+
+“How long were you at the front, buddy,” asked Cohan coolly. “I guess
+you been to Berlin already, ain't yer?”
+
+“I say that any man who says an American'ld let himself be captured by
+a stinkin' Hun, is a goddam liar,” said the man with the ill-shaven jaw,
+sitting down sullenly.
+
+“Well, you'd better not say it to me,” said Cohan laughing, looking
+meditatively at one of his big red fists.
+
+There had been a look of apprehension on Marie's face. She looked at
+Cohan's fist and shrugged her shoulders and laughed.
+
+Another crowd had just slouched into the cafe.
+
+“Well if that isn't wild Dan! Hello, old kid, how are you?”
+
+“Hello, Dook!”
+
+A small man in a coat that looked almost like an officer's coat, it
+was so well cut, was shaking hands effusively with Cohan. He wore a
+corporal's stripes and a British aviator's fatigue cap. Cohan made room
+for him on the bench.
+
+“What are you doing in this hole, Dook?” The man twisted his mouth so
+that his neat black mustache was a slant.
+
+“G. O. 42,” he said.
+
+“Battle of Paris?” said Cohan in a sympathetic voice. “Battle of Nice!
+I'm going back to my section soon. I'd never have got a court-martial if
+I'd been with my outfit. I was in the Base Hospital 15 with pneumonia.”
+
+“Tough luck!”
+
+“It was a hell of a note.”
+
+“Say, Dook, your outfit was working with ours at Chamfort that time,
+wasn't it?”
+
+“You mean when we evacuated the nut hospital?”
+
+“Yes, wasn't that hell?” Dan Cohan gulped down half a glass of red wine,
+smacked his thick lips, and began in his story-telling voice:
+
+“Our section had just come out of Verdun where we'd been getting hell
+for three weeks on the Bras road. There was one little hill where we'd
+have to get out and shove every damn time, the mud was so deep, and
+God, it stank there with the shells turning up the ground all full
+of mackabbies as the poilus call them.... Say, Dook, have you got any
+money?”
+
+“I've got some,” said Dook, without enthusiasm.
+
+“Well, the champagne's damn good here. I'm part of the outfit in this
+gin mill; they'll give it to you at a reduction.”
+
+“All right!”
+
+Dan Cohan turned round and whispered something to Marie. She laughed and
+dived down behind the curtain.
+
+“But that Chamfort was worse yet. Everybody was sort o' nervous because
+the Germans had dropped a message sayin' they'd give 'em three days
+to clear the hospital out, and that then they'd shell hell out of the
+place.”
+
+“The Germans done that! Quit yer kiddin',” said Fuselli.
+
+“They did it at Souilly, too,” said Dook. “Hell, yes.... A funny thing
+happened there. The hospital was in a big rambling house, looked like an
+Atlantic City hotel.... We used to run our car in back and sleep in it.
+It was where we took the shell-shock cases, fellows who were roarin'
+mad, and tremblin' all over, and some of 'em paralysed like.... There
+was a man in the wing opposite where we slept who kept laugh-in'. Bill
+Rees was on the car with me, and we laid in our blankets in the bottom
+of the car and every now and then one of us'ld turn over and whisper:
+'Ain't this hell, kid?' 'cause that feller kept laughin' like a man who
+had just heard a joke that was so funny he couldn't stop laughin'. It
+wasn't like a crazy man's laugh usually is. When I first heard it I
+thought it was a man really laughin', and I guess I laughed too. But it
+didn't stop.... Bill Rees an' me laid in our car shiverin', listenin'
+to the barrage in the distance with now and then the big noise of an
+aeroplane bomb, an' that feller laughin', laughin', like he'd just
+heard a joke, like something had struck him funny.” Cohan took a gulp of
+champagne and jerked his head to one side. “An that damn laughin'
+kept up until about noon the next day when the orderlies strangled the
+feller.... Got their goat, I guess.”
+
+Fuselli was looking towards the other side of the room, where a faint
+murmur of righteous indignation was rising from the dark man with the
+unshaven jaw and his companions. Fuselli was thinking that it wasn't
+good to be seen round too much with a fellow like Cohan, who talked
+about the Germans notifying hospitals before they bombarded them and who
+was waiting for a court-martial. Might get him in wrong. He slipped out
+of the cafe into the dark. A dank wind blew down the irregular street,
+ruffling the reflected light in the puddles, making a shutter bang
+interminably somewhere. Fuselli went to the main square again, casting
+an envious glance in the window of the Cheval Blanc, where he saw
+officers playing billiards in a well-lighted room painted white and
+gold, and a blond girl in a raspberry-colored shirtwaist enthroned
+haughtily behind the bar. He remembered the M. P. and automatically
+hastened his steps. In a narrow street the other side of the square he
+stopped before the window of a small grocery shop and peered inside,
+keeping carefully out of the oblong of light that showed faintly the
+grass-grown cobbles and the green and grey walls opposite. A girl sat
+knitting beside the small counter with her two little black feet placed
+demurely side by side on the edge of a box full of red beets. She was
+very small and slender. The lamplight gleamed on her black hair, done
+close to her head. Her face was in the shadow. Several soldiers lounged
+awkwardly against the counter and the jambs of the door, following her
+movements with their eyes as dogs watch a plate of meat being moved
+about in a kitchen.
+
+After a little the girl rolled up her knitting and jumped to her feet,
+showing her face,--an oval white face with large dark lashes and an
+impertinent mouth. She stood looking at the soldiers who stood about her
+in a circle, then twisted up her mouth in a grimace and disappeared into
+the inner room.
+
+Fuselli walked to the end of the street where there was a bridge over a
+small stream. He leaned on the cold stone rail and looked into the water
+that was barely visible gurgling beneath between rims of ice.
+
+“O this is a hell of a life,” he muttered.
+
+He shivered in the cold wind but remained leaning over the water. In
+the distance trains rumbled interminably, giving him a sense of vast
+desolate distances. The village clock struck eight. The bell had a soft
+note like the bass string of a guitar. In the darkness Fuselli could
+almost see the girl's face grimacing with its broad impertinent lips. He
+thought of the sombre barracks and men sitting about on the end of their
+cots. Hell, he couldn't go back yet. His whole body was taut with desire
+for warmth and softness and quiet. He slouched back along the narrow
+street cursing in a dismal monotone. Before the grocery store he
+stopped. The men had gone. He went in jauntily pushing his cap a little
+to one side so that some of his thick curly hair came out over his
+forehead. The little bell in the door clanged.
+
+The girl came out of the inner room. She gave him her hand
+indifferently.
+
+“Comment ca va! Yvonne? Bon?”
+
+His pidgin-French made her show her little pearly teeth in a smile.
+
+“Good,” she said in English.
+
+They laughed childishly.
+
+“Say, will you be my girl, Yvonne?”
+
+She looked in his eyes and laughed.
+
+“Non compris,” she said.
+
+“We, we; voulez vous et' ma fille?”
+
+She shrieked with laughter and slapped him hard on the cheek. “Venez,”
+ she said, still laughing. He followed her. In the inner room was a
+large oak table with chairs round it. At the end Eisenstein and a French
+soldier were talking excitedly, so absorbed in what they were saying
+that they did not notice the other two. Yvonne took the Frenchman by the
+hair and pulled his head back and told him, still laughing, what Fuselli
+had said. He laughed.
+
+“No, you must not say that,” he said in English, turning to Fuselli.
+
+Fuselli was angry and sat down sullenly at the end of the table, keeping
+his eyes on Yvonne. She drew the knitting out of the pocket of her apron
+and holding it up comically between two fingers, glanced towards the
+dark corner of the room where an old woman with a lace cap on her head
+sat asleep, and then let herself fall into a chair.
+
+“Boom!” she said.
+
+Fuselli laughed until the tears filled his eyes. She laughed too. They
+sat a long while looking at each other and giggling, while Eisenstein
+and the Frenchman talked. Suddenly Fuselli caught a phrase that startled
+him.
+
+“What would you Americans do if revolution broke out in France?”
+
+“We'd do what we were ordered to,” said Eisenstein bitterly. “We're a
+bunch of slaves.” Fuselli noticed that Eisenstein's puffy sallow face
+was flushed and that there was a flash in his eyes he had never seen
+before.
+
+“How do you mean, revolution?” asked Fuselli in a puzzled voice.
+
+The Frenchman turned black eyes searchingly upon him.
+
+“I mean, stop the butchery,--overthrow the capitalist government.--The
+social revolution.”
+
+“But you're a republic already, ain't yer?”
+
+“As much as you are.”
+
+“You talk like a socialist,” said Fuselli. “They tell me they shoot guys
+in America for talkin' like that.”
+
+“You see!” said Eisenstein to the Frenchman.
+
+“Are they all like that?”
+
+“Except a very few. It's hopeless,” said Eisenstein, burying his face in
+his hands. “I often think of shooting myself.”
+
+“Better shoot someone else,” said the Frenchman. “It will be more
+useful.”
+
+Fuselli stirred uneasily in his chair.
+
+“Where'd you fellers get that stuff anyway?” he asked. In his mind he
+was saying: “A kike and a frog, that's a good combination.”
+
+His eye caught Yvonne's and they both laughed, Yvonne threw her knitting
+ball at him. It rolled down under the table and they both scrambled
+about under the chairs looking for it.
+
+“Twice I have thought it was going to happen,” said the Frenchman.
+
+“When was that?”
+
+“A little while ago a division started marching on Paris.... And when I
+was in Verdun.... O there will be a revolution.... France is the country
+of revolutions.”
+
+“We'll always be here to shoot you down,” said Eisenstein.
+
+“Wait till you've been in the war a little while. A winter in the
+trenches will make any army ready for revolution.”
+
+“But we have no way of learning the truth. And in the tyranny of the
+army a man becomes a brute, a piece of machinery. Remember you are freer
+than we are. We are worse than the Russians!”
+
+“It is curious!... O but you must have some feeling of civilization. I
+have always heard that Americans were free and independent. Will they
+let themselves be driven to the slaughter always?”
+
+“O I don't know.” Eisenstein got to his feet. “We'd better be getting to
+barracks. Coming, Fuselli?” he said.
+
+“Guess so,” said Fuselli indifferently, without getting up.
+
+Eisenstein and the Frenchman went out into the shop.
+
+“Bon swar,” said Fuselli, softly, leaning across the table. “Hey,
+girlie?”
+
+He threw himself on his belly on the wide table and put his arms round
+her neck and kissed her, feeling everything go blank in a flame of
+desire.
+
+She pushed him away calmly with strong little arms.
+
+“Stop!” she said, and jerked her head in the direction of the old woman
+in the chair in the dark corner of the room. They stood side by side
+listening to her faint wheezy snoring. He put his arms round her and
+kissed her long on the mouth.
+
+“Demain,” he said.
+
+She nodded her head.
+
+Fuselli walked fast up the dark street towards the camp. The blood
+pounded happily through his veins. He caught up with Eisenstein.
+
+“Say, Eisenstein,” he said in a comradely voice, “I don't think you
+ought to go talking round like that. You'll get yourself in too deep one
+of these days.”
+
+“I don't care!”
+
+“But, hell, man, you don't want to get in the wrong that bad. They shoot
+fellers for less than you said.”
+
+“Let them.”
+
+“Christ, man, you don't want to be a damn fool,” expostulated Fuselli.
+
+“How old are you, Fuselli?”
+
+“I'm twenty now.”
+
+“I'm thirty. I've lived more, kid. I know what's good and what's bad.
+This butchery makes me unhappy.”
+
+“God, I know. It's a hell of a note. But who brought it on? If somebody
+had shot that Kaiser.”
+
+Eisenstein laughed bitterly. At the entrance of camp Fuselli lingered a
+moment watching the small form of Eisenstein disappear with its curious
+waddly walk into the darkness.
+
+“I'm going to be damn careful who I'm seen goin' into barracks with,” he
+said to himself. “That damn kike may be a German spy or a secret-service
+officer.” A cold chill of terror went over him, shattering his mood
+of joyous self-satisfaction. His feet slopped in the puddles, breaking
+through the thin ice, as he walked up the road towards the barracks. He
+felt as if people were watching him from everywhere out of the darkness,
+as if some gigantic figure were driving him forward through the
+darkness, holding a fist over his head, ready to crush him.
+
+When he was rolled up in his blankets in the bunk next to Bill Grey, he
+whispered to his friend:
+
+“Say, Bill, I think I've got a skirt all fixed up in town.”
+
+“Who?”
+
+“Yvonne--don't tell anybody.”
+
+Bill Grey whistled softly.
+
+“You're some highflyer, Dan.”
+
+Fuselli chuckled.
+
+“Hell, man, the best ain't good enough for me.”
+
+“Well, I'm going to leave you,” said Bill Grey.
+
+“When?”
+
+“Damn soon. I can't go this life. I don't see how you can.”
+
+Fuselli did not answer. He snuggled warmly into his blankets, thinking
+of Yvonne and the corporalship.
+
+
+
+In the light of the one flickering lamp that made an unsteady circle of
+reddish glow on the station platform Fuselli looked at his pass. From
+Reveille on February fourth to Reveille on February fifth he was a
+free man. His eyes smarted with sleep as he walked up and down the
+cold station platform. For twenty-four hours he wouldn't have to obey
+anybody's orders. Despite the loneliness of going away on a train in a
+night like this in a strange country Fuselli was happy. He clinked the
+money in his pocket.
+
+Down the track a red eye appeared and grew nearer. He could hear the
+hard puffing of the engine up the grade. Huge curves gleamed as the
+engine roared slowly past him. A man with bare arms black with coal dust
+was leaning out of the cab, lit up from behind by a yellowish red glare.
+Now the cars were going by, flat cars with guns, tilted up like the
+muzzles of hunting dogs, freight cars out of which here and there peered
+a man's head. The train almost came to a stop. The cars clanged one
+against the other all down the train. Fuselli was looking into a pair of
+eyes that shone in the lamplight; a hand was held out to him.
+
+“So long, kid,” said a boyish voice. “I don't know who the hell you are,
+but so long; good luck.”
+
+“So long,” stammered Fuselli. “Going to the front?”
+
+“Yer goddam right,” answered another voice.
+
+The train took up speed again; the clanging of car against car ceased
+and in a moment they were moving fast before Fuselli's eyes. Then the
+station was dark and empty again, and he was watching the red light grow
+smaller and paler while the train rumbled on into the darkness.
+
+
+
+A confusion of gold and green and crimson silks and intricate designs of
+naked pink-fleshed cupids filled Fuselli's mind, when, full of wonder,
+he walked down the steps of the palace out into the faint ruddy sunlight
+of the afternoon. A few names, Napoleon, Josephine, the Empire, that had
+never had significance in his mind before, flared with a lurid
+gorgeous light in his imagination like a tableau of living statues at a
+vaudeville theatre.
+
+“They must have had a heap of money, them guys,” said the man who was
+with him, a private in Aviation. “Let's go have a drink.”
+
+Fuselli was silent and absorbed in his thoughts. Here was something that
+supplemented his visions of wealth and glory that he used to tell Al
+about, when they'd sit and watch the big liners come in, all glittering
+with lights, through the Golden Gate.
+
+“They didn't mind having naked women about, did they?” said the private
+in Aviation, a morose foul-mouthed little man who had been in the woolen
+business. “D'ye blame them?”
+
+“No, I can't say's I do.... I bet they was immoral, them guys,” he
+continued vaguely.
+
+They wandered about the streets of Fontainebleau listlessly, looking
+into shop windows, staring at women, lolling on benches in the parks
+where the faint sunlight came through a lacework of twigs purple and
+crimson and yellow, that cast intricate lavender-grey shadows on the
+asphalt.
+
+“Let's go have another drink,” said the private in Aviation.
+
+Fuselli looked at his watch; they had hours before train time.
+
+A girl in a loose dirty blouse wiped off the table.
+
+“Vin blank,” said the other man.
+
+“Mame shows,” said Fuselli.
+
+His head was full of gold and green mouldings and silk and crimson
+velvet and intricate designs in which naked pink-fleshed cupids writhed
+indecently. Some day, he was saying to himself, he'd make a hell of a
+lot of money and live in a house like that with Mabe; no, with Yvonne,
+or with some other girl.
+
+“Must have been immoral, them guys,” said the private in Aviation,
+leering at the girl in the dirty blouse.
+
+Fuselli remembered a revel he'd seen in a moving picture of “Quo Vadis,”
+ people in bath robes dancing around with large cups in their hands and
+tables full of dishes being upset.
+
+“Cognac, beaucoup,” said the private in Aviation.
+
+“Mame shows,” said Fuselli.
+
+The cafe was full of gold and green silks, and great brocaded beds
+with heavy carvings above them, beds in which writhed, pink-fleshed and
+indecent, intricate patterns of cupids.
+
+Somebody said, “Hello, Fuselli.”
+
+He was on the train; his ears hummed and his head had an iron band
+round it. It was dark except for the little light that flickered in the
+ceiling. For a minute he thought it was a goldfish in a bowl, but it was
+a light that flickered in the ceiling.
+
+“Hello, Fuselli,” said Eisenstein. “Feel all right?”
+
+“Sure,” said Fuselli with a thick voice. “Why shouldn't I?”
+
+“How did you find that house?” said Eisenstein seriously.
+
+“Hell, I don't know,” muttered Fuselli. “I'm goin' to sleep.”
+
+His mind was a jumble. He remembered vast halls full of green and gold
+silks, and great beds with crowns over them where Napoleon and Josephine
+used to sleep. Who were they? O yes, the Empire,--or was it the
+Abdication? Then there were patterns of flowers and fruits and cupids,
+all gilded, and a dark passage and stairs that smelt musty, where he and
+the man in Aviation fell down. He remembered how it felt to rub his nose
+hard on the gritty red plush carpet of the stairs. Then there were women
+in open-work skirts standing about, or were those the pictures on the
+walls? And there was a bed with mirrors round it. He opened his eyes.
+Eisenstein was talking to him. He must have been talking to him for some
+time.
+
+“I look at it this way,” he was saying. “A feller needs a little of that
+to keep healthy. Now, if he's abstemious and careful...”
+
+Fuselli went to sleep. He woke up again thinking suddenly: he must
+borrow that little blue book of army regulations. It would be useful to
+know that in case something came up. The corporal who had been in the
+Red Sox outfield had been transferred to a Base Hospital. It was t.
+b. so Sergeant Osier said. Anyway they were going to appoint an acting
+corporal. He stared at the flickering little light in the ceiling.
+
+“How did you get a pass?” Eisenstein was asking.
+
+“Oh, the sergeant fixed me up with one,” answered Fuselli mysteriously.
+
+“You're in pretty good with the sergeant, ain't yer?” said Eisenstein.
+
+Fuselli smiled deprecatingly.
+
+“Say, d'ye know that little kid Stockton?”
+
+“The white-faced little kid who's clerk in that outfit that has the
+other end of the barracks?”
+
+“That's him,” said Eisenstein. “I wish I could do something to help that
+kid. He just can't stand the discipline.... You ought to see him wince
+when the red-haired sergeant over there yells at him.... The kid looks
+sicker every day.”
+
+“Well, he's got a good soft job: clerk,” said Fuselli.
+
+“Ye think it's soft? I worked twelve hours day before yesterday getting
+out reports,” said Eisenstein, indignantly. “But the kid's lost it and
+they keep ridin' him for some reason or other. It hurts a feller to see
+that. He ought to be at home at school.”
+
+“He's got to take his medicine,” said Fuselli.
+
+“You wait till we get butchered in the trenches. We'll see how you like
+your medicine,” said Eisenstein.
+
+“Damn fool,” muttered Fuselli, composing himself to sleep again.
+
+
+
+The bugle wrenched Fuselli out of his blankets, half dead with sleep.
+
+“Say, Bill, I got a head again,” he muttered. There was no answer. It
+was only then that he noticed that the cot next to his was empty. The
+blankets were folded neatly at the foot. Sudden panic seized him. He
+couldn't get along without Bill Grey, he said to himself, he wouldn't
+have anyone to go round with. He looked fixedly at the empty cot.
+
+“Attention!”
+
+The company was lined up in the dark with their feet in the mud puddles
+of the road. The lieutenant strode up and down in front of them with the
+tail of his trench coat sticking out behind. He had a pocket flashlight
+that he kept flashing at the gaunt trunks of trees, in the faces of the
+company, at his feet, in the puddles of the road.
+
+“If any man knows anything about the whereabouts of Private 1st-class
+William Grey, report at once, as otherwise we shall have to put him down
+A. W. O. L. You know what that means?” The lieutenant spoke in short
+shrill periods, chopping off the ends of his words as if with a hatchet.
+
+No one said anything.
+
+“I guess he's S. O. L.”; this from someone behind Fuselli.
+
+“And I have one more announcement to make, men,” said the lieutenant
+in his natural voice. “I'm going to appoint Fuselli, 1st-class private,
+acting corporal.”
+
+Fuselli's knees were weak under him. He felt like shouting and dancing
+with joy. He was glad it was dark so that no one could see how excited
+he was.
+
+“Sergeant, dismiss the company,” said the lieutenant bringing his voice
+back to its military tone.
+
+“Companee dis-missed!” said out the sergeant jovially.
+
+In groups, talking with crisp voices, cheered by the occurrence of
+events, the company straggled across the great stretch of mud puddles
+towards the mess shack.
+
+
+
+                             IV
+
+Yvonne tossed the omelette in the air. It landed sizzling in the pan
+again, and she came forward into the light, holding the frying pan
+before her. Behind her was the dark stove and above it a row of copper
+kettles that gleamed through the bluish obscurity. She flicked the
+omelette out of the pan into the white dish that stood in the middle of
+the table, full in the yellow lamplight.
+
+“Tiens,” she said, brushing a few stray hairs off her forehead with the
+back of her hand.
+
+“You're some cook,” said Fuselli getting to his feet. He had been
+sprawling on a chair in the other end of the kitchen, watching Yvonne's
+slender body in tight black dress and blue apron move in and out of the
+area of light as she got dinner ready. A smell of burnt butter with a
+faint tang of pepper in it, filled the kitchen, making his mouth water.
+
+“This is the real stuff,” he was saying to himself,--“like home.”
+
+He stood with his hands deep in his pockets and his head thrown back,
+watching her cut the bread, holding the big loaf to her chest and
+pulling the knife towards her, she brushed some crumbs off her dress
+with a thin white hand.
+
+“You're my girl, Yvonne; ain't yer?” Fuselli put his arms round her.
+
+“Sale bete,” she said, laughing and pushing him away.
+
+There was a brisk step outside and another girl came into the kitchen, a
+thin yellow-faced girl with a sharp nose and long teeth.
+
+“Ma cousine.... Mon 'tit americain.” They both laughed. Fuselli blushed
+as he shook the girl's hand.
+
+“Il est beau, hein?” said Yvonne gruffly.
+
+“Mais, ma petite, il est charmant, vot' americain!” They laughed
+again. Fuselli who did not understand laughed too, thinking to himself,
+“They'll let the dinner get cold if they don't sit down soon.”
+
+“Get maman, Dan,” said Yvonne. Fuselli went into the shop through
+the room with the long oak table. In the dim light that came from the
+kitchen he saw the old woman's white bonnet. Her face was in shadow but
+there was a faint gleam of light in her small beady eyes.
+
+“Supper, ma'am,” he shouted.
+
+Grumbling in her creaky little voice, the old woman followed him back
+into the kitchen.
+
+Steam, gilded by the lamplight, rose in pillars to the ceiling from the
+big tureen of soup.
+
+There was a white cloth on the table and a big loaf of bread at the end.
+The plates, with borders of little roses on them, seemed, after the army
+mess, the most beautiful things Fuselli had ever seen. The wine bottle
+was black beside the soup tureen and the wine in the glasses cast a dark
+purple stain on the cloth.
+
+Fuselli ate his soup silently understanding very little of the French
+that the two girls rattled at each other. The old woman rarely spoke and
+when she did one of the girls would throw her a hasty remark that hardly
+interrupted their chatter.
+
+Fuselli was thinking of the other men lining up outside the dark mess
+shack and the sound the food made when it flopped into the mess kits. An
+idea came to him. He'd have to bring Sarge to see Yvonne. They could set
+him up to a feed. “It would help me to stay in good with him,” He had
+a minute's worry about his corporalship. He was acting corporal right
+enough, but he wanted them to send in his appointment.
+
+The omelette melted in his mouth.
+
+“Damn bon,” he said to Yvonne with his mouth full.
+
+She looked at him fixedly.
+
+“Bon, bon,” he said again.
+
+“You.... Dan, bon,” she said and laughed. The cousin was looking from
+one to the other enviously, her upper lip lifted away from her teeth in
+a smile.
+
+The old woman munched her bread in a silent preoccupied fashion.
+
+“There's somebody in the store,” said Fuselli after a long pause. “Je
+irey.” He put his napkin down and went out wiping his mouth on the back
+of his hand. Eisenstein and a chalky-faced boy were in the shop.
+
+“Hullo! are you keepin' house here?” asked Eisenstein.
+
+“Sure,” said Fuselli conceitedly.
+
+“Have you got any chawclit?” asked the chalky-faced boy in a thin
+bloodless voice.
+
+Fuselli looked round the shelves and threw a cake of chocolate down on
+the counter.
+
+“Anything else?”
+
+“Nothing, thank you, corporal. How much is it?”
+
+Whistling “There's a long, long trail a-winding,” Fuselli strode back
+into the inner room.
+
+“Combien chocolate?” he asked.
+
+When he had received the money, he sat down at his place at table again,
+smiling importantly. He must write Al about all this, he was thinking,
+and he was wondering vaguely whether Al had been drafted yet.
+
+After dinner the women sat a long time chatting over their coffee, while
+Fuselli squirmed uneasily on his chair, looking now and then at his
+watch. His pass was till twelve only; it was already getting on to ten.
+He tried to catch Yvonne's eye, but she was moving about the kitchen
+putting things in order for the night, and hardly seemed to notice him.
+At last the old woman shuffled into the shop and there was the sound
+of a key clicking hard in the outside door. When she came back, Fuselli
+said good-night to everyone and left by the back door into the court.
+There he leaned sulkily against the wall and waited in the dark,
+listening to the sounds that came from the house. He could see shadows
+passing across the orange square of light the window threw on the
+cobbles of the court. A light went on in an upper window, sending a
+faint glow over the disorderly tiles of the roof of the shed opposite.
+The door opened and Yvonne and her cousin stood on the broad stone
+doorstep chattering. Fuselli had pushed himself in behind a big hogshead
+that had a pleasant tang of old wood damp with sour wine. At last the
+heads of the shadows on the cobbles came together for a moment and the
+cousin clattered across the court and out into the empty streets. Her
+rapid footsteps died away. Yvonne's shadow was still in the door:
+
+“Dan,” she said softly.
+
+Fuselli came out from behind the hogshead, his whole body flushing with
+delight. Yvonne pointed to his shoes. He took them off, and left them
+beside the door. He looked at his watch. It was a quarter to eleven.
+
+“Viens,” she said.
+
+He followed her, his knees trembling a little from excitement, up the
+steep stairs.
+
+
+
+The deep broken strokes of the town clock had just begun to strike
+midnight when Fuselli hurried in the camp gate. He gave up his pass
+jauntily to the guard and strolled towards his barracks. The long shed
+was pitch black, full of a sound of deep breathing and of occasional
+snoring. There was a thick smell of uniform wool on which the sweat had
+dried. Fuselli undressed without haste, stretching his arms luxuriously.
+He wriggled into his blankets feeling cool and tired, and went to sleep
+with a smile of self-satisfaction on his lips.
+
+
+
+The companies were lined up for retreat, standing stiff as toy soldiers
+outside their barracks. The evening was almost warm. A little playful
+wind, oozing with springtime, played with the swollen buds on the plane
+trees. The sky was a drowsy violet color, and the blood pumped hot and
+stinging through the stiffened arms and legs of the soldiers who stood
+at attention. The voices of the non-coms were particularly harsh and
+metallic this evening. It was rumoured that a general was about. Orders
+were shouted with fury.
+
+Standing behind the line of his company, Fuselli's chest was stuck out
+until the buttons of his tunic were in danger of snapping off. His shoes
+were well-shined, and he wore a new pair of puttees, wound so tightly
+that his legs ached.
+
+At last the bugle sounded across the silent camp.
+
+“Parade rest!” shouted the lieutenant.
+
+Fuselli's mind was full of the army regulations which he had been
+studying assiduously for the last week. He was thinking of an imaginary
+examination for the corporalship, which he would pass, of course.
+
+When the company was dismissed, he went up familiarly to the top
+sergeant:
+
+“Say, Sarge, doin' anything this evenin'?”
+
+“What the hell can a man do when he's broke?” said the top sergeant.
+
+“Well, you come down town with me. I want to introjuce you to somebody.”
+
+“Great!”
+
+“Say, Sarge, have they sent that appointment in yet?”
+
+“No, they haven't, Fuselli,” said the top sergeant. “It's all made out,”
+ he added encouragingly.
+
+They walked towards the town silently. The evening was silvery-violet.
+The few windows in the old grey-green houses that were lighted shone
+orange.
+
+“Well, I'm goin' to get it, ain't I?”
+
+A staff car shot by, splashing them with mud, leaving them a glimpse of
+officers leaning back in the deep cushions.
+
+“You sure are,” said the top sergeant in his good-natured voice.
+
+They had reached the square. They saluted stiffly as two officers
+brushed past them.
+
+“What's the regulations about a feller marryin' a French girl?” broke
+out Fuselli suddenly.
+
+“Thinking of getting hitched up, are you?”
+
+“Hell, no.” Fuselli was crimson. “I just sort o' wanted to know.”
+
+“Permission of C. O., that's all I know of.”
+
+They had stopped in front of the grocery shop. Fuselli peered in through
+the window. The shop was full of soldiers lounging against the counter
+and the walls. In the midst of them, demurely knitting, sat Yvonne.
+
+“Let's go and have a drink an' then come back,” said Fuselli.
+
+They went to the cafe where Marie of the white arms presided. Fuselli
+paid for two hot rum punches.
+
+“You see it's this way, Sarge,” he said confidentially, “I wrote all my
+folks at home I'd been made corporal, an' it'ld be a hell of a note to
+be let down now.”
+
+The top sergeant was drinking his hot drink in little sips. He smiled
+broadly and put his hand paternal-fashion on Fuselli's knee.
+
+“Sure; you needn't worry, kid. I've got you fixed up all right,” he
+said; then he added jovially, “Well, let's go see that girl of yours.”
+
+They went out into the dark streets, where the wind, despite the smell
+of burnt gasolene and army camps, had a faint suavity, something like
+the smell of mushrooms; the smell of spring.
+
+Yvonne sat under the lamp in the shop, her feet up on a box of canned
+peas, yawning dismally. Behind her on the counter was the glass case
+full of yellow and greenish-white cheeses. Above that shelves rose to
+the ceiling in the brownish obscurity of the shop where gleamed faintly
+large jars and small jars, cans neatly placed in rows, glass jars and
+vegetables. In the corner, near the glass curtained door that led to the
+inner room, hung clusters of sausages large and small, red, yellow,
+and speckled. Yvonne jumped up when Fuselli and the sergeant opened the
+door.
+
+“You are good,” she said. “Je mourrais de cafard.” They laughed.
+
+“You know what that mean--cafard?”
+
+“Sure.”
+
+“It is only since the war. Avant la guerre on ne savais pas ce que
+c'etait le cafard. The war is no good.”
+
+“Funny, ain't it?” said Fuselli to the top sergeant, “a feller can't
+juss figure out what the war is like.”
+
+“Don't you worry. We'll all get there,” said the top sergeant knowingly.
+
+“This is the sarjon, Yvonne,” said Fuselli.
+
+“Oui, oui, je sais,” said Yvonne, smiling at the top sergeant. They sat
+in the little room behind the shop and drank white wine, and talked as
+best they could to Yvonne, who, very trim in her black dress and blue
+apron, perched on the edge of her chair with her feet in tiny pumps
+pressed tightly together, and glanced now and then at the elaborate
+stripes on the top sergeant's arm.
+
+
+
+Fuselli strode familiarly into the grocery shop, whistling, and threw
+open the door to the inner room. His whistling stopped in the middle of
+a bar.
+
+“Hello,” he said in an annoyed voice.
+
+“Hello, corporal,” said Eisenstein. Eisenstein, his French soldier
+friend, a lanky man with a scraggly black heard and burning black eyes,
+and Stockton, the chalky-faced boy, were sitting at the table that
+filled up the room, chatting intimately and gaily with Yvonne, who
+leaned against the yellow wall beside the Frenchman and showed all her
+little pearly teeth in a laugh. In the middle of the dark oak table was
+a pot of hyacinths and some glasses that had had wine in them. The
+odor of the hyacinths hung in the air with a faint warm smell from the
+kitchen.
+
+After a second's hesitation, Fuselli sat down to wait until the others
+should leave. It was long after pay-day and his pockets were empty, so
+he had nowhere else to go.
+
+“How are they treatin' you down in your outfit now?” asked Eisenstein of
+Stockton, after a silence.
+
+“Same as ever,” said Stockton in his thin voice, stuttering a little....
+“Sometimes I wish I was dead.”
+
+“Hum,” said Eisenstein, a curious expression of understanding on his
+flabby face. “We'll be civilians some day.”
+
+“I won't” said Stockton.
+
+“Hell,” said Eisenstein. “You've got to keep your upper lip stiff. I
+thought I was goin' to die in that troopship coming over here. An' when
+I was little an' came over with the emigrants from Poland, I thought I
+was goin' to die. A man can stand more than he thinks for.... I never
+thought I could stand being in the army, bein' a slave like an' all
+that, an' I'm still here. No, you'll live long and be successful yet.”
+ He put his hand on Stockton's shoulder. The boy winced and drew his
+chair away. “What for you do that? I ain't goin' to hurt you,” said
+Eisenstein.
+
+Fuselli looked at them both with a disgusted interest.
+
+“I'll tell you what you'd better do, kid,” he said condescendingly. “You
+get transferred to our company. It's an Al bunch, ain't it, Eisenstein?
+We've got a good loot an' a good top-kicker, an' a damn good bunch o'
+fellers.”
+
+“Our top-kicker was in here a few minutes ago,” said Eisenstein.
+
+“He was?” asked Fuselli. “Where'd he go?”
+
+“Damned if I know.”
+
+Yvonne and the French soldier were talking in low voices, laughing a
+little now and then. Fuselli leaned back in his chair looking at them,
+feeling out of things, wishing despondently that he knew enough French
+to understand what they were saying. He scraped his feet angrily back
+and forth on the floor. His eyes lit on the white hyacinths. They made
+him think of florists' windows at home at Eastertime and the noise and
+bustle of San Francisco's streets. “God, I hate this rotten hole,” he
+muttered to himself. He thought of Mabe. He made a noise with his lips.
+Hell, she was married by this time. Anyway Yvonne was the girl for him.
+If he could only have Yvonne to himself; far away somewhere, away from
+the other men and that damn frog and her old mother. He thought of
+himself going to the theatre with Yvonne. When he was a sergeant he
+would be able to afford that sort of thing. He counted up the months. It
+was March. Here he'd been in Europe five months and he was still only a
+corporal, and not that yet. He clenched his fists with impatience.
+But once he got to be a non-com it would go faster, he told himself
+reassuringly.
+
+He leaned over and sniffed loudly at the hyacinths.
+
+“They smell good,” he said. “Que disay vous, Yvonne?”
+
+Yvonne looked at him as if she had forgotten that he was in the room.
+Her eyes looked straight into his, and she burst out laughing. Her
+glance had made him feel warm all over, and he leaned back in his chair
+again, looking at her slender body so neatly cased in its black dress
+and at her little head with its tightly-done hair, with a comfortable
+feeling of possession.
+
+“Yvonne, come over here,” he said, beckoning with his head. She looked
+from him to the Frenchman provocatively. Then she came over and stood
+behind him.
+
+“Que voulez-vous?”
+
+Fuselli glanced at Eisenstein. He and Stockton were deep in excited
+conversation with the Frenchman again. Fuselli heard that uncomfortable
+word that always made him angry, he did not know why, “Revolution.”
+
+“Yvonne,” he said so that only she could hear, “what you say you and me
+get married?”
+
+“Marries.... moi et toi?” asked Yvonne in a puzzled voice.
+
+“We we.”
+
+She looked him in the eyes a moment, and then threw hack her head in a
+paroxysm of hysterical laughter.
+
+Fuselli flushed scarlet, got to his feet and strode out, slamming the
+door behind him so that the glass rang. He walked hurriedly back to
+camp, splashed with mud by the long lines of grey motor trucks that were
+throbbing their way slowly through the main street, each with a yellow
+eye that lit up faintly the tailboards of the truck ahead. The barracks
+were dark and nearly empty. He sat down at the sergeant's desk and
+began moodily turning over the pages of the little blue book of Army
+Regulations.
+
+
+
+The moonlight glittered in the fountain at the end of the main square
+of the town. It was a warm dark night of faint clouds through which the
+moon shone palely as through a thin silk canopy. Fuselli stood by the
+fountain smoking a cigarette, looking at the yellow windows of the
+Cheval Blanc at the other end of the square, from which came a sound of
+voices and of billiard balls clinking. He stood quiet letting the acrid
+cigarette smoke drift out through his nose, his ears full of the silvery
+tinkle of the water in the fountain beside him. There were little drifts
+of warm and chilly air in the breeze that blew fitfully from the west.
+Fuselli was waiting. He took out his watch now and then and strained his
+eyes to see the time, but there was not light enough. At last the deep
+broken note of the bell in the church spire struck once. It must be half
+past ten.
+
+He started walking slowly towards the street where Yvonne's grocery
+shop was. The faint glow of the moon lit up the grey houses with the
+shuttered windows and tumultuous red roofs full of little dormers and
+skylights. Fuselli felt deliciously at ease with the world. He could
+almost feel Yvonne's body in his arms and he smiled as he remembered
+the little faces she used to make at him. He slunk past the shuttered
+windows of the shop and dove into the darkness under the arch that led
+to the court. He walked cautiously, on tiptoe, keeping close to the
+moss-covered wall, for he heard voices in the court. He peeped round
+the edge of the building and saw that there were several people in the
+kitchen door talking. He drew his head back into the shadow. But he
+had caught a glimpse of the dark round form of the hogshead beside the
+kitchen door. If he only could get behind that as he usually did, he
+would be hidden until the people went away.
+
+Keeping well in the shadow round the edge of the court, he slipped to
+the other side, and was just about to pop himself in behind the hogshead
+when he noticed that someone was there before him.
+
+He caught his breath and stood still, his heart thumping. The figure
+turned and in the dark he recognised the top sergeant's round face.
+
+“Keep quiet, can't you?” whispered the top sergeant peevishly.
+
+Fuselli stood still with his fists clenched. The blood flamed through
+his head, making his scalp tingle.
+
+Still the top sergeant was the top sergeant, came the thought. It
+would never do to get in wrong with him. Fuselli's legs moved him
+automatically back into a corner of the court, where he leaned against
+the damp wall; glaring with smarting eyes at the two women who stood
+talking outside the kitchen door, and at the dark shadow behind the
+hogshead. At last, after several smacking kisses, the women went away
+and the kitchen door closed. The bell in the church spire struck eleven
+slowly and mournfully. When it had ceased striking, Fuselli heard a
+discreet tapping and saw the shadow of the top sergeant against the
+door. As he slipped in, Fuselli heard the top sergeant's good-natured
+voice in a large stage whisper, followed by a choked laugh from Yvonne.
+The door closed and the light was extinguished, leaving the court in
+darkness except for a faint marbled glow in the sky.
+
+Fuselli strode out, making as much noise as he could with his heels on
+the cobble stones. The streets of the town were silent under the pale
+moon. In the square the fountain sounded loud and metallic. He gave up
+his pass to the guard and strode glumly towards the barracks. At the
+door he met a man with a pack on his back.
+
+“Hullo, Fuselli,” said a voice he knew. “Is my old bunk still there?”
+
+“Damned if I know,” said Fuselli; “I thought they'd shipped you home.”
+
+The corporal who had been on the Red Sox outfield broke into a fit of
+coughing.
+
+“Hell, no,” he said. “They kep' me at that goddam hospital till they saw
+I wasn't goin' to die right away, an' then they told me to come back to
+my outfit. So here I am!”
+
+“Did they bust you?” said Fuselli with sudden eagerness.
+
+“Hell, no. Why should they? They ain't gone and got a new corporal, have
+they?”
+
+“No, not exactly,” said Fuselli.
+
+
+
+                             V
+
+Meadville stood near the camp gate, watching the motor trucks go by
+on the main road. Grey, lumbering, and mud-covered, they throbbed by
+sloughing in and out of the mud holes in the worn road in an endless
+train stretching as far as he could see into the town and as far as he
+could see up the road.
+
+He stood with his legs far apart and spat into the center of the road;
+then he turned to the corporal who had been in the Red Sox outfield and
+said:
+
+“I'll be goddamed if there ain't somethin' doin'!”
+
+“A hell of a lot doin',” said the corporal, shaking his head.
+
+“Seen that guy Daniels who's been to the front?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Well, he says hell's broke loose. Hell's broke loose!”
+
+“What's happened?... Be gorry, we may see some active service,” said
+Meadville, grinning. “By God, I'd give the best colt on my ranch to see
+some action.”
+
+“Got a ranch?” asked the corporal.
+
+The motor trucks kept on grinding past monotonously; their drivers were
+so splashed with mud it was hard to see what uniform they wore.
+
+“What d'ye think?” asked Meadville. “Think I keep store?”
+
+Fuselli walked past them towards the town.
+
+“Say, Fuselli,” shouted Meadville. “Corporal says hell's broke loose out
+there. We may smell gunpowder yet.”
+
+Fuselli stopped and joined them.
+
+“I guess poor old Bill Grey's smelt plenty of gunpowder by this time,”
+ he said.
+
+“I wish I had gone with him,” said Meadville. “I'll try that little
+trick myself now the good weather's come on if we don't get a move on
+soon.”
+
+“Too damn risky!”
+
+“Listen to the kid. It'll be too damn risky in the trenches.... Or do
+you think you're goin' to get a cushy job in camp here?”
+
+“Hell, no! I want to go to the front. I don't want to stay in this
+hole.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“But ain't no good throwin' yerself in where it don't do no good.... A
+guy wants to get on in this army if he can.”
+
+“What's the good o' gettin' on?” said the corporal. “Won't get home a
+bit sooner.”
+
+“Hell! but you're a non-com.”
+
+Another train of motor trucks went by, drowning their Talk.
+
+
+
+Fuselli was packing medical supplies in a box in a great brownish
+warehouse full of packing cases where a little sun filtered in through
+the dusty air at the corrugated sliding tin doors. As he worked, he
+listened to Daniels talking to Meadville who worked beside him.
+
+“An' the gas is the goddamndest stuff I ever heard of,” he was saying.
+“I've seen fellers with their arms swelled up to twice the size like
+blisters from it. Mustard gas, they call it.”
+
+“What did you get to go to the hospital?” said Meadville.
+
+“Only pneumonia,” said Daniels, “but I had a buddy who was split right
+in half by a piece of a shell. He was standin' as near me as you are an'
+was whistlin' 'Tipperary' under his breath when all at once there was a
+big spurt o' blood an' there he was with his chest split in half an' his
+head hangin' a thread like.”
+
+Meadville moved his quid of tobacco from one cheek to the other and spat
+on to the sawdust of the floor. The men within earshot stopped working
+and looked admiringly at Daniels.
+
+“Well; what d'ye reckon's goin' on at the front now?” said Meadville.
+
+“Damned of I know. The goddam hospital at Orleans was so full up there
+was guys in stretchers waiting all day on the pavement outside. I know
+that.... Fellers there said hell'd broke loose for fair. Looks to me
+like the Fritzies was advancin'.”
+
+Meadville looked at him incredulously.
+
+“Those skunks?” said Fuselli. “Why they can't advance. They're starvin'
+to death.”
+
+“The hell they are,” said Daniels. “I guess you believe everything you
+see in the papers.”
+
+Eyes looked at Daniels indignantly. They all went on working in silence.
+
+Suddenly the lieutenant, looking strangely flustered, strode into the
+warehouse, leaving the tin door open behind him.
+
+“Can anyone tell me where Sergeant Osler is?”
+
+“He was here a few minutes ago,” spoke up Fuselli.
+
+“Well, where is he now?” snapped the lieutenant angrily.
+
+“I don't know, sir,” mumbled Fuselli, flushing.
+
+“Go and see if you can find him.”
+
+Fuselli went off to the other end of the warehouse. Outside the door he
+stopped and bit off a cigarette in a leisurely fashion. His blood boiled
+sullenly. How the hell should he know where the top sergeant was? They
+didn't expect him to be a mind-reader, did they? And all the flood
+of bitterness that had been collecting in his spirit seethed to the
+surface. They had not treated him right, He felt full of hopeless
+anger against this vast treadmill to which he was bound. The endless
+succession of the days, all alike, all subject to orders, to the
+interminable monotony of drills and line-ups, passed before his mind. He
+felt he couldn't go on, yet he knew that he must and would go on, that
+there was no stopping, that his feet would go on beating in time to the
+steps of the treadmill.
+
+He caught sight of the sergeant coming towards the warehouse, across the
+new green grass, scarred by the marks of truck wheels.
+
+“Sarge,” he called. Then he went up to him mysteriously. “The loot wants
+to see you at once in Warehouse B.”
+
+He slouched back to his work, arriving just in time to hear the
+lieutenant say in a severe voice to the sergeant:
+
+“Sergeant, do you know how to draw up court-martial papers?”
+
+“Yes, sir,” said the sergeant, a look of surprise on his face. He
+followed the precise steps of the lieutenant out of the door.
+
+Fuselli had a moment of panic terror, during which he went on working
+methodically, although his hands trembled. He was searching his memory
+for some infringement of a regulation that might be charged against him.
+The terror passed as fast as it had come. Of course he had no reason to
+fear. He laughed softly to himself. What a fool he'd been to get scared
+like that, and a summary court-martial couldn't do much to you anyway.
+He went on working as fast and as carefully as he could, through the
+long monotonous afternoon.
+
+That night nearly the whole company gathered in a group at the end
+of the barracks. Both sergeants were away. The corporal said he knew
+nothing, and got sulkily into bed, where he lay, rolled in his blankets,
+shaken by fit after fit of coughing.
+
+At last someone said:
+
+“I bet that kike Eisenstein's turned out to be a spy.”
+
+“I bet he has too.”
+
+“He's foreign born, ain't he? Born in Poland or some goddam place.”
+
+“He always did talk queer.”
+
+“I always thought,” said Fuselli, “he'd get into trouble talking the way
+he did.”
+
+“How'd he talk?” asked Daniels.
+
+“Oh, he said that war was wrong and all that goddamed pro-German stuff.”
+
+“D'ye know what they did out at the front?” said Daniels. “In the second
+division they made two fellers dig their own graves and then shot 'em
+for sayin' the war was wrong.”
+
+“Hell, they did?”
+
+“You're goddam right, they did. I tell you, fellers, it don't do to
+monkey with the buzz-saw in this army.”
+
+“For God's sake shut up. Taps has blown. Meadville, turn the lights
+out!” said the corporal angrily. The barracks was dark, full of a sound
+of men undressing in their bunks, and of whispered talk.
+
+
+
+The company was lined up for morning mess. The sun that had just risen
+was shining in rosily through the soft clouds of the sky. The sparrows
+kept up a great clattering in the avenue of plane trees. Their riotous
+chirping could be heard above the sound of motors starting that came
+from a shed opposite the mess shack.
+
+The sergeant appeared suddenly; walking past with his shoulders stiff,
+so that everyone knew at once that something important was going on.
+
+“Attention, men, a minute,” he said.
+
+Mess kits clattered as the men turned round.
+
+“After mess I want you to go immediately to barracks and roll your
+packs. After that every man must stand by his pack until orders come.”
+ The company cheered and mess kits clattered together like cymbals.
+
+“As you were,” shouted the top sergeant jovially.
+
+Gluey oatmeal and greasy bacon were hurriedly bolted down, and every
+man in the company, his heart pounding, ran to the barracks to do up his
+pack, feeling proud under the envious eyes of the company at the other
+end of the shack that had received no orders.
+
+When the packs were done up, they sat on the empty hunks and drummed
+their feet against the wooden partitions waiting.
+
+“I don't suppose we'll leave here till hell freezes over,” said
+Meadville, who was doing up the last strap on his pack.
+
+“It's always like this.... You break your neck to obey orders an'...”
+
+“Outside!” shouted the sergeant, poking his head in the door.
+
+“Fall in! Atten-shun!”
+
+The lieutenant in his trench coat and in a new pair of roll puttees
+stood facing the company, looking solemn.
+
+“Men,” he said, biting off his words as a man bites through a piece
+of hard stick candy; “one of your number is up for courtmartial for
+possibly disloyal statements found in a letter addressed to friends at
+home. I have been extremely grieved to find anything of this sort in
+any company of mine; I don't believe there is another man in the
+company... low enough to hold... entertain such ideas....”
+
+Every man in the company stuck out his chest, vowing inwardly to
+entertain no ideas at all rather than run the risk of calling forth such
+disapproval from the lieutenant. The lieutenant paused:
+
+“All I can say is if there is any such man in the company, he had better
+keep his mouth shut and be pretty damn careful what he writes home....
+Dismissed!”
+
+He shouted the order grimly, as if it were the order for the execution
+of the offender.
+
+“That goddam skunk Eisenstein,” said someone.
+
+The lieutenant heard it as he walked away. “Oh, sergeant,” he said
+familiarly; “I think the others have got the right stuff in them.”
+
+The company went into the barracks and waited.
+
+
+
+The sergeant-major's office was full of a clicking of typewriters, and
+was overheated by a black stove that stood in the middle of the floor,
+letting out occasional little puffs of smoke from a crack in the stove
+pipe. The sergeant-major was a small man with a fresh boyish face and a
+drawling voice who lolled behind a large typewriter reading a magazine
+that lay on his lap.
+
+Fuselli slipped in behind the typewriter and stood with his cap in his
+hand beside the sergeant-major's chair.
+
+“Well what do you want?” asked the sergeant-major gruffly.
+
+“A feller told me, Sergeant-Major, that you was look-in' for a man with
+optical experience;” Fuselli's voice was velvety.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“I worked three years in an optical-goods store at home in Frisco.”
+
+“What's your name, rank, company?”
+
+“Daniel Fuselli, Private 1st-class, Company C, medical supply
+warehouse.”
+
+“All right, I'll attend to it.”
+
+“But, sergeant.”
+
+“All right; out with what you've got to say, quick.” The sergeant-major
+fingered the leaves of his magazine impatiently.
+
+“My company's all packed up to go. The transfer'll have to be today,
+sergeant.”
+
+“Why the hell didn't you come in earlier?... Stevens, make out a
+transfer to headquarters company and get the major to sign it when he
+goes through.... That's the way it always is,” he cried, leaning back
+tragically in his swivel chair. “Everybody always puts everything off on
+me at the last minute.”
+
+“Thank you, sir,” said Fuselli, smiling. The sergeant-major ran his hand
+through his hair and took up his magazine again peevishly.
+
+Fuselli hurried back to barracks where he found the company still
+waiting. Several men were crouched in a circle playing craps. The rest
+lounged in their bare bunks or fiddled with their packs. Outside it had
+begun to rain softly, and a smell of wet sprouting earth came in through
+the open door. Fuselli sat on the floor beside his bunk throwing his
+knife down so that it stuck in the boards between his knees. He was
+whistling softly to himself. The day dragged on. Several times he heard
+the town clock strike in the distance.
+
+At last the top sergeant came in, shaking the water off his slicker, a
+serious, important expression on his face.
+
+“Inspection of medical belts,” he shouted. “Everybody open up their belt
+and lay it on the foot of their bunk and stand at attention on the left
+side.”
+
+The lieutenant and a major appeared suddenly at one end of the barracks
+and came through slowly, pulling the little packets out of the belts.
+The men looked at them out of the corners of their eyes. As they
+examined the belts, they chatted easily, as if they had been alone.
+
+“Yes,” said the major. “We're in for it this time.... That damned
+offensive.”
+
+“Well, we'll be able to show 'em what we're good for,” said the
+lieutenant, laughing. “We haven't had a chance yet.”
+
+“Hum! Better mark that belt, lieutenant, and have it changed. Been to
+the front yet?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Hum, well.... You'll look at things differently when you have,” said
+the major.
+
+The lieutenant frowned.
+
+“Well, on the whole, lieutenant, your outfit is in very good shape....
+At ease, men!” The lieutenant and the major stood at the door a moment
+raising the collars of their coats; then they dove out into the rain.
+
+A few minutes later the sergeant came in.
+
+“All right, get your slickers on and line up.”
+
+They stood lined up in the rain for a long while. It was a leaden
+afternoon. The even clouds had a faint coppery tinge. The rain beat in
+their faces, making them tingle. Fuselli was looking anxiously at the
+sergeant. At last the lieutenant appeared.
+
+“Attention!” cried the sergeant.
+
+The roll was called and a new man fell in at the end of the line, a tall
+man with large protruding eyes like a calf's.
+
+“Private 1st-class Daniel Fuselli, fall out and report to headquarters
+company!”
+
+Fuselli saw a look of surprise come over men's faces. He smiled wanly at
+Meadville.
+
+“Sergeant, take the men down to the station.”
+
+“Squads, right,” cried the sergeant. “March!”
+
+The company tramped off into the streaming rain.
+
+Fuselli went back to the barracks, took off his pack and slicker and
+wiped the water off his face.
+
+
+
+The rails gleamed gold in the early morning sunshine above the deep
+purple cinders of the track. Fuselli's eyes followed the track until
+it curved into a cutting where the wet clay was a bright orange in the
+clear light. The station platform, where puddles from the night's rain
+glittered as the wind ruffled them, was empty. Fuselli started walking
+up and down with his hands in his pockets. He had been sent down to
+unload some supplies that were coming on that morning's train. He felt
+free and successful since he joined the headquarters company! At last,
+he told himself, he had a job where he could show what he was good for.
+He walked up and down whistling shrilly.
+
+A train pulled slowly into the station. The engine stopped to take water
+and the couplings clanked all down the line of cars. The platform was
+suddenly full of men in khaki, stamping their feet, running up and down
+shouting.
+
+“Where you guys goin'?” asked Fuselli.
+
+“We're bound for Palm Beach. Don't we look it?” someone snarled in
+reply.
+
+But Fuselli had seen a familiar face. He was shaking hands with two
+browned men whose faces were grimy with days of travelling in freight
+cars.
+
+“Hullo, Chrisfield. Hullo, Andrews!” he cried. “When did you fellows get
+over here?”
+
+“Oh, 'bout four months ago,” said Chrisfield, whose black eyes looked
+at Fuselli searchingly. “Oh! Ah 'member you. You're Fuselli. We was at
+trainin' camp together. 'Member him, Andy?”
+
+“Sure,” said Andrews. “How are you makin' out?”
+
+“Fine,” said Fuselli. “I'm in the optical department here.”
+
+“Where the hell's that?”
+
+“Right here.” Fuselli pointed vaguely behind the station.
+
+“We've been training about four months near Bordeaux,” said Andrews;
+“and now we're going to see what it's like.”
+
+The whistle blew and the engine started puffing hard. Clouds of white
+steam filled the station platform, where the soldiers scampered for
+their cars.
+
+“Good luck!” said Fuselli; but Andrews and Chrisfield had already gone.
+He saw them again as the train pulled out, two brown and dirt-grimed
+faces among many other brown and dirt-grimed faces. The steam floated
+up tinged with yellow in the bright early morning air as the last car of
+the train disappeared round the curve into the cutting.
+
+
+
+The dust rose thickly about the worn broom. As it was a dark morning,
+very little light filtered into the room full of great white packing
+cases, where Fuselli was sweeping. He stopped now and then and leaned on
+his broom. Far away he heard a sound of trains shunting and shouts and
+the sound of feet tramping in unison from the drill ground. The building
+where he was was silent. He went on sweeping, thinking of his company
+tramping off through the streaming rain, and of those fellows he had
+known in training Camp in America, Andrews and Chrisfield, jolting in
+box cars towards the front, where Daniel's buddy had had his chest split
+in half by a piece of shell. And he'd written home he'd been made a
+corporal. What was he going to do when letters came for him, addressed
+Corporal Dan Fuselli? Putting the broom away, he dusted the yellow chair
+and the table covered with order slips that stood in the middle of the
+piles of packing boxes. The door slammed somewhere below and there was a
+step on the stairs that led to the upper part of the warehouse. A little
+man with a monkey-like greyish-brown face and spectacles appeared and
+slipped out of his overcoat, like a very small bean popping out of a
+very large pod.
+
+The sergeant's stripes looked unusually wide and conspicuous on his thin
+arm.
+
+He grunted at Fuselli, sat down at the desk, and began at once peering
+among the order slips.
+
+“Anything in our mailbox this morning?” he asked Fuselli in a hoarse
+voice.
+
+“It's all there, sergeant,” said Fuselli.
+
+The sergeant peered about the desk some more.
+
+“Ye'll have to wash that window today,” he said after a pause.
+“Major's likely to come round here any time.... Ought to have been done
+yesterday.”
+
+“All right,” said Fuselli dully.
+
+He slouched over to the corner of the room, got the worn broom and began
+sweeping down the stairs. The dust rose about him, making him cough.
+He stopped and leaned on the broom. He thought of all the days that had
+gone by since he'd last seen those fellows, Andrews and Chrisfield,
+at training camp in America; and of all the days that would go by. He
+started sweeping again, sweeping the dust down from stair to stair.
+
+
+
+Fuselli sat on the end of his bunk. He had just shaved. It was a Sunday
+morning and he looked forward to having the afternoon off. He rubbed his
+face on his towel and got to his feet. Outside, the rain fell in great
+silvery sheets, so that the noise on the tarpaper roof of the barracks
+was almost deafening.
+
+Fuselli noticed, at the other end of the row of bunks, a group of
+men who all seemed to be looking at the same thing. Rolling down his
+sleeves, with his tunic hitched over one arm, he walked down to see what
+was the matter. Through the patter of the rain, he heard a thin voice
+say:
+
+“It ain't no use, sergeant, I'm sick. I ain't a' goin' to get up.”
+
+“The kid's crazy,” someone beside Fuselli said, turning away.
+
+“You get up this minute,” roared the sergeant. He was a big man with
+black hair who looked like a lumberman. He stood over the bunk. In the
+bunk at the end of a bundle of blankets was the chalk-white face of
+Stockton. The boy's teeth were clenched, and his eyes were round and
+protruding, it seemed from terror.
+
+“You get out o' bed this minute,” roared the sergeant again.
+
+The boy; was silent; his white cheeks quivered.
+
+“What the hell's the matter with him?”
+
+“Why don't you yank him out yourself, Sarge?”
+
+“You get out of bed this minute,” shouted the sergeant again, paying no
+attention.
+
+The men gathered about walked away. Fuselli watched fascinated from a
+little distance.
+
+“All right, then, I'll get the lieutenant. This is a court-martial
+offence. Here, Morton and Morrison, you're guards over this man.”
+
+The boy lay still in his blankets. He closed his eyes. By the way
+the blanket rose and fell over his chest, they could see that he was
+breathing heavily.
+
+“Say, Stockton, why don't you get up, you fool?”' said Fuselli. “You
+can't buck the whole army.”
+
+The boy didn't answer.
+
+Fuselli walked away.
+
+“He's crazy,” he muttered.
+
+The lieutenant was a stoutish red-faced man who came in puffing followed
+by the tall sergeant. He stopped and shook the water off his Campaign
+hat. The rain kept up its deafening patter on the roof.
+
+“Look here, are you sick? If you are, report sick call at once,” said
+the lieutenant in an elaborately kind voice.
+
+The boy looked at him dully and did not answer.
+
+“You should get up and stand at attention when an officer speaks to you.
+
+“I ain't goin' to get up,” came the thin voice.
+
+The officer's red face became crimson.
+
+“Sergeant, what's the matter with the man?” he asked in a furious tone.
+
+“I can't do anything with him, lieutenant. I think he's gone crazy.”
+
+“Rubbish.... Mere insubordination.... You're under arrest, d'ye hear?”
+ he shouted towards the bed.
+
+There was no answer. The rain pattered hard on the roof.
+
+“Have him brought down to the guardhouse, by force if necessary,”
+ snapped the lieutenant. He strode towards the door. “And sergeant, start
+drawing up court-martial papers at once.” The door slammed behind him.
+
+“Now you've got to get him up,” said the sergeant to the two guards.
+
+Fuselli walked away.
+
+“Ain't some people damn fools?” he said to a man at the other end of the
+barracks. He stood looking out of the window at the bright sheets of the
+rain.
+
+“Well, get him up,” shouted the sergeant.
+
+The boy lay with his eyes closed, his chalk-white face half-hidden by
+the blankets; he was very still.
+
+“Well, will you get up and go to the guardhouse, or have we to carry you
+there?” shouted the sergeant.
+
+The guards laid hold of him gingerly and pulled him up to a sitting
+posture.
+
+“All right, yank him out of bed.”
+
+The frail form in khaki shirt and whitish drawers was held up for a
+moment between the two men. Then it fell a limp heap on the floor.
+
+“Say, Sarge, he's fainted.”
+
+“The hell he has.... Say, Morrison, ask one of the orderlies to come up
+from the Infirmary.”
+
+“He ain't fainted.... The kid's dead,” said the other man.
+
+“Give me a hand.”
+
+The sergeant helped lift the body on the bed again. “Well, I'll be
+goddamned,” said the sergeant.
+
+The eyes had opened. They covered the head with a blanket.
+
+
+
+
+PART THREE: MACHINES                            I
+
+The fields and the misty blue-green woods slipped by slowly as the box
+car rumbled and jolted over the rails, now stopping for hours on sidings
+amid meadows, where it was quiet and where above the babel of voices
+of the regiment you could hear the skylarks, now clattering fast over
+bridges and along the banks of jade-green rivers where the slim poplars
+were just coming into leaf and where now and then a fish jumped. The men
+crowded in the door, grimy and tired, leaning on each other's shoulders
+and watching the plowed lands slip by and the meadows where the
+golden-green grass was dappled with buttercups, and the villages of
+huddled red roofs lost among pale budding trees and masses of peach
+blossom. Through the smells of steam and coal smoke and of unwashed
+bodies in uniforms came smells of moist fields and of manure from
+fresh-sowed patches and of cows and pasture lands just coming into
+flower.
+
+“Must be right smart o'craps in this country.... Ain't like that damn
+Polignac, Andy?” said Chrisfield.
+
+“Well, they made us drill so hard there wasn't any time for the grass to
+grow.”
+
+“You're damn right there warn't.”
+
+“Ah'd lak te live in this country a while,” said Chrisfield.
+
+“We might ask 'em to let us off right here.”
+
+“Can't be that the front's like this,” said Judkins, poking his head
+out between Andrews's and Chrisfield's heads so that the bristles of his
+unshaven chin rubbed against Chrisfield's cheek. It was a large square
+head with closely cropped light hair and porcelain-blue eyes under lids
+that showed white in the red sunburned face, and a square jaw made a
+little grey by the sprouting beard.
+
+“Say, Andy, how the hell long have we all been in this goddam train?...
+Ah've done lost track o' the time....”
+
+“What's the matter; are you gettin' old, Chris?” asked Judkins laughing.
+
+Chrisfield had slipped out of the place he held and began poking himself
+in between Andrews and Judkins.
+
+“We've been on this train four days and five nights, an' we've got half
+a day's rations left, so we must be getting somewhere,” said Andrews.
+
+“It can't be like this at the front.”
+
+“It must be spring there as well as here,” said Andrews.
+
+It was a day of fluffy mauve-tinted clouds that moved across the sky,
+sometimes darkening to deep blue where a small rainstorm trailed across
+the hills, sometimes brightening to moments of clear sunlight that gave
+blue shadows to the poplars and shone yellow on the smoke of the engine
+that puffed on painfully at the head of the long train.
+
+“Funny, ain't it? How li'l everythin' is,” said Chrisfield. “Out Indiana
+way we wouldn't look at a cornfield that size. But it sort o' reminds me
+the way it used to be out home in the spring o' the year.”
+
+“I'd like to see Indiana in the springtime,” said Andrews.
+
+“Well you'll come out when the war's over and us guys is all
+home... won't you, Andy?”
+
+“You bet I will.”
+
+They were going into the suburbs of a town. Rows and clusters of little
+brick and stucco houses were appearing along the roads. It began to rain
+from a sky full of lights of amber and lilac color. The slate roofs and
+the pinkish-grey streets of the town shone cheerfully in the rain. The
+little patches of garden were all vivid emerald-green. Then they were
+looking at rows and rows of red chimney pots over wet slate roofs that
+reflected the bright sky. In the distance rose the purple-grey spire of
+a church and the irregular forms of old buildings. They passed through a
+station.
+
+“Dijon,” read Andrews. On the platform were French soldiers in their
+blue coats and a good sprinkling of civilians.
+
+“Gee, those are about the first real civies I've seen since I came
+overseas,” said Judkins. “Those goddam country people down at Polignac
+didn't look like real civilians. There's folks dressed like it was New
+York.”
+
+They had left the station and were rumbling slowly past interminable
+freight trains. At last the train came to a dead stop.
+
+A whistle sounded.
+
+“Don't nobody get out,” shouted the sergeant from the car ahead.
+
+“Hell! They keep you in this goddam car like you was a convict,”
+ muttered Chrisfield.
+
+“I'd like to get out and walk around Dijon.”
+
+“O boy!”
+
+“I swear I'd make a bee line for a dairy lunch,” said Judkins.
+
+“Hell of a fine dairy lunch you'll find among those goddam frogs. No,
+vin blank is all you'ld get in that goddam town.”
+
+“Ah'm goin' to sleep,” said Chrisfield. He stretched himself out on the
+pile of equipment at the end of the car. Andrews sat down near him and
+stared at his mud-caked boots, running one of his long hands, as brown
+as Chrisfield's now, through his light short-cut hair.
+
+Chrisfield lay looking at the gaunt outline of Andrews's face against
+the light through half-closed eyes. And he felt a warm sort of a smile
+inside him as he said to himself: “He's a damn good kid.” Then
+he thought of the spring in the hills of southern Indiana and the
+mocking-bird singing in the moonlight among the flowering locust trees
+behind the house. He could almost smell the heavy sweetness of the
+locust blooms, as he used to smell them sitting on the steps after
+supper, tired from a day's heavy plowing, while the clatter of his
+mother's housework came from the kitchen. He didn't wish he was back
+there, but it was pleasant to think of it now and then, and how the
+yellow farmhouse looked and the red barn where his father never had been
+able to find time to paint the door, and the tumble-down cowshed where
+the shingles were always coming off. He wondered dully what it would be
+like out there at the front. It couldn't be green and pleasant, the way
+the country was here. Fellows always said it was hell out there. Well,
+he didn't give a damn. He went to sleep.
+
+He woke up gradually, the warm comfort of sleep giving place slowly to
+the stiffness of his uncomfortable position with the hobnails of a boot
+from the back of a pack sticking into his shoulder. Andrews was sitting
+in the same position, lost in thought. The rest of the men sat at the
+open doors or sprawled over the equipment.
+
+Chrisfield got up, stretched himself, yawned, and went to the door to
+look out. There was a heavy important step on the gravel outside. A
+large man with black eyebrows that met over his nose and a very black
+stubbly beard passed the car. There were a sergeants stripes on his arm.
+
+“Say, Andy,” cried Chrisfield, “that bastard is a sergeant.”
+
+“Who's that?” asked Andrews getting up with a smile, his blue eyes
+looking mildly into Chrisfield's black ones.
+
+“You know who Ah mean.”
+
+Under their heavy tan Chrisfield's rounded cheeks were flushed. His eyes
+snapped under their long black lashes. His fists were clutched.
+
+“Oh, I know, Chris. I didn't know he was in this regiment.”
+
+“God damn him!” muttered Chrisfield in a low voice, throwing himself
+down on his packs again.
+
+“Hold your horses, Chris,” said Andrews. “We may all cash in our checks
+before long... no use letting things worry us.”
+
+“I don't give a damn if we do.”
+
+“Nor do I, now.” Andrews sat down beside Chrisfield again.
+
+After a while the train got jerkily into motion. The wheels rumbled and
+clattered over the rails and the clots of mud bounced up and down on the
+splintered boards of the floor. Chrisfield pillowed his head on his arm
+and went to sleep again, still smarting from the flush of his anger.
+
+Andrews looked out through his fingers at the swaying black box car, at
+the men sprawled about on the floor, their heads nodding with each jolt,
+and at the mauve-grey clouds and bits of sparkling blue sky that he
+could see behind the silhouettes of the heads and shoulders of the men
+who stood in the doors. The wheels ground on endlessly.
+
+
+
+The car stopped with a jerk that woke up all the sleepers and threw one
+man off his feet. A whistle blew shrilly outside.
+
+“All right, out of the cars! Snap it up; snap it up!” yelled the
+sergeant.
+
+The men piled out stiffly, handing the equipment out from hand to hand
+till it formed a confused heap of packs and rifles outside. All down the
+train at each door there was a confused pile of equipment and struggling
+men.
+
+“Snap it up.... Full equipment.... Line up!” the sergeant yelled.
+
+The men fell into line slowly, with their packs and rifles. Lieutenants
+hovered about the edges of the forming lines, tightly belted into their
+stiff trench coats, scrambling up and down the coal piles of the siding.
+The men were given “at ease” and stood leaning on their rifles staring
+at a green water-tank on three wooden legs, over the top of which had
+been thrown a huge piece of torn grey cheesecloth. When the confused
+sound of tramping feet subsided, they could hear a noise in the
+distance, like someone lazily shaking a piece of heavy sheet-iron. The
+sky was full of little dabs of red, purple and yellow and the purplish
+sunset light was over everything.
+
+The order came to march. They marched down a rutted road where the
+puddles were so deep they had continually to break ranks to avoid them.
+In a little pine-wood on one side were rows of heavy motor trucks and
+ammunition caissons; supper was cooking in a field kitchen about which
+clustered the truck drivers in their wide visored caps. Beyond the wood
+the column turned off into a field behind a little group of stone and
+stucco houses that had lost their roofs. In the field they halted. The
+grass was brilliant emerald and the wood and the distant hills were
+shades of clear deep blue. Wisps of pale-blue mist lay across the field.
+In the turf here and there were small clean bites, that might have been
+made by some strange animal. The men looked at them curiously.
+
+“No lights, remember we're in sight of the enemy. A match might
+annihilate the detachment,” announced the lieutenant dramatically after
+having given the orders for the pup tents to be set up.
+
+When the tents were ready, the men stood about in the chilly white mist
+that kept growing denser, eating their cold rations. Everywhere were
+grumbling snorting voices.
+
+“God, let's turn in, Chris, before our bones are frozen,” said Andrews.
+
+Guards had been posted and walked up and down with a business-like
+stride, peering now and then suspiciously into the little wood where the
+truck-drivers were.
+
+Chrisfield and Andrews crawled into their little tent and rolled up
+together in their blankets, getting as close to each other as they
+could. At first it was very cold and hard, and they squirmed about
+restlessly, but gradually the warmth from their bodies filled their thin
+blankets and their muscles began to relax. Andrews went to sleep first
+and Chrisfield lay listening to his deep breathing. There was a frown
+on his face. He was thinking of the man who had walked past the train at
+Dijon. The last time he had seen that man Anderson was at training camp.
+He had only been a corporal then. He remembered the day the man had
+been made corporal. It had not been long before that that Chrisfield had
+drawn his knife on him, one night in the barracks. A fellow had caught
+his hand just in time. Anderson had looked a bit pale that time and had
+walked away. But he'd never spoken a word to Chrisfield since. As he lay
+with his eyes closed, pressed close against Andrew's limp sleeping body,
+Chrisfield could see the man's face, the eyebrows that joined across the
+nose and the jaw, always blackish from the heavy beard, that looked blue
+when he had just shaved. At last the tenseness of his mind slackened; he
+thought of women for a moment, of a fair-haired girl he'd seen from
+the train, and then suddenly crushing sleepiness closed down on him and
+everything went softly warmly black, as he drifted off to sleep with no
+sense but the coldness of one side and the warmth of his bunkie's body
+on the other.
+
+In the middle of the night he awoke and crawled out of the tent. Andrews
+followed him. Their teeth chattered a little, and they stretched their
+legs stiffly. It was cold, but the mist had vanished. The stars shone
+brilliantly. They walked out a little way into the field away from the
+bunch of tents to make water. A faint rustling and breathing noise, as
+of animals herded together, came from the sleeping regiment. Somewhere
+a brook made a shrill gurgling. They strained their ears, but they could
+hear no guns. They stood side by side looking up at the multitudes of
+stars.
+
+“That's Orion,” said Andrews.
+
+“What?”
+
+“That bunch of stars there is called Orion. D'you see 'em. It's supposed
+to look like a man with a bow, but he always looks to me like a fellow
+striding across the sky.”
+
+“Some stars tonight, ain't there? Gee, what's that?”
+
+Behind the dark hills a glow rose and fell like the glow in a forge.
+
+“The front must be that way,” said Andrews, shivering. “I guess we'll
+know tomorrow.”
+
+“Yes; tomorrow night we'll know more about it,” said Andrews. They stood
+silent a moment listening to the noise the brook made.
+
+“God, it's quiet, ain't it? This can't be the front. Smell that?”
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“Smells like an apple tree in bloom somewhere.... Hell, let's git in,
+before our blankets git cold.”
+
+Andrews was still staring at the group of stars he had said was Orion.
+
+Chrisfield pulled him by the arm. They crawled into their tent again,
+rolled up together and immediately were crushed under an exhausted
+sleep.
+
+
+
+As far ahead of him as Chrisfield could see were packs and heads with
+caps at a variety of angles, all bobbing up and down with the swing of
+the brisk marching time. A fine warm rain was falling, mingling with the
+sweat that ran down his face. The column had been marching a long time
+along a straight road that was worn and scarred with heavy traffic.
+Fields and hedges where clusters of yellow flowers were in bloom had
+given place to an avenue of poplars. The light wet trunks and the stiff
+branches hazy with green filed by, interminable, as interminable as the
+confused tramp of feet and jingle of equipment that sounded in his ears.
+
+“Say, are we goin' towards the front?”
+
+“Goddamned if I know.”
+
+“Ain't no front within miles.”
+
+Men's sentences came shortly through their heavy breathing.
+
+The column shifted over to the side of the road to avoid a train of
+motor trucks going the other way. Chrisfield felt the heavy mud spurt up
+over him as truck after truck rumbled by. With the wet back of one hand
+he tried to wipe it off his face, but the grit, when he rubbed it, hurt
+his skin, made tender by the rain. He swore long and whiningly, half
+aloud. His rifle felt as heavy as an iron girder.
+
+They entered a village of plaster-and-timber houses. Through open doors
+they could see into comfortable kitchens where copper pots gleamed and
+where the floors were of clean red tiles. In front of some of the houses
+were little gardens full of crocuses and hyacinths where box-bushes
+shone a very dark green in the rain. They marched through the square
+with its pavement of little yellow rounded cobbles, its grey church with
+a pointed arch in the door, its cafes with names painted over them.
+Men and women looked out of doors and windows. The column perceptibly
+slackened its speed, but kept on, and as the houses dwindled and became
+farther apart along the road the men's hope of stopping vanished. Ears
+were deafened by the confused tramp of feet on the macadam road. Men's
+feet seemed as lead, as if all the weight of the pack hung on them.
+Shoulders, worn callous, began to grow tender and sore under the
+constant sweating. Heads drooped. Each man's eyes were on the heels
+of the man ahead of him that rose and fell, rose and fell endlessly.
+Marching became for each man a personal struggle with his pack,
+that seemed to have come alive, that seemed something malicious and
+overpowering, wrestling to throw him.
+
+The rain stopped and the sky brightened a little, taking on pale
+yellowish lights as if the clouds that hid the sun were growing thin.
+
+The column halted at the edge of a group of farms and barns that
+scattered along the road. The men sprawled in all directions along
+the roadside hiding the bright green grass with the mud-color of their
+uniforms.
+
+Chrisfield lay in the field beside the road, pressing his hot face into
+the wet sprouting clover. The blood throbbed through his ears. His arms
+and legs seemed to cleave to the ground, as if he would never be able
+to move them again. He closed his eyes. Gradually a cold chill began
+stealing through his body. He sat up and slipped his arms out of the
+harness of his pack. Someone was handing him a cigarette, and he sniffed
+a little acrid sweet smoke.
+
+Andrews was lying beside him, his head propped against his pack,
+smoking, and poking a cigarette towards his friend with a muddy
+hand. His blue eyes looked strangely from out the flaming red of his
+mud-splotched face.
+
+Chrisfield took the cigarette, and fumbled in his pocket for a match.
+
+“That nearly did it for me,” said Andrews.
+
+Chrisfield grunted. He pulled greedily on the cigarette.
+
+A whistle blew.
+
+Slowly the men dragged themselves off the ground and fell into line,
+drooping under the weight of their equipment.
+
+The companies marched off separately.
+
+Chrisfield overheard the lieutenant saying to a sergeant:
+
+“Damn fool business that. Why the hell couldn't they have sent us here
+in the first place?”
+
+“So we ain't goin' to the front after all?” said the sergeant.
+
+“Front, hell!” said the lieutenant. The lieutenant was a small man
+who looked like a jockey with a coarse red face which, now that he was
+angry, was almost purple.
+
+“I guess they're going to quarter us here,” said somebody.
+
+Immediately everybody began saying: “We're going to be quartered here.”
+
+They stood waiting in formation a long while, the packs cutting into
+their backs and shoulders. At last the sergeant shouted out:
+
+“All right, take yer stuff upstairs.” Stumbling on each others' heels
+they climbed up into a dark loft, where the air was heavy with the smell
+of hay and with an acridity of cow manure from the stables below. There
+was a little straw in the corners, on which those who got there first
+spread their blankets.
+
+Chrisfield and Andrews tucked themselves in a corner from which through
+a hole where the tiles had fallen off the roof, they could see down into
+the barnyard, where white and speckled chickens pecked about with jerky
+movements. A middle-aged woman stood in the doorway of the house looking
+suspiciously at the files of khaki-clad soldiers that shuffled slowly
+into the barns by every door.
+
+An officer went up to her, a little red book in his hand. A conversation
+about some matter proceeded painfully. The officer grew very red.
+Andrews threw back his head and laughed, luxuriously rolling from side
+to side in the straw. Chrisfield laughed too, he hardly knew why. Over
+their heads they could hear the feet of pigeons on the roof, and a
+constant drowsy rou-cou-cou-cou.
+
+Through the barnyard smells began to drift... the greasiness of food
+cooking in the field kitchen.
+
+“Ah hope they give us somethin' good to eat,” said Chrisfield. “Ah'm
+hongry as a thrasher.”
+
+“So am I,” said Andrews.
+
+“Say, Andy, you kin talk their language a li'l', can't ye?”
+
+Andrews nodded his head vaguely.
+
+“Well, maybe we kin git some aigs or somethin' out of the lady down
+there. Will ye try after mess?”
+
+“All right.”
+
+They both lay back in the straw and closed their eyes. Their cheeks
+still burned from the rain. Everything seemed very peaceful; the men
+sprawled about talking in low drowsy voices. Outside, another shower had
+come up and beat softly on the tiles of the roof. Chrisfield thought
+he had never been so comfortable in his life, although his soaked
+shoes pinched his cold feet and his knees were wet and cold. But in the
+drowsiness of the rain and of voices talking quietly about him, he fell
+asleep.
+
+He dreamed he was home in Indiana, but instead of his mother cooking at
+the stove in the kitchen, there was the Frenchwoman who had stood in the
+farmhouse door, and near her stood a lieutenant with a little red book
+in his hand. He was eating cornbread and syrup off a broken plate. It
+was fine cornbread with a great deal of crust on it, crisp and hot, on
+which the butter was cold and sweet to his tongue. Suddenly he stopped
+eating and started swearing, shouting at the top of his lungs: “You
+goddam...” he started, but he couldn't seem to think of anything more
+to say. “You goddam...” he started again. The lieutenant looked towards
+him, wrinkling his black eyebrows that met across his nose. He was
+Sergeant Anderson. Chris drew his knife and ran at him, but it was Andy
+his bunkie he had run his knife into. He threw his arms round Andy's
+body, crying hot tears.... He woke up. Mess kits were clinking all
+about the dark crowded loft. The men had already started piling down the
+stairs.
+
+
+
+The larks filled the wine-tinged air with a constant chiming of little
+bells. Chrisfield and Andrews were strolling across a field of white
+clover that covered the brow of a hill. Below in the valley they could
+see a cluster of red roofs of farms and the white ribbon of the road
+where long trains of motor trucks crawled like beetles. The sun had just
+set behind the blue hills the other side of the shallow valley. The air
+was full of the smell of clover and of hawthorn from the hedgerows. They
+took deep breaths as they crossed the field.
+
+“It's great to get away from that crowd,” Andrews was saying.
+
+Chrisfield walked on silently, dragging his feet through the matted
+clover. A leaden dullness weighed like some sort of warm choking
+coverlet on his limbs, so that it seemed an effort to walk, an effort to
+speak. Yet under it his muscles were taut and trembling as he had known
+them to be before when he was about to get into a fight or to make love
+to a girl.
+
+“Why the hell don't they let us git into it?” he said suddenly.
+
+“Yes, anything'ld be better than this... wait, wait, wait.”
+
+They walked on, hearing the constant chirrup of the larks, the brush
+of their feet through the clover, the faint jingle of some coins in
+Chrisfield's pocket, and in the distance the irregular snoring of an
+aeroplane motor. As they walked Andrews leaned over from time to time
+and picked a couple of the white clover flowers.
+
+The aeroplane came suddenly nearer and swooped in a wide curve above the
+field, drowning every sound in the roar of its exhaust. They made out
+the figures of the pilot and the observer before the plane rose again
+and vanished against the ragged purple clouds of the sky. The observer
+had waved a hand at them as he passed. They stood still in the darkening
+field, staring up at the sky, where a few larks still hung chirruping.
+
+“Ah'd lahk to be one o' them guys,” said Chrisfield.
+
+“You would?”
+
+“God damn it, Ah'd do anything to git out o' this hellish infantry. This
+ain't no sort o' life for a man to be treated lahk he was a nigger.”
+
+“No, it's no sort of life for a man.”
+
+“If they'd let us git to the front an' do some fightin' an' be done with
+it.... But all we do is drill and have grenade practice an' drill again
+and then have bayonet practice an' drill again. 'Nough to drive a feller
+crazy.”
+
+“What the hell's the use of talking about it, Chris? We can't be any
+lower than we are, can we?” Andrews laughed.
+
+“There's that plane again.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“There, just goin' down behind the piece o' woods.”
+
+“That's where their field is.”
+
+“Ah bet them guys has a good time. Ah put in an application back in
+trainin' camp for Aviation. Ain't never heard nothing from it though. If
+Ah had, Ah wouldn't be lower than dirt in this hawg-pen.”
+
+“It's wonderful up here on the hill this evening,” said Andrews, looking
+dreamily at the pale orange band of light where the sun had set. “Let's
+go down and get a bottle of wine.”
+
+“Now yo're talkin'. Ah wonder if that girl's down there tonight.”
+
+“Antoinette?”
+
+“Um-hum.... Boy, Ah'd lahk to have her all by ma-self some night.”
+
+Their steps grew brisker as they strode along a grass-grown road that
+led through high hedgerows to a village under the brow of the hill. It
+was almost dark under the shadow of the bushes on either side. Overhead
+the purple clouds were washed over by a pale yellow light that gradually
+faded to grey. Birds chirped and rustled among the young leaves.
+
+Andrews put his hand on Chrisfield's shoulder.
+
+“Let's walk slow,” he said, “we don't want to get out of here too soon.”
+ He grabbed carelessly at little cluster of hawthorn flowers as he passed
+them, and seemed reluctant to untangle the thorny branches that caught
+in his coat and on his loosely wound puttees.
+
+“Hell, man,” said Chrisfield, “we won't have time to get a bellyful. It
+must be gettin' late already.”
+
+They hastened their steps again and came in a moment to the first
+tightly shuttered houses of the village.
+
+In the middle of the road was an M.P., who stood with his legs wide
+apart, waving his “billy” languidly. He had a red face, his eyes were
+fixed on the shuttered upper window of a house, through the chinks of
+which came a few streaks of yellow light. His lips were puckered up as
+if to whistle, but no sound came. He swayed back and forth indecisively.
+An officer came suddenly out of the little green door of the house
+in front of the M.P., who brought his heels together with a jump and
+saluted, holding his hand a long while to his cap. The officer flicked a
+hand up hastily to his hat, snatching his cigar out of his mouth for
+an instant. As the officer's steps grew fainter down the road, the M.P.
+gradually returned to his former position.
+
+Chrisfield and Andrews had slipped by on the other side, and gone in at
+the door of a small ramshackle house of which the windows were closed by
+heavy wooden shutters.
+
+“I bet there ain't many of them bastards at the front,” said Chris.
+
+“Not many of either kind of bastards,” said Andrews laughing, as he
+closed the door behind them. They were in a room that had once been the
+parlor of a farmhouse. The chandelier with its bits of crystal and the
+orange-blossoms on a piece of dusty red velvet under a bell glass on
+the mantelpiece denoted that. The furniture had been taken out, and four
+square oak tables crowded in. At one of the tables sat three Americans
+and at another a very young olive-skinned French soldier, who sat
+hunched over his table looking moodily down into his glass of wine.
+
+A girl in a faded frock of some purplish material that showed the strong
+curves of her shoulders and breasts slouched into the room, her hands
+in the pocket of a dark blue apron against which her rounded forearms
+showed golden brown. Her face had the same golden tan under a mass of
+dark blonde hair. She smiled when she saw the two soldiers, drawing her
+thin lips away from her ugly yellow teeth.
+
+“Ca va bien, Antoinette?” asked Andrews.
+
+“Oui,” she said, looking beyond their heads at the French soldier who
+sat at the other side of the little room.
+
+“A bottle of vin rouge, vite,” said Chrisfield.
+
+“Ye needn't be so damn vite about it tonight, Chris,” said one of the
+men at the other table.
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Ain't a-goin' to be no roll call. Corporal tole me his-self. Sarge's
+gone out to git stewed, an' the Loot's away.”
+
+“Sure,” said another man, “we kin stay out as late's we goddam please
+tonight.”
+
+“There's a new M.P. in town,” said Chrisfield.... “Ah saw him maself....
+You did, too, didn't you, Andy?”
+
+Andrews nodded. He was looking at the Frenchman, who sat with his face
+in shadow and his black lashes covering his eyes. A purplish flash had
+suffused the olive skin at his cheekbones.
+
+“Oh, boy,” said Chrisfield. “That ole wine sure do go down fast.... Say,
+Antoinette, got any cognac?”
+
+“I'm going to have some more wine,” said Andrews.
+
+“Go ahead, Andy; have all ye want. Ah want some-thin' to warm ma guts.”
+
+Antoinette brought a bottle of cognac and two small glasses and sat
+down in an empty chair with her red hands crossed on her apron. Her eyes
+moved from Chrisfield to the Frenchman and back again.
+
+Chrisfield turned a little round in his chair and looked at the
+Frenchman, feeling in his eyes for a moment a glance of the man's
+yellowish-brown eyes.
+
+Andrews leaned back against the wall sipping his dark-colored wine, his
+eyes contracted dreamily, fixed on the shadow of the chandelier, which
+the cheap oil-lamp with its tin reflector cast on the peeling plaster of
+the wall opposite.
+
+Chrisfield punched him.
+
+“Wake up, Andy, are you asleep?”
+
+“No,” said Andy smiling.
+
+“Have a li'l mo' cognac.”
+
+Chrisfield poured out two more glasses unsteadily. His eyes were on
+Antoinette again. The faded purple frock was hooked at the neck. The
+first three hooks were undone revealing a V-shape of golden brown skin
+and a bit of whitish underwear.
+
+“Say, Andy,” he said, putting his arm round his friend's neck and
+talking into his ear, “talk up to her for me, will yer, Andy?... Ah
+won't let that goddam frog get her, no, I won't, by Gawd. Talk up to her
+for me, Andy.”
+
+Andrews laughed.
+
+“I'll try,” he said. “But there's always the Queen of Sheba, Chris.”
+
+“Antoinette, j'ai un ami,” started Andrews, making a gesture with a long
+dirty hand towards Chris.
+
+Antoinette showed her bad teeth in a smile.
+
+“Joli garcon,” said Andrews.
+
+Antoinette's face became impassive and beautiful again. Chrisfield
+leaned back in his chair with an empty glass in his hand and watched his
+friend admiringly.
+
+“Antoinette, mon ami vous... vous admire,” said Andrews in a courtly
+voice.
+
+A woman put her head in the door. It was the same face and hair as
+Antoinette's, ten years older, only the skin, instead of being golden
+brown, was sallow and wrinkled.
+
+“Viens,” said the woman in a shrill voice.
+
+Antoinette got up, brushed heavily against Chrisfield's leg as she
+passed him and disappeared. The Frenchman walked across the room from
+his corner, saluted gravely and went out.
+
+Chrisfield jumped to his feet. The room was like a white box reeling
+about him.
+
+“That frog's gone after her,” he shouted.
+
+“No, he ain't, Chris,” cried someone from the next table. “Sit tight,
+ole boy. We're bettin' on yer.”
+
+“Yes, sit down and have a drink, Chris,” said Andy. “I've got to
+have somethin' more to drink. I haven't had a thing to drink all the
+evening.” He pulled him back into his chair. Chrisfield tried to get up
+again. Andrews hung on him so that the chair upset. Then both sprawled
+on the red tiles of the floor.
+
+“The house is pinched!” said a voice.
+
+Chrisfield saw Judkins standing over him, a grin on his large red face.
+He got to his feet and sat sulkily in his chair again. Andrews was
+already sitting opposite him, looking impassive as ever.
+
+The tables were full now. Someone was singing in a droning voice.
+
+     “O the oak and the ash and the weeping willow tree,
+     O green grows the grass in God's countree!”
+
+“Ole Indiana,” shouted Chris. “That's the only God's country I know.”
+ He suddenly felt that he could tell Andy all about his home and the wide
+corn-fields shimmering and rustling under the July sun, and the creek
+with red clay banks where he used to go in swimming. He seemed to see it
+all before him, to smell the winey smell of the silo, to see the cattle,
+with their chewing mouths always stained a little with green, waiting to
+get through the gate to the water trough, and the yellow dust and roar
+of wheat-thrashing, and the quiet evening breeze cooling his throat and
+neck when he lay out on a shack of hay that he had been tossing all day
+long under the tingling sun. But all he managed to say was:
+
+“Indiana's God's country, ain't it, Andy?”
+
+“Oh, he has so many,” muttered Andrews.
+
+“Ah've seen a hailstone measured nine inches around out home, honest to
+Gawd, Ah have.”
+
+“Must be as good as a barrage.”
+
+“Ah'd like to see any goddam barrage do the damage one of our thunder
+an' lightnin' storms'll do,” shouted Chris.
+
+“I guess all the barrage we're going to see's grenade practice.”
+
+“Don't you worry, buddy,” said somebody across the room.
+
+“You'll see enough of it. This war's going to last damn long....”
+
+“Ah'd lak to get in some licks at those Huns tonight; honest to Gawd
+Ah would, Andy,” muttered Chris in a low voice. He felt his muscles
+contract with a furious irritation. He looked through half-closed
+eyes at the men in the room, seeing them in distorted white lights and
+reddish shadows. He thought of himself throwing a grenade among a crowd
+of men. Then he saw the face of Anderson, a ponderous white face with
+eyebrows that met across his nose and a bluish, shaved chin.
+
+“Where does he stay at, Andy? I'm going to git him.”
+
+Andrews guessed what he meant.
+
+“Sit down and have a drink, Chris,” he said, “Remember you're going to
+sleep with the Queen of Sheba tonight.”
+
+“Not if I can't git them goddam....” his voice trailed off into an
+inaudible muttering of oaths.
+
+     “O the oak and the ash and the weeping willow tree,
+     O green grows the grass in God's countree!”
+
+somebody sang again.
+
+Chrisfield saw a woman standing beside the table with her back to him,
+collecting the bottles. Andy was paying her.
+
+“Antoinette,” he said. He got to his feet and put his arms round her
+shoulders. With a quick movement of the elbows she pushed him back into
+his chair. She turned round. He saw the sallow face and thin breasts of
+the older sister. She looked in his eyes with surprise. He was grinning
+drunkenly. As she left the room she made a sign to him with her head to
+follow her. He got up and staggered out the door, pulling Andrews after
+him.
+
+In the inner room was a big bed with curtains where the women slept, and
+the fireplace where they did their cooking. It was dark except for the
+corner where he and Andrews stood blinking in the glare of a candle
+on the table. Beyond they could only see ruddy shadows and the huge
+curtained bed with its red coverlet.
+
+The Frenchman, somewhere in the dark of the room, said something several
+times.
+
+“Avions boches... ss-t!”
+
+They were quiet.
+
+Above them they heard the snoring of aeroplane motors, rising and
+falling like the buzzing of a fly against a window pane.
+
+They all looked at each other curiously. Antoinette was leaning against
+the bed, her face expressionless. Her heavy hair had come undone and
+fell in smoky gold waves about her shoulders.
+
+The older woman was giggling.
+
+“Come on, let's see what's doing, Chris,” said Andrews.
+
+They went out into the dark village street.
+
+“To hell with women, Chris, this is the war!” cried Andrews in a loud
+drunken voice as they reeled arm in arm up the street.
+
+“You bet it's the war.... Ah'm a-goin' to beat up....”
+
+Chrisfield felt his friend's hand clapped over his mouth. He let himself
+go limply, feeling himself pushed to the side of the road.
+
+Somewhere in the dark he heard an officer's voice say:
+
+“Bring those men to me.”
+
+“Yes, sir,” came another voice.
+
+Slow heavy footsteps came up the road in their direction. Andrews kept
+pushing him back along the side of a house, until suddenly they both
+fell sprawling in a manure pit.
+
+“Lie still for God's sake,” muttered Andrews, throwing an arm over
+Chrisfield's chest. A thick odor of dry manure filled their nostrils.
+
+They heard the steps come nearer, wander about irresolutely and then go
+off in the direction from which they had come.
+
+Meanwhile the throb of motors overhead grew louder and louder.
+
+“Well?” came the officer's voice.
+
+“Couldn't find them, sir,” mumbled the other voice.
+
+“Nonsense. Those men were drunk,” came the officer's voice.
+
+“Yes, sir,” came the other voice humbly.
+
+Chrisfield started to giggle. He felt he must yell aloud with laughter.
+
+The nearest motor stopped its singsong roar, making the night seem
+deathly silent.
+
+Andrews jumped to his feet.
+
+The air was split by a shriek followed by a racking snorting explosion.
+They saw the wall above their pit light up with a red momentary glare.
+
+Chrisfield got to his feet, expecting to see flaming ruins. The village
+street was the same as ever. There was a little light from the glow the
+moon, still under the horizon, gave to the sky. A window in the house
+opposite showed yellow. In it was a blue silhouette of an officer's cap
+and uniform.
+
+A little group stood in the street below.
+
+“What was that?” the form in the window was shouting in a peremptory
+voice.
+
+“German aeroplane just dropped a bomb, Major,” came a breathless voice
+in reply.
+
+“Why the devil don't he close that window?” a voice was muttering all
+the while. “Juss a target for 'em to aim at... a target to aim at.”
+
+“Any damage done?” asked the major.
+
+Through the silence the snoring of the motors sing-songed ominously
+overhead, like giant mosquitoes.
+
+“I seem to hear more,” said the major, in his drawling voice.
+
+“O yes sir, yes sir, lots,” answered an eager voice.
+
+“For God's sake tell him to close the window, Lieutenant,” muttered
+another voice.
+
+“How the hell can I tell him? You tell him.”
+
+“We'll all be killed, that's all there is about it.”
+
+“There are no shelters or dugouts,” drawled the major from the window.
+“That's Headquarters' fault.”
+
+“There's the cellar!” cried the eager voice, again.
+
+“Oh,” said the major.
+
+Three snorting explosions in quick succession drowned everything in a
+red glare. The street was suddenly filled with a scuttle of villagers
+running to shelter.
+
+“Say, Andy, they may have a roll call,” said Chrisfield.
+
+“We'd better cut for home across country,” said Andrews.
+
+They climbed cautiously out of their manure pit. Chrisfield was
+surprised to find that he was trembling. His hands were cold.
+
+It was with difficulty he kept his teeth from chattering.
+
+“God, we'll stink for a week.”
+
+“Let's git out,” muttered Chrisfield, “o' this goddam village.”
+
+They ran out through an orchard, broke through a hedge and climbed up
+the hill across the open fields.
+
+Down the main road an anti-aircraft gun had started barking and the sky
+sparkled with exploding shrapnel. The “put, put, put” of a machine gun
+had begun somewhere. Chrisfield strode up the hill in step with his
+friend. Behind them bomb followed bomb, and above them the air seemed
+full of exploding shrapnel and droning planes. The cognac still throbbed
+a little in their blood. They stumbled against each other now and then
+as they walked. From the top of the hill they turned and looked back.
+Chrisfield felt a tremendous elation thumping stronger than the cognac
+through his veins. Unconsciously he put his arm round his friend's
+shoulders. They seemed the only live things in a reeling world.
+
+Below in the valley a house was burning brightly. From all directions
+came the yelp of anti-aircraft guns, and overhead unperturbed continued
+the leisurely singsong of the motors.
+
+Suddenly Chrisfield burst out laughing. “By God, Ah always have fun when
+Ah'm out with you, Andy,” he said.
+
+They turned and hurried down the other slope of the hill towards the
+farms where they were quartered.
+
+
+
+                             II
+
+As far as he could see in every direction were the grey trunks of
+beeches bright green with moss on one side. The ground was thick with
+last year's leaves that rustled maddeningly with every step. In front of
+him his eyes followed other patches of olive-drab moving among the tree
+trunks. Overhead, through the mottled light and dark green of the leaves
+he could see now and then a patch of heavy grey sky, greyer than the
+silvery trunks that moved about him in every direction as he walked.
+He strained his eyes down each alley until they were dazzled by the
+reiteration of mottled grey and green. Now and then the rustling stopped
+ahead of him, and the olive-drab patches were still. Then, above the
+clamour of the blood in his ears, he could hear batteries “pong, pong,
+pong” in the distance, and the woods ringing with a sound like hail as
+a heavy shell hurtled above the tree tops to end in a dull rumble miles
+away.
+
+Chrisfield was soaked with sweat, but he could not feel his arms
+or legs. Every sense was concentrated in eyes and ears, and in the
+consciousness of his gun. Time and again he pictured himself taking
+sight at something grey that moved, and firing. His forefinger itched to
+press the trigger. He would take aim very carefully, he told himself;
+he pictured a dab of grey starting up from behind a grey tree trunk, and
+the sharp detonation of his rifle, and the dab of grey rolling among the
+last year's leaves.
+
+A branch carried his helmet off his head so that it rolled at his feet
+and bounced with a faint metallic sound against the root of a tree.
+
+He was blinded by the sudden terror that seized him. His heart seemed to
+roll from side to side in his chest. He stood stiff, as if paralyzed
+for a moment before he could stoop and pick the helmet up. There was a
+curious taste of blood in his mouth.
+
+“Ah'll pay 'em fer that,” he muttered between clenched teeth.
+
+His fingers were still trembling when he stooped to pick up the helmet,
+which he put on again very carefully, fastening it with the strap under
+his chin. Furious anger had taken hold of him. The olive-drab patches
+ahead had moved forward again. He followed, looking eagerly to the right
+and the left, praying he might see something. In every direction were
+the silvery trunk of the beeches, each with a vivid green streak on one
+side. With every step the last year's russet leaves rustled underfoot,
+maddeningly loud.
+
+Almost out of sight among the moving tree trunks was a log. It was not
+a log; it was a bunch of grey-green cloth. Without thinking Chrisfield
+strode towards it. The silver trunks of the beeches circled about him,
+waving jagged arms. It was a German lying full length among the leaves.
+
+Chrisfield was furiously happy in the angry pumping of blood through his
+veins.
+
+He could see the buttons on the back of the long coat of the German, and
+the red band on his cap.
+
+He kicked the German. He could feel the ribs against his toes through
+the leather of his boot. He kicked again and again with all his might.
+The German rolled over heavily. He had no face. Chrisfield felt the
+hatred suddenly ebb out of him. Where the face had been was a spongy
+mass of purple and yellow and red, half of which stuck to the russet
+leaves when the body rolled over. Large flies with bright shiny green
+bodies circled about it. In a brown clay-grimed hand was a revolver.
+
+Chrisfield felt his spine go cold; the German had shot himself.
+
+He ran off suddenly, breathlessly, to join the rest of the
+reconnoitering squad. The silent beeches whirled about him, waving
+gnarled boughs above his head. The German had shot himself. That was why
+he had no face.
+
+Chrisfield fell into line behind the other men. The corporal waited for
+him.
+
+“See anything?” he asked.
+
+“Not a goddam thing,” muttered Chrisfield almost inaudibly. The corporal
+went off to the head of the line. Chrisfield was alone again. The leaves
+rustled maddeningly loud underfoot.
+
+
+
+                            III
+
+Chrisfield's eyes were fixed on the leaves at the tops of the walnut
+trees, etched like metal against the bright colorless sky, edged with
+flicks and fringes of gold where the sunlight struck them. He stood
+stiff and motionless at attention, although there was a sharp pain in
+his left ankle that seemed swollen enough to burst the worn boot. He
+could feel the presence of men on both sides of him, and of men again
+beyond them. It seemed as if the stiff line of men in olive-drab,
+standing at attention, waiting endlessly for someone to release them
+from their erect paralysis, must stretch unbroken round the world.
+He let his glance fall to the trampled grass of the field where the
+regiment was drawn up. Somewhere behind him he could hear the clinking
+of spurs at some officer's heels. Then there was the sound of a motor on
+the road suddenly shut off, and there were steps coming down the line
+of men, and a group of officers passed hurriedly, with a businesslike
+stride, as if they did nothing else all their lives. Chrisfield made out
+eagles on tight khaki shoulders, then a single star and a double star,
+above which was a red ear and some grey hair; the general passed too
+soon for him to make out his face. Chrisfield swore to himself a little
+because his ankle hurt so. His eyes travelled back to the fringe of the
+trees against the bright sky. So this was what he got for those weeks
+in dugouts, for all the times he had thrown himself on his belly in the
+mud, for the bullets he had shot into the unknown at grey specks that
+moved among the grey mud. Something was crawling up the middle of his
+back. He wasn't sure if it were a louse or if he were imagining it. An
+order had been shouted. Automatically he had changed his position to
+parade rest. Somewhere far away a little man was walking towards the
+long drab lines. A wind had come up, rustling the stiff leaves of the
+grove of walnut trees. The voice squeaked above it, but Chrisfield could
+not make out what it said. The wind in the trees made a vast rhythmic
+sound like the churning of water astern of the transport he had come
+over on. Gold flicks and olive shadows danced among the indented
+clusters of leaves as they swayed, as if sweeping something away,
+against the bright sky. An idea came into Chrisfield's head. Suppose
+the leaves should sweep in broader and broader curves until they should
+reach the ground and sweep and sweep until all this was swept away,
+all these pains and lice and uniforms and officers with maple leaves
+or eagles or single stars or double stars or triple stars on their
+shoulders. He had a sudden picture of himself in his old comfortable
+overalls, with his shirt open so that the wind caressed his neck like
+a girl blowing down it playfully, lying on a shuck of hay under the hot
+Indiana sun. Funny he'd thought all that, he said to himself. Before
+he'd known Andy he'd never have thought of that. What had come over him
+these days?
+
+The regiment was marching away in columns of fours. Chrisfield's ankle
+gave him sharp hot pain with every step. His tunic was too tight and the
+sweat tingled on his back. All about him were sweating irritated faces;
+the woollen tunics with their high collars were like straight-jackets
+that hot afternoon. Chrisfield marched with his fists clenched; he
+wanted to fight somebody, to run his bayonet into a man as he ran it
+into the dummy in that everlasting bayonet drill, he wanted to strip
+himself naked, to squeeze the wrists of a girl until she screamed.
+
+His company was marching past another company that was lined up to be
+dismissed in front of a ruined barn which had a roof that sagged in the
+middle like an old cow's back. The sergeant stood in front of them with
+his arms crossed, looking critically at the company that marched past.
+He had a white heavy face and black eyebrows that met over his nose.
+Chrisfield stared hard at him as he passed, but Sergeant Anderson did
+not seem to recognize him. It gave him a dull angry feeling as if he'd
+been cut by a friend.
+
+The company melted suddenly into a group of men unbuttoning their
+shirts and tunics in front of the little board shanty where they were
+quartered, which had been put up by the French at the time of the Marne,
+years before, so a man had told Andy.
+
+“What are you dreamin' about, Indiana?” said Judkins, punching
+Chrisfield jovially in the ribs.
+
+Chrisfield doubled his fists and gave him a smashing blow in the jaw
+that Judkins warded of just in time.
+
+Judkins's face flamed red. He swung with a long bent arm.
+
+“What the hell d'you think this is?” shouted somebody. “What's he want
+to hit me for?” spluttered Judkins, breathless.
+
+Men had edged in between them.
+
+“Lemme git at him.”
+
+“Shut up, you fool,” said Andy, drawing Chrisfield away. The company
+scattered sullenly. Some of the men lay down in the long uncut grass in
+the shade of the ruins of the house, one of the walls of which made a
+wall of the shanty where they lived. Andrews and Chrisfield strolled in
+silence down the road, kicking their feet into the deep dust. Chrisfield
+was limping. On both sides of the road were fields of ripe wheat, golden
+under the sun. In the distance were low green hills fading to blue, pale
+yellow in patches with the ripe grain. Here and there a thick clump
+of trees or a screen of poplars broke the flatness of the long smooth
+hills. In the hedgerows were blue cornflowers and poppies in all colors
+from carmine to orange that danced in the wind on their wiry stalks. At
+the turn in the road they lost the noise of the division and could hear
+the bees droning in the big dull purple cloverheads and in the gold
+hearts of the daisies.
+
+“You're a wild man, Chris. What the hell came over you to try an' smash
+poor old Judkie's jaw? He could lick you anyway. He's twice as heavy as
+you are.”
+
+Chrisfield walked on in silence.
+
+“God, I should think you'ld have had enough of that sort of thing....
+I should think you'ld be sick of wanting to hurt people. You don't like
+pain yourself, do you?”
+
+Andrews spoke in spurts, bitterly, his eyes on the ground.
+
+“Ah think Ah sprained ma goddam ankle when Ah tumbled off the back o'
+the truck yesterday.”
+
+“Better go on sick call.... Say, Chris, I'm sick of this business....
+Almost like you'd rather shoot yourself than keep on.”
+
+“Ah guess you're gettin' the dolefuls, Andy. Look... let's go in
+swimmin'. There's a lake down the road.”
+
+“I've got my soap in my pocket. We can wash a few cooties off.”
+
+“Don't walk so goddam fast...Andy, you got more learnin' than I have.
+You ought to be able to tell what it is makes a feller go crazy like
+that.... Ah guess Ah got a bit o' the devil in me.”
+
+Andrews was brushing the soft silk of a poppy petal against his face.
+
+“I wonder if it'ld have any effect if I ate some of these,” he said.
+
+“Why?”
+
+“They say you go to sleep if you lie down in a poppy-field. Wouldn't you
+like to do that, Chris, an' not wake up till the war was over and you
+could be a human being again.”
+
+Andrews bit into the green seed capsule he held in his hand. A milky
+juice came out.
+
+“It's bitter...I guess it's the opium,” he said.
+
+“What's that?”
+
+“A stuff that makes you go to sleep and have wonderful dreams. In
+China....”
+
+“Dreams,” interrupted Chrisfield. “Ah had one of them last night.
+Dreamed Ah saw a feller that had shot hisself that I saw one time
+reconnoitrin' out in the Bringy Wood.”
+
+“What was that?”
+
+“Nawthin', juss a Fritzie had shot hisself.”
+
+“Better than opium,” said Andrews, his voice trembling with sudden
+excitement.
+
+“Ah dreamed the flies buzzin' round him was aeroplanes.... Remember the
+last rest village?”
+
+“And the major who wouldn't close the window? You bet I do!”
+
+They lay down on the grassy bank that sloped from the road to the pond.
+The road was hidden from them by the tall reeds through which the wind
+lisped softly. Overhead huge white cumulus clouds, piled tier on tier
+like fantastic galleons in full sail, floated, changing slowly in a
+greenish sky. The reflection of clouds in the silvery glisten of the
+pond's surface was broken by clumps of grasses and bits of floating
+weeds. They lay on their backs for some time before they started taking
+their clothes off, looking up at the sky, that seemed vast and free,
+like the ocean, vaster and freer than the ocean.
+
+“Sarge says a delousin' machine's comin' through this way soon.”
+
+“We need it, Chris.”
+
+Andrews pulled his clothes off slowly.
+
+“It's great to feel the sun and the wind on your body, isn't it, Chris?”
+
+Andrews walked towards the pond and lay flat on his belly on the fine
+soft grass near the edge.
+
+“It's great to have your body there, isn't it?” he said in a dreamy
+voice. “Your skin's so soft and supple, and nothing in the world has the
+feel a muscle has.... Gee, I don't know what I'd do without my body.”
+
+Chrisfield laughed.
+
+“Look how ma ole ankle's raised.... Found any cooties yet?” he said.
+
+“I'll try and drown 'em,” said Andrews. “Chris, come away from those
+stinking uniforms and you'll feel like a human being with the sun on
+your flesh instead of like a lousy soldier.”
+
+“Hello, boys,” came a high-pitched voice unexpectedly. A “Y” man with
+sharp nose and chin had come up behind them.
+
+“Hello,” said Chrisfield sullenly, limping towards the water.
+
+“Want the soap?” said Andrews.
+
+“Going to take a swim, boys?” asked the “Y” man. Then he added in a tone
+of conviction, “That's great.”
+
+“Better come in, too,” said Andrews.
+
+“Thanks, thanks.... Say, if you don't mind my suggestion, why don't you
+fellers get under the water.... You see there's two French girls looking
+at you from the road.” The “Y” man giggled faintly.
+
+“They don't mind,” said Andrews soaping, himself vigorously.
+
+“Ah reckon they lahk it,” said Chrisfield.
+
+“I know they haven't any morals.... But still.”
+
+“And why should they not look at us? Maybe there won't be many people
+who get a chance.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“Have you ever seen what a little splinter of a shell does to a feller's
+body?” asked Andrews savagely. He splashed into the shallow water and
+swam towards the middle of the pond.
+
+“Ye might ask 'em to come down and help us pick the cooties off,” said
+Chrisfield and followed in Andrews's wake. In the middle he lay on a
+sand bank in the warm shallow water and looked back at the “Y” man, who
+still stood on the bank. Behind him were other men undressing, and
+soon the grassy slope was filled with naked men and yellowish grey
+underclothes, and many dark heads and gleaming backs were bobbing up
+and down in the water. When he came out, he found Andrews sitting
+cross-legged near his clothes. He reached for his shirt and drew it on
+him.
+
+“God, I can't make up my mind to put the damn thing on again,” said
+Andrews in a low voice, almost as if he were talking to himself; “I feel
+so clean and free. It's like voluntarily taking up filth and slavery
+again.... I think I'll just walk off naked across the fields.”
+
+“D'you call serving your country slavery, my friend?” The “Y” man, who
+had been roaming among the bathers, his neat uniform and well-polished
+boots and puttees contrasting strangely with the mud-clotted,
+sweat-soaked clothing of the men about him, sat down on the grass beside
+Andrews.
+
+“You're goddam right I do.”
+
+“You'll get into trouble, my boy, if you talk that way,” said the “Y”
+ man in a cautious voice.
+
+“Well, what is your definition of slavery?”
+
+“You must remember that you are a voluntary worker in the cause of
+democracy.... You're doing this so that your children will be able to
+live peaceful....”
+
+“Ever shot a man?”
+
+“No.... No, of course not, but I'd have enlisted, really I would. Only
+my eyes are weak.”
+
+“I guess so,” said Andrews under his breath. “Remember that your women
+folks, your sisters and sweethearts and mothers, are praying for you at
+this instant.”
+
+“I wish somebody'd pray me into a clean shirt,” said Andrews, starting
+to get into his clothes. “How long have you been over here?”
+
+“Just three months.” The man's sallow face, with its pinched nose and
+chin lit up. “But, boys, those three months have been worth all the
+other years of my min--” he caught himself--“life.... I've heard the
+great heart of America beat. O boys, never forget that you are in a
+great Christian undertaking.”
+
+“Come on, Chris, let's beat it.” They left the “Y” man wandering among
+the men along the bank of the pond, to which the reflection of the
+greenish silvery sky and the great piled white clouds gave all the free
+immensity of space. From the road they could still hear his high pitched
+voice.
+
+“And that's what'll survive you and me,” said Andrews.
+
+“Say, Andy, you sure can talk to them guys,” said Chris admiringly.
+
+“What's the use of talking? God, there's a bit of honeysuckle still in
+bloom. Doesn't that smell like home to you, Chris?”
+
+“Say, how much do they pay those 'Y' men, Andy?”
+
+“Damned if I know.”
+
+They were just in time to fall into line for mess. In the line everyone
+was talking and laughing, enlivened by the smell of food and the tinkle
+of mess-kits. Near the field kitchen Chrisfield saw Sergeant Anderson
+talking with Higgins, his own sergeant. They were laughing together,
+and he heard Anderson's big voice saying jovially, “We've pulled through
+this time, Higgins.... I guess we will again.” The two sergeants looked
+at each other and cast a paternal, condescending glance over their men
+and laughed aloud.
+
+Chrisfield felt powerless as an ox under the yoke. All he could do was
+work and strain and stand at attention, while that white-faced Anderson
+could lounge about as if he owned the earth and laugh importantly like
+that. He held out his plate. The K.P. splashed the meat and gravy into
+it. He leaned against the tar-papered wall of the shack, eating his food
+and looking sullenly over at the two sergeants, who laughed and
+talked with an air of leisure while the men of their two companies ate
+hurriedly as dogs all round them.
+
+Chrisfield glanced suddenly at Anderson, who sat in the grass at the
+back of the house, looking out over the wheat fields, while the smoke of
+a cigarette rose in spirals about his face and his fair hair. He looked
+peaceful, almost happy. Chrisfield clenched his fists and felt the
+hatred of that other man rising stingingly within him.
+
+“Guess Ah got a bit of the devil in me,” he thought.
+
+
+
+The windows were so near the grass that the faint light had a greenish
+color in the shack where the company was quartered. It gave men's faces,
+tanned as they were, the sickly look of people who work in offices, when
+they lay on their blankets in the bunks made of chicken wire, stretched
+across mouldy scantlings. Swallows had made their nests in the peak
+of the roof, and their droppings made white dobs and blotches on the
+floorboards in the alley between the bunks, where a few patches of
+yellow grass had not yet been completely crushed away by footsteps. Now
+that the shack was empty, Chrisfield could hear plainly the peep-peep of
+the little swallows in their mud nests. He sat quiet on the end of one
+of the bunks, looking out of the open door at the blue shadows that were
+beginning to lengthen on the grass of the meadow behind. His hands, that
+had got to be the color of terra cotta, hung idly between his legs. He
+was whistling faintly. His eyes, in their long black eyelashes, were
+fixed on the distance, though he was not thinking. He felt a comfortable
+unexpressed well-being all over him. It was pleasant to be alone in the
+barracks like this, when the other men were out at grenade practice.
+There was no chance of anyone shouting orders at him.
+
+A warm drowsiness came over him. From the field kitchen alongside came
+the voice of a man singing:
+
+     “O my girl's a lulu, every inch a lulu,
+      Is Lulu, that pretty lil' girl o' mi-ine.”
+
+In their mud nests the young swallows twittered faintly overhead. Now
+and then there was a beat of wings and a big swallow skimmed into the
+shack. Chrisfield's cheeks began to feel very softly flushed. His head
+drooped over on his chest. Outside the cook was singing over and over
+again in a low voice, amid a faint clatter of pans:
+
+     “O my girl's a lulu, every inch a lulu,
+     Is Lulu, that pretty lil' girl o' mi-ine.”
+
+Chrisfield fell asleep.
+
+He woke up with a start. The shack was almost dark. A tall man stood out
+black against the bright oblong of the door.
+
+“What are you doing here?” said a deep snarling voice.
+
+Chrisfield's eyes blinked. Automatically he got to his feet; it might be
+an officer. His eyes focussed suddenly. It was Anderson's face that was
+between him and the light. In the greenish obscurity the skin looked
+chalk-white in contrast to the heavy eyebrows that met over the nose and
+the dark stubble on the chin.
+
+“How is it you ain't out with the company?”
+
+“Ah'm barracks guard,” muttered Chrisfield. He could feel the blood
+beating in his wrists and temples, stinging his eyes like fire. He was
+staring at the floor in front of Anderson's feet.
+
+“Orders was all the companies was to go out an' not leave any guard.”
+
+“Ah!'
+
+“We'll see about that when Sergeant Higgins comes in. Is this place
+tidy?”
+
+“You say Ah'm a goddamed liar, do ye?” Chrisfield felt suddenly cool and
+joyous. He felt anger taking possession of him. He seemed to be standing
+somewhere away from himself watching himself get angry.
+
+“This place has got to be cleaned up.... That damn General may come back
+to look over quarters,” went on Anderson coolly.
+
+“You call me a goddam liar,” said Chrisfield again, putting as much
+insolence as he could summon into his voice. “Ah guess you doan'
+remember me.”
+
+“Yes, I know, you're the guy tried to run a knife into me once,” said
+Anderson coolly, squaring his shoulders. “I guess you've learned a
+little discipline by this time. Anyhow you've got to clean this place
+up. God, they haven't even brushed the birds' nests down! Must be some
+company!” said Anderson with a half laugh.
+
+“Ah ain't agoin' to neither, fur you.”
+
+“Look here, you do it or it'll be the worse for you,” shouted the
+sergeant in his deep rasping voice.
+
+“If ever Ah gits out o' the army Ah'm goin' to shoot you. You've picked
+on me enough.” Chrisfield spoke slowly, as coolly as Anderson.
+
+“Well, we'll see what a court-martial has to say to that.”
+
+“Ah doan give a hoot in hell what ye do.”
+
+Sergeant Anderson turned on his heel and went out, twisting the corner
+button of his tunic in his big fingers. Already the sound of tramping
+feet was heard and the shouted order, “Dis-missed.” Then men crowded
+into the shack, laughing and talking. Chrisfield sat still on the end
+of the bunk, looking at the bright oblong of the door. Outside he saw
+Anderson talking to Sergeant Higgins. They shook hands, and Anderson
+disappeared. Chrisfield heard Sergeant Higgins call after him.
+
+“I guess the next time I see you I'll have to put my heels together an'
+salute.”
+
+Andersen's booming laugh faded as he walked away.
+
+Sergeant Higgins came into the shack and walked straight up to
+Chrisfield, saying in a hard official voice:
+
+“You're under arrest.... Small, guard this man; get your gun and
+cartridge belt. I'll relieve you so you can get mess.”
+
+He went out. Everyone's eyes were turned curiously on Chrisfield. Small,
+a red-faced man with a long nose that hung down over his upper lip,
+shuffled sheepishly over to his place beside Chrisfield's cot and let
+the butt of his rifle come down with a bang on the floor. Somebody
+laughed. Andrews walked up to them, a look of trouble in his blue eyes
+and in the lines of his lean tanned cheeks.
+
+“What's the matter, Chris?” he asked in a low voice.
+
+“Tol' that bastard Ah didn't give a hoot in hell what he did,” said
+Chrisfield in a broken voice.
+
+“Say, Andy, I don't think I ought ter let anybody talk to him,” said
+Small in an apologetic tone. “I don't see why Sarge always gives me all
+his dirty work.”
+
+Andrews walked off without replying.
+
+“Never mind, Chris; they won't do nothin' to ye,” said Jenkins, grinning
+at him good-naturedly from the door.
+
+“Ah doan give a hoot in hell what they do,” said Chrisfield again.
+
+He lay back in his bunk and looked at the ceiling. The barracks was full
+of a bustle of cleaning up. Judkins was sweeping the floor with a broom
+made of dry sticks. Another man was knocking down the swallows' nests
+with a bayonet. The mud nests crumbled and fell on the floor and
+the bunks, filling the air with a flutter of feathers and a smell of
+birdlime. The little naked bodies, with their orange bills too big for
+them, gave a soft plump when they hit the boards of the floor, where
+they lay giving faint gasping squeaks. Meanwhile, with shrill little
+cries, the big swallows flew back and forth in the shanty, now and then
+striking the low roof.
+
+“Say, pick 'em up, can't yer?” said Small. Judkins was sweeping the
+little gasping bodies out among the dust and dirt.
+
+A stoutish man stooped and picked the little birds up one by one,
+puckering his lips into an expression of tenderness. He made his two
+hands into a nest-shaped hollow, out of which stretched the long necks
+and the gaping orange mouths. Andrews ran into him at the door.
+
+“Hello, Dad,” he said. “What the hell?”
+
+“I just picked these up.”
+
+“So they couldn't let the poor little devils stay there? God! it looks
+to me as if they went out of their way to give pain to everything, bird,
+beast or man.”
+
+“War ain't no picnic,” said Judkins.
+
+“Well, God damn it, isn't that a reason for not going out of your way to
+raise more hell with people's feelings than you have to?”
+
+A face with peaked chin and nose on which was stretched a
+parchment-colored skin appeared in the door.
+
+“Hello, boys,” said the “Y” man. “I just thought I'd tell you I'm going
+to open the canteen tomorrow, in the last shack on the Beaucourt road.
+There'll be chocolate, ciggies, soap, and everything.”
+
+Everybody cheered. The “Y” man beamed.
+
+His eye lit on the little birds in Dad's hands.
+
+“How could you?” he said. “An American soldier being deliberately cruel.
+I would never have believed it.”
+
+“Ye've got somethin' to learn,” muttered Dad, waddling out into the
+twilight on his bandy legs.
+
+Chrisfield had been watching the scene at the door with unseeing eyes.
+A terrified nervousness that he tried to beat off had come over him. It
+was useless to repeat to himself again and again that he didn't give a
+damn; the prospect of being brought up alone before all those officers,
+of being cross-questioned by those curt voices, frightened him. He would
+rather have been lashed. Whatever was he to say, he kept asking himself;
+he would get mixed up or say things he didn't mean to, or else he
+wouldn't be able to get a word out at all. If only Andy could go up with
+him, Andy was educated, like the officers were; he had more learning
+than the whole shooting-match put together. He'd be able to defend
+himself, and defend his friends, too, if only they'd let him.
+
+“I felt just like those little birds that time they got the bead on our
+trench at Boticourt,” said Jenkins, laughing.
+
+Chrisfield listened to the talk about him as if from another world.
+Already he was cut off from his outfit. He'd disappear and they'd never
+know or care what became of him.
+
+The mess-call blew and the men filed out. He could hear their talk
+outside, and the sound of their mess-kits as they opened them. He lay
+on his bunk staring up into the dark. A faint blue light still came
+from outside, giving a curious purple color to Small's red face and long
+drooping nose at the end of which hung a glistening drop of moisture.
+
+
+
+Chrisfield found Andrews washing a shirt in the brook that flowed
+through the ruins of the village the other side of the road from the
+buildings where the division was quartered. The blue sky flicked with
+pinkish-white clouds gave a shimmer of blue and lavender and white to
+the bright water. At the bottom could be seen battered helmets and bits
+of equipment and tin cans that had once held meat. Andrews turned his
+head; he had a smudge of mud down his nose and soapsuds on his chin.
+
+“Hello, Chris,” he said, looking him in the eyes with his sparkling blue
+eyes, “how's things?” There was a faint anxious frown on his forehead.
+
+“Two-thirds of one month's pay an' confined to quarters,” said
+Chrisfield cheerfully.
+
+“Gee, they were easy.”
+
+“Um-hum, said Ah was a good shot an' all that, so they'd let me off this
+time.”
+
+Andrews started scrubbing at his shirt again.
+
+“I've got this shirt so full of mud I don't think I ever will get it
+clean,” he said.
+
+“Move ye ole hide away, Andy. Ah'll wash it. You ain't no good for
+nothin'.”
+
+“Hell no, I'll do it.”
+
+“Move ye hide out of there.”
+
+“Thanks awfully.”
+
+Andrews got to his feet and wiped the mud off his nose with his bare
+forearm.
+
+“Ah'm goin' to shoot that bastard,” said Chrisfield, scrubbing at the
+shirt.
+
+“Don't be an ass, Chris.”
+
+“Ah swear to God Ah am.”
+
+“What's the use of getting all wrought up. The thing's over. You'll
+probably never see him again.”
+
+“Ah ain't all het up.... Ah'm goin' to do it though.” He wrung the shirt
+out carefully and flipped Andrews in the face with it. “There ye are,”
+ he said.
+
+“You're a good fellow, Chris, even if you are an ass.”
+
+“Tell me we're going into the line in a day or two.”
+
+“There's been a devil of a lot of artillery going up the road; French,
+British, every old kind.”
+
+“Tell me they's raisin' hell in the Oregon forest.”
+
+They walked slowly across the road. A motorcycle despatch-rider whizzed
+past them.
+
+“It's them guys has the fun,” said Chrisfield.
+
+“I don't believe anybody has much.”
+
+“What about the officers?”
+
+“They're too busy feeling important to have a real hell of a time.”
+
+
+
+The hard cold rain beat like a lash in his; face. There was no light
+anywhere and no sound but the hiss of the rain in the grass. His eyes
+strained to see through the dark until red and yellow blotches danced
+before them. He walked very slowly and carefully, holding something very
+gently in his hand under his raincoat. He felt himself full of a strange
+subdued fury; he seemed to be walking behind himself spying on his own
+actions, and what he saw made him feel joyously happy, made him want to
+sing.
+
+He turned so that the rain beat against his cheek. Under his helmet
+he felt his hair full of sweat that ran with the rain down his glowing
+face. His fingers clutched very carefully the smooth stick he had in his
+hand.
+
+He stopped and shut his eyes for a moment; through the hiss of the rain
+he had heard a sound of men talking in one of the shanties. When he shut
+his eyes he saw the white face of Anderson before him, with its unshaven
+chin and the eyebrows that met across the nose.
+
+Suddenly he felt the wall of a house in front of him. He put out his
+hand. His hand jerked back from the rough wet feel of the tar paper,
+as if it had touched something dead. He groped along the wall, stepping
+very cautiously. He felt as he had felt reconnoitering in the Bringy
+Wood. Phrases came to his mind as they had then. Without thinking
+what they meant, the words Make the world safe for Democracy formed
+themselves in his head. They were very comforting. They occupied his
+thoughts. He said them to himself again and again. Meanwhile his free
+hand was fumbling very carefully with the fastening that held the
+wooden shutter over a window. The shutter opened a very little, creaking
+loudly, louder than the patter of rain on the roof of the shack. A
+stream of water from the roof was pouring into his face.
+
+Suddenly a beam of light transformed everything, cutting the darkness in
+two. The rain glittered like a bead curtain. Chrisfield was looking into
+a little room where a lamp was burning. At a table covered with printed
+blanks of different size sat a corporal; behind him was a bunk and
+a pile of equipment. The corporal was reading a magazine. Chrisfield
+looked at him a long time; his fingers were tight about the smooth
+stick. There was no one else in the room.
+
+A sort of panic seized Chrisfield; he strode away noisily from the
+window and pushed open the door of the shack.
+
+“Where's Sergeant Anderson?” he asked in a breathless voice of the first
+man he saw.
+
+“Corp's there if it's anything important,” said the man. “Anderson's
+gone to an O. T. C. Left day before yesterday.”
+
+Chrisfield was out in the rain again. It was beating straight in his
+face, so that his eyes were full of water. He was trembling. He had
+suddenly become terrified. The smooth stick he held seemed to burn him.
+He was straining his ears for an explosion. Walking straight before him
+down the road, he went faster and faster as if trying to escape from it.
+He stumbled on a pile of stones. Automatically he pulled the string out
+of the grenade and threw it far from him.
+
+There was a minute's pause.
+
+Red flame spurted in the middle of the wheatfield. He felt the sharp
+crash in his eardrums.
+
+He walked fast through the rain. Behind him, at the door of the shack,
+he could hear excited voices. He walked recklessly on, the rain blinding
+him. When he finally stepped into the light he was so dazzled he could
+not see who was in the wine shop.
+
+“Well, I'll be damned, Chris,” said Andrews's voice. Chrisfield blinked
+the rain out of his lashes. Andrews sat writing with a pile of papers
+before him and a bottle of champagne. It seemed to Chrisfield to soothe
+his nerves to hear Andy's voice. He wished he would go on talking a long
+time without a pause.
+
+“If you aren't the crowning idiot of the ages,” Andrews went on in a low
+voice. He took Chrisfield by the arm and led him into the little back
+room, where was a high bed with a brown coverlet and a big kitchen table
+on which were the remnants of a meal.
+
+“What's the matter? Your arm's trembling like the devil. But why.... O
+pardon, Crimpette. C'est un ami.... You know Crimpette, don't you?” He
+pointed to a youngish woman who had just appeared from behind the bed.
+She had a flabby rosy face and violet circles under her eyes, dark as
+if they'd been made by blows, and untidy hair. A dirty grey muslin
+dress with half the hooks off held in badly her large breasts and
+flabby figure. Chrisfield looked at her greedily, feeling his furious
+irritation flame into one desire.
+
+“What's the matter with you, Chris? You're crazy to break out of
+quarters this way?”
+
+“Say, Andy, git out o' here. Ah ain't your sort anyway.... Git out o'
+here.”
+
+“You're a wild man. I'll grant you that.... But I'd just as soon be your
+sort as anyone else's.... Have a drink.”
+
+“Not now.”
+
+Andrews sat down with his bottle and his papers, pushing away the broken
+plates full of stale food to make a place on the greasy table. He took
+a gulp out of the bottle, that made him cough, then put the end of his
+pencil in his mouth and stared gravely at the paper.
+
+“No, I'm your sort, Chris,” he said over his shoulder, “only they've
+tamed me. O God, how tame I am.”
+
+Chrisfield did not listen to what he was saying. He stood in front of
+the woman, staring in her face. She looked at him in a stupid frightened
+way. He felt in his pockets for some money. As he had just been paid he
+had a fifty-franc note. He spread it out carefully before her. Her eyes
+glistened. The pupils seemed to grow smaller as they fastened on the bit
+of daintily colored paper. He crumpled it up suddenly in his fist and
+shoved it down between her breasts.
+
+
+
+Some time later Chrisfield sat down in front of Andrews. He still had
+his wet slicker on.
+
+“Ah guess you think Ah'm a swine,” he said in his normal voice. “Ah
+guess you're about right.”
+
+“No, I don't,” said Andrews. Something made him put his hand on
+Chrisfield's hand that lay on the table. It had a feeling of cool
+health.
+
+“Say, why were you trembling so when you came in here? You seem all
+right now.”
+
+“Oh, Ah dunno,'” said Chrisfield in a soft resonant voice.
+
+They were silent for a long while. They could hear the woman's footsteps
+going and coming behind them.
+
+“Let's go home,” said Chrisfield.
+
+“All right.... Bonsoir, Crimpette.”
+
+Outside the rain had stopped. A stormy wind had torn the clouds to rags.
+Here and there clusters of stars showed through. They splashed merrily
+through the puddles. But here and there reflected a patch of stars when
+the wind was not ruffling them.
+
+“Christ, Ah wish Ah was like you, Andy,” said Chrisfield.
+
+“You don't want to be like me, Chris. I'm no sort of a person at all.
+I'm tame. O you don't know how damn tame I am.”
+
+“Learnin' sure do help a feller to git along in the world.”
+
+“Yes, but what's the use of getting along if you haven't any world to
+get along in? Chris, I belong to a crowd that just fakes learning. I
+guess the best thing that can happen to us is to get killed in this
+butchery. We're a tame generation.... It's you that it matters to kill.”
+
+“Ah ain't no good for anythin'.... Ah doan give a damn.... Lawsee, Ah
+feel sleepy.”
+
+As they slipped in the door of their quarters, the sergeant looked at
+Chrisfield searchingly. Andrews spoke up at once.
+
+“There's some rumors going on at the latrine, Sarge. The fellows from
+the Thirty-second say we're going to march into hell's halfacre about
+Thursday.”
+
+“A lot they know about it.”
+
+“That's the latest edition of the latrine news.”
+
+“The hell it is! Well, d'you want to know something, Andrews.... It'll
+be before Thursday, or I'm a Dutchman.”
+
+Sergeant Higgins put on a great air of mystery.
+
+Chrisfield went to his bunk, undressed quietly and climbed into his
+blankets. He stretched his arms languidly a couple of times, and while
+Andrews was still talking to the sergeant, fell asleep.
+
+
+
+                              IV
+
+The moon lay among clouds on the horizon, like a big red pumpkin among
+its leaves.
+
+Chrisfield squinted at it through the boughs of the apple trees laden
+with apples that gave a winey fragrance to the crisp air. He was sitting
+on the ground, his legs stretched limply before him, leaning against
+the rough trunk of an apple tree. Opposite him, leaning against another
+tree, was the square form, surmounted by a large long-jawed face, of
+Judkins. Between them lay two empty cognac bottles. All about them was
+the rustling orchard, with its crooked twigs that made a crackling sound
+rubbing together in the gusts of the autumn wind, that came heavy with a
+smell of damp woods and of rotting fruits and of all the ferment of
+the overripe fields. Chrisfield felt it stirring the moist hair on his
+forehead and through the buzzing haze of the cognac heard the plunk,
+plunk, plunk of apples dropping that followed each gust, and the
+twanging of night insects, and, far in the distance, the endless rumble
+of guns, like tomtoms beaten for a dance.
+
+“Ye heard what the Colonel said, didn't ye?” said Judkins in a voice
+hoarse from too much drink.
+
+Chrisfield belched and nodded his head vaguely. He remembered Andrews's
+white fury after the men had been dismissed, how he had sat down on the
+end of a log by the field kitchen, staring at the patch of earth he beat
+into mud with the toe of his boot.
+
+“Then,” went on Judkins, trying to imitate the Colonel's solemn
+efficient voice, “'On the subject of prisoners'”--he hiccoughed and made
+a limp gesture with his hand--“'On the subject of prisoners, well, I'll
+leave that to you, but juss remember... juss remember what the Huns did
+to Belgium, an' I might add that we have barely enough emergency rations
+as it is, and the more prisoners you have the less you fellers'll git to
+eat.'”
+
+“That's what he said, Judkie; that's what he said.”
+
+“'An the more prisoners ye have, the less youse'll git to eat,'” chanted
+Judkins, making a triumphal flourish with his hand.
+
+Chrisfield groped for the cognac bottle; it was empty; he waved it in
+the air a minute and then threw it into the tree opposite him. A shower
+of little apples fell about Judkins's head. He got unsteadily to his
+feet.
+
+“I tell you, fellers,” he said, “war ain't no picnic.”
+
+Chrisfield stood up and grabbed at an apple. His teeth crunched into it.
+
+“Sweet,” he said.
+
+“Sweet, nauthin',” mumbled Judkins, “war ain't no picnic.... I tell
+you, buddy, if you take any prisoners”--he hiccoughed--“after what the
+Colonel said, I'll lick the spots out of you, by God I will.... Rip up
+their guts that's all, like they was dummies. Rip up their guts.” His
+voice suddenly changed to one of childish dismay. “Gee, Chris, I'm going
+to be sick,” he whispered.
+
+“Look out,” said Chrisfield, pushing him away. Judkins leaned against a
+tree and vomited.
+
+The full moon had risen above the clouds and filled the apple orchard
+with chilly golden light that cast a fantastic shadow pattern of
+interlaced twigs and branches upon the bare ground littered with apples.
+The sound of the guns had grown nearer. There were loud eager rumbles
+as of bowls being rolled very hard on a bowling alley, combined with a
+continuous roar like sheets of iron being shaken.
+
+“Ah bet it's hell out there,” said Chrisfield.
+
+“I feel better,” said Judkins. “Let's go get some more cognac.”
+
+“Ah'm hungry,” said Chrisfield. “Let's go an' get that ole woman to cook
+us some aigs.”
+
+“Too damn late,” growled Judkins.
+
+“How the hell late is it?”
+
+“Dunno, I sold my watch.”
+
+They were walking at random through the orchard. They came to a field
+full of big pumpkins that gleamed in the moonlight and cast shadows
+black as holes. In the distance they could see wooded hills.
+
+Chrisfield picked up a medium-sized pumpkin and threw it as hard as he
+could into the air. It split into three when it landed with a thud on
+the ground, and the moist yellow seeds spilled out.
+
+“Some strong man, you are,” said Judkins, tossing up a bigger one.
+
+“Say, there's a farmhouse, maybe we could get some aigs from the
+hen-roost.”
+
+“Hell of a lot of hens....”
+
+At that moment the crowing of a rooster came across the silent fields.
+They ran towards the dark farm buildings.
+
+“Look out, there may be officers quartered there.”
+
+They walked cautiously round the square, silent group of buildings.
+There were no lights. The big wooden door of the court pushed open
+easily, without creaking. On the roof of the barn the pigeon-cot was
+etched dark against the disc of the moon. A warm smell of stables blew
+in their faces as the two men tiptoed into the manure-littered farmyard.
+Under one of the sheds they found a table on which a great many pears
+were set to ripen. Chrisfield put his teeth into one. The rich sweet
+juice ran down his chin. He ate the pear quickly and greedily, and then
+bit into another.
+
+“Fill yer pockets with 'em,” whispered Judkins.
+
+“They might ketch us.”
+
+“Ketch us, hell. We'll be goin' into the offensive in a day or two.”
+
+“Ah sure would like to git some aigs.”
+
+Chrisfield pushed open the door of one of the barns. A smell of creamy
+milk and cheeses filled his nostrils.
+
+“Come here,” he whispered. “Want some cheese?”
+
+A lot of cheeses ranged on a board shone silver in the moonlight that
+came in through the open door.
+
+“Hell, no, ain't fit te eat,” said Judkins, pushing his heavy fist into
+one of the new soft cheeses.
+
+“Doan do that.”
+
+“Well, ain't we saved 'em from the Huns?”
+
+“But, hell.”
+
+“War ain't no picnic, that's all,” said Judkins.
+
+In the next door they found chickens roosting in a small room with straw
+on the floor. The chickens ruffled their feathers and made a muffled
+squeaking as they slept.
+
+Suddenly there was a loud squawking and all the chickens were cackling
+with terror.
+
+“Beat it,” muttered Judkins, running for the gate of the farmyard.
+
+There were shrill cries of women in the house. A voice shrieking, “C'est
+les Boches, C'est les Boches,” rose above the cackling of chickens and
+the clamor of guinea-hens. As they ran, they heard the rasping cries of
+a woman in hysterics, rending the rustling autumn night.
+
+“God damn,” said Judkins breathless, “they ain't got no right, those
+frogs ain't, to carry on like that.”
+
+They ducked into the orchard again. Above the squawking of the chicken
+Judkins still held, swinging it by its legs, Chrisfield could hear the
+woman's voice shrieking. Judkins dexterously wrung the chicken's neck.
+Crushing the apples underfoot they strode fast through the orchard.
+The voice faded into the distance until it could not be heard above the
+sound of the guns.
+
+“Gee, Ah'm kind o' cut up 'bout that lady,” said Chrisfield.
+
+“Well, ain't we saved her from the Huns?”
+
+“Andy don't think so.”
+
+“Well, if you want to know what I think about that guy Andy I don't
+think much of him. I think he's yaller, that's all,” said Judkins.
+
+“No, he ain't.”
+
+“I heard the lootenant say so. He's a goddam yeller dawg.”
+
+Chrisfield swore sullenly.
+
+“Well, you juss wait 'n see. I tell you, buddy, war ain't no picnic.”
+
+“What the hell are we goin' to do with that chicken?” said Judkins.
+
+“You remember what happened to Eddie White?”
+
+“Hell, we'd better leave it here.”
+
+Judkins swung the chicken by its neck round his head and threw it as
+hard as he could into the bushes.
+
+They were walking along the road between chestnut trees that led to
+their village. It was dark except for irregular patches of bright
+moonlight in the centre that lay white as milk among the indentated
+shadows of the leaves. All about them rose a cool scent of woods,
+of ripe fruits and of decaying leaves, of the ferment of the autumn
+countryside.
+
+
+
+The lieutenant sat at a table in the sun, in the village street outside
+the company office. In front of him sparkled piles of money and daintily
+tinted banknotes. Beside him stood Sergeant Higgins with an air of
+solemnity and the second sergeant and the corporal. The men stood
+in line and as each came before the table he saluted with deference,
+received his money and walked away with a self-conscious air. A few
+villagers looked on from the small windows with grey frames of their
+rambling whitewashed houses. In the ruddy sunshine the line of men
+cast an irregular blue-violet shadow, like a gigantic centipede, on the
+yellow gravel road.
+
+From the table by the window of the cafe of “Nos Braves Poilus” where
+Small and Judkins and Chrisfield had established themselves with their
+pay crisp in their pockets, they could see the little front garden of
+the house across the road, where, behind a hedge of orange marigolds,
+Andrews sat on the doorstep talking to an old woman hunched on a low
+chair in the sun just inside the door, who leant her small white head
+over towards his yellow one.
+
+“There ye are,” said Judkins in a solemn tone. “He don't even go after
+his pay. That guy thinks he's the whole show, he does.”
+
+Chrisfield flushed, but said nothing. “He don't do nothing all day long
+but talk to that ole lady,” said Small with a grin. “Guess she reminds
+him of his mother, or somethin'.”
+
+“He always does go round with the frogs all he can. Looks to me like
+he'd rather have a drink with a frog than with an American.”
+
+“Reckon he wants to learn their language,” said Small. “He won't never
+come to much in this army, that's what I'm telling yer,” said Judkins.
+
+The little houses across the way had flushed red with the sunset.
+Andrews got to his feet slowly and languidly and held out his hand to
+the old woman. She stood up, a small tottering figure in a black
+silk shawl. He leaned over towards her and she kissed both his cheeks
+vigorously several times. He walked down the road towards the billets,
+with his fatigue cap in his hand, looking at the ground.
+
+“He's got a flower behind his ear, like a cigarette,” said Judkins, with
+a disgusted snort.
+
+“Well, I guess we'd better go,” said Small. “We got to be in quarters at
+six.”
+
+They were silent a moment. In the distance the guns kept up a continual
+tomtom sound.
+
+“Guess we'll be in that soon,” said Small.
+
+Chrisfield felt a chill go down his spine. He moistened his lips with
+his tongue.
+
+“Guess it's hell out there,” said Judkins. “War ain't no picnic.”
+
+“Ah doan give a hoot in hell,” said Chrisfield.
+
+
+
+The men were lined up in the village street with their packs on, waiting
+for the order to move. Thin wreaths of white mist still lingered in the
+trees and over the little garden plots. The sun had not yet risen,
+but ranks of clouds in the pale blue sky overhead were brilliant with
+crimson and gold. The men stood in an irregular line, bent over a little
+by the weight of their equipment, moving back and forth, stamping their
+feet and beating their arms together, their noses and ears red from the
+chill of the morning. The haze of their breath rose above their heads.
+
+Down the misty road a drab-colored limousine appeared, running slowly.
+It stopped in front of the line of men. The lieutenant came hurriedly
+out of the house opposite, drawing on a pair of gloves. The men standing
+in line looked curiously at the limousine. They could see that two of
+the tires were flat and that the glass was broken. There were scratches
+on the drab paint and in the door three long jagged holes that
+obliterated the number. A little murmur went down the line of men. The
+door opened with difficulty, and a major in a light buff-colored coat
+stumbled out. One arm, wrapped in bloody bandages, was held in a sling
+made of a handkerchief. His face was white and drawn into a stiff mask
+with pain. The lieutenant saluted.
+
+“For God's sake where's a repair station?” he asked in a loud shaky
+voice.
+
+“There's none in this village, Major.”
+
+“Where the hell is there one?”
+
+“I don't know,” said the lieutenant in a humble tone.
+
+“Why the hell don't you know? This organization's rotten, no good....
+Major Stanley's just been killed. What the hell's the name of this
+village?”
+
+“Thiocourt.”
+
+“Where the hell's that?”
+
+The chauffeur had leaned out. He had no cap and his hair was full of
+dust.
+
+“You see, Lootenant, we wants to get to Chalons--”
+
+“Yes, that's it. Chalons sur...Chalons-sur-Marne,” said the Major.
+
+“The billeting officer has a map,” said the lieutenant, “last house to
+the left.”
+
+“O let's go there quick,” said the major. He fumbled with the fastening
+of the door.
+
+The lieutenant opened it for him.
+
+As he opened the door, the men nearest had a glimpse of the interior of
+the car. On the far side was a long object huddled in blankets, propped
+up on the seat.
+
+Before he got in the major leaned over and pulled a woollen rug out,
+holding it away from him with his one good arm. The car moved off
+slowly, and all down the village street the men, lined up waiting for
+orders, stared curiously at the three jagged holes in the door.
+
+The lieutenant looked at the rug that lay in the middle of the road. He
+touched it with his foot. It was soaked with blood that in places had
+dried into clots.
+
+The lieutenant and the men of his company looked at it in silence. The
+sun had risen and shone on the roofs of the little whitewashed houses
+behind them. Far down the road a regiment had begun to move.
+
+
+
+                               V
+
+At the brow of the hill they rested. Chrisfield sat on the red clay bank
+and looked about him, his rifle between his knees. In front of him
+on the side of the road was a French burying ground, where the little
+wooden crosses, tilting in every direction, stood up against the sky,
+and the bead wreaths glistened in the warm sunlight. All down the road
+as far as he could see was a long drab worm, broken in places by strings
+of motor trucks, a drab worm that wriggled down the slope, through the
+roofless shell of the village and up into the shattered woods on the
+crest of the next hills. Chrisfield strained his eyes to see the hills
+beyond. They lay blue and very peaceful in the moon mist. The river
+glittered about the piers of the wrecked stone bridge, and disappeared
+between rows of yellow poplars. Somewhere in the valley a big gun fired.
+The shell shrieked into the distance, towards the blue, peaceful hills.
+
+Chrisfield's regiment was moving again. The men, their feet slipping
+in the clayey mud, went downhill with long strides, the straps of their
+packs tugging at their shoulders.
+
+“Isn't this great country?” said Andrews, who marched beside him.
+
+“Ah'd liever be at an O. T. C. like that bastard Anderson.”
+
+“Oh, to hell with that,” said Andrews. He still had a big faded orange
+marigold in one of the buttonholes of his soiled tunic. He walked with
+his nose in the air and his nostrils dilated, enjoying the tang of the
+autumnal sunlight.
+
+Chrisfield took the cigarette, that had gone out half-smoked, from his
+mouth and spat savagely at the heels of the man in front of him.
+
+“This ain't no life for a white man,” he said.
+
+“I'd rather be this than... than that,” said Andrews bitterly. He tossed
+his head in the direction of a staff car full of officers that was
+stalled at the side of the road. They were drinking something out of
+a thermos bottle that they passed round with the air of Sunday
+excursionists. They waved, with a conscious relaxation of discipline, at
+the men as they passed. One, a little lieutenant with a black mustache
+with pointed ends, kept crying: “They're running like rabbits, fellers;
+they're running like rabbits.” A wavering half-cheer would come from the
+column now and then where it was passing the staff car.
+
+The big gun fired again. Chrisfield was near it this time and felt the
+concussion like a blow in the head.
+
+“Some baby,” said the man behind him.
+
+Someone was singing:
+
+     “Good morning, mister Zip Zip Zip,
+      With your hair cut just as short as,
+      With your hair cut just as short as,
+      With your hair cut just as short as mi-ine.”
+
+Everybody took it up. Their steps rang in rhythm in the paved street
+that zigzagged among the smashed houses of the village. Ambulances
+passed them, big trucks full of huddled men with grey faces, from which
+came a smell of sweat and blood and carbolic. Somebody went on:
+
+     “O ashes to ashes
+      An' dust to dust...”
+
+“Can that,” cried Judkins, “it ain't lucky.”
+
+But everybody had taken up the song. Chrisfield noticed that Andrews's
+eyes were sparkling. “If he ain't the damnedest,” he thought to himself.
+But he shouted at the top of his lungs with the rest:
+
+     “O ashes to ashes
+      An' dust to dust;
+      If the gasbombs don't get yer
+                  The eighty-eights must.”
+
+They were climbing the hill again. The road was worn into deep ruts and
+there were many shell holes, full of muddy water, into which their feet
+slipped. The woods began, a shattered skeleton of woods, full of old
+artillery emplacements and dugouts, where torn camouflage fluttered from
+splintered trees. The ground and the road were littered with tin cans
+and brass shell-cases. Along both sides of the road the trees were
+festooned, as with creepers, with strand upon strand of telephone wire.
+
+When next they stopped Chrisfield was on the crest of the hill beside a
+battery of French seventy-fives. He looked curiously at the Frenchmen,
+who sat about on logs in their pink and blue shirtsleeves playing cards
+and smoking. Their gestures irritated him.
+
+“Say, tell 'em we're advancin',” he said to Andrews.
+
+“Are we?” said Andrews. “All right.... Dites-donc, les Boches
+courent-ils comme des lapins?” he shouted.
+
+One of the men turned his head and laughed.
+
+“He says they've been running that way for four years,” said Andrews.
+He slipped his pack off, sat down on it, and fished for a cigarette.
+Chrisfield took off his helmet and rubbed a muddy hand through his hair.
+He took a bite of chewing tobacco and sat with his hands clasped over
+his knees.
+
+“How the hell long are we going to wait this time?” he muttered. The
+shadows of the tangled and splintered trees crept slowly across the
+road. The French artillerymen were eating their supper. A long train of
+motor trucks growled past, splashing mud over the men crowded along
+the sides of the road. The sun set, and a lot of batteries down in the
+valley began firing, making it impossible to talk. The air was full of
+a shrieking and droning of shells overhead. The Frenchmen stretched
+and yawned and went down into their dugout. Chrisfield watched them
+enviously. The stars were beginning to come out in the green sky behind
+the tall lacerated trees. Chrisfield's legs ached with cold. He began
+to get crazily anxious for something to happen, for something to happen,
+but the column waited, without moving, through the gathering darkness.
+Chrisfield chewed steadily, trying to think of nothing but the taste of
+the tobacco in his mouth.
+
+The column was moving again; as they reached the brow of another hill
+Chrisfield felt a curious sweetish smell that made his nostrils smart.
+“Gas,” he thought, full of panic, and put his hand to the mask that hung
+round his neck. But he did not want to be the first to put it on. No
+order came. He marched on, cursing the sergeant and the lieutenant. But
+maybe they'd been killed by it. He had a vision of the whole regiment
+sinking down in the road suddenly, overcome by the gas.
+
+“Smell anythin', Andy?” he whispered cautiously.
+
+“I can smell a combination of dead horses and tube roses and banana
+oil and the ice cream we used to have at college and dead rats in the
+garret, but what the hell do we care now?” said Andrews, giggling. “This
+is the damnedest fool business ever....”
+
+“He's crazy,” muttered Chrisfield to himself. He looked at the stars
+in the black sky that seemed to be going along with the column on its
+march. Or was it that they and the stars were standing still while the
+trees moved away from them, waving their skinny shattered arms? He could
+hardly hear the tramp of feet on the road, so loud was the pandemonium
+of the guns ahead and behind. Every now and then a rocket would burst
+in front of them and its red and green lights would mingle for a
+moment with the stars. But it was only overhead he could see the stars.
+Everywhere else white and red glows rose and fell as if the horizon were
+on fire.
+
+As they started down the slope, the trees suddenly broke away and they
+saw the valley between them full of the glare of guns and the white
+light of star shells. It was like looking into a stove full of glowing
+embers. The hillside that sloped away from them was full of crashing
+detonations and yellow tongues of flame. In a battery near the road,
+that seemed to crush their skulls each time a gun fired, they could see
+the dark forms of the artillerymen silhouetted in fantastic attitudes
+against the intermittent red glare. Stunned and blinded, they kept on
+marching down the road. It seemed to Chrisfield that they were going to
+step any minute into the flaring muzzle of a gun.
+
+At the foot of the hill, beside a little grove of uninjured trees, they
+stopped again. A new train of trucks was crawling past them, huge blots
+in the darkness. There were no batteries near, so they could hear the
+grinding roar of the gears as the trucks went along the uneven road,
+plunging in and out of shellholes.
+
+Chrisfield lay down in the dry ditch, full of bracken, and dozed with
+his head on his pack. All about him were stretched other men. Someone
+was resting his head on Chrisfield's thigh. The noise had subsided
+a little. Through his doze he could hear men's voices talking in low
+crushed tones, as if they were afraid of speaking aloud. On the road
+the truck-drivers kept calling out to each other shrilly, raspingly.
+The motors stopped running one after another, making almost a silence,
+during which Chrisfield fell asleep.
+
+Something woke him. He was stiff with cold and terrified. For a moment
+he thought he had been left alone, that the company had gone on, for
+there was no one touching him.
+
+Overhead was a droning as of gigantic mosquitoes, growing fast to a loud
+throbbing. He heard the lieutenant's voice calling shrilly:
+
+“Sergeant Higgins, Sergeant Higgins!”
+
+The lieutenant stood out suddenly black against a sheet of flame.
+Chrisfield could see his fatigue cap a little on one side and his trench
+coat, drawn in tight at the waist and sticking out stiffly at the knees.
+He was shaken by the explosion. Everything was black again. Chrisfield
+got to his feet, his ears ringing. The column was moving on. He heard
+moaning near him in the darkness. The tramp of feet and jingle of
+equipment drowned all other sound. He could feel his shoulders becoming
+raw under the tugging of the pack. Now and then the flare from aeroplane
+bombs behind him showed up wrecked trucks on the side of the road.
+Somewhere a machine gun spluttered. But the column tramped on, weighed
+down by the packs, by the deadening exhaustion.
+
+The turbulent flaring darkness was calming to the grey of dawn when
+Chrisfield stopped marching. His eyelids stung as if his eyeballs were
+flaming hot. He could not feel his feet and legs. The guns continued
+incessantly like a hammer beating on his head. He was walking very
+slowly in a single file, now and then stumbling against the man ahead
+of him. There was earth on both sides of him, clay walls that dripped
+moisture. All at once he stumbled down some steps into a dugout, where
+it was pitch-black. An unfamiliar smell struck him, made him uneasy; but
+his thoughts seemed to reach him from out of a great distance. He groped
+to the wall. His knees struck against a bunk with blankets in it. In
+another second he was sunk fathoms deep in sleep.
+
+When he woke up his mind was very clear. The roof of the dugout was of
+logs. A bright spot far away was the door. He hoped desperately that he
+wasn't on duty. He wondered where Andy was; then he remembered that Andy
+was crazy,--“a yeller dawg,” Judkins had called him. Sitting up with
+difficulty he undid his shoes and puttees, wrapped himself in his
+blanket. All round him were snores and the deep breathing of exhausted
+sleep. He closed his eyes.
+
+He was being court-martialled. He stood with his hands at his sides
+before three officers at a table. All three had the same white faces
+with heavy blue jaws and eyebrows that met above the nose. They were
+reading things out of papers aloud, but, although he strained his ears,
+he couldn't make out what they were saying. All he could hear was a
+faint moaning. Something had a curious unfamiliar smell that troubled
+him. He could not stand still at attention, although the angry eyes of
+officers stared at him from all round. “Anderson, Sergeant Anderson,
+what's that smell?” he kept asking in a small whining voice. “Please
+tell a feller what that smell is.” But the three officers at the table
+kept reading from their papers, and the moaning grew louder and louder
+in his ears until he shrieked aloud. There was a grenade in his hand. He
+pulled the string out and threw it, and he saw the lieutenant's trench
+coat stand out against a sheet of flame. Someone sprang at him. He was
+wrestling for his life with Anderson, who turned into a woman with
+huge flabby breasts. He crushed her to him and turned to defend himself
+against three officers who came at him, their trench coats drawn in
+tightly at the waist until they looked like wasps. Everything faded, he
+woke up.
+
+His nostrils were still full of the strange troubling smell. He sat on
+the edge of the bunk, wriggling in his clothes, for his body crawled
+with lice.
+
+“Gee, it's funny to be in where the Fritzies were not long ago,” he
+heard a voice say.
+
+“Kiddo! we're advancin',” came another voice.
+
+“But, hell, this ain't no kind of an advance. I ain't seen a German
+yet.”
+
+“Ah kin smell 'em though,” said Chrisfield, getting suddenly to his
+feet.
+
+Sergeant Higgins' head appeared in the door. “Fall in,” he shouted. Then
+he added in his normal voice, “It's up and at 'em, fellers.”
+
+
+
+Chrisfield caught his puttee on a clump of briars at the edge of the
+clearing and stood kicking his leg back and forth to get it free. At
+last he broke away, the torn puttee dragging behind him. Out in the
+sunlight in the middle of the clearing he saw a man in olive-drab
+kneeling beside something on the ground. A German lay face down with a
+red hole in his back. The man was going through his pockets. He looked
+up into Chrisfield's face.
+
+“Souvenirs,” he said.
+
+“What outfit are you in, buddy?”
+
+“143rd,” said the man, getting to his feet slowly.
+
+“Where the hell are we?”
+
+“Damned if I know.”
+
+The clearing was empty, except for the two Americans and the German with
+the hole in his back. In the distance they heard a sound of artillery
+and nearer the “put, put, put” of isolated machine guns. The leaves of
+the trees about them, all shades of brown and crimson and yellow, danced
+in the sunlight.
+
+“Say, that damn money ain't no good, is it?” asked Chrisfield.
+
+“German money? Hell, no.... I got a watch that's a peach though.” The
+man held out a gold watch, looking suspiciously at Chrisfield all the
+while through half-closed eyes.
+
+“Ah saw a feller had a gold-handled sword,” said Chrisfield.
+
+“Where's that?”
+
+“Back there in the wood”; he waved his hand vaguely.
+
+“Ah've got to find ma outfit; comin' along?” Chrisfield started towards
+the other edge of the clearing.
+
+“Looks to me all right here,” said the other man, lying down on the
+grass in the sun.
+
+The leaves rustled underfoot as Chrisfield strode through the wood. He
+was frightened by being alone. He walked ahead as fast as he could, his
+puttee still dragging behind him. He came to a barbed-wire entanglement
+half embedded in fallen beech leaves. It had been partly cut in one
+place, but in crossing he tore his thigh on a barb. Taking off the torn
+puttee, he wrapped it round the outside of his trousers and kept on
+walking, feeling a little blood trickle down his leg.
+
+Later he came to a lane that cut straight through the wood where there
+were many ruts through the putty-coloured mud puddles; Down the lane in
+a patch of sunlight he saw a figure, towards which he hurried. It was a
+young man with red hair and a pink-and-white face. By a gold bar on the
+collar of his shirt Chrisfield saw that he was a lieutenant. He had
+no coat or hat and there was greenish slime all over the front of his
+clothes as if he had lain on his belly in a mud puddle.
+
+“Where you going?”
+
+“Dunno, sir.”
+
+“All right, come along.” The lieutenant started walking as fast as he
+could up the lane, swinging his arms wildly.
+
+“Seen any machine-gun nests?”
+
+“Not a one.”
+
+“Hum.”
+
+He followed the lieutenant, who walked so fast he had difficulty keeping
+up, splashing recklessly through the puddles.
+
+“Where's the artillery? That's what I want to know,” cried the
+lieutenant, suddenly stopping in his tracks and running a hand through
+his red hair. “Where the hell's the artillery?” He looked at Chrisfield
+savagely out of green eyes. “No use advancing without artillery.” He
+started walking faster than ever.
+
+All at once they saw sunlight ahead of them and olive-drab uniforms.
+Machine guns started firing all around them in a sudden gust. Chrisfield
+found himself running forward across a field full of stubble and
+sprouting clover among a group of men he did not know. The whip-like
+sound of rifles had chimed in with the stuttering of the machine guns.
+Little white clouds sailed above him in a blue sky, and in front of him
+was a group of houses that had the same color, white with lavender-grey
+shadows, as the clouds.
+
+He was in a house, with a grenade like a tin pineapple in each hand. The
+sudden loneliness frightened him again. Outside the house was a sound
+of machine-gun firing, broken by the occasional bursting; of a shell. He
+looked at the red-tiled roof and at a chromo of a woman nursing a
+child that hung on the whitewashed wall opposite him. He was in a small
+kitchen. There was a fire in the hearth where something boiled in a
+black pot. Chrisfield tiptoed over and looked in. At the bottom of the
+bubbling water he saw five potatoes. At the other end of the kitchen,
+beyond two broken chairs, was a door. Chrisfield crept over to it, the
+tiles seeming to sway under foot. He put his finger to the latch and
+took it off again suddenly. Holding in his breath he stood a long time
+looking at the door. Then he pulled it open recklessly. A young man
+with fair hair was sitting at a table, his head resting on his hands.
+Chrisfield felt a spurt of joy when he saw that the man's uniform was
+green. Very coolly he pressed the spring, held the grenade a second
+and then threw it, throwing himself backwards into the middle of the
+kitchen. The light-haired man had not moved; his blue eyes still stared
+straight before him.
+
+In the street Chrisfield ran into a tall man who was running. The man
+clutched him by the arm and said:
+
+“The barrage is moving up.”
+
+“What barrage?”
+
+“Our barrage; we've got to run, we're ahead of it.” His voice came in
+wheezy pants. There were red splotches on his face. They ran together
+down the empty village street. As they ran they passed the little
+red-haired lieutenant, who leaned against a whitewashed wall, his legs
+a mass of blood and torn cloth. He was shouting in a shrill delirious
+voice that followed them out along the open road.
+
+“Where's the artillery? That's what I want to know; where's the
+artillery?”
+
+
+
+The woods were grey and dripping with dawn. Chrisfield got stiffly to
+his feet from the pile of leaves where he had slept. He felt numb with
+cold and hunger, lonely and lost away from his outfit. All about him
+were men of another division. A captain with a sandy mustache was
+striding up and down with a blanket about him, on the road just behind a
+clump of beech trees. Chrisfield had watched him passing back and forth,
+back and forth, behind the wet clustered trunks of the trees, ever since
+it had been light. Stamping his feet among the damp leaves, Chrisfield
+strolled away from the group of men. No one seemed to notice him. The
+trees closed about him. He could see nothing but moist trees, grey-green
+and black, and the yellow leaves of saplings that cut off the view in
+every direction. He was wondering dully why he was walking off that way.
+Somewhere in the back of his mind there was a vague idea of finding his
+outfit. Sergeant Higgins and Andy and Judkins and Small--he wondered
+what had become of them. He thought of the company lined up for mess,
+and the smell of greasy food that came from the field-kitchen. He was
+desperately hungry. He stopped and leaned against the moss-covered trunk
+of a tree. The deep scratch in his leg was throbbing as if all the blood
+in his body beat through it. Now that his rustling footsteps had ceased,
+the woods were absolutely silent, except for the dripping of dew from
+the leaves and branches. He strained his ears to hear some other sound.
+Then he noticed that he was staring at a tree full of small red crab
+apples. He picked a handful greedily, but they were hard and sour and
+seemed to make him hungrier. The sour flavour in his mouth made him
+furiously angry. He kicked at the thin trunk of the tree while tears
+smarted in his eyes. Swearing aloud in a whining singsong voice, he
+strode off through the woods with his eyes on the ground. Twigs snapped
+viciously in his face, crooked branches caught at him, but he plunged
+on. All at once he stumbled against something hard that bounced among
+the leaves.
+
+He stopped still, looking about him, terrified. Two grenades lay just
+under his foot, a little further on a man was propped against a tree
+with his mouth open. Chrisfield thought at first he was asleep, as his
+eyes were closed. He looked at the grenades carefully. The fuses had
+not been sprung. He put one in each pocket, gave a glance at the man who
+seemed to be asleep, and strode off again, striking another alley in the
+woods, at the end of which he could see sunlight. The sky overhead was
+full of heavy purple clouds, tinged here and there with yellow. As he
+walked towards the patch of sunlight, the thought came to him that he
+ought to have looked in the pockets of the man he had just passed to
+see if he had any hard bread. He stood still a moment in hesitation, but
+started walking again doggedly towards the patch of sunlight.
+
+Something glittered in the irregular fringe of sun and shadow. A man was
+sitting hunched up on the ground with his fatigue cap pulled over his
+eyes so that the little gold bar just caught the horizontal sunlight.
+Chrisfield's first thought was that he might have food on him.
+
+“Say, Lootenant,” he shouted, “d'you know where a fellow can get
+somethin' to eat.”
+
+The man lifted his head slowly. Chrisfield turned cold all over when he
+saw the white heavy face of Anderson; an unshaven beard was very black
+on his square chin; there was a long scratch clotted with dried blood
+from the heavy eyebrow across the left cheek to the corner of the mouth.
+
+“Give me some water, buddy,” said Anderson in a weak voice.
+
+Chrisfield handed him his canteen roughly in silence. He noticed that
+Anderson's arm was in a sling, and that he drank greedily, spilling the
+water over his chin and his wounded arm.
+
+“Where's Colonel Evans?” asked Anderson in a thin petulant voice.
+
+Chrisfield did not reply but stared at him sullenly. The canteen had
+dropped from his hand and lay on the ground in front of him. The water
+gleamed in the sunlight as it ran out among the russet leaves. A wind
+had come up, making the woods resound. A shower of yellow leaves dropped
+about them.
+
+“First you was a corporal, then you was a sergeant, and now you're a
+lootenant,” said Chrisfield slowly.
+
+“You'ld better tell me where Colonel Evans is.... You must know.... He's
+up that road somewhere,” said Anderson, struggling to get to his feet.
+
+Chrisfield walked away without answering. A cold hand was round the
+grenade in his pocket. He walked away slowly, looking at his feet.
+
+Suddenly he found he had pressed the spring of the grenade. He struggled
+to pull it out of his pocket. It stuck in the narrow pocket. His arm and
+his cold fingers that clutched the grenade seemed paralyzed. Then a warm
+joy went through him. He had thrown it.
+
+Anderson was standing up, swaying backwards and forwards. The explosion
+made the woods quake. A thick rain of yellow leaves came down. Anderson
+was flat on the ground. He was so flat he seemed to have sunk into the
+ground.
+
+Chrisfield pressed the spring of the other grenade and threw it with his
+eyes closed. It burst among the thick new-fallen leaves.
+
+A few drops of rain were falling. Chrisfield kept on along the lane,
+walking fast, feeling full of warmth and strength. The rain beat hard
+and cold against his back.
+
+He walked with his eyes to the ground. A voice in a strange language
+stopped him. A ragged man in green with a beard that was clotted with
+mud stood in front of him with his hands up. Chrisfield burst out
+laughing.
+
+“Come along,” he said, “quick!”
+
+The man shambled in front of him; he was trembling so hard he nearly
+fell with each step.
+
+Chrisfield kicked him.
+
+The man shambled on without turning round. Chrisfield kicked him again,
+feeling the point of the man's spine and the soft flesh of his rump
+against his toes with each kick, laughing so hard all the while that he
+could hardly see where he was going.
+
+“Halt!” came a voice.
+
+“Ah've got a prisoner,” shouted Chrisfield still laughing.
+
+“He ain't much of a prisoner,” said the man, pointing his bayonet at the
+German. “He's gone crazy, I guess. I'll take keer o' him... ain't no use
+sendin' him back.”
+
+“All right,” said Chrisfield still laughing. “Say, buddy, where can Ah'
+git something to eat? Ah ain't had nothin' fur a day an a half.”
+
+“There's a reconnoitrin' squad up the line; they'll give you
+somethin'.... How's things goin' up that way?” The man pointed up the
+road.
+
+“Gawd, Ah doan know. Ah ain't had nothin' to eat fur a day and a half.”
+
+
+
+The warm smell of a stew rose to his nostrils from the mess-kit.
+Chrisfield stood, feeling warm and important, filling his mouth with
+soft greasy potatoes and gravy, while men about him asked him questions.
+Gradually he began to feel full and content, and a desire to sleep came
+over him. But he was given a gun, and had to start advancing again with
+the reconnoitering squad. The squad went cautiously up the same lane
+through the woods.
+
+“Here's an officer done for,” said the captain, who walked ahead. He
+made a little clucking noise of distress with his tongue. “Two of you
+fellows go back and git a blanket and take him back to the cross-roads.
+Poor fellow.” The captain walked on again, still making little clucking
+noises with his tongue.
+
+Chrisfield looked straight ahead of him. He did not feel lonely any more
+now that he was marching in ranks again. His feet beat the ground in
+time with the other feet. He would not have to think whether to go to
+the right or to the left. He would do as the others did.
+
+
+
+
+PART FOUR: RUST                             I
+
+There were tiny green frogs in one of the putty-colored puddles by the
+roadside. John Andrews fell out of the slowly advancing column a moment
+to look at them. The frogs' triangular heads stuck out of the water in
+the middle of the puddle. He leaned over, his hands on his knees, easing
+the weight of the equipment on his back. That way he could see their
+tiny jewelled eyes, topaz-colored. His eyes felt as if tears were coming
+to them with tenderness towards the minute lithe bodies of the frogs.
+Something was telling him that he must run forward and fall into line
+again, that he must shamble on through the mud, but he remained staring
+at the puddle, watching the frogs. Then he noticed his reflection in the
+puddle. He looked at it curiously. He could barely see the outlines of
+a stained grimacing mask, and the silhouette of the gun barrel slanting
+behind it. So this was what they had made of him. He fixed his eyes
+again on the frogs that swam with elastic, leisurely leg strokes in the
+putty-colored water.
+
+Absently, as if he had no connection with all that went on about him, he
+heard the twang of bursting shrapnel down the road. He had straightened
+himself wearily and taken a step forward, when he found himself sinking
+into the puddle. A feeling of relief came over him. His legs sunk in
+the puddle; he lay without moving against the muddy bank. The frogs had
+gone, but from somewhere a little stream of red was creeping out slowly
+into the putty-colored water. He watched the irregular files of men in
+olive-drab shambling by. Their footsteps drummed in his ears. He felt
+triumphantly separated from them, as if he were in a window somewhere
+watching soldiers pass, or in a box of a theater watching some dreary
+monotonous play. He drew farther and farther away from them until they
+had become very small, like toy soldiers forgotten among the dust in a
+garret. The light was so dim he couldn't see, he could only hear their
+feet tramping interminably through the mud.
+
+
+
+John Andrews was on a ladder that shook horribly. A gritty sponge in
+his hand, he was washing the windows of a barracks. He began in the left
+hand corner and soaped the small oblong panes one after the other. His
+arms were like lead and he felt that he would fall from the shaking
+ladder, but each time he turned to look towards the ground before
+climbing down he saw the top of the general's cap and the general's
+chin protruding from under the visor, and a voice snarled: “Attention,”
+ terrifying him so that the ladder shook more than ever; and he went
+on smearing soap over the oblong panes with the gritty sponge through
+interminable hours, though every joint in his body was racked by the
+shaking of the ladder. Bright light flared from inside the windows which
+he soaped, pane after pane, methodically. The windows were mirrors.
+In each pane he saw his thin face, in shadow, with the shadow of a gun
+barrel slanting beside it. The jolting stopped suddenly. He sank into a
+deep pit of blackness.
+
+A shrill broken voice was singing in his ear:
+
+     “There's a girl in the heart of Maryland
+     With a heart that belongs to me-e.”
+
+John Andrews opened his eyes. It was pitch black, except for a series of
+bright yellow oblongs that seemed to go up into the sky, where he could
+see the stars. His mind became suddenly acutely conscious. He began
+taking account of himself in a hurried frightened way. He craned his
+neck a little. In the darkness he could make out the form of a man
+stretched out flat beside him who kept moving his head strangely from
+side to side, singing at the top of his lungs in a shrill broken
+voice. At that moment Andrews noticed that the smell of carbolic was
+overpoweringly strong, that it dominated all the familiar smells of
+blood and sweaty clothes. He wriggled his shoulders so that he could
+feel the two poles of the stretcher. Then he fixed his eyes again in
+the three bright yellow oblongs, one above the other, that rose into the
+darkness. Of course, they were windows; he was near a house.
+
+He moved his arms a little. They felt like lead, but unhurt. Then he
+realized that his legs were on fire. He tried to move them; everything
+went black again in a sudden agony of pain. The voice was still
+shrieking in his ears:
+
+     “There's a girl in the heart of Maryland
+      With a heart that belongs to me-e.”
+
+But another voice could be heard, softer, talking endlessly in tender
+clear tones:
+
+“An' he said they were goin' to take me way down south where there was a
+little house on the beach, all so warm an' quiet...”
+
+The song of the man beside him rose to a tuneless shriek, like a
+phonograph running down:
+
+     “An' Mary-land was fairy-land
+      When she said that mine she'd be...”
+
+Another voice broke in suddenly in short spurts of whining groans that
+formed themselves into fragments of drawn-out intricate swearing. And
+all the while the soft voice went on. Andrews strained his ears to hear
+it.
+
+It soothed his pain as if some cool fragrant oil were being poured over
+his body.
+
+“An' there'll be a garden full of flowers, roses an' hollyhocks, way
+down there in the south, an' it'll be so warm an' quiet, an' the sun'll
+shine all day, and the sky'll be so blue...”
+
+Andrews felt his lips repeating the words like lips following a prayer.
+
+“--An' it'll be so warm an' quiet, without any noise at all. An' the
+garden'll be full of roses an'...”
+
+But the other voices kept breaking in, drowning out the soft voice with
+groans, and strings of whining oaths.
+
+“An' he said I could sit on the porch, an' the sun'll be so warm an'
+quiet, an' the garden'll smell so good, an' the beach'll be all white,
+an' the sea...”
+
+Andrews felt his head suddenly rise in the air and then his feet. He
+swung out of the darkness into a brilliant white corridor. His legs
+throbbed with flaming agony. The face of a man with a cigarette in his
+mouth peered close to his. A hand fumbled at his throat, where the tag
+was, and someone read:
+
+“Andrews, 1.432.286.”
+
+But he was listening to the voice out in the dark, behind him, that
+shrieked in rasping tones of delirium:
+
+     “There's a girl in the heart of Mary-land
+      With a heart that belongs to me-e.”
+
+Then he discovered that he was groaning. His mind became entirely taken
+up in the curious rhythm of his groans. The only parts of his body
+that existed were his legs and something in his throat that groaned and
+groaned. It was absorbing. White figures hovered about him, he saw the
+hairy forearms of a man in shirt sleeves, lights glared and went out,
+strange smells entered at his nose and circulated through his whole
+body, but nothing could distract his attention from the singsong of his
+groans.
+
+Rain fell in his face. He moved his head from side to side, suddenly
+feeling conscious of himself. His mouth was dry, like leather; he put
+out his tongue to try to catch raindrops in it. He was swung roughly
+about in the stretcher. He lifted his head cautiously, feeling a great
+throb of delight that he still could lift his head.
+
+“Keep yer head down, can't yer?” snarled a voice beside him. He had seen
+the back of a man in a gleaming wet slicker at the end of the stretcher.
+
+“Be careful of my leg, can't yer?” he found himself whining over and
+over again. Then suddenly there was a lurch that rapped his head against
+the crosspiece of the stretcher, and he found himself looking up at a
+wooden ceiling from which the white paint had peeled in places. He smelt
+gasoline and could hear the throb of an engine. He began to think back;
+how long was it since he had looked at the little frogs in the puddle?
+A vivid picture came to his mind of the puddle with its putty-colored
+water and the little triangular heads of the frogs. But it seemed as
+long ago as a memory of childhood; all of his life before that was not
+so long as the time that had gone by since the car had started. And he
+was jolting and swinging about in the stretcher, clutching hard with his
+hands at the poles of the stretcher. The pain in his legs grew worse;
+the rest of his body seemed to shrivel under it. From below him came a
+rasping voice that cried out at every lurch of the ambulance. He fought
+against the desire to groan, but at last he gave in and lay lost in the
+monotonous singsong of his groans.
+
+The rain was in his face again for a moment, then his body was tilted.
+A row of houses and russet trees and chimney pots against a leaden sky
+swung suddenly up into sight and were instantly replaced by a ceiling
+and the coffred vault of a staircase. Andrews was still groaning softly,
+but his eyes fastened with sudden interest on the sculptured rosettes of
+the coffres and the coats of arms that made the center of each section
+of ceiling. Then he found himself staring in the face of the man who
+was carrying the lower end of the stretcher. It was a white face with
+pimples round the mouth and good-natured, watery blue eyes. Andrews
+looked at the eyes and tried to smile, but the man carrying the
+stretcher was not looking at him.
+
+Then after more endless hours of tossing about on the stretcher, lost in
+a groaning agony of pain, hands laid hold of him roughly and pulled his
+clothes off and lifted him on a cot where he lay gasping, breathing in
+the cool smell of disinfectant that hung about the bedclothes. He heard
+voices over his head.
+
+“Isn't bad at all... this leg wound.... I thought you said we'd have to
+amputate?”
+
+“Well, what's the matter with him, then?”
+
+“Maybe shell-shock....”
+
+A cold sweat of terror took hold of Andrews. He lay perfectly still with
+his eyes closed. Spasm after spasm of revolt went through him. No, they
+hadn't broken him yet; he still had hold of his nerves, he kept saying
+to himself. Still, he felt that his hands, clasped across his belly,
+were trembling. The pain in his legs disappeared in the fright in which
+he lay, trying desperately to concentrate his mind on something outside
+himself. He tried to think of a tune to hum to himself, but he only
+heard again shrieking in his ears the voice which, it seemed to him
+months and years ago, had sung:
+
+     “There's a girl in the heart of Maryland
+      With a heart that belo-ongs to me-e.”
+
+The voice shrieking the blurred tune and the pain in his legs mingled
+themselves strangely, until they seemed one and the pain seemed merely a
+throbbing of the maddening tune.
+
+He opened his eyes. Darkness fading into a faint yellow glow. Hastily
+he took stock of himself, moved his head and his arms. He felt cool and
+very weak and quiet; he must have slept a long time. He passed his rough
+dirty, hand over his face. The skin felt soft and cool. He pressed his
+cheek on the pillow and felt himself smiling contentedly, he did not
+know why.
+
+The Queen of Sheba carried a parasol with little vermilion bells all
+round it that gave out a cool tinkle as she walked towards him. She wore
+her hair in a high headdress thickly powdered with blue iris powder, and
+on her long train, that a monkey held up at the end, were embroidered
+in gaudy colors the signs of the zodiac. She was not the Queen of Sheba,
+she was a nurse whose face he could not see in the obscurity, and,
+sticking an arm behind his head in a deft professional manner, she gave
+him something to drink from a glass without looking at him. He said
+“Thank you,” in his natural voice, which surprised him in the silence;
+but she went off without replying and he saw that it was a trayful of
+glasses that had tinkled as she had come towards him.
+
+Dark as it was he noticed the self-conscious tilt of the nurse's body
+as she walked silently to the next cot, holding the tray of glasses
+in front of her. He twisted his head round on the pillow to watch how
+gingerly she put her arm under the next man's head to give him a drink.
+
+“A virgin,” he said to himself, “very much a virgin,” and he found
+himself giggling softly, notwithstanding the twinges of pain from his
+legs. He felt suddenly as if his spirit had awakened from a long torpor.
+The spell of dejection that had deadened him for months had slipped
+off. He was free. The thought came to him gleefully, that as long as he
+stayed in that cot in the hospital no one would shout orders at him. No
+one would tell him to clean his rifle. There would be no one to
+salute. He would not have to worry about making himself pleasant to the
+sergeant. He would lie there all day long, thinking his own thoughts.
+
+Perhaps he was badly enough wounded to be discharged from the army.
+The thought set his heart beating like mad. That meant that he, who
+had given himself up for lost, who had let himself be trampled down
+unresistingly into the mud of slavery, who had looked for no escape from
+the treadmill but death, would live. He, John Andrews, would live.
+
+And it seemed inconceivable that he had ever given himself up, that
+he had ever let the grinding discipline have its way with him. He saw
+himself vividly once more as he had seen himself before his life had
+suddenly blotted itself out, before he had become a slave among slaves.
+He renumbered the garden where, in his boyhood, he had sat dreaming
+through the droning summer afternoons under the crepe myrtle bushes,
+while the cornfields beyond rustled and shimmered in the heat. He
+remembered the day he had stood naked in the middle of a base room
+while the recruiting sergeant prodded him and measured him. He wondered
+suddenly what the date was. Could it be that it was only a year ago? Yet
+in that year all the other years of his life had been blotted out. But
+now he would begin living again. He would give up this cowardly cringing
+before external things. He would be recklessly himself.
+
+The pain in his legs was gradually localizing itself into the wounds.
+For a while he struggled against it to go on thinking, but its constant
+throb kept impinging in his mind until, although he wanted desperately
+to comb through his pale memories to remember, if ever so faintly,
+all that had been vivid and lusty in his life, to build himself a new
+foundation of resistance against the world from which he could start
+afresh to live, he became again the querulous piece of hurt flesh, the
+slave broken on the treadmill; he began to groan.
+
+Cold steel-gray light filtered into the ward, drowning the yellow glow
+which first turned ruddy and then disappeared. Andrews began to make out
+the row of cots opposite him, and the dark beams of the ceiling above
+his head. “This house must be very old,” he said to himself, and the
+thought vaguely excited him. Funny that the Queen of Sheba had come to
+his head, it was ages since he'd thought of all that. From the girl at
+the cross-roads singing under her street-lamp to the patrician pulling
+roses to pieces from the height of her litter, all the aspects'
+half-guessed, all the imaginings of your desire... that was the Queen
+of Sheba. He whispered the words aloud, “la reine de Saba, la reine de
+Saba”; and, with a tremor of anticipation of the sort he used to feel
+when he was a small boy the night before Christmas, with a sense of
+new; things in store for him, he pillowed his head on his arm and went
+quietly to sleep.
+
+“Ain't it juss like them frawgs te make a place like this' into a
+hauspital?” said the orderly, standing with his feet wide apart and his
+hands on his hips, facing a row of cots and talking to anyone who felt
+well enough to listen. “Honest, I doan see why you fellers doan all cash
+in yer! checks in this hole.... There warn't even electric light till we
+put it in.... What d'you think o' that? That shows how much the goddam
+frawgs care....” The orderly was a short man with a sallow, lined face
+and large yellow teeth. When he smiled the horizontal lines in his
+forehead and the lines that ran from the sides of his nose to the ends
+of his mouth deepened so that his face looked as if it were made up to
+play a comic part in the movies.
+
+“It's kind of artistic, though, ain't it?” said Applebaum, whose cot
+was next Andrews's,--a skinny man with large, frightened eyes and an
+inordinately red face that looked as if the skin had been peeled off.
+“Look at the work there is on that ceiling. Must have cost some dough
+when it was noo.”
+
+“Wouldn't be bad as a dance hall with a little fixin' up, but a
+hauspital; hell!”
+
+Andrews lay, comfortable in his cot, looking into the ward out of
+another world. He felt no connection with the talk about him, with the
+men who lay silent or tossed about groaning in the rows of narrow cots
+that filled the Renaissance hall. In the yellow glow of the electric
+lights, looking beyond the orderly's twisted face and narrow head, he
+could see very faintly, where the beams of the ceiling sprung from the
+wall, a row of half-obliterated shields supported by figures carved
+out of the grey stone of the wall, handed satyrs with horns and goats'
+beards and deep-set eyes, little squat figures of warriors and townsmen
+in square hats with swords between their bent knees, naked limbs twined
+in scrolls of spiked acanthus leaves, all seen very faintly, so that
+when the electric lights swung back and forth in the wind made by
+the orderly's hurried passing, they all seemed to wink and wriggle in
+shadowy mockery of the rows of prostrate bodies in the room beneath
+them. Yet they were familiar, friendly to Andrews. He kept feeling
+a half-formulated desire to be up there too, crowded under a beam,
+grimacing through heavy wreaths of pomegranates and acanthus leaves, the
+incarnation of old rich lusts, of clear fires that had sunk to dust ages
+since. He felt at home in that spacious hall, built for wide gestures
+and stately steps, in which all the little routine of the army seemed
+unreal, and the wounded men discarded automatons, broken toys laid away
+in rows.
+
+Andrews was snatched out of his thoughts. Applebaum was speaking to him;
+he turned his head.
+
+“How d'you loike it bein' wounded, buddy?”
+
+“Fine.”
+
+“Foine, I should think it was.... Better than doin' squads right all
+day.”
+
+“Where did you get yours?”
+
+“Ain't got only one arm now.... I don't give a damn.... I've driven my
+last fare, that's all.”
+
+“How d'you mean?”
+
+“I used to drive a taxi.”
+
+“That's a pretty good job, isn't it?”
+
+“You bet, big money in it, if yer in right.”
+
+“So you used to be a taxi-driver, did you?” broke in the orderly.
+“That's a fine job.... When I was in the Providence Hospital half
+the fractures was caused by taxis. We had a little girl of six in the
+children's ward had her feet cut clean off at the ankles by a taxi.
+Pretty yellow hair she had, too. Gangrene.... Only lasted a day....
+Well, I'm going off, I guess you guys wish you was going to be where I'm
+goin' to be tonight.... That's one thing you guys are lucky in, don't
+have to worry about propho.” The orderly wrinkled his face up and winked
+elaborately.
+
+“Say, will you do something for me?” asked Andrews.
+
+“Sure, if it ain't no trouble.”
+
+“Will you buy me a book?”
+
+“Ain't ye got enough with all the books at the 'Y'?”
+
+“No.... This is a special book,” said Andrews smiling, “a French book.”
+
+“A French book, is it? Well, I'll see what I can do. What's it called?”
+
+“By Flaubert.... Look, if you've got a piece of paper and a pencil, I'll
+write it down.”
+
+Andrews scrawled the title on the back of an order slip.
+
+“There.”
+
+“What the hell? Who's Antoine? Gee whiz, I bet that's hot stuff. I wish
+I could read French. We'll have you breakin' loose out o' here an' going
+down to number four, roo Villiay, if you read that kind o' book.”
+
+“Has it got pictures?” asked Applebaum. “One feller did break out o'
+here a month ago,... Couldn't stand it any longer, I guess. Well, his
+wound opened an' he had a hemorrhage, an' now he's planted out in the
+back lot.... But I'm goin'. Goodnight.” The orderly bustled to the end
+of the ward and disappeared.
+
+The lights went out, except for the bulb over the nurse's desk at the
+end, beside the ornate doorway, with its wreathed pinnacles carved out
+of the grey stone, which could be seen above the white canvas screen
+that hid the door.
+
+“What's that book about, buddy?” asked Applebaum, twisting his head at
+the end of his lean neck so as to look Andrews full in the face.
+
+“Oh, it's about a man who wants everything so badly that he decides
+there's nothing worth wanting.”
+
+“I guess youse had a college edication,” said Applebaum sarcastically.
+
+ Andrews laughed.
+
+“Well, I was goin' to tell youse about when I used to drive a taxi. I
+was makin' big money when I enlisted. Was you drafted?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well, so was I. I doan think nauthin o' them guys that are so stuck up
+'cause they enlisted, d'you?”
+
+“Not a hell of a lot.”
+
+“Don't yer?” came a voice from the other side of Andrews, a thin voice
+that stuttered. “W-w-well, all I can say is, it'ld have sss-spoiled my
+business if I hadn't enlisted. No, sir, nobody can say I didn't enlist.”
+
+“Well, that's your look-out,” said Applebaum.
+
+“You're goddam right, it was.”
+
+“Well, ain't your business spoiled anyway?”
+
+“No, sir. I can pick it right up where I left off. I've got an
+established reputation.”
+
+“What at?”
+
+“I'm an undertaker by profession; my dad was before me.”
+
+“Gee, you were right at home!” said Andrews.
+
+“You haven't any right to say that, young feller,” said the undertaker
+angrily. “I'm a humane man. I won't never be at home in this dirty
+butchery.”
+
+The nurse was walking by their cots.
+
+“How can you say such dreadful things?” she said. “But lights are
+out. You boys have got to keep quiet.... And you,” she plucked at the
+undertaker's bedclothes, “just remember what the Huns did in Belgium....
+Poor Miss Cavell, a nurse just like I am.”
+
+Andrews closed his eyes. The ward was quiet except for the rasping sound
+of the snores and heavy breathing of the shattered men all about him.
+“And I thought she was the Queen of Sheba,” he said to himself, making a
+grimace in the dark. Then he began to think of the music he had intended
+to write about the Queen of Sheba before he had stripped his life off
+in the bare room where they had measured him and made a soldier of him.
+Standing in the dark in the desert of his despair, he would hear the
+sound of a caravan in the distance, tinkle of bridles, rasping of horns,
+braying of donkeys, and the throaty voices of men singing the songs of
+desolate roads. He would look up, and before him he would see, astride
+their foaming wild asses, the three green horsemen motionless, pointing
+at him with their long forefingers. Then the music would burst in a
+sudden hot whirlwind about him, full of flutes and kettledrums and
+braying horns and whining bagpipes, and torches would flare red and
+yellow, making a tent of light about him, on the edges of which would
+crowd the sumpter mules and the brown mule drivers, and the gaudily
+caparisoned camels, and the elephants glistening with jewelled harness.
+Naked slaves would bend their gleaming backs before him as they laid out
+a carpet at his feet; and, through the flare of torchlight, the Queen,
+of Sheba would advance towards him, covered with emeralds and dull-gold
+ornaments, with a monkey hopping behind holding up the end of her long
+train. She would put her hand with its slim fantastic nails on his
+shoulder; and, looking into her eyes, he would suddenly feel within
+reach all the fiery imaginings of his desire. Oh, if he could only be
+free to work. All the months he had wasted in his life seemed to be
+marching like a procession of ghosts before his eyes. And he lay in his
+cot, staring with wide open eyes at the ceiling, hoping desperately that
+his wounds would be long in healing.
+
+
+
+Applebaum sat on the edge of his cot, dressed in a clean new uniform, of
+which the left sleeve hung empty, still showing the creases in which it
+had been folded.
+
+“So you really are going,” said Andrews, rolling his head over on his
+pillow to look at him.
+
+“You bet your pants I am, Andy.... An' so could you, poifectly well, if
+you'ld talk it up to 'em a little.”
+
+“Oh, I wish to God I could. Not that I want to go home, now, but ... if I
+could get out of uniform.”
+
+“I don't blame ye a bit, kid; well, next time, we'll know better....
+Local Board Chairman's going to be my job.”
+
+Andrews laughed.
+
+“If I wasn't a sucker....”
+
+“You weren't the only wewe-one,” came the undertaker's stuttering voice
+from behind Andrews.
+
+“Hell, I thought you enlisted, undertaker.”
+
+“Well, I did, by God! but I didn't think it was going to be like this.”
+
+“What did ye think it was goin' to be, a picnic?”
+
+“Hell, I doan care about that, or gettin' gassed, and smashed up, or
+anythin', but I thought we was goin' to put things to rights by comin'
+over here.... Look here, I had a lively business in the undertaking way,
+like my father had had before me.... We did all the swellest work in
+Tilletsville....”
+
+“Where?” interrupted Applebaum, laughing.
+
+“Tilletsville; don't you know any geography?”
+
+“Go ahead, tell us about Tilletsville,” said Andrews soothingly.
+
+“Why, when Senator Wallace d-d-deceased there, who d'you think had
+charge of embalming the body and taking it to the station an' seeing
+everything was done fitting? We did.... And I was going to be married to
+a dandy girl, and I knowed I had enough pull to get fixed up, somehow,
+or to get a commission even, but there I went like a sucker an' enlisted
+in the infantry, too.... But, hell, everybody was saying that we was
+going to fight to make the world safe for democracy, and that, if a
+feller didn't go, no one'ld trade with him any more.”
+
+He started coughing suddenly and seemed unable to stop. At last he said
+weakly, in a thin little voice between coughs:
+
+“Well, here I am. There ain't nothing to do about it.”
+
+“Democracy.... That's democracy, ain't it: we eat stinkin' goolash
+an' that there fat 'Y' woman goes out with Colonels eatin' chawklate
+soufflay.... Poifect democracy!... But I tell you what: it don't do to
+be the goat.”
+
+“But there's so damn many more goats than anything else,” said Andrews.
+
+“There's a sucker born every minute, as Barnum said. You learn that
+drivin' a taxicab, if ye don't larn nothin' else.... No, sir, I'm goin'
+into politics. I've got good connections up Hundred and Twenty-fif'
+street way.... You see, I've got an aunt, Mrs. Sallie Schultz, owns a
+hotel on a Hundred and Tirty-tird street. Heard of Jim O'Ryan, ain't
+yer? Well, he's a good friend o' hers; see? Bein' as they're both
+Catholics... But I'm goin' out this afternoon, see what the town's
+like... an ole Ford says the skirts are just peaches an' cream.”
+
+“He juss s-s-says that to torment a feller,” stuttered the undertaker.
+
+“I wish I were going with you,” said Andrews. “You'll get well plenty
+soon enough, Andy, and get yourself marked Class A, and get given a gun,
+an--'Over the top, boys!'... to see if the Fritzies won't make a better
+shot next time.... Talk about suckers! You're the most poifect sucker
+I ever met.... What did you want to tell the loot your legs didn't hurt
+bad for? They'll have you out o' here before you know it.... Well, I'm
+goin' out to see what the mamzelles look like.”
+
+Applebaum, the uniform hanging in folds about his skinny body, swaggered
+to the door, followed by the envious glances of the whole ward.
+
+“Gee, guess he thinks he's goin' to get to be president,” said the
+undertaker bitterly.
+
+“He probably will,” said Andrews.
+
+He settled himself in his bed again, sinking back into the dull
+contemplation of the teasing, smarting pain where the torn ligaments
+of his thighs were slowly knitting themselves together. He tried
+desperately to forget the pain; there was so much he wanted to think
+out. If he could only lie perfectly quiet, and piece together the frayed
+ends of thoughts that kept flickering to the surface of his mind. He
+counted up the days he had been in the hospital; fifteen! Could it be
+that long? And he had not thought of anything yet. Soon, as Applebaum
+said, they'd be putting him in Class A and sending him back to the
+treadmill, and he would not have reconquered his courage, his dominion
+over himself. What a coward he had been anyway, to submit. The man
+beside him kept coughing. Andrews stared for a moment at the silhouette
+of the yellow face on the pillow, with its pointed nose and small greedy
+eyes. He thought of the swell undertaking establishment, of the black
+gloves and long faces and soft tactful voices. That man and his father
+before him lived by pretending things they didn't feel, by swathing
+reality with all manner of crepe and trumpery. For those people, no
+one ever died, they passed away, they deceased. Still, there had to be
+undertakers. There was no more stain about that than about any other
+trade. And it was so as not to spoil his trade that the undertaker had
+enlisted, and to make the world safe for democracy, too. The phrase
+came to Andrews's mind amid an avalanche of popular tunes; of visions of
+patriotic numbers on the vaudeville stage. He remembered the great
+flags waving triumphantly over Fifth Avenue, and the crowds dutifully
+cheering. But those were valid reasons for the undertaker; but for him,
+John Andrews, were they valid reasons? No. He had no trade, he had not
+been driven into the army by the force of public opinion, he had not
+been carried away by any wave of blind confidence in the phrases of
+bought propagandists. He had not had the strength to live. The thought
+came to him of all those who, down the long tragedy of history, had
+given themselves smilingly for the integrity of their thoughts. He had
+not had the courage to move a muscle for his freedom, but he had been
+fairly cheerful about risking his life as a soldier, in a cause he
+believed useless. What right had a man to exist who was too cowardly
+to stand up for what he thought and felt, for his whole makeup, for
+everything that made him an individual apart from his fellows, and not a
+slave to stand cap in hand waiting for someone of stronger will to tell
+him to act?
+
+Like a sudden nausea, disgust surged up in him. His mind ceased
+formulating phrases and thoughts. He gave himself over to disgust as
+a man who has drunk a great deal, holding on tight to the reins of his
+will, suddenly gives himself over pellmell to drunkenness.
+
+He lay very still, with his eyes closed, listening to the stir of the
+ward, the voices of men talking and the fits of coughing that shook the
+man next him. The smarting pain throbbed monotonously. He felt hungry
+and wondered vaguely if it were supper time. How little they gave you to
+eat in the hospital!
+
+He called over to the man in the opposite cot:
+
+“Hay, Stalky, what time is it?”
+
+“It's after messtime now. Got a good appetite for the steak and onions
+and French fried potatoes?”
+
+“Shut up.”
+
+A rattling of tin dishes at the other end of the ward made Andrews
+wriggle up further on his pillow. Verses from the “Shropshire Lad”
+ jingled mockingly through his head:
+
+     “The world, it was the old world yet,
+      I was I, my things were wet,
+      And nothing now remained to do
+      But begin the game anew.”
+
+After he had eaten, he picked up the “Tentation de Saint Antoine,” that
+lay on the cot beside his immovable legs, and buried himself in it,
+reading the gorgeously modulated sentences voraciously, as if the book
+were a drug in which he could drink deep forgetfulness of himself.
+
+He put the book down and closed his eyes. His mind was full of
+intangible floating glow, like the ocean on a warm night, when every
+wave breaks into pale flame, and mysterious milky lights keep rising to
+the surface out of the dark waters and gleaming and vanishing. He became
+absorbed in the strange fluid harmonies that permeated his whole body,
+as a grey sky at nightfall suddenly becomes filled with endlessly
+changing patterns of light and color and shadow.
+
+When he tried to seize hold of his thoughts, to give them definite
+musical expression in his mind, he found himself suddenly empty, the
+way a sandy inlet on the beach that has been full of shoals of silver
+fishes, becomes suddenly empty when a shadow crosses the water, and
+the man who is watching sees wanly his own reflection instead of the
+flickering of thousands of tiny silver bodies.
+
+
+
+John Andrews awoke to feel a cold hand on his head.
+
+“Feeling all right?” said a voice in his ear.
+
+He found himself looking in a puffy, middle-aged face, with a lean nose
+and grey eyes, with dark rings under them. Andrews felt the eyes looking
+him over inquisitively. He saw the red triangle on the man's khaki
+sleeve.
+
+“Yes,” he said.
+
+“If you don't mind, I'd like to talk to you a little while, buddy.”
+
+“Not a bit; have you got a chair?” said Andrews smiling.
+
+“I don't suppose it was just right of me to wake you up, but you see it
+was this way.... You were the next in line, an' I was afraid I'd forget
+you, if I skipped you.”
+
+“I understand,” said Andrews, with a sudden determination to take the
+initiative away from the “Y” man.
+
+“How long have you been in France? D'you like the war?” he asked
+hurriedly.
+
+The “Y” man smiled sadly.
+
+“You seem pretty spry,” he said. “I guess you're in a hurry to get back
+at the front and get some more Huns.” He smiled again, with an air of
+indulgence.
+
+Andrews did not answer.
+
+“No, sonny, I don't like it here,” the “Y” man said, after a pause. “I
+wish I was home--but it's great to feel you're doing your duty.”
+
+“It must be,” said Andrews.
+
+“Have you heard about the great air raids our boys have pulled off?
+They've bombarded Frankfort; now if they could only wipe Berlin off the
+map.”
+
+“Say, d'you hate 'em awful hard?” said Andrews in a low voice. “Because,
+if you do, I can tell you something will tickle you most to death....
+Lean over.”
+
+The “Y” man leant over curiously. “Some German prisoners come to this
+hospital at six every night to get the garbage; now all you need to
+do if you really hate 'em so bad is borrow a revolver from one of your
+officer friends, and just shoot up the convoy....”
+
+“Say... where were you raised, boy?” The “Y” man sat up suddenly with a
+look of alarm on his face. “Don't you know that prisoners are sacred?”
+
+“D'you know what our colonel told us before going into the Argonne
+offensive? The more prisoners we took, the less grub there'ld be; and do
+you know what happened to the prisoners that were taken? Why do you hate
+the Huns?”
+
+“Because they are barbarians, enemies of civilization. You must have
+enough education to know that,” said the “Y” man, raising his voice
+angrily. “What church do you belong to?”
+
+“None.”
+
+“But you must have been connected with some church, boy. You can't
+have been raised a heathen in America. Every Christian belongs or has
+belonged to some church or other from baptism.”
+
+“I make no pretensions to Christianity.”
+
+Andrews closed his eyes and turned his head away. He could feel the “Y”
+ man hovering over him irresolutely. After a while he opened his eyes.
+The “Y” man was leaning over the next bed.
+
+Through the window at the opposite side of the ward he could see a
+bit of blue sky among white scroll-like clouds, with mauve shadows. He
+stared at it until the clouds, beginning to grow golden into evening,
+covered it. Furious, hopeless irritation consumed him. How these people
+enjoyed hating! At that rate it was better to be at the front. Men
+were more humane when they were killing each other than when they were
+talking about it. So was civilization nothing but a vast edifice of
+sham, and the war, instead of its crumbling, was its fullest and most
+ultimate expression. Oh, but there must be something more in the world
+than greed and hatred and cruelty. Were they all shams, too, these
+gigantic phrases that floated like gaudy kites high above mankind?
+Kites, that was it, contraptions of tissue paper held at the end of a
+string, ornaments not to be taken seriously. He thought of all the long
+procession of men who had been touched by the unutterable futility of
+the lives of men, who had tried by phrases to make things otherwise, who
+had taught unworldliness. Dim enigmatic figures they were--Democritus,
+Socrates, Epicurus, Christ; so many of them, and so vague in the
+silvery mist of history that he hardly knew that they were not his own
+imagining; Lucretius, St. Francis, Voltaire, Rousseau, and how many
+others, known and unknown, through the tragic centuries; they had wept,
+some of them, and some of them had laughed, and their phrases had risen
+glittering, soap bubbles to dazzle men for a moment, and had shattered.
+And he felt a crazy desire to join the forlorn ones, to throw himself
+into inevitable defeat, to live his life as he saw it in spite of
+everything, to proclaim once more the falseness of the gospels under
+the cover of which greed and fear filled with more and yet more pain the
+already unbearable agony of human life.
+
+As soon as he got out of the hospital he would desert; the determination
+formed suddenly in his mind, making the excited blood surge gloriously
+through his body. There was nothing else to do; he would desert. He
+pictured himself hobbling away in the dark on his lame legs, stripping
+his uniform off, losing himself in some out of the way corner of France,
+or slipping by the sentries to Spain and freedom. He was ready to endure
+anything, to face any sort of death, for the sake of a few months of
+liberty in which to forget the degradation of this last year. This was
+his last run with the pack.
+
+An enormous exhilaration took hold of him. It seemed the first time in
+his life he had ever determined to act. All the rest had been
+aimless drifting. The blood sang m his ears. He fixed his eyes on the
+half-obliterated figures that supported the shields under the beams in
+the wall opposite. They seemed to be wriggling out of their contorted
+positions and smiling encouragement to him. He imagined them, warriors
+out of old tales, on their way to clay dragons in enchanted woods,
+clever-fingered guildsmen and artisans, cupids and satyrs and fauns,
+jumping from their niches and carrying him off with them in a headlong
+rout, to a sound of flutes, on a last forlorn assault on the citadels of
+pain.
+
+The lights went out, and an orderly came round with chocolate that
+poured with a pleasant soothing sound into the tin cups. With a
+greasiness of chocolate in his mouth and the warmth of it in his
+stomach, John Andrews went to sleep.
+
+
+
+There was a stir in the ward when he woke up. Reddish sunlight filtered
+in through the window opposite, and from outside came a confused noise,
+a sound of bells ringing and whistles blowing. Andrews looked past his
+feet towards Stalky's cot opposite. Stalky was sitting bolt upright in
+bed, with his eyes round as quarters.
+
+“Fellers, the war's over!”
+
+“Put him out.”
+
+“Cut that.”
+
+“Pull the chain.”
+
+“Tie that bull outside,” came from every side of the ward.
+
+“Fellers,” shouted Stalky louder than ever, “it's straight dope, the
+war's over. I just dreamt the Kaiser came up to me on Fourteenth Street
+and bummed a nickel for a glass of beer. The war's over. Don't you hear
+the whistles?”
+
+“All right; let's go home.”
+
+“Shut up, can't you let a feller sleep?”
+
+The ward quieted down again, but all eyes were wide open, men lay
+strangely still in their cots, waiting, wondering.
+
+“All I can say,” shouted Stalky again, “is that she was some war while
+she lasted.... What did I tell yer?”
+
+As he spoke the canvas screen in front of the door collapsed and the
+major appeared with his cap askew over his red face and a brass bell in
+his hand, which he rang frantically as he advanced into the ward.
+
+“Men,” he shouted in the deep roar of one announcing baseball scores,
+“the war ended at 4:03 A.M. this morning.... The Armistice is signed.
+To hell with the Kaiser!” Then he rang the dinner bell madly and danced
+along the aisle between the rows of cots, holding the head nurse by one
+hand, who held a little yellow-headed lieutenant by the other hand, who,
+in turn, held another nurse, and so on. The line advanced jerkily into
+the ward; the front part was singing “The Star Spangled Banner,” and the
+rear the “Yanks are Coming,” and through it all the major rang his brass
+bell. The men who were well enough sat up in bed and yelled. The others
+rolled restlessly about, sickened by the din.
+
+They made the circuit of the ward and filed out, leaving confusion
+behind them. The dinner bell could be heard faintly in the other parts
+of the building.
+
+“Well, what d'you think of it, undertaker?” said Andrews.
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+The undertaker turned his small black eyes on Andrews and looked him
+straight in the face.
+
+“You know what's the matter with me, don't yer, outside o' this wound?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Coughing like I am, I'd think you'd be more observant. I got t.b.,
+young feller.”
+
+“How do you know that?”
+
+“They're going to move me out o' here to a t.b. ward tomorrow.”
+
+“The hell they are!” Andrews's words were lost in the paroxysm of
+coughing that seized the man next to him.
+
+“Home, boys, home; it's home we want to be.”
+
+Those well enough were singing, Stalky conducting, standing on the end
+of his cot in his pink Red Cross pajamas, that were too short and showed
+a long expanse of skinny leg, fuzzy with red hairs. He banged together
+two bed pans to beat time.
+
+“Home.... I won't never go home,” said the undertaker when the noise had
+subsided a little. “D'you know what I wish? I wish the war'd gone on and
+on until everyone of them bastards had been killed in it.”
+
+“Which bastards?”
+
+“The men who got us fellers over here.” He began coughing again weakly.
+
+“But they'll be safe if every other human being....” began Andrews. He
+was interrupted by a thundering voice from the end of the ward.
+
+“Attention!”
+
+“Home, boys, home; it's home we want to be.”
+
+went on the song. Stalky glanced towards the end of the ward, and seeing
+it was the major, dropped the bed pans that smashed at the foot of his
+cot, and got as far as possible under his blankets.
+
+“Attention!” thundered the major again. A sudden uncomfortable silence
+fell upon the ward; broken only by the coughing of the man next to
+Andrews.
+
+“If I hear any more noise from this ward, I'll chuck everyone of you men
+out of this hospital; if you can't walk you'll have to crawl.... The war
+may be over, but you men are in the Army, and don't you forget it.”
+
+The major glared up and down the lines of cots. He turned on his heel
+and went out of the door, glancing angrily as he went at the overturned
+screen. The ward was still. Outside whistles blew and churchbells rang
+madly, and now and then there was a sound of singing.
+
+
+
+                               II
+
+The snow beat against the windows and pattered on the tin roof of the
+lean-to, built against the side of the hospital, that went by the name
+of sun parlor. It was a dingy place, decorated by strings of dusty
+little paper flags that one of the “Y” men had festooned about the
+slanting beams of the ceiling to celebrate Christmas. There were tables
+with torn magazines piled on them, and a counter where cracked white
+cups were ranged waiting for one of the rare occasions when cocoa could
+be bought. In the middle of the room, against the wall of the main
+building, a stove was burning, about which sat several men in hospital
+denims talking in drowsy voices. Andrews watched them from his seat by
+the window, looking at their broad backs bent over towards the stove and
+at the hands that hung over their knees, limp from boredom. The air was
+heavy with a smell of coal gas mixed with carbolic from men's clothes,
+and stale cigarette smoke. Behind the cups at the counter a “Y” man, a
+short, red-haired man with freckles, read the Paris edition of the New
+York Herald. Andrews, in his seat by the window, felt permeated by the
+stagnation about him: He had a sheaf of pencilled music-papers on his
+knees, that he rolled and unrolled nervously, staring at the stove and
+the motionless backs of the men about it. The stove roared a little,
+the “Y” man's paper rustled, men's voices came now and then in a drowsy
+whisper, and outside the snow beat evenly and monotonously against the
+window panes. Andrews pictured himself vaguely walking fast through the
+streets, with the snow stinging his face and the life of a city swirling
+about him, faces flushed by the cold, bright eyes under hatbrims,
+looking for a second into his and passing on; slim forms of women
+bundled in shawls that showed vaguely the outline of their breasts
+and hips. He wondered if he would ever be free again to walk at random
+through city streets. He stretched his legs out across the floor in
+front of him; strange, stiff, tremulous legs they were, but it was not
+the wounds that gave them their leaden weight. It was the stagnation
+of the life about him that he felt sinking into every crevice of his
+spirit, so that he could never shake it off, the stagnation of dusty
+ruined automatons that had lost all life of their own, whose limbs had
+practised the drill manual so long that they had no movements of their
+own left, who sat limply, sunk in boredom, waiting for orders.
+
+Andrews was roused suddenly from his thoughts; he had been watching the
+snowflakes in their glittering dance just outside the window pane, when
+the sound of someone rubbing his hands very close to him made him look
+up. A little man with chubby cheeks and steel-grey hair very neatly
+flattened against his skull, stood at the window rubbing his fat little
+white hands together and making a faint unctuous puffing with each
+breath. Andrews noticed that a white clerical collar enclosed the little
+man's pink neck, that starched cuffs peeped from under the well-tailored
+sleeves of his officer's uniform. Sam Brown belt and puttees, too,
+were highly polished. On his shoulder was a demure little silver cross.
+Andrews' glance had reached the pink cheeks again, when he suddenly
+found a pair of steely eyes looking sharply into his.
+
+“You look quite restored, my friend,” said a chanting clerical voice.
+
+“I suppose I am.”
+
+“Splendid, splendid.... But do you mind moving into the end of the
+room.... That's it.” He followed Andrews, saying in a deprecatory tone:
+“We're going to have just a little bit of a prayer and then I have some
+interesting things to tell you boys.”
+
+The red-headed “Y” man had left his seat and stood in the center of the
+room, his paper still dangling from his hand, saying in a bored voice:
+“Please fellows, move down to the end.... Quiet, please.... Quiet,
+please.”
+
+The soldiers shambled meekly to the folding chairs at the end of the
+room and after some chattering were quiet. A couple of men left, and
+several tiptoed in and sat in the front row. Andrews sank into a chair
+with a despairing sort of resignation, and burying his face in his hands
+stared at the floor between his feet.
+
+“Fellers,” went on the bored voice of the “Y” man, “let me introduce the
+Reverend Dr. Skinner, who--” the “Y” man's voice suddenly took on deep
+patriotic emotion--“who has just come back from the Army of Occupation
+in Germany.”
+
+At the words “Army of Occupation,” as if a spring had been touched,
+everybody clapped and cheered.
+
+The Reverend Dr. Skinner looked about his audience with smiling
+confidence and raised his hands for silence, so that the men could see
+the chubby pink palms.
+
+“First, boys, my dear friends, let us indulge in a few moments of silent
+prayer to our Great Creator,” his voice rose and fell in the suave
+chant of one accustomed to going through the episcopal liturgy for the
+edification of well-dressed and well-fed congregations. “Inasmuch as He
+has vouchsafed us safety and a mitigation of our afflictions, and let us
+pray that in His good time He may see fit to return us whole in limb and
+pure in heart to our families, to the wives, mothers, and to those whom
+we will some day honor with the name of wife, who eagerly await our
+return; and that we may spend the remainder of our lives in useful
+service of the great country for whose safety and glory we have offered
+up our youth a willing sacrifice.... Let us pray!”
+
+Silence fell dully on the room. Andrews could hear the selfconscious
+breathing of the men about him, and the rustling of the snow against the
+tin roof. A few feet scraped. The voice began again after a long pause,
+chanting:
+
+“Our Father which art in Heaven...”
+
+At the “Amen” everyone lifted his head cheerfully. Throats were cleared,
+chairs scraped. Men settled themselves to listen.
+
+“Now, my friends, I am going to give you in a few brief words a little
+glimpse into Germany, so that you may be able to picture to yourselves
+the way your comrades of the Army of Occupation manage to make
+themselves comfortable among the Huns.... I ate my Christmas dinner in
+Coblenz. What do you think of that? Never had I thought that a Christmas
+would find me away from my home and loved ones. But what unexpected
+things happen to us in this world! Christmas in Coblenz under the
+American flag!”
+
+He paused a moment to allow a little scattered clapping to subside.
+
+“The turkey was fine, too, I can tell you.... Yes, our boys in Germany
+are very, very comfortable, and just waiting for the word, if necessary,
+to continue their glorious advance to Berlin. For I am sorry to say,
+boys, that the Germans have not undergone the change of heart for which
+we had hoped. They have, indeed, changed the name of their institutions,
+but their spirit they have not changed.... How grave a disappointment it
+must be to our great President, who has exerted himself so to bring the
+German people to reason, to make them understand the horror that they
+alone have brought deliberately upon the world! Alas! Far from it.
+Indeed, they have attempted with insidious propaganda to undermine
+the morale of our troops....” A little storm of muttered epithets went
+through the room. The Reverend Dr. Skinner elevated his chubby pink
+palms and smiled benignantly... “to undermine the morale of our troops;
+so that the most stringent regulations have had to be made by the
+commanding general to prevent it. Indeed, my friends, I very much fear
+that we stopped too soon in our victorious advance; that Germany should
+have been utterly crushed. But all we can do is watch and wait, and
+abide by the decision of those great men who in a short time will be
+gathered together at the Conference at Paris.... Let me, boys, my dear
+friends, express the hope that you may speedily be cured of your wounds,
+ready again to do willing service in the ranks of the glorious army that
+must be vigilant for some time yet, I fear, to defend, as Americans and
+Christians, the civilization you have so nobly saved from a ruthless
+foe.... Let us all join together in singing the hymn, 'Stand up, stand
+up for Jesus,' which I am sure you all know.”
+
+The men got to their feet, except for a few who had lost their legs, and
+sang the first verse of the hymn unsteadily. The second verse petered
+out altogether, leaving only the “Y” man and the Reverend Dr. Skinner
+singing away at the top of their lungs.
+
+The Reverend Dr. Skinner pulled out his gold watch and looked at it
+frowning.
+
+“Oh, my, I shall miss the train,” he muttered. The “Y” man helped him
+into his voluminous trench coat and they both hurried out of the door.
+
+“Those are some puttees he had on, I'll tell you,” said the legless man
+who was propped in a chair near the stove.
+
+Andrews sat down beside him, laughing. He was a man with high cheekbones
+and powerful jaws to whose face the pale brown eyes and delicately
+pencilled lips gave a look of great gentleness. Andrews did not look at
+his body.
+
+“Somebody said he was a Red Cross man giving out cigarettes.... Fooled
+us that time,” said Andrews.
+
+“Have a butt? I've got one,” said the legless man. With a large shrunken
+hand that was the transparent color of alabaster he held out a box of
+cigarettes.
+
+“Thanks.” When Andrews struck a match he had to lean over the legless
+man to light his cigarette for him. He could not help glancing down the
+man's tunic at the drab trousers that hung limply from the chair. A cold
+shudder went through him; he was thinking of the zigzag scars on his own
+thighs.
+
+“Did you get it in the legs, too, Buddy?” asked the legless man,
+quietly.
+
+“Yes, but I had luck.... How long have you been here?”
+
+“Since Christ was a corporal. Oh, I doan know. I've been here since two
+weeks after my outfit first went into the lines.... That was on November
+16th, 1917.... Didn't see much of the war, did I?... Still, I guess I
+didn't miss much.”
+
+“No.... But you've seen enough of the army.”
+
+“That's true.... I guess I wouldn't mind the war if it wasn't for the
+army.”
+
+“They'll be sending you home soon, won't they?”
+
+“Guess so.... Where are you from?”
+
+“New York,” said Andrews.
+
+“I'm from Cranston, Wisconsin. D'you know that country? It's a great
+country for lakes. You can canoe for days an' days without a portage.
+We have a camp on Big Loon Lake. We used to have some wonderful times
+there... lived like wild men. I went for a trip for three weeks once
+without seeing a house. Ever done much canoeing?”
+
+“Not so much as I'd like to.”
+
+“That's the thing to make you feel fit. First thing you do when you
+shake out of your blankets is jump in an' have a swim. Gee, it's great
+to swim when the morning mist is still on the water an' the sun just
+strikes the tops of the birch trees. Ever smelt bacon cooking? I mean
+out in the woods, in a frying pan over some sticks of pine and beech
+wood.... Some great old smell, isn't it?... And after you've paddled all
+day, an' feel tired and sunburned right to the palms of your feet, to
+sit around the fire with some trout roastin' in the ashes and hear the
+sizzlin' the bacon makes in the pan.... O boy!” He stretched his arms
+wide.
+
+“God, I'd like to have wrung that damn little parson's neck,” said
+Andrews suddenly.
+
+“Would you?” The legless man turned brown eyes on Andrews with a smile.
+“I guess he's about as much to blame as anybody is... guys like him.... I
+guess they have that kind in Germany, too.”
+
+“You don't think we've made the world quite as safe for Democracy as it
+might be?” said Andrews in a low voice.
+
+“Hell, how should I know? I bet you never drove an ice wagon.... I did,
+all one summer down home.... It was some life. Get up at three o'clock
+in the morning an' carry a hundred or two hundred pounds of ice into
+everybody's ice box. That was the life to make a feller feel fit. I was
+goin' around with a big Norwegian named Olaf, who was the strongest man
+I ever knew. An' drink! He was the boy could drink. I once saw him put
+away twenty-five dry Martini cocktails an' swim across the lake on top
+of it.... I used to weigh a hundred and eighty pounds, and he could pick
+me up with one hand and put me across his shoulder.... That was the life
+to make a feller feel fit. Why, after bein' out late the night before,
+we'd jump up out of bed at three o'clock feeling springy as a cat.”
+
+“What's he doing now?” asked Andrews.
+
+“He died on the transport coming 'cross here. Died of the flu.... I met
+a feller came over in his regiment. They dropped him overboard when
+they were in sight of the Azores.... Well, I didn't die of the flu. Have
+another butt?”
+
+“No, thanks,” said Andrews.
+
+They were silent. The fire roared in the stove. No one was talking. The
+men lolled in chairs somnolently. Now and then someone spat. Outside of
+the window Andrews could see the soft white dancing of the snowflakes.
+His limbs felt very heavy; his mind was permeated with dusty stagnation
+like the stagnation of old garrets and lumber rooms, where, among
+superannuated bits of machinery and cracked grimy crockery, lie heaps of
+broken toys.
+
+
+
+John Andrews sat on a bench in a square full of linden trees, with the
+pale winter sunshine full on his face and hands. He had been looking up
+through his eyelashes at the sun, that was the color of honey, and he
+let his dazzled glance sink slowly through the black lacework of twigs,
+down the green trunks of the trees to the bench opposite where sat two
+nursemaids and, between them, a tiny girl with a face daintily colored
+and lifeless like a doll's face, and a frilled dress under which showed
+small ivory knees and legs encased in white socks and yellow sandals.
+Above the yellow halo of her hair floated, with the sun shining through
+it, as through a glass of claret, a bright carmine balloon which
+the child held by a string. Andrews looked at her for a long time,
+enraptured by the absurd daintiness of the figure between the big
+bundles of flesh of the nursemaids. The thought came to him suddenly
+that months had gone by,--was it only months?--since his hands had
+touched anything soft, since he had seen any flowers. The last was a
+flower an old woman had given him in a village in the Argonne, an orange
+marigold, and he remembered how soft the old woman's withered lips had
+been against his cheek when she had leaned over and kissed him. His
+mind suddenly lit up, as with a strain of music, with a sense of the
+sweetness of quiet lives worn away monotonously in the fields, in the
+grey little provincial towns, in old kitchens full of fragrance of
+herbs and tang of smoke from the hearth, where there are pots on the
+window-sill full of basil in flower.
+
+Something made him go up to the little girl and take her hand. The
+child, looking up suddenly and seeing a lanky soldier with pale lean
+face and light, straw-colored hair escaping from under a cap too small
+for him, shrieked and let go the string of the balloon, which soared
+slowly into the air trembling a little in the faint cool wind that
+blew. The child wailed dismally, and Andrews, quailing under the furious
+glances of the nursemaids, stood before her, flushed crimson, stammering
+apologies, not knowing what to do. The white caps of the nursemaids
+bent over and ribbons fluttered about the child's head as they tried to
+console her. Andrews walked away dejectedly, now and then looking up
+at the balloon, which soared, a black speck against the grey and
+topaz-colored clouds.
+
+“Sale Americain!” he heard one nursemaid exclaim to the other. But
+this was the first hour in months he had had free, the first moment of
+solitude; he must live; soon he would be sent back to his division. A
+wave of desire for furious fleshly enjoyments went through him, making
+him want steaming dishes of food drenched in rich, spice-flavored
+sauces; making him want to get drunk on strong wine; to roll on thick
+carpets in the arms of naked, libidinous women. He was walking down the
+quiet grey street of the provincial town, with its low houses with red
+chimney pots, and blue slate roofs and its irregular yellowish cobbles.
+A clock somewhere was striking four with deep booming strokes, Andrews
+laughed. He had to be in hospital at six. Already he was tired; his legs
+ached.
+
+The window of a pastry shop appeared invitingly before him, denuded as
+it was by wartime. A sign in English said: “Tea.” Walking in, he sat
+down in a fussy little parlor where the tables had red cloths, and
+a print, in pinkish and greenish colors, hung in the middle of the
+imitation brocade paper of each wall. Under a print of a poster bed with
+curtains in front of which eighteen to twenty people bowed, with the
+title of “Secret d'Amour,” sat three young officers, who cast cold,
+irritated glances at this private with a hospital badge on who invaded
+their tea shop. Andrews stared back at them, flaming with dull anger.
+
+Sipping the hot, fragrant tea, he sat with a blank sheet of music paper
+before him, listening in spite of himself to what the officers were
+saying. They were talking about Ronsard. It was with irritated surprise
+that Andrews heard the name. What right had they to be talking about
+Ronsard? He knew more about Ronsard than they did. Furious, conceited
+phrases kept surging up in his mind. He was as sensitive, as humane, as
+intelligent, as well-read as they were; what right had they to the cold
+suspicious glance with which they had put him in his place when he
+had come into the room? Yet that had probably been as unconscious, as
+unavoidable as was his own biting envy. The thought that if one of those
+men should come over to him, he would have to stand up and salute and
+answer humbly, not from civility, but from the fear of being punished,
+was bitter as wormwood, filled him with a childish desire--to prove his
+worth to them, as when older boys had illtreated him at school and he
+had prayed to have the house burn down so that he might heroically save
+them all. There was a piano in an inner room, where in the dark the
+chairs, upside down, perched dismally on the table tops. He almost
+obeyed an impulse to go in there and start playing, by the brilliance
+of his playing to force these men, who thought of him as a coarse
+automaton, something between a man and a dog, to recognize him as an
+equal, a superior.
+
+“But the war's over. I want to start living. Red wine, streets of the
+nightingale cries to the rose,” said one of the officers.
+
+“What do you say we go A.W.O.L. to Paris?”
+
+“Dangerous.”
+
+“Well, what can they do? We are not enlisted men; they can only send us
+home. That's just what I want.”
+
+“I'll tell you what; we'll go to the Cochon Bleu and have a cocktail and
+think about it.”
+
+“The lion and the lizard keep their courts where... what the devil was
+his name? Anyway, we'll glory and drink deep, while Major Peabody keeps
+his court in Dijon to his heart's content.”
+
+Spurs jingled as the three officers went out. A fierce disgust took
+possession of John Andrews. He was ashamed of his spiteful irritation.
+If, when he had been playing the piano to a roomful of friends in New
+York, a man dressed as a laborer had shambled in, wouldn't he have felt
+a moment of involuntary scorn? It was inevitable that the fortunate
+should hate the unfortunate because they feared them. But he was so
+tired of all those thoughts. Drinking down the last of his tea at a
+gulp, he went into the shop to ask the old woman, with little black
+whiskers over her bloodless lips, who sat behind the white desk at the
+end of the counter, if she minded his playing the piano.
+
+In the deserted tea room, among the dismal upturned chairs, his
+crassened fingers moved stiffly over the keys. He forgot everything
+else. Locked doors in his mind were swinging wide, revealing forgotten
+sumptuous halls of his imagination. The Queen of Sheba, grotesque as a
+satyr, white and flaming with worlds of desire, as the great implacable
+Aphrodite, stood with her hand on his shoulder sending shivers of warm
+sweetness rippling through his body, while her voice intoned in his ears
+all the inexhaustible voluptuousness of life.
+
+An asthmatic clock struck somewhere in the obscurity of the room.
+“Seven!” John Andrews paid, said good-bye to the old woman with the
+mustache, and hurried out into the street. “Like Cinderella at the
+ball,” he thought. As he went towards the hospital, down faintly lighted
+streets, his steps got slower and slower. “Why go back?” a voice kept
+saying inside him. “Anything is better than that.” Better throw himself
+in the river, even, than go back. He could see the olive-drab clothes
+in a heap among the dry bullrushes on the river bank.... He thought
+of himself crashing naked through the film of ice into water black as
+Chinese lacquer. And when he climbed out numb and panting on the other
+side, wouldn't he be able to take up life again as if he had just been
+born? How strong he would be if he could begin life a second time! How
+madly, how joyously he would live now that there was no more war.... He
+had reached the door of the hospital. Furious shudders of disgust went
+through him.
+
+He was standing dumbly humble while a sergeant bawled him out for being
+late.
+
+
+
+Andrews stared for a long while at the line of shields that supported
+the dark ceiling beams on the wall opposite his cot. The emblems
+had been erased and the grey stone figures that crowded under the
+shields,--the satyr with his shaggy goat's legs, the townsman with
+his square hat, the warrior with the sword between his legs,--had been
+clipped and scratched long ago in other wars. In the strong afternoon
+light they were so dilapidated he could hardly make them out. He
+wondered how they had seemed so vivid to him when he had lain in his
+cot, comforted by their comradeship, while his healing wounds itched and
+tingled. Still he glanced tenderly at the grey stone figures as he left
+the ward.
+
+Downstairs in the office where the atmosphere was stuffy with a smell
+of varnish and dusty papers and cigarette smoke, he waited a long time,
+shifting his weight restlessly from one foot to the other.
+
+“What do you want?” said a red-haired sergeant, without looking up from
+the pile of papers on his desk.
+
+“Waiting for travel orders.”
+
+“Aren't you the guy I told to come back at three?”
+
+“It is three.”
+
+“H'm!” The sergeant kept his eyes fixed on the papers, which rustled
+as he moved them from one pile to another. In the end of the room a
+typewriter clicked slowly and jerkily. Andrews could see the dark back
+of a head between bored shoulders in a woolen shirt leaning over the
+machine. Beside the cylindrical black stove against the wall a man with
+large mustaches and the complicated stripes of a hospital sergeant was
+reading a novel in a red cover. After a long silence the red-headed
+sergeant looked up from his papers and said suddenly:
+
+“Ted.”
+
+The man at the typewriter turned slowly round, showing a large red face
+and blue eyes.
+
+“We-ell,” he drawled.
+
+“Go in an' see if the loot has signed them papers yet.”
+
+The man got up, stretched himself deliberately, and slouched out through
+a door beside the stove. The red-haired sergeant leaned back in his
+swivel chair and lit a cigarette.
+
+“Hell,” he said, yawning.
+
+The man with the mustache beside the stove let the book slip from his
+knees to the floor, and yawned too.
+
+“This goddam armistice sure does take the ambition out of a feller,” he
+said.
+
+“Hell of a note,” said the red-haired sergeant. “D'you know that they
+had my name in for an O.T.C.? Hell of a note goin' home without a Sam
+Browne.”
+
+The other man came back and sank down into his chair in front of the
+typewriter again. The slow, jerky clicking recommenced.
+
+Andrews made a scraping noise with his foot on the ground.
+
+“Well, what about that travel order?” said the red-haired sergeant.
+
+“Loot's out,” said the other man, still typewriting.
+
+“Well, didn't he leave it on his desk?” shouted the red-haired sergeant
+angrily.
+
+“Couldn't find it.”
+
+“I suppose I've got to go look for it.... God!” The red-haired sergeant
+stamped out of the room. A moment later he came back with a bunch of
+papers in his hand.
+
+“Your name Jones?” he snapped to Andrews.
+
+“No.”
+
+“Snivisky?”
+
+“No.... Andrews, John.”
+
+“Why the hell couldn't you say so?”
+
+The man with the mustaches beside the stove got to his feet suddenly. An
+alert, smiling expression came over his face.
+
+“Good afternoon, Captain Higginsworth,” he said cheerfully.
+
+An oval man with a cigar slanting out of his broad mouth came into the
+room. When he talked the cigar wobbled in his mouth. He wore greenish
+kid gloves, very tight for his large hands, and his puttees shone with a
+dark lustre like mahogany.
+
+The red-haired sergeant turned round and half-saluted.
+
+“Goin' to another swell party, Captain?” he asked.
+
+The Captain grinned.
+
+“Say, have you boys got any Red Cross cigarettes? I ain't only got
+cigars, an' you can't hand a cigar to a lady, can you?” The Captain
+grinned again. An appreciative giggle went round.
+
+“Will a couple of packages do you? Because I've got some here,” said the
+red-haired sergeant reaching in the drawer of his desk.
+
+“Fine.” The captain slipped them into his pocket and swaggered out doing
+up the buttons of his buff-colored coat.
+
+The sergeant settled himself at his desk again with an important smile.
+
+“Did you find the travel order?” asked Andrews timidly. “I'm supposed to
+take the train at four-two.”
+
+“Can't make it.... Did you say your name was Anderson?”
+
+“Andrews.... John Andrews.”
+
+“Here it is.... Why didn't you come earlier?”
+
+
+
+The sharp air of the ruddy winter evening, sparkling in John Andrews's
+nostrils, vastly refreshing after the stale odors of the hospital, gave
+him a sense of liberation. Walking with rapid steps through the grey
+streets of the town, where in windows lamps already glowed orange, he
+kept telling himself that another epoch was closed. It was with relief
+that he felt that he would never see the hospital again or any of the
+people in it. He thought of Chrisfield. It was weeks and weeks since
+Chrisfield had come to his mind at all. Now it was with a sudden clench
+of affection that the Indiana boy's face rose up before him. An oval,
+heavily-tanned face with a little of childish roundness about it yet,
+with black eyebrows and long black eyelashes. But he did not even know
+if Chrisfield were still alive. Furious joy took possession of him. He,
+John Andrews, was alive; what did it matter if everyone he knew died?
+There were jollier companions than ever he had known, to be found in the
+world, cleverer people to talk to, more vigorous people to learn from.
+The cold air circulated through his nose and lungs; his arms felt strong
+and supple; he could feel the muscles of his legs stretch and contract
+as he walked, while his feet beat jauntily on the irregular cobblestones
+of the street. The waiting room at the station was cold and stuffy, full
+of a smell of breathed air and unclean uniforms. French soldiers wrapped
+in their long blue coats, slept on the benches or stood about in groups,
+eating bread and drinking from their canteens. A gas lamp in the center
+gave dingy light. Andrews settled himself in a corner with despairing
+resignation. He had five hours to wait for a train, and already his
+legs ached and he had a side feeling of exhaustion. The exhilaration of
+leaving the hospital and walking free through wine-tinted streets in
+the sparkling evening air gave way gradually to despair. His life would
+continue to be this slavery of unclean bodies packed together in
+places where the air had been breathed over and over, cogs in the great
+slow-moving Juggernaut of armies. What did it matter if the fighting had
+stopped? The armies would go on grinding out lives with lives, crushing
+flesh with flesh. Would he ever again stand free and solitary to
+live out joyous hours which would make up for all the boredom of the
+treadmill? He had no hope. His life would continue like this dingy,
+ill-smelling waiting room where men in uniform slept in the fetid air
+until they should be ordered-out to march or to stand in motionless
+rows, endlessly, futilely, like toy soldiers a child has forgotten in an
+attic.
+
+Andrews got up suddenly and went out on the empty platform. A cold wind
+blew. Somewhere out in the freight yards an engine puffed loudly, and
+clouds of white steam drifted through the faintly lighted station. He
+was walking up and down with his chin sunk into his coat and his hands
+in his pockets, when somebody ran into him.
+
+“Damn,” said a voice, and the figure darted through a grimy glass door
+that bore the sign: “Buvette.” Andrews followed absent-mindedly.
+
+“I'm sorry I ran into you.... I thought you were an M.P., that's why I
+beat it.” When he spoke, the man, an American private, turned and looked
+searchingly in Andrews's face. He had very red cheeks and an impudent
+little brown mustache. He spoke slowly with a faint Bostonian drawl.
+
+“That's nothing,” said Andrews.
+
+“Let's have a drink,” said the other man. “I'm A.W.O.L. Where are you
+going?”
+
+“To some place near Bar-le-Duc, back to my Division. Been in hospital.”
+
+“Long?”
+
+“Since October.”
+
+“Gee.... Have some Curacoa. It'll do you good. You look pale.... My
+name's Henslowe. Ambulance with the French Army.”
+
+They sat down at an unwashed marble table where the soot from the trains
+made a pattern sticking to the rings left by wine and liqueur glasses.
+
+“I'm going to Paris,” said Henslowe. “My leave expired three days
+ago. I'm going to Paris and get taken ill with peritonitis or double
+pneumonia, or maybe I'll have a cardiac lesion.... The army's a bore.”
+
+“Hospital isn't any better,” said Andrews with a sigh. “Though I shall
+never forget the night with which I realized I was wounded and out of
+it. I thought I was bad enough to be sent home.”
+
+“Why, I wouldn't have missed a minute of the war.... But now that it's
+over...Hell! Travel is the password now. I've just had two weeks in
+the Pyrenees. Nimes, Arles, Les Baux, Carcassonne, Perpignan, Lourdes,
+Gavarnie, Toulouse! What do you think of that for a trip?... What were
+you in?”
+
+“Infantry.”
+
+“Must have been hell.”
+
+“Been! It is.”
+
+“Why don't you come to Paris with me?”
+
+“I don't want to be picked up,” stammered Andrews.
+
+“Not a chance.... I know the ropes.... All you have to do is keep away
+from the Olympia and the railway stations, walk fast and keep your shoes
+shined... and you've got wits, haven't you?”
+
+“Not many.... Let's drink a bottle of wine. Isn't there anything to eat
+to be got here?”
+
+“Not a damn thing, and I daren't go out of the station on account of the
+M.P. at the gate.... There'll be a diner on the Marseilles express.”
+
+“But I can't go to Paris.”
+
+“Sure.... Look, how do you call yourself?”
+
+“John Andrews.”
+
+“Well, John Andrews, all I can say is that you've let 'em get your goat.
+Don't give in. Have a good time, in spite of 'em. To hell with 'em.”
+ He brought the bottle down so hard on the table that it broke and the
+purple wine flowed over the dirty marble and dripped gleaming on the
+floor.
+
+Some French soldiers who stood in a group round the bar turned round.
+
+“V'la un gars qui gaspille le bon vin,” said a tall red-faced man, with
+long sloping whiskers.
+
+“Pour vingt sous j'mangerai la bouteille,” cried a little man lurching
+forward and leaning drunkenly over the table.
+
+“Done,” said Henslowe. “Say, Andrews, he says he'll eat the bottle for a
+franc.”
+
+He placed a shining silver franc on the table beside the remnants of
+the broken bottle. The man seized the neck of the bottle in a black,
+claw-like hand and gave it a preparatory flourish. He was a cadaverous
+little man, incredibly dirty, with mustaches and beard of a moth-eaten
+tow-color, and a purple flush on his cheeks. His uniform was clotted
+with mud. When the others crowded round him and tried to dissuade him,
+he said: “M'en fous, c'est mon metier,” and rolled his eyes so that the
+whites flashed in the dim light like the eyes of dead codfish.
+
+“Why, he's really going to do it,” cried Henslowe.
+
+The man's teeth flashed and crunched down on the jagged edge of
+the glass. There was a terrific crackling noise. He flourished the
+bottle-end again.
+
+“My God, he's eating it,” cried Henslowe, roaring with laughter, “and
+you're afraid to go to Paris.”
+
+An engine rumbled into the station, with a great hiss of escaping steam.
+
+“Gee, that's the Paris train! Tiens!” He pressed the franc into the
+man's dirt-crusted hand.
+
+“Come along, Andrews.”
+
+As they left the buvette they heard again the crunching crackling noise
+as the man bit another piece off the bottle.
+
+Andrews followed Henslowe across the steam-filled platform to the door
+of a first-class carriage. They climbed in. Henslowe immediately pulled
+down the black cloth over the half globe of the light. The compartment
+was empty. He threw himself down with a sigh of comfort on the soft
+buff-colored cushions of the seat.
+
+“But what on earth?” stammered Andrews.
+
+“M'en fous, c'est mon metier,” interrupted Henslowe.
+
+The train pulled out of the station.
+
+
+
+                               III
+
+Henslowe poured wine from a brown earthen crock into the glasses, where
+it shimmered a bright thin red, the color of currants. Andrews leaned
+back in his chair and looked through half-closed eyes at the table with
+its white cloth and little burnt umber loaves of bread, and out of the
+window at the square dimly lit by lemon-yellow gas lamps and at the dark
+gables of the little houses that huddled round it.
+
+At a table against the wall opposite a lame boy, with white beardless
+face and gentle violet-colored eyes, sat very close to the bareheaded
+girl who was with him and who never took her eyes off his face, leaning
+on his crutch all the while. A stove hummed faintly in the middle of the
+room, and from the half-open kitchen door came ruddy light and the sound
+of something frying. On the wall, in brownish colors that seemed to have
+taken warmth from all the rich scents of food they had absorbed since
+the day of their painting, were scenes of the Butte as it was fancied to
+have once been, with windmills and wide fields.
+
+“I want to travel,” Henslowe was saying, dragging out his words
+drowsily. “Abyssinia, Patagonia, Turkestan, the Caucasus, anywhere and
+everywhere. What do you say you and I go out to New Zealand and raise
+sheep?”
+
+“But why not stay here? There can't be anywhere as wonderful as this.”
+
+“Then I'll put off starting for New Guinea for a week. But hell, I'd
+go crazy staying anywhere after this. It's got into my blood... all
+this murder. It's made a wanderer of me, that's what it's done. I'm an
+adventurer.”
+
+“God, I wish it had made me into anything so interesting.”
+
+“Tie a rock on to your scruples and throw 'em off the Pont Neuf and set
+out.... O boy, this is the golden age for living by your wits.”
+
+“You're not out of the army yet.”
+
+“I should worry.... I'll join the Red Cross.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“I've got a tip about it.”
+
+A girl with oval face and faint black down on her upper lip brought
+them soup, a thick greenish colored soup, that steamed richly into their
+faces.
+
+“If you tell me how I can get out of the army you'll probably save my
+life,” said Andrews seriously.
+
+“There are two ways...Oh, but let me tell you later. Let's talk about
+something worth while...So you write music do you?”
+
+Andrews nodded.
+
+An omelet lay between them, pale golden-yellow with flecks of green; a
+few amber bubbles of burnt butter still clustered round the edges.
+
+“Talk about tone-poems,” said Henslowe.
+
+“But, if you are an adventurer and have no scruples, how is it you are
+still a private?”
+
+Henslowe took a gulp of wine and laughed uproariously.
+
+“That's the joke.”
+
+They ate in silence for a little while. They could hear the couple
+opposite them talking in low soft voices. The stove purred, and from the
+kitchen came a sound of something being beaten in a bowl. Andrews leaned
+back in his chair.
+
+“This is so wonderfully quiet and mellow,” he said.... “It is so easy to
+forget that there's any joy at all in life.”
+
+“Rot...It's a circus parade.”
+
+“Have you ever seen anything drearier than a circus parade? One of those
+jokes that aren't funny.”
+
+“Justine, encore du vin,” called Henslowe.
+
+“So you know her name?”
+
+“I live here.... The Butte is the boss on the middle of the shield. It's
+the axle of the wheel. That's why it's so quiet, like the centre of a
+cyclone, of a vast whirling rotary circus parade!”
+
+Justine, with her red hands that had washed so many dishes off which
+other people had dined well, put down between them a scarlet langouste,
+of which claws and feelers sprawled over the tablecloth that already had
+a few purplish stains of wine. The sauce was yellow and fluffy like the
+breast of a canary bird.
+
+“D'you know,” said Andrews suddenly talking fast and excitedly while
+he brushed the straggling yellow hair off his forehead, “I'd almost be
+willing to be shot at the end of a year if I could live up here all
+that time with a piano and a million sheets of music paper...It would be
+worth it.”
+
+“But this is a place to come back to. Imagine coming back here after the
+highlands of Thibet, where you'd nearly got drowned and scalped and had
+made love to the daughter of an Afghan chief... who had red lips smeared
+with loukoumi so that the sweet taste stayed in your mouth.” Henslowe
+stroked softly his little brown mustache.
+
+“But what's the use of just seeing and feeling things if you can't
+express them?”
+
+“What's the use of living at all? For the fun of it, man; damn ends.”
+
+“But the only profound fun I ever have is that...” Andrews's voice
+broke. “O God, I would give up every joy in the world if I could turn
+out one page that I felt was adequate.... D'you know it's years since
+I've talked to anybody?”
+
+They both stared silently out of the window at the fog that was packed
+tightly against it like cotton wool, only softer, and a greenish-gold
+color.
+
+“The M.P.'s sure won't get us tonight,” said Henslowe, banging his fist
+jauntily on the table. “I've a great mind to go to Rue St. Anne and
+leave my card on the Provost Marshal.... God damn! D'you remember that
+man who took the bite out of our wine-bottle...He didn't give a hoot in
+hell, did he? Talk about expression. Why don't you express that? I think
+that's the turning point of your career. That's what made you come to
+Paris; you can't deny it.”
+
+They both laughed loudly rolling about on their chairs.
+
+Andrews caught glints of contagion in the pale violet eyes of the lame
+boy and in the dark eyes of the girl.
+
+“Let's tell them about it,” he said still laughing, with his face,
+bloodless after the months in hospital, suddenly flushed.
+
+“Salut,” said Henslowe turning round and elevating his glass. “Nous
+rions parceque nous sommes gris de vin gris.” Then he told them about
+the man who ate glass. He got to his feet and recounted slowly in his
+drawling voice, with gestures. Justine stood by with a dish full of
+stuffed tomatoes of which the red skins showed vaguely through a mantle
+of dark brown sauce. When she smiled her cheeks puffed out and gave her
+face a little of the look of a white cat's.
+
+“And you live here?” asked Andrews after they had all laughed.
+
+“Always. It is not often that I go down to town.... It's so
+difficult.... I have a withered leg.” He smiled brilliantly like a child
+telling about a new toy.
+
+“And you?”
+
+“How could I be anywhere else?” answered the girl. “It's a misfortune,
+but there it is.” She tapped with the crutch on the floor, making a
+sound like someone walking with it. The boy laughed and tightened his
+arm round her shoulder.
+
+“I should like to live here,” said Andrews simply.
+
+“Why don't you?”
+
+“But don't you see he's a soldier,” whispered the girl hurriedly.
+
+A frown wrinkled the boy's forehead.
+
+“Well, it wasn't by choice, I suppose,” he said.
+
+Andrews was silent. Unaccountable shame took possession of him before
+these people who had never been soldiers, who would never be soldiers.
+
+“The Greeks used to say,” he said bitterly, using as phrase that had
+been a long time on his mind, “that when a man became a slave, on the
+first day he lost one-half of his virtue.”
+
+“When a man becomes a slave,” repeated the lame boy softly, “on the
+first day he loses one-half of his virtue.”
+
+“What's the use of virtue? It is love you need,” said the girl.
+
+“I've eaten your tomato, friend Andrews,” said Henslowe. “Justine will
+get us some more.” He poured out the last of the wine that half filled
+each of the glasses with its thin sparkle, the color of red currants.
+
+Outside the fog had blotted everything out in even darkness which grew
+vaguely yellow and red near the sparsely scattered street lamps. Andrews
+and Henslowe felt their way blindly down the long gleaming flights of
+steps that led from the quiet darkness of the Butte towards the confused
+lights and noises of more crowded streets. The fog caught in their
+throats and tingled in their noses and brushed against their cheeks like
+moist hands.
+
+“Why did we go away from that restaurant? I'd like to have talked to
+those people some more,” said Andrews.
+
+“We haven't had any coffee either.... But, man, we're in Paris. We're
+not going to be here long. We can't afford to stay all the time in one
+place.... It's nearly closing time already....”
+
+“The boy was a painter. He said he lived by making toys; he whittles out
+wooden elephants and camels for Noah's Arks.... Did you hear that?”
+
+They were walking fast down a straight, sloping street. Below them
+already appeared the golden glare of a boulevard.
+
+Andrews went on talking, almost to himself. “What a wonderful life that
+would be to live up here in a small room that would overlook the great
+rosy grey expanse of the city, to have some absurd work like that
+to live on, and to spend all your spare time working and going to
+concerts.... A quiet mellow existence.... Think of my life beside it.
+Slaving in that iron, metallic, brazen New York to write ineptitudes
+about music in the Sunday paper. God! And this.”
+
+They were sitting down at a table in a noisy cafe, full of yellow light
+flashing in eyes and on glasses and bottles, of red lips crushed against
+the thin hard rims of glasses.
+
+“Wouldn't you like to just rip it off?” Andrews jerked at his tunic with
+both hands where it bulged out over his chest. “Oh, I'd like to make the
+buttons fly all over the cafe, smashing the liqueur glasses, snapping
+in the faces of all those dandified French officers who look so proud of
+themselves that they survived long enough to be victorious.”
+
+“The coffee's famous here,” said Henslowe. “The only place I ever had it
+better was at a bistro in Nice on this last permission.”
+
+“Somewhere else again!”
+
+“That's it.... For ever and ever, somewhere else! Let's have some
+prunelle. Before the war prunelle.”
+
+The waiter was a solemn man, with a beard cut like a prime minister's.
+He came with the bottle held out before him, religiously lifted. His
+lips pursed with an air of intense application, while he poured the
+white glinting liquid into the glasses. When he had finished he held the
+bottle upside down with a tragic gesture; not a drop came out.
+
+“It is the end of the good old times,” he said.
+
+“Damnation to the good old times,” said Henslowe. “Here's to the good
+old new roughhousy circus parades.”
+
+“I wonder how many people they are good for, those circus parades of
+yours,” said Andrews.
+
+“Where are you going to spend the night?” said Henslowe.
+
+“I don't know.... I suppose I can find a hotel or something.”
+
+“Why don't you come with me and see Berthe; she probably has friends.”
+
+“I want to wander about alone, not that I scorn Berthe's friends,” said
+Andrews.... “But I am so greedy for solitude.”
+
+
+
+John Andrews was walking alone down streets full of drifting fog. Now
+and then a taxi dashed past him and clattered off into the obscurity.
+Scattered groups of people, their footsteps hollow in the muffling fog,
+floated about him. He did not care which way he walked, but went on and
+on, crossing large crowded avenues where the lights embroidered patterns
+of gold and orange on the fog, rolling in wide deserted squares, diving
+into narrow streets where other steps sounded sharply for a second now
+and then and faded leaving nothing in his ears when he stopped still
+to listen but the city's distant muffled breathing. At last he came
+out along the river, where the fog was densest and coldest and where
+he could hear faintly the sound of water gurgling past the piers of
+bridges. The glow of the lights glared and dimmed, glared and dimmed,
+as he walked along, and sometimes he could make out the bare branches
+of trees blurred across the halos of the lamps. The fog caressed him
+soothingly and shadows kept flicking past him, giving him glimpses of
+smooth curves of cheeks and glints of eyes bright from the mist and
+darkness. Friendly, familiar people seemed to fill the fog just out of
+his sight. The muffled murmur of the city stirred him like the sound of
+the voices of friends.
+
+“From the girl at the cross-roads singing under her street-lamp to the
+patrician pulling roses to pieces from the height of her litter... all
+the imagining of your desire....”
+
+The murmur of life about him kept forming itself into long modulated
+sentences in his ears,--sentences that gave him by their form a sense
+of quiet well-being as if he were looking at a low relief of people
+dancing, carved out of Parian in some workshop in Attica.
+
+Once he stopped and leaned for a long while against the moisture-beaded
+stern of a street-lamp. Two shadows defined, as they strolled towards
+him, into the forms of a pale boy and a bareheaded girl, walking tightly
+laced in each other's arms. The boy limped a little and his violet eyes
+were contracted to wistfulness. John Andrews was suddenly filled with
+throbbing expectation, as if those two would come up to him and put
+their hands on his arms and make some revelation of vast import to his
+life. But when they reached the full glow of the lamp, Andrews saw that
+he was mistaken. They were not the boy and girl he had talked to on the
+Butte.
+
+He walked off hurriedly and plunged again into tortuous streets, where
+he strode over the cobblestone pavements, stopping now and then to peer
+through the window of a shop at the light in the rear where a group of
+people sat quietly about a table under a light, or into a bar where a
+tired little boy with heavy eyelids and sleeves rolled up from thin grey
+arms was washing glasses, or an old woman, a shapeless bundle of black
+clothes, was swabbing the floor. From doorways he heard talking and soft
+laughs. Upper windows sent yellow rays of light across the fog.
+
+In one doorway the vague light from a lamp bracketed in the wall showed
+two figures, pressed into one by their close embrace. As Andrews walked
+past, his heavy army boots clattering loud on the wet pavement, they
+lifted their heads slowly. The boy had violet eyes and pale beardless
+cheeks; the girl was bareheaded and kept her brown eyes fixed on the
+boy's face. Andrews's heart thumped within him. At last he had found
+them. He made a step towards them, and then strode on losing himself
+fast in the cool effacing fog. Again he had been mistaken. The fog
+swirled about him, hiding wistful friendly faces, hands ready to meet
+his hands, eyes ready to take fire with his glance, lips cold with the
+mist, to be crushed under his lips. “From the girl at the singing under
+her street-lamp...”
+
+And he walked on alone through the drifting fog.
+
+
+
+                              IV
+
+Andrews left the station reluctantly, shivering in the raw grey mist
+under which the houses of the village street and the rows of motor
+trucks and the few figures of French soldiers swathed in long formless
+coats, showed as vague dark blurs in the confused dawnlight. His body
+felt flushed and sticky from a night spent huddled in the warm fetid air
+of an overcrowded compartment. He yawned and stretched himself and stood
+irresolutely in the middle of the street with his pack biting into his
+shoulders. Out of sight, behind the dark mass, in which a few ruddy
+lights glowed, of the station buildings, the engine whistled and the
+train clanked off into the distance. Andrews listened to its faint
+reverberation through the mist with a sick feeling of despair. It was
+the train that had brought him from Paris back to his division.
+
+As he stood shivering in the grey mist he remembered the curious
+despairing reluctance he used to suffer when he went back to boarding
+school after a holiday. How he used to go from the station to the school
+by the longest road possible, taking frantic account of every moment of
+liberty left him. Today his feet had the same leaden reluctance as when
+they used to all but refuse to take him up the long sandy hill to the
+school.
+
+He wandered aimlessly for a while about the silent village hoping to
+find a cafe where he could sit for a few minutes to take a last look
+at himself before plunging again into the grovelling promiscuity of the
+army. Not a light showed. All the shutters of the shabby little brick
+and plaster houses were closed. With dull springless steps he walked
+down the road they had pointed out to him from the R. T. O.
+
+Overhead the sky was brightening giving the mist that clung to the earth
+in every direction ruddy billowing outlines. The frozen road gave out a
+faint hard resonance under his footsteps. Occasionally the silhouette
+of a tree by the roadside loomed up in the mist ahead, its uppermost
+branches clear and ruddy with sunlight.
+
+Andrews was telling himself that the war was over, and that in a few
+months he would be free in any case. What did a few months more or less
+matter? But the same thoughts were swept recklessly away in the blind
+panic that was like a stampede of wild steers within him. There was no
+arguing. His spirit was contorted with revolt so that his flesh twitched
+and dark splotches danced before his eyes. He wondered vaguely whether
+he had gone mad. Enormous plans kept rising up out of the tumult of his
+mind and dissolving suddenly like smoke in a high wind. He would run
+away and if they caught him, kill himself. He would start a mutiny in
+his company, he would lash all these men to frenzy by his words, so that
+they too should refuse to form into Guns, so that they should laugh when
+the officers got red in the face shouting orders at them, so that the
+whole division should march off over the frosty hills, without arms,
+without flags, calling all the men of all the armies to join them, to
+march on singing, to laugh the nightmare out of their blood. Would not
+some lightning flash of vision sear people's consciousness into life
+again? What was the good of stopping the war if the armies continued?
+
+But that was just rhetoric. His mind was flooding itself with rhetoric
+that it might keep its sanity. His mind was squeezing out rhetoric like
+a sponge that he might not see dry madness face to face.
+
+And all the while his hard footsteps along the frozen road beat in
+his ears bringing him nearer to the village where the division was
+quartered. He was climbing a long hill. The mist thinned about him and
+became brilliant with sunlight. Then he was walking in the full sun over
+the crest of a hill with pale blue sky above his head. Behind him and
+before him were mist-filled valleys and beyond other ranges of long
+hills, with reddish-violet patches of woodland, glowing faintly in the
+sunlight. In the valley at his feet he could see, in the shadow of the
+hill he stood on, a church tower and a few roofs rising out of the mist,
+as out of water.
+
+Among the houses bugles were blowing mess-call.
+
+The jauntiness of the brassy notes ringing up through the silence was
+agony to him. How long the day would be. He looked at his watch. It was
+seven thirty. How did they come to be having mess so late?
+
+The mist seemed doubly cold and dark when he was buried in it again
+after his moment of sunlight. The sweat was chilled on his face and
+streaks of cold went through his clothes, soaked from the effort of
+carrying the pack. In the village street Andrews met a man he did
+not know and asked him where the office was. The man, who was chewing
+something, pointed silently to a house with green shutters on the
+opposite side of the street.
+
+At a desk sat Chrisfield smoking a cigarette. When he jumped up Andrews
+noticed that he had a corporal's two stripes on his arm.
+
+“Hello, Andy.”
+
+They shook hands warmly.
+
+“A' you all right now, ole boy?”
+
+“Sure, I'm fine,” said Andrews. A sudden constraint fell upon them.
+
+“That's good,” said Chrisfield.
+
+“You're a corporal now. Congratulations.”
+
+“Um hum. Made me more'n a month ago.”
+
+They were silent. Chrisfield sat down in his chair again.
+
+“What sort of a town is this?”
+
+“It's a hell-hole, this dump is, a hell-hole.”
+
+“That's nice.”
+
+“Goin' to move soon, tell me.... Army o' Occupation. But Ah hadn't ought
+to have told you that.... Don't tell any of the fellers.”
+
+“Where's the outfit quartered?”
+
+“Ye won't know it; we've got fifteen new men. No account all of 'em.
+Second draft men.”
+
+“Civilians in the town?”
+
+“You bet.... Come with me, Andy, an Ah'll tell 'em to give you some grub
+at the cookshack. No... wait a minute an' you'll miss the hike.... Hikes
+every day since the goddam armistice. They sent out a general order
+telling 'em to double up on the drill.”
+
+They heard a voice shouting orders outside and the narrow street filled
+up suddenly with a sound of boots beating the ground in unison. Andrews
+kept his back to the window. Something in his legs seemed to be tramping
+in time with the other legs.
+
+“There they go,” said Chrisfield. “Loot's with 'em today.... Want some
+grub? If it ain't been punk since the armistice.”
+
+
+
+The “Y” hut was empty and dark; through the grimy windowpanes could be
+seen fields and a leaden sky full of heavy ocherous light, in which the
+leafless trees and the fields full of stubble were different shades of
+dead, greyish brown. Andrews sat at the piano without playing. He was
+thinking how once he had thought to express all the cramped boredom of
+this life; the thwarted limbs regimented together, lashed into straight
+lines, the monotony of servitude. Unconsciously as he thought of it,
+the fingers of one hand sought a chord, which jangled in the badly-tuned
+piano. “God, how silly!” he muttered aloud, pulling his hands away.
+Suddenly he began to play snatches of things he knew, distorting them,
+willfully mutilating the rhythm, mixing into them snatches of ragtime.
+The piano jangled under his hands, filling the empty hut with clamor.
+He stopped suddenly, letting his fingers slide from bass to treble, and
+began to play in earnest.
+
+There was a cough behind him that had an artificial, discreet ring to
+it. He went on playing without turning round. Then a voice said:
+
+“Beautiful, beautiful.”
+
+Andrews turned to find himself staring into a face of vaguely triangular
+shape with a wide forehead and prominent eyelids over protruding brown
+eyes. The man wore a Y. M. C. A. uniform which was very tight for him,
+so that there were creases running from each button across the front of
+his tunic.
+
+“Oh, do go on playing. It's years since I heard any Debussy.”
+
+“It wasn't Debussy.”
+
+“Oh, wasn't it? Anyway it was just lovely. Do go on. I'll just stand
+here and listen.”
+
+Andrews went on playing for a moment, made a mistake, started over,
+made the same mistake, banged on the keys with his fist and turned round
+again.
+
+“I can't play,” he said peevishly.
+
+“Oh, you can, my boy, you can.... Where did you learn? I would give a
+million dollars to play like that, if I had it.”
+
+Andrews glared at him silently.
+
+“You are one of the men just back from hospital, I presume.”
+
+“Yes, worse luck.”
+
+“Oh, I don't blame you. These French towns are the dullest places;
+though I just love France, don't you?” The “Y” man had a faintly whining
+voice.
+
+“Anywhere's dull in the army.”
+
+“Look, we must get to know each other real well. My name's Spencer
+Sheffield...Spencer B. Sheffield.... And between you and me there's
+not a soul in the division you can talk to. It's dreadful not to have
+intellectual people about one. I suppose you're from New York.”
+
+Andrews nodded.
+
+“Um hum, so am I. You're probably read some of my things in Vain
+Endeavor.... What, you've never read Vain Endeavor? I guess you didn't
+go round with the intellectual set.... Musical people often don't....
+Of course I don't mean the Village. All anarchists and society women
+there....”
+
+“I've never gone round with any set, and I never...”
+
+“Never mind, we'll fix that when we all get back to New York. And now
+you just sit down at that piano and play me Debussy's 'Arabesque.'... I
+know you love it just as much as I do. But first what's your name?”
+
+“Andrews.”
+
+“Folks come from Virginia?”
+
+“Yes.” Andrews got to his feet.
+
+“Then you're related to the Penneltons.”
+
+“I may be related to the Kaiser for all I know.”
+
+“The Penneltons... that's it. You see my mother was a Miss Spencer from
+Spencer Falls, Virginia, and her mother was a Miss Pennelton, so you and
+I are cousins. Now isn't that a coincidence?”
+
+“Distant cousins. But I must go back to the barracks.”
+
+“Come in and see me any time,” Spencer B. Sheffield shouted after him.
+“You know where; back of the shack; And knock twice so I'll know it's
+you.”
+
+Outside the house where he was quartered Andrews met the new top
+sergeant, a lean man with spectacles and a little mustache of the color
+and texture of a scrubbing brush.
+
+“Here's a letter for you,” the top sergeant said. “Better look at the
+new K. P. list I've just posted.”
+
+The letter was from Henslowe. Andrews read it with a smile of pleasure
+in the faint afternoon light, remembering Henslowe's constant drawling
+talk about distant places he had never been to, and the man who had
+eaten glass, and the day and a half in Paris.
+
+“Andy,” the letter began, “I've got the dope at last. Courses begin in
+Paris February fifteenth. Apply at once to your C. O. to study somethin'
+at University of Paris. Any amount of lies will go. Apply all
+pull possible via sergeants, lieutenants and their mistresses and
+laundresses. Yours, Henslowe.”
+
+His heart thumping, Andrews ran after the sergeant, passing, in his
+excitement, a lieutenant without saluting him.
+
+“Look here,” snarled the lieutenant.
+
+Andrews saluted, and stood stiffly at attention.
+
+“Why didn't you salute me?”
+
+“I was in a hurry, sir, and didn't see you. I was going on very urgent
+company business, sir.”
+
+“Remember that just because the armistice is signed you needn't think
+you're out of the army; at ease.”
+
+Andrews saluted. The lieutenant saluted, turned swiftly on his heel and
+walked away.
+
+Andrews caught up to the sergeant.
+
+“Sergeant Coffin. Can I speak to you a minute?”
+
+“I'm in a hell of a hurry.”
+
+“Have you heard anything about this army students' corps to send men to
+universities here in France? Something the Y. M. C. A.'s getting up.”
+
+“Can't be for enlisted men. No I ain't heard a word about it. D'you want
+to go to school again?”
+
+“If I get a chance. To finish my course.”
+
+“College man, are ye? So am I. Well, I'll let you know if I get any
+general order about it. Can't do anything without getting a general
+order about it. Looks to me like it's all bushwa.”
+
+“I guess you're right.”
+
+The street was grey dark. Stung by a sense of impotence, surging with
+despairing rebelliousness, Andrews hurried back towards the buildings
+where the company was quartered. He would be late for mess. The grey
+street was deserted. From a window here and there ruddy light streamed
+out to make a glowing oblong on the wall of a house opposite.
+
+
+
+“Goddam it, if ye don't believe me, you go ask the lootenant....
+Look here, Toby, didn't our outfit see hotter work than any goddam
+engineers?”
+
+Toby had just stepped into the cafe, a tall man with a brown bulldog
+face and a scar on his left cheek. He spoke rarely and solemnly with a
+Maine coast Yankee twang.
+
+“I reckon so,” was all he said. He sat down on the bench beside the
+other man who went on bitterly:
+
+“I guess you would reckon so.... Hell, man, you ditch diggers ain't in
+it.”
+
+“Ditch diggers!” The engineer banged his fist down on the table. His
+lean pickled face was a furious red. “I guess we don't dig half so many
+ditches as the infantry does... an' when we've dug 'em we don't crawl
+into 'em an' stay there like goddam cottontailed jackrabbits.”
+
+“You guys don't git near enough to the front....”
+
+“Like goddam cottontailed jackrabbits,” shouted the pickle-faced
+engineer again, roaring with laughter. “Ain't that so?” He looked round
+the room for approval. The benches at the two long tables were filled
+with infantry men who looked at him angrily. Noticing suddenly that he
+had no support, he moderated his voice.
+
+“The infantry's damn necessary, I'll admit that; but where'd you fellers
+be without us guys to string the barbed wire for you?”
+
+“There warn't no barbed wire strung in the Oregon forest where we was,
+boy. What d'ye want barbed wire when you're advancin' for?”
+
+“Look here...I'll bet you a bottle of cognac my company had more losses
+than yourn did.”
+
+“Tek him up, Joe,” said Toby, suddenly showing an interest in the
+conversation.
+
+“All right, it's a go.”
+
+“We had fifteen killed and twenty wounded,” announced the engineer
+triumphantly.
+
+“How badly wounded?”
+
+“What's that to you? Hand over the cognac?”
+
+“Like hell. We had fifteen killed and twenty wounded too, didn't we,
+Toby?”
+
+“I reckon you're right,” said Toby.
+
+“Ain't I right?” asked the other man, addressing the company generally.
+
+“Sure, goddam right,” muttered voices.
+
+“Well, I guess it's all off, then,” said the engineer.
+
+“No, it ain't,” said Toby, “reckon up yer wounded. The feller who's got
+the worst wounded gets the cognac. Ain't that fair?”
+
+“Sure.”
+
+“We've had seven fellers sent home already,” said the engineer.
+
+“We've had eight. Ain't we?”
+
+“Sure,” growled everybody in the room.
+
+“How bad was they?”
+
+“Two of 'em was blind,” said Toby.
+
+“Hell,” said the engineer, jumping to his feet as if taking a trick at
+poker. “We had a guy who was sent home without arms nor legs, and three
+fellers got t.b. from bein' gassed.”
+
+John Andrews had been sitting in a corner of the room. He got up.
+Something had made him think of the man he had known in the hospital
+who had said that was the life to make a feller feel fit. Getting up at
+three o'clock in the morning, you jumped out of bed just like a cat....
+He remembered how the olive-drab trousers had dangled, empty from the
+man's chair.
+
+“That's nothing; one of our sergeants had to have a new nose grafted
+on....”
+
+The village street was dark and deeply rutted with mud. Andrews wandered
+up and down aimlessly. There was only one other cafe. That would be just
+like this one. He couldn't go back to the desolate barn where he slept.
+It would be too early to go to sleep. A cold wind blew down the street
+and the sky was full of vague movement of dark clouds. The partly-frozen
+mud clotted about his feet as he walked along; he could feel the water
+penetrating his shoes. Opposite the Y. M. C. A. hut at the end of the
+street he stopped. After a moment's indecision he gave a little laugh,
+and walked round to the back where the door of the “Y” man's room was.
+
+He knocked twice, half hoping there would be no reply.
+
+Sheffield's whining high-pitched voice said: “Who is it?”
+
+“Andrews.”
+
+“Come right in.... You're just the man I wanted to see.” Andrews stood
+with his hand on the knob.
+
+“Do sit down and make yourself right at home.”
+
+Spencer Sheffield was sitting at a little desk in a room with walls
+of unplaned boards and one small window. Behind the desk were piles of
+cracker boxes and cardboard cases of cigarettes and in the midst of
+them a little opening, like that of a railway ticket office, in the wall
+through which the “Y” man sold his commodities to the long lines of men
+who would stand for hours waiting meekly in the room beyond.
+
+Andrews was looking round for a chair.
+
+“Oh, I just forgot. I'm sitting in the only chair,” said Spencer
+Sheffield, laughing, twisting his small mouth into a shape like a
+camel's mouth and rolling about his large protruding eyes.
+
+“Oh, that's all right. What I wanted to ask you was: do you know
+anything about...?”
+
+“Look, do come with me to my room,” interrupted Sheffield. “I've got
+such a nice sitting-room with an open fire, just next to Lieutenant
+Bleezer.... An' there we'll talk... about everything. I'm just dying to
+talk to somebody about the things of the spirit.”
+
+“Do you know anything about a scheme for sending enlisted men to French
+universities? Men who have not finished their courses.”
+
+“Oh, wouldn't that be just fine. I tell you, boy, there's nothing like
+the U. S. government to think of things like that.”
+
+“But have you heard anything about it?”
+
+“No; but I surely shall.... D'you mind switching the light off?...
+That's it. Now just follow me. Oh, I do need a rest. I've been working
+dreadfully hard since that Knights of Columbus man came down here. Isn't
+it hateful the way they try to run down the 'Y'?... Now we can have a
+nice long talk. You must tell me all about yourself.”
+
+“But don't you really know anything about that university scheme? They
+say it begins February fifteenth,” Andrews said in a low voice.
+
+“I'll ask Lieutenant Bleezer if he knows anything about it,” said
+Sheffield soothingly, throwing an arm around Andrews's shoulder and
+pushing him in the door ahead of him.
+
+They went through a dark hall to a little room where a fire burned
+brilliantly in the hearth, lighting up with tongues of red and yellow a
+square black walnut table and two heavy armchairs with leather backs and
+bottoms that shone like lacquer.
+
+“This is wonderful,” said Andrews involuntarily.
+
+“Romantic I call it. Makes you think of Dickens, doesn't it, and
+Locksley Hall.”
+
+“Yes,” said Andrews vaguely.
+
+“Have you been in France long?” asked Andrews settling himself in one
+of the chairs and looking into the dancing flames of the log fire. “Will
+you smoke?” He handed Sheffield a crumpled cigarette.
+
+“No, thanks, I only smoke special kinds. I have a weak heart. That's why
+I was rejected from the army.... Oh, but I think it was superb of you to
+join as a private; It was my dream to do that, to be one of the nameless
+marching throng.”
+
+“I think it was damn foolish, not to say criminal,” said Andrews
+sullenly, still staring into the fire.
+
+“You can't mean that. Or do you mean that you think you had abilities
+which would have been worth more to your country in another position?...
+I have many friends who felt that.”
+
+“No.... I don't think it's right of a man to go back on himself.... I
+don't think butchering people ever does any good ...I have acted as if
+I did think it did good... out of carelessness or cowardice, one or the
+other; that I think bad.”
+
+“You mustn't talk that way” said Sheffield hurriedly. “So you are a
+musician, are you?” He asked the question with a jaunty confidential
+air.
+
+“I used to play the piano a little, if that's what you mean,” said
+Andrews.
+
+“Music has never been the art I had most interest in. But many things
+have moved me intensely.... Debussy and those beautiful little things
+of Nevin's. You must know them.... Poetry has been more my field. When I
+was young, younger than you are, quite a lad...Oh, if we could only stay
+young; I am thirty-two.”
+
+“I don't see that youth by itself is worth much. It's the most superb
+medium there is, though, for other things,” said Andrews. “Well, I must
+go,” he said. “If you do hear anything about that university scheme, you
+will let me know, won't you?”
+
+“Indeed I shall, dear boy, indeed I shall.”
+
+They shook hands in jerky dramatic fashion and Andrews stumbled down the
+dark hall to the door. When he stood out in the raw night air again
+he drew a deep breath. By the light that streamed out from a window
+he looked at his watch. There was time to go to the regimental
+sergeant-major's office before tattoo.
+
+At the opposite end of the village street from the Y. M. C. A. hut was
+a cube-shaped house set a little apart from the rest in the middle of a
+broad lawn which the constant crossing and recrossing of a staff of cars
+and trains of motor trucks had turned into a muddy morass in which the
+wheel tracks crisscrossed in every direction. A narrow board walk led
+from the main road to the door. In the middle of this walk Andrews met a
+captain and automatically got off into the mud and saluted.
+
+The regimental office was a large room that had once been decorated by
+wan and ill-drawn mural paintings in the manner of Puvis de Chavannes,
+but the walls had been so chipped and soiled by five years of military
+occupation that they were barely recognisable. Only a few bits of bare
+flesh and floating drapery showed here and there above the maps and
+notices that were tacked on the walls. At the end of the room a group of
+nymphs in Nile green and pastel blue could be seen emerging from under a
+French War Loan poster. The ceiling was adorned with an oval of flowers
+and little plaster cupids in low relief which had also suffered and in
+places showed the laths. The office was nearly empty. The littered desks
+and silent typewriters gave a strange air of desolation to the gutted
+drawing-room. Andrews walked boldly to the furthest desk, where a
+little red card leaning against the typewriter said “Regimental
+Sergeant-Major.”
+
+Behind the desk, crouched over a heap of typewritten reports, sat a
+little man with scanty sandy hair, who screwed up his eyes and smiled
+when Andrews approached the desk.
+
+“Well, did you fix it up for me?” he asked.
+
+“Fix what?” said Andrews.
+
+“Oh, I thought you were someone else.” The smile left the regimental
+sergeant-major's thin lips. “What do you want?”
+
+“Why, Regimental Sergeant-Major, can you tell me anything about a scheme
+to send enlisted men to colleges over here? Can you tell me who to apply
+to?”
+
+“According to what general orders? And who told you to come and see me
+about it, anyway?”
+
+“Have you heard anything about it?”
+
+“No, nothing definite. I'm busy now anyway. Ask one of your own non-coms
+to find out about it.” He crouched once more over the papers.
+
+Andrews was walking towards the door, flushing with annoyance, when he
+saw that the man at the desk by the window was jerking his head in a
+peculiar manner, just in the direction of the regimental sergeant-major
+and then towards the door. Andrews smiled at him and nodded. Outside
+the door, where an orderly sat on a short bench reading a torn Saturday
+Evening Post, Andrews waited. The hall was part of what must have been
+a ballroom, for it had a much-scarred hardwood floor and big spaces of
+bare plaster framed by gilt-and lavender-colored mouldings, which had
+probably held tapestries. The partition of unplaned boards that formed
+other offices cut off the major part of a highly decorated ceiling where
+cupids with crimson-daubed bottoms swam in all attitudes in a sea of
+pink-and blue-and lavender-colored clouds, wreathing themselves coyly in
+heavy garlands of waxy hothouse flowers, while cornucopias spilling
+out squashy fruits gave Andrews a feeling of distinct insecurity as he
+looked up from below.
+
+“Say are you a Kappa Mu?”
+
+Andrews looked down suddenly and saw in front of him the man who had
+signalled to him in the regimental sergeant-major's office.
+
+“Are you a Kappa Mu?” he asked again.
+
+“No, not that I know of,” stammered Andrews puzzled.
+
+“What school did you go to?”
+
+“Harvard.”
+
+“Harvard.... Guess we haven't got a chapter there.... I'm from North
+Western. Anyway you want to go to school in France here if you can. So
+do I.”
+
+“Don't you want to come and have a drink?”
+
+The man frowned, pulled his overseas cap down over his forehead, where
+the hair grew very low, and looked about him mysteriously. “Yes,” he
+said.
+
+They splashed together down the muddy village street. “We've got
+thirteen minutes before tattoo.... My name's Walters, what's yours?” He
+spoke in a low voice in short staccato phrases.
+
+“Andrews.”
+
+“Andrews, you've got to keep this dark. If everybody finds out about it
+we're through. It's a shame you're not a Kappa Mu, but college men have
+got to stick together, that's the way I look at it.”
+
+“Oh, I'll keep it dark enough,” said Andrews.
+
+“It's too good to be true. The general order isn't out yet, but I've
+seen a preliminary circular. What school d'you want to go to?”
+
+“Sorbonne, Paris.”
+
+“That's the stuff. D'you know the back room at Baboon's?”
+
+Walters turned suddenly to the left up an alley, and broke through a
+hole in a hawthorn hedge.
+
+“A guy's got to keep his eyes and ears open if he wants to get anywhere
+in this army,” he said.
+
+As they ducked in the back door of a cottage, Andrews caught a glimpse
+of the billowy line of a tile roof against the lighter darkness of the
+sky. They sat down on a bench built into a chimney where a few sticks
+made a splutter of flames.
+
+“Monsieur desire?” A red-faced girl with a baby in her arms came up to
+them.
+
+“That's Babette; Baboon I call her,” said Walters with a laugh.
+
+“Chocolat,” said Walters.
+
+“That'll suit me all right. It's my treat, remember.”
+
+“I'm not forgetting it. Now let's get to business. What you do is this.
+You write an application. I'll make that out for you on the typewriter
+tomorrow and you meet me here at eight tomorrow night and I'll give it
+to you.... You sign it at once and hand it in to your sergeant. See?”
+
+“This'll just be a preliminary application; when the order's out you'll
+have to make another.”
+
+The woman, this time without the baby, appeared out of the darkness
+of the room with a candle and two cracked bowls from which steam rose,
+faint primrose-color in the candle light. Walters drank his bowl down at
+a gulp, grunted and went on talking.
+
+“Give me a cigarette, will you?... You'll have to make it out darn soon
+too, because once the order's out every son of a gun in the division'll
+be making out to be a college man. How did you get your tip?”
+
+“From a fellow in Paris.”
+
+“You've been to Paris, have you?” said Walters admiringly. “Is it the
+way they say it is? Gee, these French are immoral. Look at this woman
+here. She'll sleep with a feller soon as not. Got a baby too!”
+
+“But who do the applications go in to?”
+
+“To the colonel, or whoever he appoints to handle it. You a Catholic?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Neither am I. That's the hell of it. The regimental sergeant-major is.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“I guess you haven't noticed the way things run up at divisional
+headquarters. It's a regular cathedral. Isn't a mason in it.... But I
+must beat it.... Better pretend you don't know me if you meet me on the
+street; see?”
+
+“All right.”
+
+Walters hurried out of the door. Andrews sat alone looking at the
+flutter of little flames about the pile of sticks on the hearth, while
+he sipped chocolate from the warm bowl held between the palms of both
+hands.
+
+He remembered a speech out of some very bad romantic play he had heard
+when he was very small.
+
+“About your head I fling... the curse of Rome.”
+
+He started to laugh, sliding back and forth on the smooth bench which
+had been polished by the breeches of generations warming their feet at
+the fire. The red-faced woman stood with her hands on her hips looking
+at him in astonishment, while he laughed and laughed.
+
+“Mais quelle gaite, quelle gaite,” she kept saying.
+
+
+
+The straw under him rustled faintly with every sleepy movement Andrews
+made in his blankets. In a minute the bugle was going to blow and he was
+going to jump out of his blankets, throw on his clothes and fall into
+line for roll call in the black mud of the village street. It couldn't
+be that only a month had gone by since he had got back from hospital.
+No, he had spent a lifetime in this village being dragged out of his
+warm blankets every morning by the bugle, shivering as he stood in line
+for roll call, shuffling in a line that moved slowly past the cookshack,
+shuffling along in another line to throw what was left of his food into
+garbage cans, to wash his mess kit in the greasy water a hundred other
+men had washed their mess kits in; lining up to drill, to march on along
+muddy roads, splattered by the endless trains of motor trucks; lining up
+twice more for mess, and at last being forced by another bugle into his
+blankets again to sleep heavily while a smell hung in his nostrils of
+sweating woolen clothing and breathed-out air and dusty blankets. In
+a minute the bugle was going to blow, to snatch him out of even these
+miserable thoughts, and throw him into an automaton under other men's
+orders. Childish spiteful desires surged into his mind. If the bugler
+would only die. He could picture him, a little man with a broad face and
+putty-colored cheeks, a small rusty mustache and bow-legs lying like a
+calf on a marble slab in a butcher's shop on top of his blankets. What
+nonsense! There were other buglers. He wondered how many buglers there
+were in the army. He could picture them all, in dirty little villages,
+in stone barracks, in towns, in great camps that served the country
+for miles with rows of black warehouses and narrow barrack buildings
+standing with their feet a little apart; giving their little brass
+bugles a preliminary tap before putting out their cheeks and blowing in
+them and stealing a million and a half (or was it two million or three
+million) lives, and throwing the warm sentient bodies into coarse
+automatons who must be kept busy, lest they grow restive, till killing
+time began again.
+
+The bugle blew with the last jaunty notes, a stir went through the barn.
+
+Corporal Chrisfield stood on the ladder that led up from the yard, his
+head on a level with the floor shouting:
+
+“Shake it up, fellers! If a guy's late to roll call, it's K. P. for a
+week.”
+
+As Andrews, while buttoning his tunic, passed him on the ladder, he
+whispered:
+
+“Tell me we're going to see service again, Andy... Army o' Occupation.”
+
+While he stood stiffly at attention waiting to answer when the sergeant
+called his name, Andrews's mind was whirling in crazy circles of
+anxiety. What if they should leave before the General Order came on
+the University plan? The application would certainly be lost in the
+confusion of moving the Division, and he would be condemned to keep up
+this life for more dreary weeks and months. Would any years of work and
+happiness in some future existence make up for the humiliating agony of
+this servitude?
+
+“Dismissed!”
+
+He ran up the ladder to fetch his mess kit and in a few minutes was in
+line again in the rutted village street where the grey houses were just
+forming outlines as light crept slowly into the leaden sky, while a
+faint odor of bacon and coffee came to him, making him eager for food,
+eager to drown his thoughts in the heaviness of swiftly-eaten greasy
+food and in the warmth of watery coffee gulped down out of a tin-curved
+cup. He was telling himself desperately that he must do something--that
+he must make an effort to save himself, that he must fight against the
+deadening routine that numbed him.
+
+Later, while he was sweeping the rough board floor of the company's
+quarters, the theme came to him which had come to him long ago, in a
+former incarnation it seemed, when he was smearing windows with soap
+from a gritty sponge along the endless side of the barracks in the
+training camp. Time and time again in the past year he had thought of
+it, and dreamed of weaving it into a fabric of sound which would express
+the trudging monotony of days bowed under the yoke. “Under the
+Yoke”; that would be a title for it. He imagined the sharp tap of
+the conductor's baton, the silence of a crowded hall, the first notes
+rasping bitterly upon the tense ears of men and women. But as he tried
+to concentrate his mind on the music, other things intruded upon it,
+blurred it. He kept feeling the rhythm of the Queen of Sheba slipping
+from the shoulders of her gaudily caparisoned elephant, advancing
+towards him through the torchlight, putting her hand, fantastic with
+rings and long gilded fingernails, upon his shoulders so that ripples
+of delight, at all the voluptuous images of his desire, went through his
+whole body, making it quiver like a flame with yearning for unimaginable
+things. It all muddled into fantastic gibberish--into sounds of horns
+and trombones and double basses blown off key while a piccolo shrilled
+the first bars of “The Star Spangled Banner.”
+
+He had stopped sweeping and looked about him dazedly. He was alone.
+Outside, he heard a sharp voice call “Atten-shun!” He ran down the
+ladder and fell in at the end of the line under the angry glare of the
+lieutenant's small eyes, which were placed very close together on either
+side of a lean nose, black and hard, like the eyes of a crab.
+
+The company marched off through the mud to the drill field.
+
+
+
+After retreat Andrews knocked at the door at the back of the Y. M. C.
+A., but as there was no reply, he strode off with a long, determined
+stride to Sheffield's room.
+
+In the moment that elapsed between his knock and an answer, he could
+feel his heart thumping. A little sweat broke out on his temples.
+
+“Why, what's the matter, boy? You look all wrought up,” said Sheffield,
+holding the door half open, and blocking, with his lean form, entrance
+to the room.
+
+“May I come in? I want to talk to you,” said Andrews.
+
+“Oh, I suppose it'll be all right.... You see I have an officer with
+me...” then there was a flutter in Sheffield's voice. “Oh, do come in”;
+he went on, with sudden enthusiasm. “Lieutenant Bleezer is fond of music
+too.... Lieutenant, this is the boy I was telling you about. We must
+get him to play for us. If he had the opportunities, I am sure he'd be a
+famous musician.”
+
+Lieutenant Bleezer was a dark youth with a hooked nose and pincenez. His
+tunic was unbuttoned and he held a cigar in his hand. He smiled in an
+evident attempt to put this enlisted man at his ease.
+
+“Yes, I am very fond of music, modern music,” he said, leaning against
+the mantelpiece. “Are you a musician by profession?”
+
+“Not exactly... nearly.” Andrews thrust his hands into the bottoms of
+his trouser pockets and looked from one to the other with a certain
+defiance.
+
+“I suppose you've played in some orchestra? How is it you are not in the
+regimental band?”
+
+“No, except the Pierian.”
+
+“The Pierian? Were you at Harvard?”
+
+Andrews nodded.
+
+“So was I.”
+
+“Isn't that a coincidence?” said Sheffield. “I'm so glad I just insisted
+on your coming in.”
+
+“What year were you?” asked Lieutenant Bleezer, with a faint change of
+tone, drawing a finger along his scant black moustache.
+
+“Fifteen.”
+
+“I haven't graduated yet,” said the lieutenant with a laugh.
+
+“What I wanted to ask you, Mr. Sheffield....”
+
+“Oh, my boy; my boy, you know you've known me long enough to call me
+Spence,” broke in Sheffield.
+
+“I want to know,” went on Andrews speaking slowly, “can you help me to
+get put on the list to be sent to the University of Paris?... I know
+that a list has been made out, although the General Order has not come
+yet. I am disliked by most of the noncoms and I don't see how I can get
+on without somebody's help...I simply can't go this life any longer.”
+ Andrews closed his lips firmly and looked at the ground, his face
+flushing.
+
+“Well, a man of your attainments certainly ought to go,” said Lieutenant
+Bleezer, with a faint tremor of hesitation in his voice. “I'm going to
+Oxford myself.”
+
+“Trust me, my boy,” said Sheffield. “I'll fix it up for you, I promise.
+Let's shake hands on it.” He seized Andrews's hand and pressed it warmly
+in a moist palm. “If it's within human power, within human power,” he
+added.
+
+“Well, I must go,” said Lieutenant Bleezer, suddenly striding to the
+door. “I promised the Marquise I'd drop in. Good-bye.... Take a cigar,
+won't you?” He held out three cigars in the direction of Andrews.
+
+“No, thank you.”
+
+“Oh, don't you think the old aristocracy of France is just too
+wonderful? Lieutenant Bleezer goes almost every evening to call on
+the Marquise de Rompemouville. He says she is just too spirituelle for
+words.... He often meets the Commanding Officer there.”
+
+Andrews had dropped into a chair and sat with his face buried in his
+hands, looking through his fingers at the fire, where a few white
+fingers of flame were clutching intermittently at a grey beech log. His
+mind was searching desperately for expedients.
+
+He got to his feet and shouted shrilly:
+
+“I can't go this life any more, do you hear that? No possible future is
+worth all this. If I can get to Paris, all right. If not, I'll desert
+and damn the consequences.”
+
+“But I've already promised I'll do all I can....”
+
+“Well, do it now,” interrupted Andrews brutally.
+
+“All right, I'll go and see the colonel and tell him what a great
+musician you are.”
+
+“Let's go together, now.”
+
+“But that'll look queer, dear boy.”
+
+“I don't give a damn, come along.... You can talk to him. You seem to be
+thick with all the officers.”
+
+“You must wait till I tidy up,” said Sheffield.
+
+“All right.”
+
+Andrews strode up and down in the mud in front of the house, snapping
+his fingers with impatience, until Sheffield came out, then they walked
+off in silence.
+
+“Now wait outside a minute,” whispered Sheffield when they came to
+the white house with bare grapevines over the front, where the colonel
+lived.
+
+After a wait, Andrews found himself at the door of a brilliantly-lighted
+drawing room. There was a dense smell of cigar smoke. The colonel, an
+elderly man with a benevolent beard, stood before him with a coffee cup
+in his hand. Andrews saluted punctiliously.
+
+“They tell me you are quite a pianist.... Sorry I didn't know it
+before,” said the colonel in a kindly tone. “You want to go to Paris to
+study under this new scheme?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“What a shame I didn't know before. The list of the men going is all
+made out.... Of course perhaps at the last minute... if somebody else
+doesn't go... your name can go in.”
+
+The colonel smiled graciously and turned back into the room.
+
+“Thank you, Colonel,” said Andrews, saluting.
+
+Without a word to Sheffield, he strode off down the dark village street
+towards his quarters.
+
+
+
+Andrews stood on the broad village street, where the mud was nearly dry,
+and a wind streaked with warmth ruffled the few puddles; he was looking
+into the window of the cafe to see if there was anyone he knew inside
+from whom he could borrow money for a drink. It was two months since he
+had had any pay, and his pockets were empty. The sun had just set on a
+premature spring afternoon, flooding the sky and the grey houses and the
+tumultuous tiled roofs with warm violet light. The faint premonition of
+the stirring of life in the cold earth, that came to Andrews with every
+breath he drew of the sparkling wind, stung his dull boredom to fury. It
+was the first of March, he was telling himself over and over again.
+The fifteenth of February, he had expected to be in Paris, free, or
+half-free; at least able to work. It was the first of March and here
+he was still helpless, still tied to the monotonous wheel of routine,
+incapable of any real effort, spending his spare time wandering like a
+lost dog up and down this muddy street, from the Y. M. C. A. hut at one
+end of the village to the church and the fountain in the middle, and to
+the Divisional Headquarters at the other end, then back again, looking
+listlessly into windows, staring in people's faces without seeing
+them. He had given up all hope of being sent to Paris. He had given up
+thinking about it or about anything; the same dull irritation of despair
+droned constantly in his head, grinding round and round like a broken
+phonograph record.
+
+After looking a long while in the window of the cafe of the Braves
+Allies, he walked a little down the street and stood in the same
+position staring into the Repos du Poilu, where a large sign “American
+spoken” blocked up half the window. Two officers passed. His hand
+snapped up to the salute automatically, like a mechanical signal. It
+was nearly dark. After a while he began to feel serious coolness in the
+wind, shivered and started to wander aimlessly down the street.
+
+He recognised Walters coming towards him and was going to pass him
+without speaking when Walters bumped into him, muttered in his ear
+“Come to Baboon's,” and hurried off with his swift business-like stride.
+Andrews, stood irresolutely for a while with his head bent, then went
+with unresilient steps up the alley, through the hole in the hedge and
+into Babette's kitchen. There was no fire. He stared morosely at the
+grey ashes until he heard Walters's voice beside him:
+
+“I've got you all fixed up.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“Mean... are you asleep, Andrews? They've cut a name off the school list,
+that's all. Now if you shake a leg and somebody doesn't get in ahead of
+you, you'll be in Paris before you know it.”
+
+“That's damn decent of you to come and tell me.”
+
+“Here's your application,” said Walters, drawing a paper out of his
+pocket. “Take it to the colonel; get him to O. K. it and then rush it
+up to the sergeant-major's office yourself. They are making out travel
+orders now. So long.”
+
+Walters had vanished. Andrews was alone again, staring at the
+grey ashes. Suddenly he jumped to his feet and hurried off towards
+headquarters. In the anteroom to the colonel's office he waited a long
+while, looking at his boots that were thickly coated with mud.
+“Those boots will make a bad impression; those boots will make a bad
+impression,” a voice was saying over and over again inside of him. A
+lieutenant was also waiting to see the colonel, a young man with pink
+cheeks and a milky-white forehead, who held his hat in one hand with a
+pair of khaki-colored kid gloves, and kept passing a hand over his
+light well-brushed hair. Andrews felt dirty and ill-smelling in his
+badly-fitting uniform. The sight of this perfect young man in his
+whipcord breeches, with his manicured nails and immaculately polished
+puttees exasperated him. He would have liked to fight him, to prove that
+he was the better man, to outwit him, to make him forget his rank and
+his important air.... The lieutenant had gone in to see the colonel.
+Andrews found himself reading a chart of some sort tacked up on the
+wall. There were names and dates and figures, but he could not make out
+what it was about.
+
+“All right! Go ahead,” whispered the orderly to him; and he was standing
+with his cap in his hand before the colonel who was looking at him
+severely, fingering the papers he had on the desk with a heavily veined
+hand.
+
+Andrews saluted. The colonel made an impatient gesture.
+
+“May I speak to you, Colonel, about the school scheme?”
+
+“I suppose you've got permission from somebody to come to me.”
+
+“No, sir.” Andrews's mind was struggling to find something to say.
+
+“Well, you'd better go and get it.”
+
+“But, Colonel, there isn't time; the travel orders are being made out
+at this minute. I've heard that there's been a name crossed out on the
+list.”
+
+“Too late.”
+
+“But, Colonel, you don't know how important it is. I am a musician by
+trade; if I can't get into practice again before being demobilized,
+I shan't be able to get a job.... I have a mother and an old aunt
+dependent on me. My family has seen better days, you see, sir. It's only
+by being high up in my profession that I can earn enough to give them
+what they are accustomed to. And a man in your position in the world,
+Colonel, must know what even a few months of study in Paris mean to a
+pianist.”
+
+The colonel smiled.
+
+“Let's see your application,” he said.
+
+Andrews handed it to him with a trembling hand. The colonel made a few
+marks on one corner with a pencil.
+
+“Now if you can get that to the sergeant-major in time to have your name
+included in the orders, well and good.”
+
+Andrews saluted, and hurried out. A sudden feeling of nausea had come
+over him. He was hardly able to control a mad desire to tear the paper
+up. “The sons of bitches... the sons of bitches,” he muttered to himself.
+Still he ran all the way to the square, isolated building where the
+regimental office was.
+
+He stopped panting in front of the desk that bore the little red card,
+Regimental Sergeant-Major. The regimental sergeant-major looked up at
+him enquiringly.
+
+“Here's an application for School at the Sorbonne, Sergeant. Colonel
+Wilkins told me to run up to you with it, said he was very anxious to
+have it go in at once.”
+
+“Too late,” said the regimental sergeant-major.
+
+“But the colonel said it had to go in.”
+
+“Can't help it.... Too late,” said the regimental sergeant-major.
+
+Andrews felt the room and the men in their olive-drab shirt sleeves at
+the typewriters and the three nymphs creeping from behind the French War
+Loan poster whirl round his head. Suddenly he heard a voice behind him:
+
+“Is the name Andrews, John, Sarge?”
+
+“How the hell should I know?” said the regimental sergeant-major.
+
+“Because I've got it in the orders already.... I don't know how it got
+in.” The voice was Walters's voice, staccatto and businesslike.
+
+“Well, then, why d'you want to bother me about it? Give me that paper.”
+ The regimental sergeant-major jerked the paper out of Andrews's hand and
+looked at it savagely.
+
+“All right, you leave tomorrow. A copy of the orders'll go to your
+company in the morning,” growled the regimental sergeant-major.
+
+Andrews looked hard at Walters as he went out, but got no glance in
+return. When he stood in the air again, disgust surged up within him,
+bitterer than before. The fury of his humiliation made tears start in
+his eyes. He walked away from the village down the main road, splashing
+carelessly through the puddles, slipping in the wet clay of the ditches.
+Something within him, like the voice of a wounded man swearing, was
+whining in his head long strings of filthy names. After walking a long
+while he stopped suddenly with his fists clenched. It was completely
+dark, the sky was faintly marbled by a moon behind the clouds. On both
+sides of the road rose the tall grey skeletons of poplars. When the
+sound of his footsteps stopped, he heard a faint lisp of running water.
+Standing still in the middle of the road, he felt his feelings gradually
+relax. He said aloud in a low voice several times: “You are a damn fool,
+John Andrews,” and started walking slowly and thoughtfully back to the
+village.
+
+
+
+                              V
+
+Andrews felt an arm put round his shoulder.
+
+“Ah've been to hell an' gone lookin' for you, Andy,” said Chrisfield's
+voice in his ear, jerking him out of the reverie he walked in. He could
+feel in his face Chrisfield's breath, heavy with cognac.
+
+“I'm going to Paris tomorrow, Chris,” said Andrews.
+
+“Ah know it, boy. Ah know it. That's why I was that right smart to
+talk to you.... You doan want to go to Paris.... Why doan ye come up to
+Germany with us? Tell me they live like kings up there.”
+
+“All right,” said Andrews, “let's go to the back room at Babette's.”
+
+Chrisfield hung on his shoulder, walking unsteadily beside him. At the
+hole in the hedge Chrisfield stumbled and nearly pulled them both down.
+They laughed, and still laughing staggered into the dark kitchen, where
+they found the red-faced woman with her baby sitting beside the fire
+with no other light than the flicker of the rare flames that shot up
+from a little mass of wood embers. The baby started crying shrilly when
+the two soldiers stamped in. The woman got up and, talking automatically
+to the baby all the while, went off to get a light and wine.
+
+Andrews looked at Chrisfield's face by the firelight. His cheeks had
+lost the faint childish roundness they had had when Andrews had first
+talked to him, sweeping up cigarette butts off the walk in front of the
+barracks at the training camp.
+
+“Ah tell you, boy, you ought to come with us to Germany... nauthin' but
+whores in Paris.”
+
+“The trouble is, Chris, that I don't want to live like a king, or a
+sergeant or a major-general.... I want to live like John Andrews.”
+
+“What yer goin' to do in Paris, Andy?”
+
+“Study music.”
+
+“Ah guess some day Ah'll go into a movie show an' when they turn on the
+lights, who'll Ah see but ma ole frien' Andy raggin' the scales on the
+pyaner.”
+
+“Something like that.... How d'you like being a corporal, Chris?”
+
+“O, Ah doan know.” Chrisfield spat on the floor between his feet. “It's
+funny, ain't it? You an' me was right smart friends onct.... Guess it's
+bein' a non-com.”
+
+Andrews did not answer.
+
+Chrisfield sat silent with his eyes on the fire.
+
+“Well, Ah got him.... Gawd, it was easy,” he said suddenly.
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“Ah got him, that's all.”
+
+“You mean...?”
+
+Chrisfield nodded.
+
+“Um-hum, in the Oregon forest,” he said.
+
+Andrews said nothing. He felt suddenly very tired. He thought of men he
+had seen in attitudes of death.
+
+“Ah wouldn't ha' thought it had been so easy,” said Chrisfield.
+
+The woman came through the door at the end of the kitchen with a candle
+in her hand. Chrisfield stopped speaking suddenly.
+
+“Tomorrow I'm going to Paris,” cried Andrews boisterously. “It's the end
+of soldiering for me.”
+
+“Ah bet it'll be some sport in Germany, Andy.... Sarge says we'll be
+goin' up to Coab... what's its name?”
+
+“Coblenz.”
+
+Chrisfield poured a glass of wine out and drank it off, smacking his
+lips after it and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.
+
+“D'ye remember, Andy, we was both of us brushin' cigarette butts at that
+bloody trainin' camp when we first met up with each other?”
+
+“Considerable water has run under the bridge since then.”
+
+“Ah reckon we won't meet up again, mos' likely.”
+
+“Hell, why not?”
+
+They were silent again, staring at the fading embers of the fire. In the
+dim edge of the candlelight the woman stood with her hands on her hips,
+looking at them fixedly.
+
+“Reckon a feller wouldn't know what to do with himself if he did get out
+of the army... now, would he, Andy?”
+
+“So long, Chris. I'm beating it,” said Andrews in a harsh voice, jumping
+to his feet.
+
+“So long, Andy, ole man.... Ah'll pay for the drinks.” Chrisfield was
+beckoning with his hand to the red-faced woman, who advanced slowly
+through the candlelight.
+
+“Thanks, Chris.”
+
+Andrews strode away from the door. A cold, needle-like rain was falling.
+He pulled up his coat collar and ran down the muddy village street
+towards his quarters.
+
+
+
+
+                              VI
+
+In the opposite corner of the compartment Andrews could see Walters
+hunched up in an attitude of sleep, with his cap pulled down far over
+his eyes. His mouth was open, and his head wagged with the jolting of
+the train. The shade over the light plunged the compartment in dark-blue
+obscurity, which made the night sky outside the window and the shapes of
+trees and houses, evolving and pirouetting as they glided by, seem very
+near. Andrews felt no desire to sleep; he had sat a long time leaning
+his head against the frame of the window, looking out at the fleeing
+shadows and the occasional little red-green lights that darted by and
+the glow of the stations that flared for a moment and were lost in dark
+silhouettes of unlighted houses and skeleton trees and black hillsides.
+He was thinking how all the epochs in his life seemed to have been
+marked out by railway rides at night. The jolting rumble of the wheels
+made the blood go faster through his veins; made him feel acutely the
+clattering of the train along the gleaming rails, spurning fields and
+trees and houses, piling up miles and miles between the past and future.
+The gusts of cold night air when he opened the window and the faint
+whiffs of steam and coal gas that tingled in his nostrils excited him
+like a smile on a strange face seen for a moment in a crowded street.
+He did not think of what he had left behind. He was straining his eyes
+eagerly through the darkness towards the vivid life he was going to
+live. Boredom and abasement were over. He was free to work and hear
+music and make friends. He drew deep breaths; warm waves of vigor seemed
+flowing constantly from his lungs and throat to his finger tips and down
+through his body and the muscles of his legs. He looked at his watch:
+“One.” In six hours he would be in Paris. For six hours he would sit
+there looking out at the fleeting shadows of the countryside, feeling
+in his blood the eager throb of the train, rejoicing in every mile the
+train carried him away from things past.
+
+Walters still slept, half slipping off the seat, with his mouth open and
+his overcoat bundled round his head. Andrews looked out of the window,
+feeling in his nostrils the tingle of steam and coal gas. A phrase out
+of some translation of the Iliad came to his head: “Ambrosial night,
+Night ambrosial unending.” But better than sitting round a camp
+fire drinking wine and water and listening to the boastful yarns of
+long-haired Achaeans, was this hustling through the countryside away
+from the monotonous whine of past unhappiness, towards joyousness and
+life.
+
+Andrews began to think of the men he had left behind. They were asleep
+at this time of night, in barns and barracks, or else standing on guard
+with cold damp feet, and cold hands which the icy rifle barrel burned
+when they tended it. He might go far away out of sound of the tramp of
+marching, away from the smell of overcrowded barracks where men slept in
+rows like cattle, but he would still be one of them. He would not see an
+officer pass him without an unconscious movement of servility, he would
+not hear a bugle without feeling sick with hatred. If he could only
+express these thwarted lives, the miserable dullness of industrialized
+slaughter, it might have been almost worth while--for him; for the
+others, it would never be worth while. “But you're talking as if you
+were out of the woods; you're a soldier still, John Andrews.” The words
+formed themselves in his mind as vividly as if he had spoken them. He
+smiled bitterly and settled himself again to watch silhouettes of trees
+and hedges and houses and hillsides fleeing against the dark sky.
+
+When he awoke the sky was grey. The train was moving slowly, clattering
+loudly over switches, through a town of wet slate roofs that rose in
+fantastic patterns of shadow above the blue mist. Walters was smoking a
+cigarette.
+
+“God! These French trains are rotten,” he said when he noticed that
+Andrews was awake. “The most inefficient country I ever was in anyway.”
+
+“Inefficiency be damned,” broke in Andrews, jumping up and stretching
+himself. He opened the window. “The heating's too damned efficient.... I
+think we're near Paris.”
+
+The cold air, with a flavor of mist in it, poured into the stuffy
+compartment. Every breath was joy. Andrews felt a crazy buoyancy
+bubbling up in him. The rumbling clatter of the train wheels sang in his
+ears. He threw himself on his back on the dusty blue seat and kicked his
+heels in the air like a colt.
+
+“Liven up, for God's sake, man,” he shouted. “We're getting near Paris.”
+
+“We are lucky bastards,” said Walters, grinning, with the cigarette
+hanging out of the corner of his mouth. “I'm going to see if I can find
+the rest of the gang.”
+
+Andrews, alone in the compartment, found himself singing at the top of
+his lungs.
+
+As the day brightened the mist lifted off the flat linden-green fields
+intersected by rows of leafless poplars. Salmon-colored houses with blue
+roofs wore already a faintly citified air. They passed brick-kilns and
+clay-quarries, with reddish puddles of water in the bottom of them;
+crossed a jade-green river where a long file of canal boats with bright
+paint on their prows moved slowly. The engine whistled shrilly. They
+clattered through a small freight yard, and rows of suburban houses
+began to form, at first chaotically in broad patches of garden-land, and
+then in orderly ranks with streets between and shops at the corners. A
+dark-grey dripping wall rose up suddenly and blotted out the view. The
+train slowed down and went through several stations crowded with people
+on their way to work,--ordinary people in varied clothes with only here
+and there a blue or khaki uniform. Then there was more dark-grey wall,
+and the obscurity of wide bridges under which dusty oil lamps burned
+orange and red, making a gleam on the wet wall above them, and where the
+wheels clanged loudly. More freight yards and the train pulled slowly
+past other trains full of faces and silhouettes of people, to stop
+with a jerk in a station. And Andrews was standing on the grey cement
+platform, sniffing smells of lumber and merchandise and steam. His
+ungainly pack and blanket-roll he carried on his shoulder like a cross.
+He had left his rifle and cartridge belt carefully tucked out of sight
+under the seat.
+
+Walters and five other men straggled along the platform towards him,
+carrying or dragging their packs.
+
+There was a look of apprehension on Walters's face.
+
+“Well, what do we do now?” he said.
+
+“Do!” cried Andrews, and he burst out laughing.
+
+
+
+Prostrate bodies in olive drab hid the patch of tender green grass
+by the roadside. The company was resting. Chrisfield sat on a stump
+morosely whittling at a stick with a pocket knife. Judkins was stretched
+out beside him.
+
+“What the hell do they make us do this damn hikin' for, Corp?”
+
+“Guess they're askeered we'll forgit how to walk.”
+
+“Well, ain't it better than loafin' around yer billets all day, thinkin'
+an' cursin' an' wishin' ye was home?” spoke up the man who sat the other
+side, pounding down the tobacco in his pipe with a thick forefinger.
+
+“It makes me sick, trampin' round this way in ranks all day with the
+goddam frawgs starin' at us an'...”
+
+“They're laughin' at us, I bet,” broke in another voice.
+
+“We'll be movin' soon to the Army o' Occupation,” said Chrisfield
+cheerfully. “In Germany it'll be a reglar picnic.”
+
+“An' d'you know what that means?” burst out Judkins, sitting bolt
+upright. “D'you know how long the troops is goin' to stay in Germany?
+Fifteen years.”
+
+“Gawd, they couldn't keep us there that long, man.”
+
+“They can do anythin' they goddam please with us. We're the guys as is
+gettin' the raw end of this deal. It ain't the same with an' edicated
+guy like Andrews or Sergeant Coffin or them. They can suck around after
+'Y' men, an' officers an' get on the inside track, an' all we can do is
+stand up an' salute an' say 'Yes, lootenant' an' 'No, lootenant' an' let
+'em ride us all they goddam please. Ain't that gospel truth, corporal?”
+
+“Ah guess you're right, Judkie; we gits the raw end of the stick.”
+
+“That damn yellar dawg Andrews goes to Paris an' gets schoolin' free an'
+all that.”
+
+“Hell, Andy waren't yellar, Judkins.”
+
+“Well, why did he go bellyachin' around all the time like he knew more'n
+the lootenant did?”
+
+“Ah reckon he did,” said Chrisfield.
+
+“Anyway, you can't say that those guys who went to Paris did a goddam
+thing more'n any the rest of us did.... Gawd, I ain't even had a leave
+yet.”
+
+“Well, it ain't no use crabbin'.”
+
+“No, onct we git home an' folks know the way we've been treated,
+there'll be a great ole investigation. I can tell you that,” said one of
+the new men.
+
+“It makes you mad, though, to have something like that put over on
+ye.... Think of them guys in Paris, havin' a hell of a time with wine
+an' women, an' we stay out here an' clean our guns an' drill.... God,
+I'd like to get even with some of them guys.”
+
+The whistle blew. The patch of grass became unbroken green again as the
+men lined up along the side of the road.
+
+“Fall in!” called the Sergeant.
+
+“Atten-shun!”
+
+“Right dress!”
+
+“Front! God, you guys haven't got no snap in yer.... Stick yer belly in,
+you. You know better than to stand like that.”
+
+“Squads, right! March! Hep, hep, hep!”
+
+The Company tramped off along the muddy road. Their steps were all the
+same length. Their arms swung in the same rhythm. Their faces were cowed
+into the same expression, their thoughts were the same. The tramp, tramp
+of their steps died away along the road.
+
+Birds were singing among the budding trees. The young grass by the
+roadside kept the marks of the soldiers' bodies.
+
+
+
+
+PART FIVE: THE WORLD OUTSIDE
+
+
+Andrews, and six other men from his division, sat at a table outside the
+cafe opposite the Gare de l'Est. He leaned back in his chair with a
+cup of coffee lifted, looking across it at the stone houses with many
+balconies. Steam, scented of milk and coffee, rose from the cup as he
+sipped from it. His ears were full of a rumble of traffic and a clacking
+of heels as people walked briskly by along the damp pavements. For a
+while he did not hear what the men he was sitting with were saying. They
+talked and laughed, but he looked beyond their khaki uniforms and their
+boat-shaped caps unconsciously. He was taken up with the smell of the
+coffee and of the mist. A little rusty sunshine shone on the table of
+the cafe and on the thin varnish of wet mud that covered the asphalt
+pavement. Looking down the Avenue, away from the station, the houses,
+dark grey tending to greenish in the shadow and to violet in the sun,
+faded into a soft haze of distance. Dull gilt lettering glittered along
+black balconies. In the foreground were men and women walking briskly,
+their cheeks whipped a little into color by the rawness of the morning.
+The sky was a faintly roseate grey.
+
+Walters was speaking:
+
+“The first thing I want to see is the Eiffel Tower.”
+
+“Why d'you want to see that?” said the small sergeant with a black
+mustache and rings round his eyes like a monkey.
+
+“Why, man, don't you know that everything begins from the Eiffel
+Tower? If it weren't for the Eiffel Tower, there wouldn't be any
+sky-scrapers....”
+
+“How about the Flatiron Building and Brooklyn Bridge? They were built
+before the Eiffel Tower, weren't they?” interrupted the man from New
+York.
+
+“The Eiffel Tower's the first piece of complete girder construction in
+the whole world,” reiterated Walters dogmatically.
+
+“First thing I'm going to do's go to the Folies Berd-jairs; me for the
+w.w.'s.”
+
+“Better lay off the wild women, Bill,” said Walters.
+
+“I ain't goin' to look at a woman,” said the sergeant with the black
+mustache. “I guess I seen enough women in my time, anyway.... The war's
+over, anyway.”
+
+“You just wait, kid, till you fasten your lamps on a real Parizianne,”
+ said a burly, unshaven man with a corporal's stripes on his arm, roaring
+with laughter.
+
+Andrews lost track of the talk again, staring dreamily through
+half-closed eyes down the long straight street, where greens and violets
+and browns merged into a bluish grey monochrome at a little distance.
+He wanted to be alone, to wander at random through the city, to stare
+dreamily at people and things, to talk by chance to men and women, to
+sink his life into the misty sparkling life of the streets. The smell
+of the mist brought a memory to his mind. For a long while he groped for
+it, until suddenly he remembered his dinner with Henslowe and the faces
+of the boy and girl he had talked to on the Butte. He must find Henslowe
+at once. A second's fierce resentment went through him against all these
+people about him. Christ! He must get away from them all; his freedom
+had been hard enough won; he must enjoy it to the uttermost.
+
+“Say, I'm going to stick to you, Andy.” Walters's voice broke into his
+reverie. “I'm going to appoint you the corps of interpreters.”
+
+Andrews laughed.
+
+“D'you know the way to the School Headquarters?”
+
+“The R. T. O. said take the subway.”
+
+“I'm going to walk,” said Andrews.
+
+“You'll get lost, won't you?”
+
+“No danger, worse luck,” said Andrews, getting to his feet. “I'll see
+you fellows at the School Headquarters, whatever those are.... So long.”
+
+“Say, Andy, I'll wait for you there,” Walters called after him.
+
+Andrews darted down a side street. He could hardly keep from shouting
+aloud when he found himself alone, free, with days and days ahead of him
+to work and think, gradually to rid his limbs of the stiff attitudes
+of the automaton. The smell of the streets, and the mist, indefinably
+poignant, rose like incense smoke in fantastic spirals through his
+brain, making him hungry and dazzled, making his arms and legs feel
+lithe and as ready for delight as a crouching cat for a spring. His
+heavy shoes beat out a dance as they clattered on the wet pavements
+under his springy steps. He was walking very fast, stopping suddenly now
+and then to look at the greens and oranges and crimsons of vegetables in
+a push cart, to catch a vista down intricate streets, to look into the
+rich brown obscurity of a small wine shop where workmen stood at the
+counter sipping white wine. Oval, delicate faces, bearded faces of men,
+slightly gaunt faces of young women, red cheeks of boys, wrinkled faces
+of old women, whose ugliness seemed to have hidden in it, stirringly,
+all the beauty of youth and the tragedy of lives that had been
+lived; the faces of the people he passed moved him like rhythms of an
+orchestra. After much walking, turning always down the street which
+looked pleasantest, he came to an oval with a statue of a pompous
+personage on a ramping horse. “Place des Victoires,” he read the name,
+which gave him a faint tinge of amusement. He looked quizzically at the
+heroic features of the sun king and walked off laughing. “I suppose they
+did it better in those days, the grand manner,” he muttered. And his
+delight redoubled in rubbing shoulders with the people whose effigies
+would never appear astride ramping-eared horses in squares built to
+commemorate victories. He came out on a broad straight avenue, where
+there were many American officers he had to salute, and M. P.'s and
+shops with wide plate-glass windows, full of objects that had a shiny,
+expensive look. “Another case of victories,” he thought, as he went off
+into a side street, taking with him a glimpse of the bluish-grey pile of
+the Opera, with its pompous windows and its naked bronze ladies holding
+lamps.
+
+He was in a narrow street full of hotels and fashionable barber shops,
+from which came an odor of cosmopolitan perfumery, of casinos and
+ballrooms and diplomatic receptions, when he noticed an American officer
+coming towards him, reeling a little,--a tall, elderly man with a red
+face and a bottle nose. He saluted.
+
+The officer stopped still, swaying from side to side, and said in a
+whining voice:
+
+“Shonny, d'you know where Henry'sh Bar is?”
+
+“No, I don't, Major,” said Andrews, who felt himself enveloped in an
+odor of cocktails.
+
+“You'll help me to find it, shonny, won't you?... It's dreadful not to
+be able to find it.... I've got to meet Lootenant Trevors in Henry'sh
+Bar.” The major steadied himself by putting a hand on Andrews' shoulder.
+A civilian passed them.
+
+“Dee-donc,” shouted the major after him, “Dee-donc, Monshier, ou ay
+Henry'sh Bar?”
+
+The man walked on without answering.
+
+“Now isn't that like a frog, not to understand his own language?” said
+the major.
+
+“But there's Henry's Bar, right across the street,” said Andrews
+suddenly.
+
+“Bon, bon,” said the major.
+
+They crossed the street and went in. At the bar the major, still
+clinging to Andrews' shoulder, whispered in his ear: “I'm A. W. O. L.,
+shee?... Shee?.... Whole damn Air Service is A. W. O. L. Have a
+drink with me.... You enlisted man? Nobody cares here.... Warsh over,
+Sonny.... Democracy is shafe for the world.”
+
+Andrews was just raising a champagne cocktail to his lips, looking with
+amusement at the crowd of American officers and civilians who crowded
+into the small mahogany barroom, when a voice behind him drawled out:
+
+“I'll be damned!”
+
+Andrews turned and saw Henslowe's brown face and small silky mustache.
+He abandoned his major to his fate.
+
+“God, I'm glad to see you.... I was afraid you hadn't been able to work
+it.”...Said Henslowe slowly, stuttering a little.
+
+“I'm about crazy, Henny, with delight. I just got in a couple of hours
+ago....” Laughing, interrupting each other, they chattered in broken
+sentences.
+
+“But how in the name of everything did you get here?”
+
+“With the major?” said Andrews, laughing.
+
+“What the devil?”
+
+“Yes; that major,” whispered Andrews in his friend's ear, “rather the
+worse for wear, asked me to lead him to Henry's Bar and just fed me a
+cocktail in the memory of Democracy, late defunct.... But what are you
+doing here? It's not exactly... exotic.”
+
+“I came to see a man who was going to tell me how I could get to Rumania
+with the Red Cross.... But that can wait.... Let's get out of here. God,
+I was afraid you hadn't made it.”
+
+“I had to crawl on my belly and lick people's boots to do it.... God, it
+was low!... But here I am.”
+
+They were out in the street again, walking and gesticulating.
+
+“But 'Libertad, Libertad, allons, ma femme!' as Walt Whitman would have
+said,” shouted Andrews.
+
+“It's one grand and glorious feeling.... I've been here three days. My
+section's gone home; God bless them.”
+
+“But what do you have to do?”
+
+“Do? Nothing,” cried Henslowe. “Not a blooming bloody goddam thing! In
+fact, it's no use trying... the whole thing is such a mess you couldn't
+do anything if you wanted to.”
+
+“I want to go and talk to people at the Schola Cantorum.”
+
+“There'll be time for that. You'll never make anything out of music if
+you get serious-minded about it.”
+
+“Then, last but not least, I've got to get some money from somewhere.”
+
+“Now you're talking!” Henslowe pulled a burnt leather pocket book out
+of the inside of his tunic. “Monaco,” he said, tapping the pocket book,
+which was engraved with a pattern of dull red flowers. He pursed up
+his lips and pulled out some hundred franc notes, which he pushed into
+Andrews's hand.
+
+“Give me one of them,” said Andrews.
+
+“All or none.... They last about five minutes each.”
+
+“But it's so damn much to pay back.”
+
+“Pay it back--heavens!... Here take it and stop your talking. I probably
+won't have it again, so you'd better make hay this time. I warn you
+it'll be spent by the end of the week.”
+
+“All right. I'm dead with hunger.”
+
+“Let's sit down on the Boulevard and think about where we'll have lunch
+to celebrate Miss Libertad.... But let's not call her that, sounds like
+Liverpool, Andy, a horrid place.”
+
+“How about Freiheit?” said Andrews, as they sat down in basket chairs in
+the reddish yellow sunlight.
+
+“Treasonable... off with your head.”
+
+“But think of it, man,” said Andrews, “the butchery's over, and you and
+I and everybody else will soon be human beings again. Human; all too
+human!”
+
+“No more than eighteen wars going,” muttered Henslowe.
+
+“I haven't seen any papers for an age.... How do you mean?”
+
+“People are fighting to beat the cats everywhere except on the' western
+front,” said Henslowe. “But that's where I come in. The Red Cross sends
+supply trains to keep them at it.... I'm going to Russia if I can work
+it.”
+
+“But what about the Sorbonne?”
+
+“The Sorbonne can go to Ballyhack.”
+
+“But, Henny, I'm going to croak on your hands if you don't take me
+somewhere to get some food.”
+
+“Do you want a solemn place with red plush or with salmon pink brocade?”
+
+“Why have a solemn place at all?”
+
+“Because solemnity and good food go together. It's only a religious
+restaurant that has a proper devotion to the belly. O, I know, we'll go
+over to Brooklyn.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“To the Rive Gauche. I know a man who insists on calling it Brooklyn.
+Awfully funny man... never been sober in his life. You must meet him.”
+
+“Oh, I want to.... It's a dog's age since I met anyone new, except you.
+I can't live without having a variegated crowd about, can you?”
+
+“You've got that right on this boulevard. Serbs, French, English,
+Americans, Australians, Rumanians, Tcheco-Slovaks; God, is there any
+uniform that isn't here?... I tell you, Andy, the war's been a great
+thing for the people who knew how to take advantage of it. Just look at
+their puttees.”
+
+“I guess they'll know how to make a good thing of the Peace too.”
+
+“Oh, that's going to be the best yet.... Come along. Let's be little
+devils and take a taxi.”
+
+“This certainly is the main street of Cosmopolis.”
+
+They threaded their way through the crowd, full of uniforms and glitter
+and bright colors, that moved in two streams up and down the wide
+sidewalk between the cafes and the boles of the bare trees. They climbed
+into a taxi, and lurched fast through streets where, in the misty
+sunlight, grey-green and grey-violet mingled with blues and pale lights
+as the colors mingle in a pigeon's breast feathers. They passed the
+leafless gardens of the Tuileries on one side, and the great inner
+Courts of the Louvre, with their purple mansard roofs and their high
+chimneys on the other, and saw for a second the river, dull jade green,
+and the plane trees splotched with brown and cream color along the
+quais, before they were lost in the narrow brownish-grey streets of the
+old quarters.
+
+“This is Paris; that was Cosmopolis,” said Henslowe.
+
+“I'm not particular, just at present,” cried Andrews gaily.
+
+The square in front of the Odeon was a splash of white and the collonade
+a blur of darkness as the cab swerved round the corner and along the
+edge of the Luxembourg, where, through the black iron fence, many brown
+and reddish colors in the intricate patterns of leafless twigs opened
+here and there on statues and balustrades and vistas of misty distances.
+The cab stopped with a jerk.
+
+“This is the Place des Medicis,” said Henslowe.
+
+At the end of a slanting street looking very flat, through the haze, was
+the dome of the Pantheon. In the middle of the square between the yellow
+trams and the green low busses, was a quiet pool, where the shadow of
+horizontals of the house fronts was reflected.
+
+They sat beside the window looking out at the square.
+
+Henslowe ordered.
+
+“Remember how sentimental history books used to talk about prisoners who
+were let out after years in dungeons, not being able to stand it, and
+going back to their cells?”
+
+“D'you like sole meuniere?”
+
+“Anything, or rather everything! But take it from me, that's all
+rubbish. Honestly I don't think I've ever been happier in my life....
+D'you know, Henslowe, there's something in you that is afraid to be
+happy.”
+
+“Don't be morbid.... There's only one real evil in the world: being
+somewhere without being able to get away;... I ordered beer. This is the
+only place in Paris where it's fit to drink.”
+
+“And I'm going to every blooming concert...Colonne-Lamoureux on Sunday,
+I know that.... The only evil in the world is not to be able to hear
+music or to make it.... These oysters are fit for Lucullus.”
+
+“Why not say fit for John Andrews and Bob Henslowe, damn it?... Why the
+ghosts of poor old dead Romans should be dragged in every time a man
+eats an oyster, I don't see. We're as fine specimens as they were. I
+swear I shan't let any old turned-toclay Lucullus outlive me, even if
+I've never eaten a lamprey.”
+
+“And why should you eat a lamp--chimney, Bob?” came a hoarse voice
+beside them.
+
+Andrews looked up into a round, white face with large grey eyes hidden
+behind thick steel-rimmed spectacles. Except for the eyes, the face had
+a vaguely Chinese air.
+
+“Hello, Heinz! Mr. Andrews, Mr. Heineman,” said Henslowe.
+
+“Glad to meet you,” said Heineman in a jovially hoarse voice. “You guys
+seem to be overeating, to reckon by the way things are piled up on the
+table.” Through the hoarseness Andrews could detect a faint Yankee tang
+in Heineman's voice.
+
+“You'd better sit down and help us,” said Henslowe.
+
+“Sure....D'you know my name for this guy?” He turned to Andrews....
+“Sinbad!”
+
+“Sinbad was in bad in Tokio and Rome, In bad in Trinidad
+ And twice as bad at home.”
+
+He sang the words loudly, waving a bread stick to keep time.
+
+“Shut up, Heinz, or you'll get us run out of here the way you got us run
+out of the Olympia that night.”
+
+They both laughed.
+
+“An' d'you remember Monsieur Le Guy with his coat?
+
+“Do I? God!” They laughed till the tears ran down their cheeks. Heineman
+took off his glasses and wiped them. He turned to Andrews.
+
+“Oh, Paris is the best yet. First absurdity: the Peace Conference and
+its nine hundred and ninety-nine branches. Second absurdity: spies.
+Third: American officers A.W.O.L. Fourth: The seven sisters sworn to
+slay.” He broke out laughing again, his chunky body rolling about on the
+chair.
+
+“What are they?”
+
+“Three of them have sworn to slay Sinbad, and four of them have sworn to
+slay me.... But that's too complicated to tell at lunch time....
+Eighth: there are the lady relievers, Sinbad's specialty. Ninth: there's
+Sinbad....”
+
+“Shut up, Heinz, you're getting me maudlin,” spluttered Henslowe.
+
+“O Sinbad was in bad all around,” chanted Heineman. “But no one's given
+me anything to drink,” he said suddenly in a petulant voice. “Garcon,
+une bouteille de Macon, pour un Cadet de Gascogne.... What's the next?
+It ends with vergogne. You've seen the play, haven't you? Greatest play
+going.... Seen it twice sober and seven other times.”
+
+“Cyrano de Bergerac?”
+
+“That's it. Nous sommes les Cadets de Gasgogne, rhymes with ivrogne and
+sans vergogne.... You see I work in the Red Cross.... You know Sinbad,
+old Peterson's a brick.... I'm supposed to be taking photographs of
+tubercular children at this minute.... The noblest of my professions
+is that of artistic photographer.... Borrowed the photographs from the
+rickets man. So I have nothing to do for three months and five hundred
+francs travelling expenses. Oh, children, my only prayer is 'give us
+this day our red worker's permit' and the Red Cross does the rest.”
+ Heineman laughed till the glasses rang on the table. He took off his
+glasses and wiped them with a rueful air.
+
+“So now I call the Red Cross the Cadets!” cried Heineman, his voice a
+thin shriek from laughter.
+
+Andrews was drinking his coffee in little sips, looking out of the
+window at the people that passed. An old woman with a stand of flowers
+sat on a small cane chair at the corner. The pink and yellow and
+blue-violet shades of the flowers seemed to intensify the misty straw
+color and azured grey of the wintry sun and shadow of the streets. A
+girl in a tight-fitting black dress and black hat stopped at the stand
+to buy a bunch of pale yellow daisies, and then walked slowly past the
+window of the restaurant in the direction of the gardens. Her ivory
+face and slender body and her very dark eyes sent a sudden flush through
+Andrews's whole frame as he looked at her. The black erect figure
+disappeared in the gate of the gardens.
+
+Andrews got to his feet suddenly.
+
+“I've got to go,” he said in a strange voice.... “I just remember a man
+was waiting for me at the School Headquarters.”
+
+“Let him wait.”
+
+“Why, you haven't had a liqueur yet,” cried Heineman.
+
+“No... but where can I meet you people later?”
+
+“Cafe de Rohan at five... opposite the Palais Royal.”
+
+“You'll never find it.”
+
+“Yes I will,” said Andrews.
+
+“Palais Royal metro station,” they shouted after him as he dashed out of
+the door.
+
+He hurried into the gardens. Many people sat on benches in the frail
+sunlight. Children in bright-colored clothes ran about chasing hoops. A
+woman paraded a bunch of toy balloons in carmine and green and purple,
+like a huge bunch of parti-colored grapes inverted above her head.
+Andrews walked up and down the alleys, scanning faces. The girl had
+disappeared. He leaned against a grey balustrade and looked down
+into the empty pond where traces of the explosion of a Bertha still
+subsisted. He was telling himself that he was a fool. That even if he
+had found her he could not have spoken to her; just because he was free
+for a day or two from the army he needn't think the age of gold had come
+back to earth. Smiling at the thought, he walked across the gardens,
+wandered through some streets of old houses in grey and white stucco
+with slate mansard roofs and fantastic complications of chimney-pots
+till he came out in front of a church with a new classic facade of huge
+columns that seemed toppling by their own weight.
+
+He asked a woman selling newspapers what the church's name was. “Mais,
+Monsieur, c'est Saint Sulpice,” said the woman in a surprised tone.
+
+Saint Sulpice. Manon's songs came to his head, and the sentimental
+melancholy of eighteenth century Paris with its gambling houses in the
+Palais Royal where people dishonored themselves in the presence of their
+stern Catonian fathers, and its billets doux written at little gilt
+tables, and its coaches lumbering in covered with mud from the provinces
+through the Porte d'Orleans and the Porte de Versailles; the Paris of
+Diderot and Voltaire and Jean-Jacques, with its muddy streets and its
+ordinaries where one ate bisques and larded pullets and souffles; a
+Paris full of mouldy gilt magnificence, full of pompous ennui of the
+past and insane hope of the future.
+
+He walked down a narrow, smoky street full of antique shops and old
+bookshops and came out unexpectedly on the river opposite the statue of
+Voltaire. The name on the corner was quai Malaquais. Andrews crossed and
+looked down for a long time at the river. Opposite, behind a lace-work
+of leafless trees, were the purplish roofs of the Louvre with their high
+peaks and their ranks and ranks of chimneys; behind him the old houses
+of the quai and the wing, topped by a balustrade with great grey stone
+urns of a domed building of which he did not know the name. Barges were
+coming upstream, the dense green water spuming under their blunt bows,
+towed by a little black tugboat with its chimney bent back to pass under
+the bridges. The tug gave a thin shrill whistle. Andrews started walking
+downstream. He crossed by the bridge at the corner of the Louvre, turned
+his back on the arch Napoleon built to receive the famous horses from
+St. Marc's,--a pinkish pastry-like affair--and walked through the
+Tuileries which were full of people strolling about or sitting in the
+sun, of doll-like children and nursemaids with elaborate white caps, of
+fluffy little dogs straining at the ends of leashes. Suddenly a peaceful
+sleepiness came over him. He sat down in the sun on a bench, watching,
+hardly seeing them, the people who passed to and fro casting long
+shadows. Voices and laughter came very softly to his ears above the
+distant stridency of traffic. From far away he heard for a few moments
+notes of a military band playing a march. The shadows of the trees
+were faint blue-grey in the ruddy yellow gravel. Shadows of people kept
+passing and repassing across them. He felt very languid and happy.
+
+Suddenly he started up; he had been dozing. He asked an old man with a
+beautifully pointed white beard the way to rue du Faubourg St. Honore.
+
+After losing his way a couple of times, he walked listlessly up some
+marble steps where a great many men in khaki were talking. Leaning
+against the doorpost was Walters. As he drew near Andrews heard him
+saying to the man next to him:
+
+“Why, the Eiffel tower was the first piece of complete girder
+construction ever built.... That's the first thing a feller who's wide
+awake ought to see.”
+
+“Tell me the Opery's the grandest thing to look at,” said the man next
+it.
+
+“If there's wine an' women there, me for it.”
+
+“An' don't forget the song.”
+
+“But that isn't interesting like the Eiffel tower is,” persisted
+Walters.
+
+“Say, Walters, I hope you haven't been waiting for me,” stammered
+Andrews.
+
+“No, I've been waiting in line to see the guy about courses.... I want
+to start this thing right.”
+
+“I guess I'll see them tomorrow,” said Andrews.
+
+“Say have you done anything about a room, Andy? Let's you and me be
+bunkies.”
+
+“All right.... But maybe you won't want to room where I do, Walters.”
+
+“Where's that? In the Latin Quarter?... You bet. I want to see some
+French life while I am about it.”
+
+“Well, it's too late to get a room to-day.”
+
+“I'm going to the 'Y' tonight anyway.”
+
+“I'll get a fellow I know to put me up.... Then tomorrow, we'll see.
+Well, so long,” said Andrews, moving away.
+
+“Wait. I'm coming with you.... We'll walk around town together.”
+
+“All right,” said Andrews.
+
+
+
+The rabbit was rather formless, very fluffy and had a glance of madness
+in its pink eye with a black center. It hopped like a sparrow along the
+pavement, emitting a rubber tube from its back, which went up to a bulb
+in a man's hand which the man pressed to make the rabbit hop. Yet the
+rabbit had an air of organic completeness. Andrews laughed inordinately
+when he first saw it. The vendor, who had a basket full of other such
+rabbits on his arm, saw Andrews laughing and drew timidly near to the
+table; he had a pink face with little, sensitive lips rather like a real
+rabbit's, and large frightened eyes of a wan brown.
+
+“Do you make them yourself?” asked Andrews, smiling.
+
+The man dropped his rabbit on the table with a negligent air.
+
+“Oh, oui, Monsieur, d'apres la nature.”
+
+He made the rabbit turn a somersault by suddenly pressing the bulb hard.
+Andrews laughed and the rabbit man laughed.
+
+“Think of a big strong man making his living that way,” said Walters,
+disgusted.
+
+“I do it all... de matiere premiere au profit de l'accapareur,” said the
+rabbit man.
+
+“Hello, Andy... late as hell.... I'm sorry,” said Henslowe, dropping down
+into a chair beside them. Andrews introduced Walters, the rabbit man
+took off his hat, bowed to the company and went off, making the rabbit
+hop before him along the edge of the curbstone.
+
+“What's happened to Heineman?”
+
+“Here he comes now,” said Henslowe.
+
+An open cab had driven up to the curb in front of the cafe. In it sat
+Heineman with a broad grin on his face and beside him a woman in a
+salmon-colored dress, ermine furs and an emerald-green hat. The cab
+drove off and Heineman, still grinning, walked up to the table.
+
+“Where's the lion cub?” asked Henslowe.
+
+“They say it's got pneumonia.”
+
+“Mr. Heineman. Mr. Walters.”
+
+The grin left Heineman's face; he said: “How do you do?” curtly, cast a
+furious glance at Andrews and settled himself in a chair.
+
+The sun had set. The sky was full of lilac and bright purple
+and carmine. Among the deep blue shadows lights were coming on,
+primrose-colored street lamps, violet arc lights, ruddy sheets of light
+poured out of shop windows.
+
+“Let's go inside. I'm cold as hell,” said Heineman crossly, and they
+filed in through the revolving door, followed by a waiter with their
+drinks.
+
+“I've been in the Red Cross all afternoon, Andy.... I think I am going
+to work that Roumania business.... Want to come?” said Henslowe in
+Andrews' ear.
+
+“If I can get hold of a piano and some lessons and the concerts keep up
+you won't be able to get me away from Paris with wild horses. No, sir,
+I want to see what Paris is like.... It's going to my head so it'll be
+weeks before I know what I think about it.”
+
+“Don't think about it.... Drink,” growled Heineman, scowling savagely.
+
+“That's two things I'm going to keep away from in Paris; drink and
+women.... And you can't have one without the other,” said Walters.
+
+“True enough.... You sure do need them both,” said Heineman.
+
+Andrews was not listening to their talk; twirling the stem of his
+glass of vermouth in his fingers, he was thinking of the Queen of
+Sheba slipping down from off the shoulders of her elephant, glistening
+fantastically with jewels in the light of crackling, resinous torches.
+Music was seeping up through his mind as the water seeps into a hole
+dug in the sand of the seashore. He could feel all through his body the
+tension of rhythms and phrases taking form, not quite to be seized as
+yet, still hovering on the borderland of consciousness. “From the
+girl at the cross-roads singing under her street-lamp to the patrician
+pulling roses to pieces from the height of her litter....All the
+imaginings of your desire....” He thought of the girl with skin like old
+ivory he had seen in the Place de Medicis. The Queen of Sheba's face
+was like that now in his imaginings, quiet and inscrutable. A sudden
+cymbal-clanging of joy made his heart thump hard. He was free now of the
+imaginings of his desire, to loll all day at cafe tables watching the
+tables move in changing patterns before him, to fill his mind and body
+with a reverberation of all the rhythms of men and women moving in the
+frieze of life before his eyes; no more like wooden automatons knowing
+only the motions of the drill manual, but supple and varied, full of
+force and tragedy.
+
+“For Heaven's sake let's beat it from here.... Gives me a pain this
+place does.” Heineman beat his fist on the table.
+
+“All right,” said Andrews, getting up with a yawn.
+
+Henslowe and Andrews walked off, leaving Walters to follow them with
+Heineman.
+
+“We're going to dine at Le Rat qui Danse,” said Henslowe, “an awfully
+funny place.... We just have time to walk there comfortably with an
+appetite.”
+
+They followed the long dimly-lighted Rue de Richelieu to the Boulevards,
+where they drifted a little while with the crowd. The glaring lights
+seemed to powder the air with gold. Cafes and the tables outside were
+crowded. There was an odor of vermouth and coffee and perfume and
+cigarette smoke mixed with the fumes of burnt gasoline from taxicabs.
+
+“Isn't this mad?” said Andrews.
+
+“It's always carnival at seven on the Grands Boulevards.”
+
+They started climbing the steep streets to Montmartre. At a corner
+they passed a hard-faced girl with rouge-smeared lips and overpowdered
+cheeks, laughing on the arm of an American soldier, who had a sallow
+face and dull-green eyes that glittered in the slanting light of a
+street-lamp.
+
+“Hello, Stein,” said Andrews.
+
+“Who's that?”
+
+“A fellow from our division, got here with me this morning.”
+
+“He's got curious lips for a Jew,” said Henslowe.
+
+At the fork of two slanting streets, they went into a restaurant that
+had small windows pasted over with red paper, through which the light
+came dimly. Inside were crowded oak tables and oak wainscoting with
+a shelf round the top, on which were shell-cans, a couple of skulls,
+several cracked majolica plates and a number of stuffed rats. The only
+people there were a fat woman and a man with long grey hair and beard
+who sat talking earnestly over two small glasses in the center of the
+room. A husky-looking waitress with a Dutch cap and apron hovered near
+the inner door from which came a great smell of fish frying in olive
+oil.
+
+“The cook here's from Marseilles,” said Henslowe, as they settled
+themselves at a table for four.
+
+“I wonder if the rest of them lost the way,” said Andrews.
+
+“More likely old Heinz stopped to have a drink,” said Henslowe. “Let's
+have some hors d'oeuvre while we are waiting.”
+
+The waitress brought a collection of boat-shaped plates of red salads
+and yellow salads and green salads and two little wooden tubs with
+herrings and anchovies.
+
+Henslowe stopped her as she was going, saying: “Rien de plus?”
+
+The waitress contemplated the array with a tragic air, her arms folded
+over her ample bosom. “Que voulez-vous, Monsieur, c'est l'armistice.”
+
+“The greatest fake about all this war business is the peace. I tell you,
+not till the hors d'oeuvre has been restored to its proper abundance and
+variety will I admit that the war's over.”
+
+The waitress tittered.
+
+“Things aren't what they used to be,” she said, going back to the
+kitchen.
+
+Heineman burst into the restaurant at that moment, slamming the door
+behind him so that the glass rang, and the fat woman and the hairy man
+started violently in their chairs. He tumbled into a place, grinning
+broadly.
+
+“And what have you done to Walters?”
+
+Heineman wiped his glasses meticulously.
+
+“Oh, he died of drinking raspberry shrub,” he said.... “Dee-dong peteet
+du ving de Bourgogne,” he shouted towards the waitress in his nasal
+French. Then he added: “Le Guy is coming in a minute, I just met him.”
+
+The restaurant was gradually filling up with men and women of very
+various costumes, with a good sprinkling of Americans in uniform and
+out.
+
+“God I hate people who don't drink,” cried Heineman, pouring out wine.
+“A man who don't drink just cumbers the earth.”
+
+“How are you going to take it in America when they have prohibition?”
+
+“Don't talk about it; here's le Guy. I wouldn't have him know I belong
+to a nation that prohibits good liquor.... Monsieur le Guy, Monsieur
+Henslowe et Monsieur Andrews,” he continued getting up ceremoniously. A
+little man with twirled mustaches and a small vandyke beard sat down at
+the fourth place. He had a faintly red nose and little twinkling eyes.
+
+“How glad I am,” he said, exposing his starched cuffs with a curious
+gesture, “to have some one to dine with! When one begins to get
+old loneliness is impossible. It is only youth that dares think....
+Afterwards one has only one thing to think about: old age.”
+
+“There's always work,” said Andrews.
+
+“Slavery. Any work is slavery. What is the use of freeing your intellect
+if you sell yourself again to the first bidder?”
+
+“Rot!” said Heineman, pouring out from a new bottle.
+
+Andrews had begun to notice the girl who sat at the next table, in
+front of a pale young soldier in French-blue who resembled her
+extraordinarily. She had high cheek bones and a forehead in which the
+modelling of the skull showed through the transparent, faintly-olive
+skin. Her heavy chestnut hair was coiled carelessly at the back of her
+head. She spoke very quietly, and pressed her lips together when she
+smiled. She ate quickly and neatly, like a cat.
+
+The restaurant had gradually filled up with people. The waitress and the
+patron, a fat man with a wide red sash coiled tightly round his waist,
+moved with difficulty among the crowded tables. A woman at a table in
+the corner, with dead white skin and drugged staring eyes, kept laughing
+hoarsely, leaning her head, in a hat with bedraggled white plumes,
+against the wall. There was a constant jingle of plates and glasses, and
+an oily fume of food and women's clothes and wine.
+
+“D'you want to know what I really did with your friend?” said Heineman,
+leaning towards Andrews.
+
+“I hope you didn't push him into the Seine.”
+
+“It was damn impolite.... But hell, it was damn impolite of him not to
+drink.... No use wasting time with a man who don't drink. I took him
+into a cafe and asked him to wait while I telephoned. I guess he's still
+waiting. One of the whoreiest cafes on the whole Boulevard Clichy.”
+ Heineman laughed uproariously and started explaining it in nasal French
+to M. le Guy.
+
+Andrews flushed with annoyance for a moment, but soon started laughing.
+Heineman had started singing again.
+
+     “O, Sinbad was in bad in Tokio and Rome,
+      In bad in Trinidad
+      And twice as bad at home,
+      O, Sinbad was in bad all around!”
+
+Everybody clapped. The white-faced woman in the corner cried “Bravo,
+Bravo,” in a shrill nightmare voice.
+
+Heineman bowed, his big grinning face bobbing up and down like the face
+of a Chinese figure in porcelain.
+
+“Lui est Sinbad,” he cried, pointing with a wide gesture towards
+Henslowe.
+
+“Give 'em some more, Heinz. Give them some more,” said Henslowe,
+laughing.
+
+     “Big brunettes with long stelets
+      On the shores of Italee,
+      Dutch girls with golden curls
+      Beside the Zuyder Zee...”
+
+Everybody cheered again; Andrews kept looking at the girl at the next
+table, whose face was red from laughter. She had a handkerchief pressed
+to her mouth, and kept saying in a low voice:
+
+“O qu'il est drole, celui-la.... O qu'il est drole.”
+
+Heineman picked up a glass and waved it in the air before drinking it
+off. Several people got up and filled it up from their bottles with
+white wine and red. The French soldier at the next table pulled an army
+canteen from under his chair and hung it round Heineman's neck.
+
+Heineman, his face crimson, bowed to all sides, more like a Chinese
+porcelain figure than ever, and started singing in all solemnity this
+time.
+
+     “Hulas and hulas would pucker up their lips,
+      He fell for their ball-bearing hips
+      For they were pips...”
+
+His chunky body swayed to the ragtime. The woman in the corner kept time
+with long white arms raised above her head.
+
+“Bet she's a snake charmer,” said Henslowe.
+
+     “O, wild woman loved that child
+      He would drive ten women wild!
+      O, Sinbad was in bad all around!”
+
+Heineman waved his arms, pointed again to Henslowe, and sank into his
+chair saying in the tones of a Shakespearean actor:
+
+“C'est lui Sinbad.”
+
+The girl hid her face on the tablecloth, shaken with laughter. Andrews
+could hear a convulsed little voice saying:
+
+“O qu'il est rigolo....”
+
+Heineman took off the canteen and handed it back to the French soldier.
+
+“Merci, Camarade,” he said solemnly.
+
+“Eh bien, Jeanne, c'est temps de ficher le camp,” said the French
+soldier to the girl. They got up. He shook hands with the Americans.
+Andrews caught the girl's eye and they both started laughing
+convulsively again. Andrews noticed how erect and supple she walked as
+his eyes followed her to the door.
+
+Andrews's party followed soon after.
+
+“We've got to hurry if we want to get to the Lapin Agile before
+closing... and I've got to have a drink,” said Heineman, still talking in
+his stagey Shakespearean voice.
+
+“Have you ever been on the stage?” asked Andrews.
+
+“What stage, sir? I'm in the last stages now, sir.... I am an artistic
+photographer and none other.... Moki and I are going into the movies
+together when they decide to have peace.”
+
+“Who's Moki?”
+
+“Moki Hadj is the lady in the salmon-colored dress,” said Henslowe, in a
+loud stage whisper in Andrews's ear. “They have a lion cub named Bubu.”
+
+“Our first born,” said Heineman with a wave of the hand.
+
+The streets were deserted. A thin ray of moonlight, bursting now and
+then through the heavy clouds, lit up low houses and roughly-cobbled
+streets and the flights of steps with rare dim lamps bracketed in house
+walls that led up to the Butte.
+
+There was a gendarme in front of the door of the Lapin Agile. The street
+was still full of groups that had just come out, American officers and
+Y.M.C.A, women with a sprinkling of the inhabitants of the region.
+
+“Now look, we're late,” groaned Heineman in a tearful voice.
+
+“Never mind, Heinz,” said Henslowe, “le Guy'll take us to see de
+Clocheville like he did last time, n'est pas, le Guy?” Then Andrews
+heard him add, talking to a man he had not seen before, “Come along
+Aubrey, I'll introduce you later.”
+
+They climbed further up the hill. There was a scent of wet gardens in
+the air, entirely silent except for the clatter of their feet on
+the cobbles. Heineman was dancing a sort of a jig at the head of the
+procession. They stopped before a tall cadaverous house and started
+climbing a rickety wooden stairway.
+
+“Talk about inside dope.... I got this from a man who's actually in the
+room when the Peace Conference meets.” Andrews heard Aubrey's voice with
+a Chicago burr in the r's behind him in the stairs.
+
+“Fine, let's hear it,” said Henslowe.
+
+“Did you say the Peace Conference took dope?” shouted Heineman, whose
+puffing could be heard as he climbed the dark stairs ahead of them.
+
+“Shut up, Heinz.”
+
+They stumbled over a raised doorstep into a large garret room with a
+tile floor, where a tall lean man in a monastic-looking dressing gown
+of some brown material received them. The only candle made all their
+shadows dance fantastically on the slanting white walls as they moved
+about. One side of the room had three big windows, with an occasional
+cracked pane mended with newspaper, stretching from floor to ceiling. In
+front of them were two couches with rugs piled on them. On the opposite
+wall was a confused mass of canvases piled one against the other,
+leaning helter skelter against the slanting wall of the room.
+
+     “C'est le bon vin, le bon vin,
+      C'est la chanson du vin.”
+
+chanted Heineman. Everybody settled themselves on couches. The lanky man
+in the brown dressing gown brought a table out of the shadow, put some
+black bottles and heavy glasses on it, and drew up a camp stool for
+himself.
+
+“He lives that way.... They say he never goes out. Stays here and
+paints, and when friends come in, he feeds them wine and charges them
+double,” said Henslowe. “That's how he lives.”
+
+The lanky man began taking bits of candle out of a drawer of the table
+and lighting them. Andrews saw that his feet and legs were bare below
+the frayed edge of the dressing gown. The candle light lit up the men's
+flushed faces and the crude banana yellows and arsenic greens of the
+canvases along the walls, against which jars full of paint brushes cast
+blurred shadows.
+
+“I was going to tell you, Henny,” said Aubrey, “the dope is that the
+President's going to leave the conference, going to call them all damn
+blackguards to their faces and walk out, with the band playing the
+'Internationale.'”
+
+“God, that's news,” cried Andrews.
+
+“If he does that he'll recognize the Soviets,” said Henslowe. “Me for
+the first Red Cross Mission that goes to save starving Russia.... Gee,
+that's great. I'll write you a postal from Moscow, Andy, if they haven't
+been abolished as delusions of the bourgeoisie.”
+
+“Hell, no.... I've got five hundred dollars' worth of Russian bonds that
+girl Vera gave me.... But worth five million, ten million, fifty million
+if the Czar gets back.... I'm backing the little white father,” cried
+Heineman. “Anyway Moki says he's alive; that Savaroffs got him locked up
+in a suite in the Ritz.... And Moki knows.”
+
+“Moki knows a damn lot, I'll admit that,” said Henslowe.
+
+“But just think of it,” said Aubrey, “that means world revolution with
+the United States at the head of it. What do you think of that?”
+
+“Moki doesn't think so,” said Heineman. “And Moki knows.”
+
+“She just knows what a lot of reactionary warlords tell her,” said
+Aubrey. “This man I was talking with at the Crillon--I wish I could tell
+you his name--heard it directly from...Well, you know who.” He turned
+to Henslowe, who smiled knowingly. “There's a mission in Russia at this
+minute making peace with Lenin.”
+
+“A goddam outrage!” cried Heineman, knocking a bottle off the table. The
+lanky man picked up the pieces patiently, without comment.
+
+“The new era is opening, men, I swear it is...” began Aubrey. “The
+old order is dissolving. It is going down under a weight of misery
+and crime.... This will be the first great gesture towards a newer and
+better world. There is no alternative. The chance will never come
+back. It is either for us to step courageously forward, or sink into
+unbelievable horrors of anarchy and civil war.... Peace or the dark ages
+again.”
+
+Andrews had felt for some time an uncontrollable sleepiness coming over
+him. He rolled himself on a rug and stretched out on the empty couch.
+The voices arguing, wrangling, enunciating emphatic phrases, dinned for
+a minute in his ears. He went to sleep.
+
+When Andrews woke up he found himself staring at the cracked plaster of
+an unfamiliar ceiling. For some moments he could not guess where he was.
+Henslowe was sleeping, wrapped in another rug, on the couch beside him.
+Except for Henslowe's breathing, there was complete silence. Floods
+of silvery-grey light poured in through the wide windows, behind which
+Andrews could see a sky full of bright dove-colored clouds. He sat up
+carefully. Some time in the night he must have taken off his tunic and
+boots and puttees, which were on the floor beside the couch. The tables
+with the bottles had gone and the lanky man was nowhere to be seen.
+
+Andrews went to the window in his stockinged feet. Paris way a
+slate-grey and dove-color lay spread out like a Turkish carpet, with a
+silvery band of mist where the river was, out of which the Eiffel
+Tower stood up like a man wading. Here and there blue smoke and brown
+spiralled up to lose itself in the faint canopy of brown fog that hung
+high above the houses. Andrews stood a long while leaning against the
+window frame, until he heard Henslowe's voice behind him:
+
+“Depuis le jour ou je me suis donnee.”
+
+“You look like 'Louise.'”
+
+Andrews turned round.
+
+Henslowe was sitting on the edge of the bed with his hair in disorder,
+combing his little silky mustache with a pocket comb.
+
+“Gee, I have a head,” he said. “My tongue feels like a nutmeg grater....
+Doesn't yours?”
+
+“No. I feel like a fighting cock.”
+
+“What do you say we go down to the Seine and have a bath in Benny
+Franklin's bathtub?”
+
+“Where's that? It sounds grand.”
+
+“Then we'll have the biggest breakfast ever.”
+
+“That's the right spirit.... Where's everybody gone to?”
+
+“Old Heinz has gone to his Moki, I guess, and Aubrey's gone to collect
+more dope at the Crillon. He says four in the morning when the drunks
+come home is the prime time for a newspaper man.”
+
+“And the Monkish man?”
+
+“Search me.”
+
+The streets were full of men and girls hurrying to work. Everything
+sparkled, had an air of being just scrubbed. They passed bakeries from
+which came a rich smell of fresh-baked bread. From cafes came whiffs
+of roasting coffee. They crossed through the markets that were full
+of heavy carts lumbering to and fro, and women with net bags full of
+vegetables. There was a pungent scent of crushed cabbage leaves and
+carrots and wet clay. The mist was raw and biting along the quais, and
+made the blood come into their cheeks and their hands stiff with cold.
+
+The bathhouse was a huge barge with a house built on it in a lozenge
+shape. They crossed to it by a little gangplank on which were a few
+geraniums in pots. The attendant gave them two rooms side by side on
+the lower deck, painted grey, with steamed over windows, through which
+Andrews caught glimpses of hurrying green water. He stripped his clothes
+off quickly. The tub was of copper varnished with some white metal
+inside. The water flowed in through two copper swans' necks. When
+Andrews stepped into the hot green water, a little window in the
+partition flew open and Henslowe shouted in to him:
+
+“Talk about modern conveniences. You can converse while you bathe!”
+
+Andrews scrubbed himself jauntily with a square piece of pink soap,
+splashing the water about like a small boy. He stood up and lathered
+himself all over and then let himself slide into the water, which
+splashed out over the floor.
+
+“Do you think you're a performing seal?” shouted Henslowe.
+
+“It's all so preposterous,” cried Andrews, going off into convulsions of
+laughter. “She has a lion cub named Bubu and Nicolas Romanoff lives
+in the Ritz, and the Revolution is scheduled for day after tomorrow at
+twelve noon.”
+
+“I'd put it about the first of May,” answered Henslowe, amid a sound of
+splashing. “Gee, it'd be great to be a people's Commissary.... You could
+go and revolute the grand Llama of Thibet.”
+
+“O, it's too deliciously preposterous,” cried Andrews, letting himself
+slide a second time into the bathtub.
+
+
+
+                              II
+
+Two M.P.'s passed outside the window. Andrews watched the yellow pigskin
+revolver cases until they were out of sight. He felt joyfully secure
+from them. The waiter, standing by the door with a napkin on his arm,
+gave him a sense of security so intense it made him laugh. On the marble
+table before him were a small glass of beer, a notebook full of ruled
+sheets of paper and a couple of yellow pencils. The beer, the color of
+topaz in the clear grey light that streamed in through the window, threw
+a pale yellow glow with a bright center on the table. Outside was the
+boulevard with a few people walking hurriedly. An empty market wagon
+passed now and then, rumbling loud. On a bench a woman in a black
+knitted shawl, with a bundle of newspapers in her knees, was counting
+sous with loving concentration.
+
+Andrews looked at his watch. He had an hour before going to the Schola
+Cantorum.
+
+He got to his feet, paid the waiter and strolled down the center of the
+boulevard, thinking smilingly of pages he had written, of pages he was
+going to write, filled with a sense of leisurely well-being. It was a
+grey morning with a little yellowish fog in the air. The pavements were
+damp, reflected women's dresses and men's legs and the angular
+outlines of taxicabs. From a flower stand with violets and red and pink
+carnations irregular blotches of color ran down into the brownish grey
+of the pavement. Andrews caught a faint smell of violets in the smell
+of the fog as he passed the flower stand and remembered suddenly that
+spring was coming. He would not miss a moment of this spring, he told
+himself; he would follow it step by step, from the first violets. Oh,
+how fully he must live now to make up for all the years he had wasted in
+his life.
+
+He kept on walking along the boulevard. He was remembering how he
+and the girl the soldier had called Jeanne had both kindled with
+uncontrollable laughter when their eyes had met that night in the
+restaurant. He wished he could go down the boulevard with a girl like
+that, laughing through the foggy morning.
+
+He wondered vaguely what part of Paris he was getting to, but was too
+happy to care. How beautifully long the hours were in the early morning!
+
+At a concert at the Salle Gaveau the day before he had heard Debussy's
+Nocturnes and Les Sirenes. Rhythms from them were the warp of all his
+thoughts. Against the background of the grey street and the brownish fog
+that hung a veil at the end of every vista he began to imagine rhythms
+of his own, modulations and phrases that grew brilliant and faded,
+that flapped for a while like gaudy banners above his head through the
+clatter of the street.
+
+He noticed that he was passing a long building with blank rows of
+windows, at the central door of which stood groups of American soldiers
+smoking. Unconsciously he hastened his steps, for fear of meeting an
+officer he would have to salute. He passed the men without looking at
+them.
+
+A voice detained him. “Say, Andrews.”
+
+When he turned he saw that a short man with curly hair, whose face,
+though familiar, he could not place, had left the group at the door and
+was coming towards him. “Hello, Andrews.... Your name's Andrews, ain't
+it?”
+
+“Yes.” Andrews shook his hand, trying to remember.
+
+“I'm Fuselli.... Remember? Last time I saw you you was goin' up to the
+lines on a train with Chrisfield.... Chris we used to call him.... At
+Cosne, don't you remember?”
+
+“Of course I do.”
+
+“Well, what's happened to Chris?”
+
+“He's a corporal now,” said Andrews.
+
+“Gee he is.... I'll be goddamned.... They was goin' to make me a
+corporal once.”
+
+Fuselli wore stained olive-drab breeches and badly rolled puttees; his
+shirt was open at the neck. From his blue denim jacket came a smell of
+stale grease that Andrews recognised; the smell of army kitchens. He had
+a momentary recollection of standing in line cold dark mornings and of
+the sound the food made slopping into mess kits.
+
+“Why didn't they make you a corporal, Fuselli?” Andrcws said, after a
+pause, in a constrained voice.
+
+“Hell, I got in wrong, I suppose.”
+
+They were leaning against the dusty house wall. Andrews looked at his
+feet. The mud of the pavement, splashing up on the wall, made an even
+dado along the bottom, on which Andrews scraped the toe of his shoe up
+and down.
+
+“Well, how's everything?” Andrews asked looking up suddenly.
+
+“I've been in a labor battalion. That's how everything is.”
+
+“God, that's tough luck!”
+
+Andrews wanted to go on. He had a sudden fear that he would be late. But
+he did not know how to break away.
+
+“I got sick,” said Fuselli grinning. “I guess I am yet, G. O. 42. It's a
+hell of a note the way they treat a feller... like he was lower than the
+dirt.”
+
+“Were you at Cosne all the time? That's damned rough luck, Fuselli.”
+
+“Cosne sure is a hell of a hole.... I guess you saw a lot of fighting.
+God! you must have been glad not to be in the goddam medics.”
+
+“I don't know that I'm glad I saw fighting.... Oh, yes, I suppose I am.”
+
+“You see, I had it a hell of a time before they found out. Courtmartial
+was damn stiff... after the armistice too.... Oh, God! why can't they let
+a feller go home?”
+
+A woman in a bright blue hat passed them. Andrews caught a glimpse of
+a white over-powdered face; her hips trembled like jelly under the blue
+skirt with each hard clack of her high heels on the pavement.
+
+“Gee, that looks like Jenny.... I'm glad she didn't see me....” Fuselli
+laughed. “Ought to 'a seen her one night last week. We were so dead
+drunk we just couldn't move.”
+
+“Isn't that bad for what's the matter with you?”
+
+“I don't give a damn now; what's the use?”
+
+“But God; man!” Andrews stopped himself suddenly. Then he said in a
+different voice, “What outfit are you in now?”
+
+“I'm on the permanent K.P. here,” Fuselli jerked his thumb towards the
+door of the building. “Not a bad job, off two days a week; no drill,
+good eats.... At least you get all you want.... But it surely has been
+hell emptying ash cans and shovelling coal an' now all they've done is
+dry me up.”
+
+“But you'll be goin' home soon now, won't you? They can't discharge you
+till they cure you.”
+
+“Damned if I know.... Some guys say a guy never can be cured....”
+
+“Don't you find K.P. work pretty damn dull?”
+
+“No worse than anything else. What are you doin' in Paris?”
+
+“School detachment.”
+
+“What's that?”
+
+“Men who wanted to study in the university, who managed to work it.”
+
+“Gee, I'm glad I ain't goin' to school again.”
+
+“Well, so long, Fuselli.”
+
+“So long, Andrews.”
+
+Fuselli turned and slouched back to the group of men at the door.
+Andrews hurried away. As he turned the corner he had a glimpse of
+Fuselli with his hands in his pockets and his legs crossed leaning
+against the wall behind the door of the barracks.
+
+
+
+                              III
+
+The darkness, where the rain fell through the vague halos of light round
+the street lamps, glittered with streaks of pale gold. Andrews's ears
+were full of the sound of racing gutters and spattering waterspouts, and
+of the hard unceasing beat of the rain on the pavements. It was after
+closing time. The corrugated shutters were drawn down, in front of cafe
+windows. Andrews's cap was wet; water trickled down his forehead and the
+sides of his nose, running into his eyes. His feet were soaked and he
+could feel the wet patches growing on his knees where they received the
+water running off his overcoat. The street stretched wide and dark ahead
+of him, with an occasional glimmer of greenish reflection from a lamp.
+As he walked, splashing with long strides through the rain, he noticed
+that he was keeping pace with a woman under an umbrella, a slender
+person who was hurrying with small resolute steps up the boulevard.
+When he saw her, a mad hope flamed suddenly through him. He remembered
+a vulgar little theatre and the crude light of a spot light. Through
+the paint and powder a girl's golden-brown skin had shone with a firm
+brilliance that made him think of wide sun-scorched uplands, and dancing
+figures on Greek vases. Since he had seen her two nights ago, he had
+thought of nothing else. He had feverishly found out her name. “Naya
+Selikoff!” A mad hope flared through him that this girl he was walking
+beside was the girl whose slender limbs moved in an endless frieze
+through his thoughts. He peered at her with eyes blurred with rain. What
+an ass he was! Of course it couldn't be; it was too early. She was
+on the stage at this minute. Other hungry eyes were staring at her
+slenderness, other hands were twitching to stroke her golden-brown skin.
+Walking under the steady downpour that stung his face and ears and sent
+a tiny cold trickle down his back, he felt a sudden dizziness of desire
+come over him. His hands, thrust to the bottom of his coat pockets,
+clutched convulsively. He felt that he would die, that his pounding
+blood vessels would burst. The bead curtains of rain rustled and tinkled
+about him, awakening his nerves, making his skin flash and tingle. In
+the gurgle of water in gutters and water spouts he could imagine he
+heard orchestras droning libidinous music. The feverish excitement of
+his senses began to create frenzied rhythms in his ears:
+
+“O ce pauvre poilu! Qu'il doit etre mouille” said a small tremulous
+voice beside him.
+
+He turned.
+
+The girl was offering him part of her umbrella.
+
+“O c'est un Americain!” she said again, still speaking as if to herself.
+
+“Mais ca ne vaut pas la peine.”
+
+“Mais oui, mais oui.”
+
+He stepped under the umbrella beside her.
+
+“But you must let me hold it.”
+
+“Bien.”
+
+As he took the umbrella he caught her eye. He stopped still in his
+tracks.
+
+“But you're the girl at the Rat qui Danse.”
+
+“And you were at the next table with the man who sang?”
+
+“How amusing!”
+
+“Et celui-la! O il etait rigolo....” She burst out laughing; her head,
+encased in a little round black hat, bobbed up and down under the
+umbrella. Andrews laughed too. Crossing the Boulevard St. Germain, a
+taxi nearly ran them down and splashed a great wave of mud over them.
+She clutched his arm and then stood roaring with laughter.
+
+“O quelle horreur! Quelle horreur!” she kept exclaiming.
+
+Andrews laughed and laughed.
+
+“But hold the umbrella over us.... You're letting the rain in on my best
+hat,” she said again.
+
+“Your name is Jeanne,” said Andrews.
+
+“Impertinent! You heard my brother call me that.... He went back to the
+front that night, poor little chap.... He's only nineteen ... he's very
+clever.... O, how happy I am now that the war's over.”
+
+“You are older than he?”
+
+“Two years.... I am the head of the family.... It is a dignified
+position.”
+
+“Have you always lived in Paris?”
+
+“No, we are from Laon.... It's the war.”
+
+“Refugees?”
+
+“Don't call us that.... We work.”
+
+Andrews laughed.
+
+“Are you going far?” she asked peering in his face.
+
+“No, I live up here.... My name is the same as yours.”
+
+“Jean? How funny!”
+
+“Where are you going?”
+
+“Rue Descartes.... Behind St. Etienne.”
+
+“I live near you.”
+
+“But you mustn't come. The concierge is a tigress.... Etienne calls her
+Mme. Clemenceau.”
+
+“Who? The saint?”
+
+“No, you silly--my brother. He is a socialist. He's a typesetter at
+l'Humanite.”
+
+“Really? I often read l'Humanite.”
+
+“Poor boy, he used to swear he'd never go in the army. He thought of
+going to America.”
+
+“That wouldn't do him any good now,” said Andrews bitterly. “What do you
+do?”
+
+“I?” a gruff bitterness came into her voice. “Why should I tell you? I
+work at a dressmaker's.”
+
+“Like Louise?”
+
+“You've heard Louise? Oh, how I cried.”
+
+“Why did it make you sad?”
+
+“Oh, I don't know.... But I'm learning stenography.... But here we are!”
+
+The great bulk of the Pantheon stood up dimly through the rain beside
+them. In front the tower of St. Etienne-du-Mont was just visible. The
+rain roared about them.
+
+“Oh, how wet I am!” said Jeanne.
+
+“Look, they are giving Louise day after tomorrow at the Opera
+Comique.... Won't you come; with me?”
+
+“No, I should cry too much.”
+
+“I'll cry too.”
+
+“But it's not...”
+
+“Cest l'armistice,” interrupted Andrews.
+
+They both laughed!
+
+“All right! Meet me at the cafe at the end of the Boul' Mich' at a
+quarter past seven.... But you probably won't come.”
+
+“I swear I will,” cried Andrews eagerly.
+
+“We'll see!” She darted away down the street beside St. Etienne-du-Mont.
+Andrews was left alone amid the seethe of the rain and the tumultuous
+gurgle of water-spouts. He felt calm and tired.
+
+When he got to his room, he found he had no matches in his pocket.
+No light came from the window through which he could hear the hissing
+clamor of the rain in the court. He stumbled over a chair.
+
+“Are you drunk?” came Walters's voice swathed in bedclothes. “There are
+matches on the table.”
+
+“But where the hell's the table?”
+
+At last his hand, groping over the table, closed on the matchbox.
+
+The match's red and white flicker dazzled him. He blinked his eyes; the
+lashes were still full of raindrops. When he had lit a candle and set
+it amongst the music papers upon the table, he tore off his dripping
+clothes.
+
+“I just met the most charming girl, Walters,” Andrews stood naked beside
+the pile of his clothes, rubbing himself with a towel. “Gee! I was
+wet.... But she was the most charming person I've met since I've been in
+Paris.”
+
+“I thought you said you let the girls alone.”
+
+“Whores, I must have said.”
+
+“Well! Any girl you could pick up on the street....”
+
+“Nonsense!”
+
+“I guess they are all that way in this damned country.... God, it will
+do me good to see a nice sweet wholesome American girl.”
+
+Andrews did not answer. He blew out the light and got into bed.
+
+“But I've got a new job,” Walters went on. “I'm working in the school
+detachment office.”
+
+“Why the hell do that? You came here to take courses in the Sorbonne,
+didn't you?”
+
+“Sure. I go to most of them now. But in this army I like to be in the
+middle of things, see? Just so they can't put anything over on me.”
+
+“There's something in that.”
+
+“There's a damn lot in it, boy. The only way is to keep in right and not
+let the man higher up forget you.... Why, we may start fighting again.
+These damn Germans ain't showin' the right spirit at all... after all
+the President's done for them. I expect to get my sergeantcy out of it
+anyway.”
+
+“Well, I'm going to sleep,” said Andrews sulkily.
+
+
+
+John Andrews sat at a table outside the cafe de Rohan. The sun had just
+set on a ruddy afternoon, flooding everything with violet-blue light and
+cold greenish shadow. The sky was bright lilac color, streaked with a
+few amber clouds. The lights were on in all the windows of the Magazin
+du Louvre opposite, so that the windows seemed bits of polished glass
+in the afterglow. In the colonnade of the Palais Royal the shadows were
+deepening and growing colder. A steady stream of people poured in and
+out of the Metro. Green buses stuffed with people kept passing. The roar
+of the traffic and the clatter of footsteps and the grumble of voices
+swirled like dance music about Andrews's head. He noticed all at once
+that the rabbit man stood in front of him, a rabbit dangling forgotten
+at the end of its rubber tube.
+
+“Et ca va bien? le commerce,” said Andrews.
+
+“Quietly, quietly,” said the rabbit man, distractedly making the rabbit
+turn a somersault at his feet. Andrews watched the people going into the
+Metro.
+
+“The gentleman amuses himself in Paris?” asked the rabbit man timidly.
+
+“Oh, yes; and you?”
+
+“Quietly,” the rabbit man smiled. “Women are very beautiful at this hour
+of the evening,” he said again in his very timid tone.
+
+“There is nothing more beautiful than this moment of the evening... in
+Paris.”
+
+“Or Parisian women.” The eyes of the rabbit man glittered. “Excuse me,
+sir,” he went on. “I must try and sell some rabbits.”
+
+“Au revoir,” said Andrews holding out his hand.
+
+The rabbit man shook it with sudden vigor and went off, making a rabbit
+hop before him along the curbstone. He was hidden by the swiftly moving
+crowds.
+
+In the square, flaring violet arclights were flickering on, lighting up
+their net-covered globes that hung like harsh moons above the pavement.
+
+Henslowe sat down on a chair beside Andrews.
+
+“How's Sinbad?”
+
+“Sinbad, old boy, is functioning.... Aren't you frozen?”
+
+“How do you mean, Henslowe?”
+
+“Overheated, you chump, sitting out here in polar weather.”
+
+“No, but I mean.... How are you functioning?” said Andrews laughing.
+
+“I'm going to Poland tomorrow.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“As guard on a Red Cross supply train. I think you might make it if you
+want to come, if we beat it right over to the Red Cross before Major
+Smithers goes. Or we might take him out to dinner.”
+
+“But, Henny, I'm staying.”
+
+“Why the hell stay in this hole?”
+
+“I like it. I'm getting a better course in orchestration than I imagined
+existed, and I met a girl the other day, and I'm crazy over Paris.”
+
+“If you go and get entangled, I swear I'll beat your head in with a
+Polish shillaughly.... Of course you've met a girl--so have I--lots. We
+can meet some more in Poland and dance polonaises with them.”
+
+“No, but this girl's charming.... You've seen her. She's the girl who
+was with the poilu at the Rat qui Danse the first night I was in Paris.
+We went to Louise together.”
+
+“Must have been a grand sentimental party.... I swear.... I may run
+after a Jane now and again but I never let them interfere with the
+business of existence,” muttered Henslowe crossly.
+
+They were both silent.
+
+“You'll be as bad as Heinz with his Moki and the lion cub named Bubu....
+By the way, it's dead.... Well, where shall we have dinner?”
+
+“I'm dining with Jeanne.... I'm going to meet her in half an hour....
+I'm awfully sorry, Henny. We might all dine together.”
+
+“A fat chance! No, I'll have to go and find that ass Aubrey, and hear
+all about the Peace Conference.... Heinz can't leave Moki because she's
+having hysterics on account of Bubu. I'll probably be driven to going to
+see Berthe in the end.... You're a nice one.”
+
+“We'll have a grand seeing-off party for you tomorrow, Henny.”
+
+“Look! I forgot! You're to meet Aubrey at the Crillon at five tomorrow,
+and he's going to take you to see Genevieve Rod?”
+
+“Who the hell's Genevieve Rod?”
+
+“Darned if I know. But Aubrey said you'd got to come. She is an
+intellectual, so Aubrey says.”
+
+“That's the last thing I want to meet.”
+
+“Well, you can't help yourself. So long!”
+
+Andrews sat a while more at the table outside the cafe. A cold wind was
+blowing. The sky was blue-black and the ashen white arc lamps cast a
+mortuary light over everything. In the Colonnade of the Palais Royal
+the shadows were harsh and inky. In the square the people were gradually
+thinning. The lights in the Magazin du Louvre had gone out. From the
+cafe behind him, a faint smell of fresh-cooked food began to saturate
+the cold air of the street.
+
+Then he saw Jeanne advancing across the ash-grey pavement of the square,
+slim and black under the arc lights. He ran to meet her.
+
+
+
+The cylindrical stove in the middle of the floor roared softly. In front
+of it the white cat was rolled into a fluffy ball in which ears and
+nose made tiny splashes of pink like those at the tips of the petals
+of certain white roses. One side of the stove at the table against the
+window, sat an old brown man with a bright red stain on each cheek bone,
+who wore formless corduroy clothes, the color of his skin. Holding the
+small spoon in a knotted hand he was stirring slowly and continuously a
+liquid that was yellow and steamed in a glass. Behind him was the window
+with sleet beating against it in the leaden light of a wintry afternoon.
+The other side of the stove was a zinc bar with yellow bottles and green
+bottles and a water spigot with a neck like a giraffe's that rose out of
+the bar beside a varnished wood pillar that made the decoration of the
+corner, with a terra cotta pot of ferns on top of it. From where Andrews
+sat on the padded bench at the back of the room the fern fronds made a
+black lacework against the lefthand side of the window, while against
+the other was the brown silhouette of the old man's head, and the
+slant of his cap. The stove hid the door and the white cat, round and
+symmetrical, formed the center of the visible universe. On the marble
+table beside Andrews were some pieces of crisp bread with butter on
+them, a saucer of damson jam and a bowl with coffee and hot milk from
+which the steam rose in a faint spiral. His tunic was unbuttoned and he
+rested his head on his two hands, staring through his fingers at a thick
+pile of ruled paper full of hastily drawn signs, some in ink and some
+in pencil, where now and then he made a mark with a pencil. At the other
+edge of the pile of papers were two books, one yellow and one white with
+coffee stains on it.
+
+The fire roared and the cat slept and the old brown man stirred and
+stirred, rarely stopping for a moment to lift the glass to his lips.
+Occasionally the scratching of sleet upon the windows became audible, or
+there was a distant sound of dish pans through the door in the back.
+
+The sallow-faced clock that hung above the mirror that backed the bar,
+jerked out one jingly strike, a half hour. Andrews did not look up.
+The cat still slept in front of the stove which roared with a gentle
+singsong. The old brown man still stirred the yellow liquid in his
+glass. The clock was ticking uphill towards the hour.
+
+Andrews's hands were cold. There was a nervous flutter in his wrists and
+in his chest. Inside of him was a great rift of light, infinitely vast
+and infinitely distant. Through it sounds poured from somewhere, so that
+he trembled with them to his finger tips, sounds modulated into rhythms
+that washed back and forth and crossed each other like sea waves in a
+cove, sounds clotted into harmonies.
+
+Behind everything the Queen of Sheba, out of Flaubert, held her
+fantastic hand with its long, gilded finger nails on his shoulder; and
+he was leaning forward over the brink of life. But the image was vague,
+like a shadow cast on the brilliance of his mind.
+
+The clock struck four.
+
+The white fluffy ball of the cat unrolled very slowly. Its eyes were
+very round and yellow. It put first one leg and then the other out
+before it on the tiled floor, spreading wide the pinkey-grey claws.
+Its tail rose up behind it straight as the mast of a ship. With slow
+processional steps the cat walked towards the door.
+
+The old brown man drank down the yellow liquid and smacked his lips
+twice, loudly, meditatively.
+
+Andrews raised his head, his blue eyes looking straight before him
+without seeing anything. Dropping the pencil, he leaned back against the
+wall and stretched his arms out. Taking the coffee bowl between his two
+hands, he drank s little. It was cold. He piled some jam on a piece of
+bread and ate it, licking a little off his fingers afterwards. Then he
+looked towards the old brown man and said:
+
+“On est bien ici, n'est ce pas, Monsieur Morue?”
+
+“Oui, on est bien ici,” said the old brown man in a voice so gruff it
+seemed to rattle. Very slowly he got to his feet.
+
+“Good. I am going to the barge,” he said. Then he called, “Chipette!”
+
+“Oui, m'sieu.”
+
+A little girl in a black apron with her hair in two tight pigtails that
+stood out behind her tiny bullet head as she ran, came through the door
+from the back part of the house.
+
+“There, give that to your mother,” said the old brown man, putting some
+coppers in her hand.
+
+“Oui, m'sieu.”
+
+“You'd better stay here where it's warm,” said Andrews yawning.
+
+“I have to work. It's only soldiers don't have to work,” rattled the old
+brown man.
+
+When the door opened a gust of raw air circled about the wine shop,
+and a roar of wind and hiss of sleet came from the slush-covered quai
+outside. The cat took refuge beside the stove, with its back up and its
+tail waving. The door closed and the old brown man's silhouette, slanted
+against the wind, crossed the grey oblong of the window.
+
+Andrews settled down to work again.
+
+“But you work a lot a lot, don't you; M'sieu Jean?” said Chipette,
+putting her chin on the table beside the books and looking up into his
+eyes with little eyes like black beads.
+
+“I wonder if I do.”
+
+“When I'm grown up I shan't work a bit. I'll drive round in a carriage.”
+
+Andrews laughed. Chipette looked at him for a minute and then went into
+the other room carrying away the empty coffee bowl.
+
+In front of the stove the cat sat on its haunches, licking a paw
+rhythmically with a pink curling tongue like a rose petal.
+
+Andrews whistled a few bars, staring at the cat.
+
+“What d'you think of that, Minet? That's la reine de Saba... la reine de
+Saba.”
+
+The cat curled into a ball again with great deliberation and went to
+sleep.
+
+Andrews began thinking of Jeanne and the thought gave him a sense of
+quiet well-being. Strolling with her in the evening through the streets
+full of men and women walking significantly together sent a languid calm
+through his jangling nerves which he had never known in his life before.
+It excited him to be with her, but very suavely, so that he forgot that
+his limbs were swathed stiffly in an uncomfortable uniform, so that his
+feverish desire seemed to fly out of him until with her body beside him,
+he seemed to drift effortlessly in the stream of the lives of all the
+people he passed, so languid, from the quiet loves that streamed up
+about him that the hard walls of his personality seemed to have melted
+entirely into the mistiness of twilight streets. And for a moment as he
+thought of it a scent of flowers, heavy with pollen, and sprouting
+grass and damp moss and swelling sap, seemed to tingle in his nostrils.
+Sometimes, swimming in the ocean on a rough day, he had felt that same
+reckless exhilaration when, towards the shore, a huge seething wave had
+caught him up and sped him forward on its crest. Sitting quietly in the
+empty wine shop that grey afternoon, he felt his blood grumble and swell
+in his veins as the new life was grumbling and swelling in the sticky
+buds of the trees, in the tender green quick under their rough bark, in
+the little furry animals of the woods and in the sweet-smelling cattle
+that tramped into mud the lush meadows. In the premonition of spring
+was a resistless wave of force that carried him and all of them with it
+tumultuously.
+
+The clock struck five.
+
+Andrews jumped to his feet and still struggling into his overcoat darted
+out of the door.
+
+A raw wind blew on the square. The river was a muddy grey-green, swollen
+and rapid. A hoarse triumphant roaring came from it. The sleet had
+stopped; but the pavements were covered with slush and in the gutters
+were large puddles which the wind ruffled. Everything,--houses, bridges,
+river and sky,--was in shades of cold grey-green, broken by one jagged
+ochre-colored rift across the sky against which the bulk of Notre Dame
+and the slender spire of the crossing rose dark and purplish. Andrews
+walked with long strides, splashing through the puddles, until, opposite
+the low building of the Morgue, he caught a crowded green bus.
+
+Outside the Hotel Crillon were many limousines, painted olive-drab,
+with numbers in white letters on the doors; the drivers, men with their
+olive-drab coat collars turned up round their red faces, stood in
+groups under the portico. Andrews passed the sentry and went through the
+revolving doors into the lobby, which was vividly familiar. It had the
+smell he remembered having smelt in the lobbies of New York hotels,--a
+smell of cigar smoke and furniture polish. On one side a door led to
+a big dining room where many men and women were having tea, from which
+came a smell of pastry and rich food. On the expanse of red carpet
+in front of him officers and civilians stood in groups talking in low
+voices. There was a sound of jingling spurs and jingling dishes from the
+restaurant, and near where Andrews stood shifting his weight from one
+foot to the other, sprawled in a leather chair a fat man with a black
+felt hat over his eyes and a large watch chain dangling limply over his
+bulbous paunch. He cleared his throat occasionally with a rasping noise
+and spat loudly into the spittoon beside him.
+
+At last Andrews caught sight of Aubrey, who was dapper with white cheeks
+and tortoise shell glasses.
+
+“Come along,” he said, seizing Andrews by the arm.
+
+“You are late.” Then, he went on, whispering in Andrews's ear as they
+went out through the revolving doors: “Great things happened in the
+Conference today.... I can tell you that, old man.”
+
+They crossed the bridge towards the portico of the Chamber of Deputies
+with its high pediment and its grey columns. Down the river they could
+see faintly the Eiffel Tower with a drift of mist athwart it, like a
+section of spider web spun between the city and the clouds.
+
+“Do we have to go to see these people, Aubrey?”
+
+“Yes, you can't back out now. Genevieve Rod wants to know about American
+music.”
+
+“But what on earth can I tell her about American music?”
+
+“Wasn't there a man named MacDowell who went mad or something?” Andrews
+laughed.
+
+“But you know I haven't any social graces.... I suppose I'll have to say
+I think Foch is a little tin god.”
+
+“You needn't say anything if you don't want to.... They're very
+advanced, anyway.”
+
+“Oh, rats!”
+
+They were going up a brown-carpeted stair that had engravings on the
+landings, where there was a faint smell of stale food and dustpans. At
+the top landing Aubrey rang the bell at a varnished door. In a moment a
+girl opened it. She had a cigarette in her hand, her face was pale under
+a mass of reddish-chestnut hair, her eyes very large, a pale brown,
+as large as the eyes of women in those paintings of Artemisias and
+Berenikes found in tombs in the Fayum. She wore a plain black dress.
+
+“Enfin!” she said, and held out her hand to Aubrey.
+
+“There's my friend Andrews.”
+
+She held out her hand to him absently, still looking at Aubrey.
+
+“Does he speak French?... Good.... This way.” They went into a large
+room with a piano where an elderly woman, with grey hair and yellow
+teeth and the same large eyes as her daughter, stood before the
+fireplace.
+
+“Maman... enfin ils arrivent, ces messieurs.”
+
+“Genevieve was afraid you weren't coming,” Mme. Rod said to Andrews,
+smiling. “Monsieur Aubrey gave us such a picture of your playing that we
+have been excited all day.... We adore music.”
+
+“I wish I could do something more to the point with it than adore
+it,” said Genevieve Rod hastily, then she went on with a laugh: “But I
+forget..... Monsieur Andreffs.... Monsieur Ronsard.” She made a gesture
+with her hand from Andrews to a young Frenchman in a cut-away coat, with
+small mustaches and a very tight vest, who bowed towards Andrews.
+
+“Now we'll have tea,” said Genevieve Rod. “Everybody talks sense until
+they've had tea.... It's only after tea that anyone is ever amusing.”
+ She pulled open some curtains that covered the door into the adjoining
+room.
+
+“I understand why Sarah Bernhardt is so fond of curtains,” she said.
+“They give an air of drama to existence.... There is nothing more heroic
+than curtains.”
+
+She sat at the head of an oak table where were china platters with
+vari-colored pastries, an old pewter kettle under which an alcohol lamp
+burned, a Dresden china teapot in pale yellows and greens, and cups and
+saucers and plates with a double-headed eagle design in dull vermilion.
+“Tout ca,” said Genevieve, waving her hand across the table, “c'est
+Boche.... But we haven't any others, so they'll have to do.”
+
+The older woman, who sat beside her, whispered something in her ear and
+laughed.
+
+Genevieve put on a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles and starting
+pouring out tea.
+
+“Debussy once drank out of that cup..... It's cracked,” she said,
+handing a cup to John Andrews. “Do you know anything of Moussorgski's
+you can play to us after tea?”
+
+“I can't play anything any more.... Ask me three months from now.”
+
+“Oh, yes; but nobody expects you to do any tricks with it. You can
+certainly make it intelligible. That's all I want.”
+
+“I have my doubts.”
+
+Andrews sipped his tea slowly, looking now and then at Genevieve Rod who
+had suddenly begun talking very fast to Ronsard. She held a cigarette
+between the fingers of a long thin hand. Her large pale-brown eyes kept
+their startled look of having just opened on the world; a little smile
+appeared and disappeared maliciously in the curve of her cheek away from
+her small firm lips. The older woman beside her kept looking round the
+table with a jolly air of hospitality, and showing her yellow teeth in a
+smile.
+
+Afterwards they went back to the sitting room and Andrews sat down
+at the piano. The girl sat very straight on a little chair beside the
+piano. Andrews ran his fingers up and down the keys.
+
+“Did you say you knew Debussy?” he said suddenly. “I? No; but he used to
+come to see my father when I was a little girl.... I have been brought
+up in the middle of music.... That shows how silly it is to be a woman.
+There is no music in my head. Of course I am sensitive to it, but so are
+the tables and chairs in this apartment, after all they've heard.”
+
+ Andrews started playing Schumann. He stopped suddenly.
+
+“Can you sing?” he said.
+
+“No.”
+
+“I'd like to do the Proses Lyriques.... I've never heard them.”
+
+“I once tried to sing Le Soir,” she said.
+
+“Wonderful. Do bring it out.”
+
+“But, good Lord, it's too difficult.”
+
+“What is the use of being fond of music if you aren't willing to mangle
+it for the sake of producing it?... I swear I'd rather hear a man
+picking out Aupres de ma Blonde on a trombone that Kreisler playing
+Paganini impeccably enough to make you ill.”
+
+“But there is a middle ground.”
+
+He interrupted her by starting to play again. As he played without
+looking at her, he felt that her eyes were fixed on him, that she was
+standing tensely behind him. Her hand touched his shoulder. He stopped
+playing.
+
+“Oh, I am dreadfully sorry,” she said.
+
+“Nothing. I am finished.”
+
+“You were playing something of your own?”
+
+“Have you ever read La Tentation de Saint Antoine?” he asked in a low
+voice.
+
+“Flaubert's?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“It's not his best work. A very interesting failure though,” she said.
+
+Andrews got up from the piano with difficulty, controlling a sudden
+growing irritation.
+
+“They seem to teach everybody to say that,” he muttered.
+
+Suddenly he realized that other people were in the room. He went up to
+Mme. Rod.
+
+“You must excuse me,” he said, “I have an engagement.... Aubrey, don't
+let me drag you away. I am late, I've got to run.”
+
+“You must come to see us again.”
+
+“Thank you,” mumbled Andrews.
+
+Genevieve Rod went with him to the door. “We must know each other
+better,” she said. “I like you for going off in a huff.”
+
+Andrews flushed.
+
+“I was badly brought up,” he said, pressing her thin cold hand. “And
+you French must always remember that we are barbarians.... Some are
+repentant barbarians.... I am not.”
+
+She laughed, and John Andrews ran down the stairs and out into the
+grey-blue streets, where the lamps were blooming into primrose color.
+He had a confused feeling that he had made a fool of himself, which made
+him writhe with helpless anger. He walked with long strides through the
+streets of the Rive Gauche full of people going home from work, towards
+the little wine shop on the Quai de la Tournelle.
+
+
+
+It was a Paris Sunday morning. Old women in black shawls were going into
+the church of St. Etienne-du-Mont. Each time the leather doors opened
+it let a little whiff of incense out into the smoky morning air. Three
+pigeons walked about the cobblestones, putting their coral feet one
+before the other with an air of importance. The pointed facade of the
+church and its slender tower and cupola cast a bluish shadow on the
+square in front of it, into which the shadows the old women trailed
+behind them vanished as they hobbled towards the church. The opposite
+side of the square and the railing of the Pantheon and its tall
+brownish-gray flank were flooded with dull orange-colored sunlight.
+
+Andrews walked back and forth in front of the church, looking at the sky
+and the pigeons and the facade of the Library of Ste. Genevieve, and at
+the rare people who passed across the end of the square, noting forms
+and colors and small comical aspects of things with calm delight,
+savoring everything almost with complacency. His music, he felt, was
+progressing now that, undisturbed, he lived all day long in the rhythm
+of it; his mind and his fingers were growing supple. The hard moulds
+that had grown up about his spirit were softening. As he walked back and
+forth in front of the church waiting for Jeanne, he took an inventory of
+his state of mind; he was very happy.
+
+“Eh bien?”
+
+Jeanne had come up behind him. They ran like children hand in hand
+across the sunny square.
+
+“I have not had any coffee yet,” said Andrews.
+
+“How late you must get up!... But you can't have any till we get to the
+Porte Maillot, Jean.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“Because I say you can't.”
+
+“But that's cruelty.”
+
+“It won't be long.”
+
+“But I am dying with hunger. I will die in your hands.”
+
+“Can't you understand? Once we get to the Porte Maillot we'll be far
+from your life and my life. The day will be ours. One must not tempt
+fate.”
+
+“You funny girl.”
+
+The Metro was not crowded, Andrews and Jeanne sat opposite each other
+without talking. Andrews was looking at the girl's hands, limp on her
+lap, small overworked hands with places at the tips of the fingers where
+the skin was broken and scarred, with chipped uneven nails. Suddenly she
+caught his glance. He flushed, and she said jauntily:
+
+“Well, we'll all be rich some day, like princes and princesses in fairy
+tales.” They both laughed.
+
+As they were leaving the train at the terminus, he put his arm timidly
+round her waist. She wore no corsets. His fingers trembled at the
+litheness of the flesh under her clothes. Feeling a sort of terror go
+through him he took away his arm.
+
+“Now,” she said quietly as they emerged into the sunlight and the bare
+trees of the broad avenue, “you can have all the cafe-au-lait you want.”
+
+“You'll have some too.”
+
+“Why be extravagant? I've had my petit dejeuner.”
+
+“But I'm going to be extravagant all day.... We might as well start now.
+I don't know exactly why, but I am very happy. We'll eat brioches.”
+
+“But, my dear, it's only profiteers who can eat brioches now-a-days.”
+
+“You just watch us.”
+
+They went into a patisserie. An elderly woman with a lean yellow face
+and thin hair waited on them, casting envious glances up through her
+eyelashes as she piled the rich brown brioches on a piece of tissue
+paper.
+
+“You'll pass the day in the country?” she asked in a little wistful
+voice as she handed Andrews the change.
+
+“Yes,” he said, “how well you guessed.”
+
+As they went out of the door they heard her muttering, “O la jeunesse,
+la jeunesse.”
+
+They found a table in the sun at a cafe opposite the gate from which
+they could watch people and automobiles and carriages coming in and out.
+Beyond, a grass-grown bit of fortifications gave an 1870 look to things.
+
+“How jolly it is at the Porte Maillot!” cried Andrews.
+
+She looked at him and laughed.
+
+“But how gay he is to-day.”
+
+“No. I always like it here. It's the spot in Paris where you always feel
+well.... When you go out you have all the fun of leaving town, when you
+go in you have all the fun of coming back to town.... But you aren't
+eating any brioches?”
+
+“I've eaten one. You eat them. You are hungry.”
+
+“Jeanne, I don't think I have ever been so happy in my life.... It's
+almost worth having been in the army for the joy your freedom gives you.
+That frightful life.... How is Etienne?”
+
+“He is in Mayence. He's bored.”
+
+“Jeanne, we must live very much, we who are free to make up for all the
+people who are still... bored.”
+
+“A lot of good it'll do them,” she cried laughing.
+
+“It's funny, Jeanne, I threw myself into the army. I was so sick of
+being free and not getting anywhere. Now I have learnt that life is to
+be used, not just held in the hand like a box of bonbons that nobody
+eats.”
+
+She looked at him blankly.
+
+“I mean, I don't think I get enough out of life,” he said. “Let's go.”
+
+They got to their feet.
+
+“What do you mean?” she said slowly. “One takes what life gives, that is
+all, there's no choice.... But look, there's the Malmaison train.... We
+must run.”
+
+Giggling and breathless they climbed on the trailer, squeezing
+themselves on the back platform where everyone was pushing and
+exclaiming. The car began to joggle its way through Neuilly. Their
+bodies were pressed together by the men and women about them. Andrews
+put his arm firmly round Jeanne's waist and looked down at her pale
+cheek that was pressed against his chest. Her little round black straw
+hat with a bit of a red flower on it was just under his chin.
+
+“I can't see a thing,” she gasped, still giggling.
+
+“I'll describe the landscape,” said Andrews. “Why, we are crossing the
+Seine already.”
+
+“Oh, how pretty it must be!”
+
+An old gentleman with a pointed white beard who stood beside them
+laughed benevolently.
+
+“But don't you think the Seine's pretty?” Jeanne looked up at him
+impudently.
+
+“Without a doubt, without a doubt.... It was the way you said it,” said
+the old gentleman.... “You are going to St. Germain?” he asked Andrews.
+
+“No, to Malmaison.”
+
+“Oh, you should go to St. Germain. M. Reinach's prehistoric museum is
+there. It is very beautiful. You should not go home to your country
+without seeing it.”
+
+“Are there monkeys in it?” asked Jeanne.
+
+“No,” said the old gentleman turning away.
+
+“I adore monkeys,” said Jeanne.
+
+The car was going along a broad empty boulevard with trees and grass
+plots and rows of low store-houses and little dilapidated rooming houses
+along either side. Many people had got out and there was plenty of room,
+but Andrews kept his arm round the girl's waist. The constant contact
+with her body made him feel very languid.
+
+“How good it smells!” said Jeanne.
+
+“It's the spring.”
+
+“I want to lie on the grass and eat violets.... Oh, how good you were
+to bring me out like this, Jean. You must know lots of fine ladies you
+could have brought out, because you are so well educated. How is it you
+are only an ordinary soldier?”
+
+“Good God! I wouldn't be an officer.”
+
+“Why? It must be rather nice to be an officer.”
+
+“Does Etienne want to be an officer?”
+
+“But he's a socialist, that's different.”
+
+“Well, I suppose I must be a socialist too, but let's talk of something
+else.”
+
+Andrews moved over to the other side of the platform. They were passing
+little villas with gardens on the road where yellow and pale-purple
+crocuses bloomed. Now and then there was a scent of violets in the moist
+air. The sun had disappeared under soft purplish-grey clouds. There was
+occasionally a rainy chill in the wind.
+
+Andrews suddenly thought of Genevieve Rod. Curious how vividly he
+remembered her face, her wide, open eyes and her way of smiling without
+moving her firm lips. A feeling of annoyance went through him. How silly
+of him to go off rudely like that! And he became very anxious to talk to
+her again; things he wanted to say to her came to his mind.
+
+“Well, are you asleep?” said Jeanne tugging at his arm. “Here we are.”
+
+Andrews flushed furiously.
+
+“Oh, how nice it is here, how nice it is here!” Jeanne was saying.
+
+“Why, it is eleven o'clock,” said Andrews.
+
+“We must see the palace before lunch,” cried Jeanne, and she started
+running up a lane of linden trees, where the fat buds were just bursting
+into little crinkling fans of green. New grass was sprouting in the wet
+ditches on either side. Andrews ran after her, his feet pounding hard in
+the moist gravel road. When he caught up to her he threw his arms round
+her recklessly and kissed her panting mouth. She broke away from him and
+strode demurely arranging her hat.
+
+“Monster,” she said, “I trimmed this hat specially to come out with you
+and you do your best to wreck it.”
+
+“Poor little hat,” said Andrews, “but it is so beautiful today, and you
+are very lovely, Jeanne.”
+
+“The great Napoleon must have said that to the Empress Josephine and you
+know what he did to her,” said Jeanne almost solemnly.
+
+“But she must have been awfully bored with him long before.”
+
+“No,” said Jeanne, “that's how women are.”
+
+They went through big iron gates into the palace grounds.
+
+Later they sat at a table in the garden of a little restaurant. The sun,
+very pale, had just showed itself, making the knives and forks and the
+white wine in their glasses gleam faintly. Lunch had not come yet. They
+sat looking at each other silently. Andrews felt weary and melancholy.
+He could think of nothing to say. Jeanne was playing with some tiny
+white daisies with pink tips to their petals, arranging them in circles
+and crosses on the tablecloth.
+
+“Aren't they slow?” said Andrews.
+
+“But it's nice here, isn't it?” Jeanne smiled brilliantly. “But how glum
+he looks now.” She threw some daisies at him. Then, after a pause, she
+added mockingly: “It's hunger, my dear. Good Lord, how dependent men are
+on food!”
+
+Andrews drank down his wine at a gulp. He felt that if he could only
+make an effort he could lift off the stifling melancholy that was
+settling down on him like a weight that kept growing heavier.
+
+A man in khaki, with his face and neck scarlet, staggered into the
+garden dragging beside him a mud-encrusted bicycle. He sank into an iron
+chair, letting the bicycle fall with a clatter at his feet.
+
+“Hi, hi,” he called in a hoarse voice.
+
+A waiter appeared and contemplated him suspiciously. The man in khaki
+had hair as red as his face, which was glistening with sweat. His shirt
+was torn, and he had no coat. His breeches and puttees were invisible
+for mud.
+
+“Gimme a beer,” croaked the man in khaki.
+
+The waiter shrugged his shoulders and walked away.
+
+“Il demande une biere,” said Andrews.
+
+“Mais Monsieur....”
+
+“I'll pay. Get it for him.”
+
+The waiter disappeared.
+
+“Thankee, Yank,” roared the man in khaki.
+
+The waiter brought a tall narrow yellow glass. The man in khaki took
+it from his hand, drank it down at a draught and handed back the empty
+glass. Then he spat, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, got with
+difficulty to his feet and shambled towards Andrews's table.
+
+“Oi presoom the loidy and you don't mind, Yank, if Oi parley wi' yez a
+bit. Do yez?”
+
+“No, come along; where did you come from?”
+
+The man in khaki dragged an iron chair behind him to a spot near the
+table. Before sitting down he bobbed his head in the direction of Jeanne
+with an air of solemnity tugging at the same time at a lock of his red
+hair. After some fumbling he got a red-bordered handkerchief out of
+his pocket and wiped his face with it, leaving a long black smudge of
+machine oil on his forehead.
+
+“Oi'm a bearer of important secret messages, Yank,” he said, leaning
+back in the little iron chair. “Oi'm a despatch-rider.”
+
+“You look all in.”
+
+“Not a bit of it. Oi just had a little hold up, that's all, in a
+woodland lane. Some buggers tried to do me in.”
+
+“What d'you mean?”
+
+“Oi guess they had a little information... that's all. Oi'm carryin'
+important messages from our headquarters in Rouen to your president. Oi
+was goin' through a bloody thicket past this side. Oi don't know how you
+pronounce the bloody town.... Oi was on my bike making about thoity for
+the road was all a-murk when Oi saw four buggers standing acrost the
+road... lookter me suspiciouslike, so Oi jus' jammed the juice into
+the boike and made for the middle 'un. He dodged all right. Then they
+started shootin' and a bloody bullet buggered the boike.... It was bein'
+born with a caul that saved me.... Oi picked myself up outer the
+ditch an lost 'em in the woods. Then Oi got to another bloody town and
+commandeered this old sweatin' machine.... How many kills is there to
+Paris, Yank?”
+
+“Fifteen or sixteen, I think.”
+
+“What's he saying, Jean?”
+
+“Some men tried to stop him on the road. He's a despatch-rider.”
+
+“Isn't he ugly? Is he English?”
+
+“Irish.”
+
+“You bet you, miss; Hirlanday; that's me.... You picked a good looker
+this toime, Yank. But wait till Oi git to Paree. Oi clane up a good
+hundre' pound on this job in bonuses. What part d'ye come from, Yank?”
+
+“Virginia. I live in New York.”
+
+“Oi been in Detroit; goin' back there to git in the automoebile business
+soon as Oi clane up a few more bonuses. Europe's dead an stinkin', Yank.
+Ain't no place for a young fellow. It's dead an stinkin', that's what it
+is.”
+
+“It's pleasanter to live here than in America.... Say, d'you often get
+held up that way?”
+
+“Ain't happened to me before, but it has to pals o' moine.”
+
+“Who d'you think it was?
+
+“Oi dunno; 'Unns or some of these bloody secret agents round the Peace
+Conference.... But Oi got to go; that despatch won't keep.”
+
+“All right. The beer's on me.”
+
+“Thank ye, Yank.” The man got to his feet, shook hands with Andrews and
+Jeanne, jumped on the bicycle and rode out of the garden to the road,
+threading his way through the iron chairs and tables.
+
+“Wasn't he a funny customer?” cried Andrews, laughing. “What a wonderful
+joke things are!”
+
+The waiter arrived with the omelette that began their lunch.
+
+“Gives you an idea of how the old lava's bubbling in the volcano.
+There's nowhere on earth a man can dance so well as on a volcano.”
+
+“But don't talk that way,” said Jeanne laying down her knife and fork.
+“It's terrible. We will waste our youth to no purpose. Our fathers
+enjoyed themselves when they were young.... And if there had been no
+war we should have been so happy, Etienne and I. My father was a small
+manufacturer of soap and perfumery. Etienne would have had a splendid
+situation. I should never have had to work. We had a nice house. I
+should have been married....”
+
+“But this way, Jeanne, haven't you more freedom?”
+
+She shrugged her shoulders. Later she burst out: “But what's the good
+of freedom? What can you do with it? What one wants is to live well and
+have a beautiful house and be respected by people. Oh, life was so sweet
+in France before the war.”
+
+“In that case it's not worth living,” said Andrews in a savage voice,
+holding himself in.
+
+They went on eating silently. The sky became overcast. A few drops
+splashed on the table-cloth.
+
+“We'll have to take coffee inside,” said Andrews.
+
+“And you think it is funny that people shoot at a man on a motorcycle
+going through a wood. All that seems to me terrible, terrible,” said
+Jeanne.
+
+“Look out. Here comes the rain!”
+
+They ran into the restaurant through the first hissing sheet of the
+shower and sat at a table near a window watching the rain drops dance
+and flicker on the green iron tables. A scent of wet earth and the
+mushroom-like odor of sodden leaves came in borne on damp gusts through
+the open door. A waiter closed the glass doors and bolted them.
+
+“He wants to keep out the spring. He can't,” said Andrews.
+
+They smiled at each other over their coffee cups. They were in sympathy
+again.
+
+When the rain stopped they walked across wet fields by a foot path full
+of little clear puddles that reflected the blue sky and the white-and
+amber-tinged clouds where the shadows were light purplish-grey. They
+walked slowly arm in arm, pressing their bodies together. They were very
+tired, they did not know why and stopped often to rest leaning against
+the damp boles of trees. Beside a pond pale blue and amber and silver
+from the reflected sky, they found under a big beech tree a patch of
+wild violets, which Jeanne picked greedily, mixing them with the little
+crimson-tipped daisies in the tight bouquet. At the suburban railway
+station, they sat silent, side by side on a bench, sniffing the flowers
+now and then, so sunk in languid weariness that they could hardly summon
+strength to climb into a seat on top of a third class coach, which was
+crowded with people coming home from a day in the country. Everybody
+had violets and crocuses and twigs with buds on them. In people's stiff,
+citified clothes lingered a smell of wet fields and sprouting woods.
+All the girls shrieked and threw their arms round the men when the train
+went through a tunnel or under a bridge. Whatever happened, everybody
+laughed. When the train arrived in the station, it was almost with
+reluctance that they left it, as if they felt that from that moment
+their work-a-day lives began again. Andrews and Jeanne walked down the
+platform without touching each other. Their fingers were stained and
+sticky from touching buds and crushing young sappy leaves and grass
+stalks. The air of the city seemed dense and unbreathable after the
+scented moisture of the fields.
+
+They dined at a little restaurant on the Quai Voltaire and afterwards
+walked slowly towards the Place St. Michel, feeling the wine and the
+warmth of the food sending new vigor into their tired bodies. Andrews
+had his arm round her shoulder and they talked in low intimate voices,
+hardly moving their lips, looking long at the men and women they saw
+sitting twined in each other's arms on benches, at the couples of boys
+and girls that kept passing them, talking slowly and quietly, as they
+were, bodies pressed together as theirs were.
+
+“How many lovers there are,” said Andrews.
+
+“Are we lovers?” asked Jeanne with a curious little laugh.
+
+“I wonder.... Have you ever been crazily in love, Jeanne?”
+
+“I don't know. There was a boy in Laon named Marcelin. But I was a
+little fool then. The last news of him was from Verdun.”
+
+“Have you had many... like I am?”
+
+“How sentimental we are,” she cried laughing.
+
+“No. I wanted to know. I know so little of life,” said Andrews.
+
+“I have amused myself, as best I could,” said Jeanne in a serious
+tone. “But I am not frivolous.... There have been very few men I have
+liked.... So I have had few friends... do you want to call them lovers?
+But lovers are what married women have on the stage.... All that sort of
+thing is very silly.”
+
+“Not so very long ago,” said Andrews, “I used to dream of being
+romantically in love, with people climbing up the ivy on castle walls,
+and fiery kisses on balconies in the moonlight.”
+
+“Like at the Opera Comique,” cried Jeanne laughing.
+
+“That was all very silly. But even now, I want so much more of life than
+life can give.”
+
+They leaned over the parapet and listened to the hurrying swish of the
+river, now soft and now loud, where the reflections of the lights on the
+opposite bank writhed like golden snakes.
+
+Andrews noticed that there was someone beside them. The faint, greenish
+glow from the lamp on the quai enabled him to recognize the lame boy he
+had talked to months ago on the Butte.
+
+“I wonder if you'll remember me,” he said.
+
+“You are the American who was in the Restaurant, Place du Terte, I don't
+remember when, but it was long ago.”
+
+They shook hands.
+
+“But you are alone,” said Andrews.
+
+“Yes, I am always alone,” said the lame boy firmly. He held out his hand
+again.
+
+“Au revoir,” said Andrews.
+
+“Good luck!” said the lame boy. Andrews heard his crutch tapping on the
+pavement as he went away along the quai.
+
+“Jeanne,” said Andrews, suddenly, “you'll come home with me, won't you?”
+
+“But you have a friend living with you.”
+
+“He's gone to Brussels. He won't be back till tomorrow.”
+
+“I suppose one must pay for one's dinner,” said Jeanne maliciously.
+
+“Good God, no.” Andrews buried his face in his hands. The singsong
+of the river pouring through the bridges, filled his ears. He wanted
+desperately to cry. Bitter desire that was like hatred made his flesh
+tingle, made his hands ache to crush her hands in them.
+
+“Come along,” he said gruffly.
+
+“I didn't mean to say that,” she said in a gentle, tired voice. “You
+know, I'm not a very nice person.” The greenish glow of the lamp lit
+up the contour of one of her cheeks as she tilted her head up, and
+glimmered in her eyes. A soft sentimental sadness suddenly took hold
+of Andrews; he felt as he used to feel when, as a very small child, his
+mother used to tell him Br' Rabbit stories, and he would feel himself
+drifting helplessly on the stream of her soft voice, narrating, drifting
+towards something unknown and very sad, which he could not help.
+
+They started walking again, past the Pont Neuf, towards the glare of the
+Place St. Michel. Three names had come into Andrews's head, “Arsinoe,
+Berenike, Artemisia.” For a little while he puzzled over them, and then
+he remembered that Genevieve Rod had the large eyes and the wide, smooth
+forehead and the firm little lips the women had in the portraits that
+were sewn on the mummy cases in the Fayum. But those patrician women of
+Alexandria had not had chestnut hair with a glimpse of burnished copper
+in it; they might have dyed it, though!
+
+“Why are you laughing?” asked Jeanne.
+
+“Because things are so silly.”
+
+“Perhaps you mean people are silly,” she said, looking up at him out of
+the corners of her eyes.
+
+“You're right.”
+
+They walked in silence till they reached Andrews's door.
+
+“You go up first and see that there's no one there,” said Jeanne in a
+business-like tone.
+
+Andrews's hands were cold. He felt his heart thumping while he climbed
+the stairs.
+
+The room was empty. A fire was ready to light in the small fireplace.
+Andrews hastily tidied up the table and kicked under the bed some soiled
+clothes that lay in a heap in a corner. A thought came to him: how
+like his performances in his room at college when he had heard that a
+relative was coming to see him.
+
+He tiptoed downstairs.
+
+“Bien. Tu peux venir, Jeanne,” he said.
+
+She sat down rather stiffly in the straight-backed armchair beside the
+fire.
+
+“How pretty the fire is,” she said.
+
+“Jeanne, I think I'm crazily in love with you,” said Andrews in an
+excited voice.
+
+“Like at the Opera Comique.” She shrugged her shoulders. “The room's
+nice,” she said. “Oh, but, what a big bed!”
+
+“You're the first woman who's been up here in my time, Jeanne.... Oh,
+but this uniform is frightful.”
+
+Andrews thought suddenly of all the tingling bodies constrained into
+the rigid attitudes of automatons in uniforms like this one; of all the
+hideous farce of making men into machines. Oh, if some gesture of his
+could only free them all for life and freedom and joy. The thought
+drowned everything else for the moment.
+
+“But you pulled a button off,” cried Jeanne laughing hysterically. “I'll
+just have to sew it on again.”
+
+“Never mind. If you knew how I hated them.”
+
+“What white skin you have, like a woman's. I suppose that's because you
+are blond,” said Jeanne.
+
+
+
+The sound of the door being shaken vigorously woke Andrews. He got up
+and stood in the middle of the floor for a moment without being able
+to collect his wits. The shaking of the door continued, and he heard
+Walters's voice crying “Andy, Andy.” Andrews felt shame creeping up
+through him like nausea. He felt a passionate disgust towards himself
+and Jeanne and Walters. He had an impulse to move furtively as if he had
+stolen something. He went to the door and opened it a little.
+
+“Say, Walters, old man,” he said, “I can't let you in.... I've got
+a girl with me. I'm sorry.... I thought you wouldn't get back till
+tomorrow.”
+
+“You're kidding, aren't you?” came Walters's voice out of the dark hall.
+
+“No.” Andrews shut the door decisively and bolted it again.
+
+Jeanne was still asleep. Her black hair had come undone and spread over
+the pillow. Andrews pulled the covers up about her carefully.
+
+Then he got into the other bed, where he lay awake a long time, staring
+at the ceiling.
+
+
+
+                                                IV
+
+People walking along the boulevard looked curiously through the railing
+at the line of men in olive-drab that straggled round the edge of the
+courtyard. The line moved slowly, past a table where an officer and
+two enlisted men sat poring over big lists of names and piles of palely
+tinted banknotes and silver francs that glittered white. Above the men's
+heads a thin haze of cigarette smoke rose into the sunlight. There was
+a sound of voices and of feet shuffling on the gravel. The men who had
+been paid went off jauntily, the money jingling in their pockets.
+
+The men at the table had red faces and tense, serious expressions.
+They pushed the money into the soldiers' hands with a rough jerk and
+pronounced the names as if they were machines clicking.
+
+Andrews saw that one of the men at the table was Walters; he smiled and
+whispered “Hello” as he came up to him. Walters kept his eyes fixed on
+the list.
+
+While Andrews was waiting for the man ahead of him to be paid, he heard
+two men in the line talking.
+
+“Wasn't that a hell of a place? D'you remember the lad that died in the
+barracks one day?”
+
+“Sure, I was in the medicks there too. There was a hell of a sergeant
+in that company tried to make the kid get up, and the loot came and said
+he'd court-martial him, an' then they found out that he'd cashed in his
+checks.”
+
+“What'd 'ee die of?”
+
+“Heart failure, I guess. I dunno, though, he never did take to the
+life.”
+
+“No. That place Cosne was enough to make any guy cash in his checks.”
+
+Andrews got his money. As he was walking away, he strolled up to the two
+men he had heard talking.
+
+“Were you fellows in Cosne?”
+
+“Sure.”
+
+“Did you know a fellow named Fuselli?”
+
+“I dunno....”
+
+“Sure, you do,” said the other man. “You remember Dan Fuselli, the
+little wop thought he was goin' to be corporal.”
+
+“He had another think comin'.” They both laughed.
+
+Andrews walked off, vaguely angry. There were many soldiers on the
+Boulevard Montparnasse. He turned into a side street, feeling suddenly
+furtive and humble, as if he would hear any minute the harsh voice of a
+sergeant shouting orders at him.
+
+The silver in his breeches pocket jingled with every step.
+
+
+
+Andrews leaned on the balustrade of the balcony, looking down into the
+square in front of the Opera Comique. He was dizzy with the beauty of
+the music he had been hearing. He had a sense somewhere in the distances
+of his mind of the great rhythm of the sea. People chattered all about
+him on the wide, crowded balcony, but he was only conscious of the
+blue-grey mistiness of the night where the lights made patterns in
+green-gold and red-gold. And compelling his attention from everything
+else, the rhythm swept through him like sea waves.
+
+“I thought you'd be here,” said Genevieve Rod in a quiet voice beside
+him.
+
+Andrews felt strangely tongue-tied.
+
+“It's nice to see you,” he blurted out, after looking at her silently
+for a moment.
+
+“Of course you love Pelleas.”
+
+“It is the first time I've heard it.”
+
+“Why haven't you been to see us? It's two weeks.... We've been expecting
+you.”
+
+“I didn't know...Oh, I'll certainly come. I don't know anyone at present
+I can talk music to.”
+
+“You know me.”
+
+“Anyone else, I should have said.”
+
+“Are you working?”
+
+“Yes.... But this hinders frightfully.” Andrews yanked at the front
+of his tunic. “Still, I expect to be free very soon. I'm putting in an
+application for discharge.”
+
+“I suppose you will feel you can do so much better.... You will be much
+stronger now that you have done your duty.”
+
+“No... by no means.”
+
+“Tell me, what was that you played at our house?”
+
+“'The Three Green Riders on Wild Asses,'” said Andrews smiling.
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“It's a prelude to the 'Queen of Sheba,'” said Andrews. “If you didn't
+think the same as M. Emile Faguet and everyone else about St. Antoine,
+I'd tell you what I mean.”
+
+“That was very silly of me.... But if you pick up all the silly things
+people say accidentally... well, you must be angry most of the time.”
+
+In the dim light he could not see her eyes. There was a little glow
+on the curve of her cheek coming from under the dark of her hat to her
+rather pointed chin. Behind it he could see other faces of men and women
+crowded on the balcony talking, lit up crudely by the gold glare that
+came out through the French windows from the lobby.
+
+“I have always been tremendously fascinated by the place in La Tentation
+where the Queen of Sheba visited Antoine, that's all,” said Andrews
+gruffly.
+
+“Is that the first thing you've done? It made me think a little of
+Borodine.”
+
+“The first that's at all pretentious. It's probably just a steal from
+everything I've ever heard.”
+
+“No, it's good. I suppose you had it in your head all through those
+dreadful and glorious days at the front.... Is it for piano or
+orchestra?”
+
+“All that's finished is for piano. I hope to orchestrate it
+eventually.... Oh, but it's really silly to talk this way. I don't know
+enough.... I need years of hard work before I can do anything.... And I
+have wasted so much time.... That is the most frightful thing. One has
+so few years of youth!”
+
+“There's the bell, we must scuttle back to our seats. Till the next
+intermission.” She slipped through the glass doors and disappeared.
+Andrews went back to his seat very excited, full of unquiet exultation.
+The first strains of the orchestra were pain, he felt them so acutely.
+
+After the last act they walked in silence down a dark street, hurrying
+to get away from the crowds of the Boulevards.
+
+When they reached the Avenue de l'Opera, she said: “Did you say you were
+going to stay in France?”
+
+“Yes, indeed, if I can. I am going tomorrow to put in an application for
+discharge in France.”
+
+“What will you do then?”
+
+“I shall have to find a job of some sort that will let me study at the
+Schola Cantorum. But I have enough money to last a little while.”
+
+“You are courageous.”
+
+“I forgot to ask you if you would rather take the Metro.”
+
+“No; let's walk.”
+
+They went under the arch of the Louvre. The air was full of a fine wet
+mist, so that every street lamp was surrounded by a blur of light.
+
+“My blood is full of the music of Debussy,” said Genevieve Rod,
+spreading out her arms.
+
+“It's no use trying to say what one feels about it. Words aren't much
+good, anyway, are they?”
+
+“That depends.”
+
+They walked silently along the quais. The mist was so thick they could
+not see the Seine, but whenever they came near a bridge they could hear
+the water rustling through the arches.
+
+“France is stifling,” said Andrews, all of a sudden. “It stifles you
+very slowly, with beautiful silk bands.... America beats your brains out
+with a policeman's billy.”
+
+“What do you mean?” she asked, letting pique chill her voice.
+
+“You know so much in France. You have made the world so neat....”
+
+“But you seem to want to stay here,” she said with a laugh.
+
+“It's that there's nowhere else. There is nowhere except Paris where one
+can find out things about music, particularly.... But I am one of those
+people who was not made to be contented.”
+
+“Only sheep are contented.”
+
+“I think I have been happier this month in Paris than ever before in my
+life. It seems six, so much has happened in it.”
+
+“Poissac is where I am happiest.”
+
+“Where is that?”
+
+“We have a country house there, very old and very tumbledown. They say
+that Rabelais used to come to the village. But our house is from later,
+from the time of Henri Quatre. Poissac is not far from Tours. An ugly
+name, isn't it? But to me it is very beautiful. The house has orchards
+all round it, and yellow roses with flushed centers poke themselves in
+my window, and there is a little tower like Montaigne's.”
+
+“When I get out of the army, I shall go somewhere in the country and
+work and work.”
+
+“Music should be made in the country, when the sap is rising in the
+trees.”
+
+“'D'apres nature,' as the rabbit man said.”
+
+“Who's the rabbit man?”
+
+“A very pleasant person,” said Andrews, bubbling with laughter. “You
+shall meet him some day. He sells little stuffed rabbits that jump,
+outside the Cafe de Rohan.”
+
+“Here we are.... Thank you for coming home with me.”
+
+“But how soon. Are you sure it is the house? We can't have got there as
+soon as this.”
+
+“Yes, it's my house,” said Genevieve Rod laughing. She held out her hand
+to him and he shook it eagerly. The latchkey clicked in the door.
+
+“Why don't you have a cup of tea with us here tomorrow?” she said.
+
+“With pleasure.”
+
+The big varnished door with its knocker in the shape of a ring closed
+behind her. Andrews walked away with a light step, feeling jolly and
+exhilarated.
+
+As he walked down the mist-filled quai towards the Place St. Michel, his
+ears were filled with the lisping gurgle of the river past the piers of
+the bridges.
+
+Walters was asleep. On the table in his room was a card from Jeanne.
+Andrews read the card holding it close to the candle.
+
+“How long it is since I saw you!” it read. “I shall pass the Cafe de
+Rohan Wednesday at seven, along the pavement opposite the Magazin du
+Louvre.”
+
+It was a card of Malmaison.
+
+Andrews flushed. Bitter melancholy throbbed through him. He walked
+languidly to the window and looked out into the dark court. A window
+below his spilled a warm golden haze into the misty night, through
+which he could make out vaguely some pots of ferns standing on the wet
+flagstones. From somewhere came a dense smell of hyacinths. Fragments
+of thought slipped one after another through his mind. He thought of
+himself washing windows long ago at training camp, and remembered the
+way the gritty sponge scraped his hands. He could not help feeling shame
+when he thought of those days. “Well, that's all over now,” he told
+himself. He wondered, in a half-irritated way, about Genevieve Rod. What
+sort of a person was she? Her face, with its wide eyes and pointed chin
+and the reddish-chestnut hair, unpretentiously coiled above the white
+forehead, was very vivid in his mind, though when he tried to remember
+what it was like in profile, he could not. She had thin hands, with long
+fingers that ought to play the piano well. When she grew old would she
+be yellow-toothed and jolly, like her mother? He could not think of
+her old; she was too vigorous; there was too much malice in her
+passionately-restrained gestures. The memory of her faded, and there
+came to his mind Jeanne's overworked little hands, with callous places,
+and the tips of the fingers grimy and scarred from needlework. But the
+smell of hyacinths that came up from the mist-filled courtyard was like
+a sponge wiping all impressions from his brain. The dense sweet smell in
+the damp air made him feel languid and melancholy.
+
+He took off his clothes slowly and got into bed. The smell of the
+hyacinths came to him very faintly, so that he did not know whether or
+not he was imagining it.
+
+
+
+The major's office was a large white-painted room, with elaborate
+mouldings and mirrors in all four walls, so that while Andrews waited,
+cap in hand, to go up to the desk, he could see the small round major
+with his pink face and bald head repeated to infinity in two directions
+in the grey brilliance of the mirrors.
+
+“What do you want?” said the major, looking up from some papers he was
+signing.
+
+Andrews stepped up to the desk. On both sides of the room a skinny
+figure in olive-drab, repeated endlessly, stepped up to endless mahogany
+desks, which faded into each other in an endless dusty perspective.
+
+“Would you mind O.K.-ing this application for discharge, Major?”
+
+“How many dependents?” muttered the major through his teeth, poring over
+the application.
+
+“None. It's for discharge in France to study music.”
+
+“Won't do. You need an affidavit that you can support yourself, that you
+have enough money to continue your studies. You want to study music,
+eh? D'you think you've got talent? Needs a very great deal of talent to
+study music.”
+
+“Yes, sir.... But is there anything else I need except the affidavit?”
+
+“No.... It'll go through in short order. We're glad to release men....
+We're glad to release any man with a good military record.... Williams!”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+A sergeant came over from a small table by the door.
+
+“Show this man what he needs to do to get discharged in France.”
+
+Andrews saluted. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the figures in the
+mirror, saluting down an endless corridor.
+
+When he got out on the street in front of the great white building where
+the major's office was, a morose feeling of helplessness came over him.
+There were many automobiles of different sizes and shapes, limousines,
+runabouts, touring cars, lined up along the curb, all painted olive-drab
+and neatly stenciled with numbers in white. Now and then a personage
+came out of the white marble building, puttees and Sam Browne belt
+gleaming, and darted into an automobile, or a noisy motorcycle stopped
+with a jerk in front of the wide door to let out an officer in goggles
+and mud-splattered trench coat, who disappeared immediately through
+revolving doors. Andrews could imagine him striding along halls, where
+from every door came an imperious clicking of typewriters, where papers
+were piled high on yellow varnished desks, where sallow-faced clerks in
+uniform loafed in rooms, where the four walls were covered from floor
+to ceiling with card catalogues. And every day they were adding to the
+paper, piling up more little drawers with index cards. It seemed to
+Andrews that the shiny white marble building would have to burst with
+all the paper stored up within it, and would flood the broad avenue with
+avalanches of index cards.
+
+“Button yer coat,” snarled a voice in his ear.
+
+Andrews looked up suddenly. An M. P. with a raw-looking face in which
+was a long sharp nose, had come up to him.
+
+Andrews buttoned up his overcoat and said nothing.
+
+“Ye can't hang around here this way,” the M. P. called after him.
+
+Andrews flushed and walked away without turning his head. He was
+stinging with humiliation; an angry voice inside him kept telling
+him that he was a coward, that he should make some futile gesture of
+protest. Grotesque pictures of revolt flamed through his mind, until he
+remembered that when he was very small, the same tumultuous pride had
+seethed and ached in him whenever he had been reproved by an older
+person. Helpless despair fluttered about within him like a bird
+beating against the wires of a cage. Was there no outlet, no gesture of
+expression, would he have to go on this way day after day, swallowing
+the bitter gall of indignation, that every new symbol of his slavery
+brought to his lips?
+
+He was walking in an agitated way across the Jardin des Tuileries, full
+of little children and women with dogs on leashes and nursemaids with
+starched white caps, when he met Genevieve Rod and her mother. Genevieve
+was dressed in pearl grey, with an elegance a little too fashionable to
+please Andrews. Mme. Rod wore black. In front of them a black and tan
+terrier ran from one side to the other, on nervous little legs that
+trembled like steel springs.
+
+“Isn't it lovely this morning?” cried Genevieve.
+
+“I didn't know you had a dog.”
+
+“Oh, we never go out without Santo, a protection to two lone women, you
+know,” said Mme. Rod, laughing. “Viens, Santo, dis bonjour au Monsieur.”
+
+“He usually lives at Poissac,” said Genevieve.
+
+The little dog barked furiously at Andrews, a shrill bark like a child
+squalling.
+
+“He knows he ought to be suspicious of soldiers.... I imagine most
+soldiers would change with him if they had a chance.... Viens Santo,
+viens Santo.... Will you change lives with me, Santo?”
+
+“You look as if you'd been quarrelling with somebody,” said Genevieve
+Rod lightly.
+
+“I have, with myself.... I'm going to write a book on slave psychology.
+It would be very amusing,” said Andrews in a gruff, breathless voice.
+
+“But we must hurry, dear, or we'll be late to the tailor's,” said Mme.
+Rod. She held out her black-gloved hand to Andrews.
+
+“We'll be in at tea time this afternoon. You might play me some more of
+the 'Queen of Sheba,'” said Genevieve.
+
+“I'm afraid I shan't be able to, but you never can tell.... Thank you.”
+
+He was relieved to have left them. He had been afraid he would burst out
+into some childish tirade. What a shame old Henslowe hadn't come back
+yet. He could have poured out all his despair to him; he had often
+enough before; and Henslowe was out of the army now. Wearily Andrews
+decided that he would have to start scheming and intriguing again as
+he had schemed and intrigued to come to Paris in the first place. He
+thought of the white marble building and the officers with shiny puttees
+going in and out, and the typewriters clicking in every room, and the
+understanding of his helplessness before all that complication made him
+shiver.
+
+An idea came to him. He ran down the steps of a metro station. Aubrey
+would know someone at the Crillon who could help him.
+
+But when the train reached the Concorde station, he could not summon the
+will power to get out. He felt a harsh repugnance to any effort. What
+was the use of humiliating himself and begging favors of people? It was
+hopeless anyway. In a fierce burst of pride a voice inside of him was
+shouting that he, John Andrews, should have no shame, that he should
+force people to do things for him, that he, who lived more acutely than
+the rest, suffering more pain and more joy, who had the power to express
+his pain and his joy so that it would impose itself on others, should
+force his will on those around him. “More of the psychology of slavery,”
+ said Andrews to himself, suddenly smashing the soap-bubble of his
+egoism.
+
+The train had reached the Porte Maillot.
+
+Andrews stood in the sunny boulevard in front of the metro station,
+where the plane trees were showing tiny gold-brown leaves, sniffing the
+smell of a flower-stall in front of which a woman stood, with a deft
+abstracted gesture tying up bunch after bunch of violets. He felt a
+desire to be out in the country, to be away from houses and people.
+There was a line of men and women buying tickets for St. Germain; still
+indecisive, he joined it, and at last, almost without intending it,
+found himself jolting through Neuilly in the green trailer of the
+electric car, that waggled like a duck's tail when the car went fast.
+
+He remembered his last trip on that same car with Jeanne, and wished
+mournfully that he might have fallen in love with her, that he might
+have forgotten himself and the army and everything in crazy, romantic
+love.
+
+When he got off the car at St. Germain, he had stopped formulating his
+thoughts; soggy despair throbbed in him like an infected wound.
+
+He sat for a while at the cafe opposite the Chateau looking at the light
+red walls and the strong stone-bordered windows and the jaunty turrets
+and chimneys that rose above the classic balustrade with its big urns on
+the edge of the roof. The park, through the tall iron railings, was full
+of russet and pale lines, all mist of new leaves. Had they really lived
+more vividly, the people of the Renaissance? Andrews could almost see
+men with plumed hats and short cloaks and elaborate brocaded tunics
+swaggering with a hand at the sword hilt, about the quiet square in
+front of the gate of the Chateau. And he thought of the great, sudden
+wind of freedom that had blown out of Italy, before which dogmas and
+slaveries had crumbled to dust. In contrast, the world today seemed
+pitifully arid. Men seemed to have shrunk in stature before the vastness
+of the mechanical contrivances they had invented. Michael Angelo,
+da Vinci, Aretino, Cellini; would the strong figures of men ever so
+dominate the world again? Today everything was congestion, the scurrying
+of crowds; men had become ant-like. Perhaps it was inevitable that the
+crowds should sink deeper and deeper in slavery. Whichever won, tyranny
+from above, or spontaneous organization from below, there could be no
+individuals.
+
+He went through the gates into the park, laid out with a few flower
+beds where pansies bloomed; through the dark ranks of elm trunks, was
+brilliant sky, with here and there a moss-green statue standing out
+against it. At the head of an alley he came out on a terrace. Beyond the
+strong curves of the pattern of the iron balustrade was an expanse of
+country, pale green, falling to blue towards the horizon, patched with
+pink and slate-colored houses and carved with railway tracks. At his
+feet the Seine shone like a curved sword blade.
+
+He walked with long strides along the terrace, and followed a road that
+turned into the forest, forgetting the monotonous tread mill of his
+thoughts, in the flush that the fast walking sent through his whole
+body, in the rustling silence of the woods, where the moss on the north
+side of the boles of the trees was emerald, and where the sky was soft
+grey through a lavender lacework of branches. The green gnarled woods
+made him think of the first act of Pelleas. With his tunic unbuttoned
+and his shirt open at the neck and his hands stuck deep in his pockets,
+he went along whistling like a school boy.
+
+After an hour he came out of the woods on a highroad, where he found
+himself walking beside a two-wheeled cart, that kept pace with him
+exactly, try as he would to get ahead of it. After a while, a boy leaned
+out:
+
+“Hey, l'Americain, vous voulez monter?”
+
+“Where are you going?”
+
+“Conflans-Ste.-Honorine.”
+
+“Where's that?”
+
+The boy flourished his whip vaguely towards the horse's head.
+
+“All right,” said Andrews.
+
+“These are potatoes,” said the boy, “make yourself comfortable.''
+Andrews offered him a cigarette, which he took with muddy fingers. He
+had a broad face, red cheeks and chunky features. Reddish-brown hair
+escaped spikily from under a mud-spattered beret.
+
+“Where did you say you were going?”
+
+“Conflans-Ste.-Honorine. Silly all these saints, aren't they?”
+
+Andrews laughed.
+
+“Where are you going?” the boy asked.
+
+“I don't know. I was taking a walk.”
+
+The boy leaned over to Andrews and whispered in his car: “Deserter?”
+
+“No.... I had a day off and wanted to see the country.”
+
+“I just thought, if you were a deserter, I might be able to help you.
+Must be silly to be a soldier. Dirty life.... But you like the country.
+So do I. You can't call this country. I'm not from this part; I'm from
+Brittany. There we have real country. It's stifling near Paris here, so
+many people, so many houses.”
+
+“It seems mighty fine to me.”
+
+“That's because you're a soldier, better than barracks, hein? Dirty life
+that. I'll never be a soldier. I'm going into the navy. Merchant marine,
+and then if I have to do service I'll do it on the sea.”
+
+“I suppose it is pleasanter.”
+
+“There's more freedom. And the sea.... We Bretons, you know, we all die
+of the sea or of liquor.”
+
+They laughed.
+
+“Have you been long in this part of the country?” asked Andrews.
+
+“Six months. It's very dull, this farming work. I'm head of a gang in a
+fruit orchard, but not for long. I have a brother shipped on a sailing
+vessel. When he comes back to Bordeaux, I'll ship on the same boat.”
+
+“Where to?”
+
+“South America, Peru; how should I know?”
+
+“I'd like to ship on a sailing vessel,” said Andrews.
+
+“You would? It seems very fine to me to travel, and see new countries.
+And perhaps I shall stay over there.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“How should I know? If I like it, that is.... Life is very bad in
+Europe.”
+
+“It is stifling, I suppose,” said Andrews slowly, “all these nations,
+all these hatreds, but still... it is very beautiful. Life is very ugly
+in America.”
+
+“Let's have something to drink. There's a bistro!”
+
+The boy jumped down from the cart and tied the horse to a tree. They
+went into a small wine shop with a counter and one square oak table.
+
+“But won't you be late?” said Andrews.
+
+“I don't care. I like talking, don't you?”
+
+“Yes, indeed.”
+
+They ordered wine of an old woman in a green apron, who had three yellow
+teeth that protruded from her mouth when she spoke.
+
+“I haven't had anything to eat,” said Andrews.
+
+“Wait a minute.” The boy ran out to the cart and came back with a canvas
+bag, from which he took half a loaf of bread and some cheese.
+
+“My name's Marcel,” the boy said when they had sat for a while sipping
+wine.
+
+“Mine is Jean...Jean Andre.”
+
+“I have a brother named Jean, and my father's name is Andre. That's
+pleasant, isn't it?”
+
+“But it must be a splendid job, working in a fruit orchard,” said
+Andrews, munching bread and cheese.
+
+“It's well paid; but you get tired of being in one place all the time.
+It's not as it is in Brittany....” Marcel paused. He sat, rocking a
+little on the stool, holding on to the seat between his legs. A curious
+brilliance came into his grey eyes. “There,” he went on in a soft voice,
+“it is so quiet in the fields, and from every hill you look at the
+sea.... I like that, don't you?” he turned to Andrews, with a smile.
+
+“You are lucky to be free,” said Andrews bitterly. He felt as if he
+would burst into tears.
+
+“But you will be demobilized soon; the butchery is over. You will go
+home to your family. That will be good, hein?”
+
+“I wonder. It's not far enough away. Restless!”
+
+“What do you expect?”
+
+A fine rain was falling. They climbed in on the potato sacks and the
+horse started a jog trot; its lanky brown shanks glistened a little from
+the rain.
+
+“Do you come out this way often?” asked Marcel.
+
+“I shall. It's the nicest place near Paris.”
+
+“Some Sunday you must come and I'll take you round. The Castle is very
+fine. And then there is Malmaison, where the great Emperor lived with
+the Empress Josephine.”
+
+Andrews suddenly remembered Jeanne's card. This was Wednesday. He
+pictured her dark figure among the crowd of the pavement in front of the
+Cafe de Rohan. Of course it had to be that way. Despair, so helpless as
+to be almost sweet, came over him.
+
+“And girls,” he said suddenly to Marcel, “are they pretty round here?”
+
+Marcel shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“It's not women that we lack, if a fellow has money,” he said.
+
+Andrews felt a sense of shame, he did not exactly know why.
+
+“My brother writes that in South America the women are very brown and
+very passionate,” added Marcel with a wistful smile. “But travelling and
+reading books, that's what I like.... But look, if you want to take the
+train back to Paris....” Marcel pulled up the horse to a standstill. “If
+you want to take the train, cross that field by the foot path and keep
+right along the road to the left till you come to the river. There's a
+ferryman. The town's Herblay, and there's a station.... And any Sunday
+before noon I'll be at 3 rue des Eveques, Reuil. You must come and we'll
+take a walk together.”
+
+They shook hands, and Andrews strode off across the wet fields.
+Something strangely sweet and wistful that he could not analyse lingered
+in his mind from Marcel's talk. Somewhere, beyond everything, he was
+conscious of the great free rhythm of the sea.
+
+Then he thought of the Major's office that morning, and of his own
+skinny figure in the mirrors, repeated endlessly, standing helpless and
+humble before the shining mahogany desk. Even out here in these fields
+where the wet earth seemed to heave with the sprouting of new growth, he
+was not free. In those office buildings, with white marble halls full
+of the clank of officers' heels, in index cards and piles of typewritten
+papers, his real self, which they had power to kill if they wanted to,
+was in his name and his number, on lists with millions of other names
+and other numbers. This sentient body of his, full of possibilities
+and hopes and desires, was only a pale ghost that depended on the other
+self, that suffered for it and cringed for it. He could not drive out
+of his head the picture of himself, skinny, in an illfitting uniform,
+repeated endlessly in the two mirrors of the Major's white-painted
+office.
+
+All of a sudden, through bare poplar trees, he saw the Seine.
+
+He hurried along the road, splashing now and then in a shining puddle,
+until he came to a landing place. The river was very wide, silvery,
+streaked with pale-green and violet, and straw-color from the evening
+sky. Opposite were bare poplars and behind them clusters of buff-colored
+houses climbing up a green hill to a church, all repeated upside down in
+the color-streaked river. The river was very full, and welled up above
+its banks, the way the water stands up above the rim of a glass filled
+too full. From the water came an indefinable rustling, flowing sound
+that rose and fell with quiet rhythm in Andrews's ears.
+
+Andrews forgot everything in the great wave of music that rose
+impetuously through him, poured with the hot blood through his veins,
+with the streaked colors of the river and the sky through his eyes, with
+the rhythm of the flowing river through his ears.
+
+
+
+                              V
+
+“So I came without,” said Andrews, laughing.
+
+“What fun!” cried Genevieve. “But anyway they couldn't do anything to
+you. Chartres is so near. It's at the gates of Paris.”
+
+They were alone in the compartment. The train had pulled out of the
+station and was going through suburbs where the trees were in leaf in
+the gardens, and fruit trees foamed above the red brick walls, among the
+box-like villas.
+
+“Anyway,” said Andrews, “it was an opportunity not to be missed.”
+
+“That must be one of the most amusing things about being a soldier,
+avoiding regulations. I wonder whether Damocles didn't really enjoy his
+sword, don't you think so?”
+
+They laughed.
+
+“But mother was very doubtful about my coming with you this way. She's
+such a dear, she wants to be very modern and liberal, but she always
+gets frightened at the last minute. And my aunt will think the world's
+end has come when we appear.”
+
+They went through some tunnels, and when the train stopped at Sevres,
+had a glimpse of the Seine valley, where the blue mist made a patina
+over the soft pea-green of new leaves. Then the train came out on wide
+plains, full of the glaucous shimmer of young oats and the golden-green
+of fresh-sprinkled wheat fields, where the mist on the horizon was
+purplish. The train's shadow, blue, sped along beside them over the
+grass and fences.
+
+“How beautiful it is to go out of the city this way in the early
+morning!... Has your aunt a piano?”
+
+“Yes, a very old and tinkly one.”
+
+“It would be amusing to play you all I have done at the 'Queen of
+Sheba.' You say the most helpful things.”
+
+“It is that I am interested. I think you will do something some day.”
+
+Andrews shrugged his shoulders.
+
+They sat silent, their ears filled up by the jerking rhythm of wheels
+over rails, now and then looking at each other, almost furtively.
+Outside, fields and hedges and patches of blossom, and poplar trees
+faintly powdered with green, unrolled, like a scroll before them, behind
+the nicker of telegraph poles and the festooned wires on which the
+sun gave glints of red copper. Andrews discovered all at once that
+the coppery glint on the telegraph wires was the same as the glint in
+Genevieve's hair. “Berenike, Artemisia, Arsinoe,” the names lingered in
+his mind. So that as he looked out of the window at the long curves of
+the telegraph wires that seemed to rise and fall as they glided past,
+he could imagine her face, with its large, pale brown eyes and its small
+mouth and broad smooth forehead, suddenly stilled into the encaustic
+painting on the mummy case of some Alexandrian girl.
+
+“Tell me,” she said, “when did you begin to write music?”
+
+Andrews brushed the light, disordered hair off his forehead.
+
+“Why, I think I forgot to brush my hair this morning,” he said. “You
+see, I was so excited by the idea of coming to Chartres with you.”
+
+They laughed.
+
+“But my mother taught me to play the piano when I was very small,” he
+went on seriously. “She and I lived alone in an old house belonging to
+her family in Virginia. How different all that was from anything you
+have ever lived. It would not be possible in Europe to be as isolated
+as we were in Virginia.... Mother was very unhappy. She had led a
+dreadfully thwarted life... that unrelieved hopeless misery that only
+a woman can suffer. She used to tell me stories, and I used to make
+up little tunes about them, and about anything. The great success,” he
+laughed, “was, I remember, to a dandelion.... I can remember so well the
+way Mother pursed up her lips as she leaned over the writing desk....
+She was very tall, and as it was dark in our old sitting room, had to
+lean far over to see.... She used to spend hours making beautiful copies
+of tunes I made up. My mother is the only person who has ever really had
+any importance in my life.... But I lack technical training terribly.”
+
+“Do you think it is so important?” said Genevieve, leaning towards him
+to make herself heard above the clatter of the train.
+
+“Perhaps it isn't. I don't know.”
+
+“I think it always comes sooner or later, if you feel intensely enough.”
+
+“But it is so frightful to feel all you want to express getting away
+beyond you. An idea comes into your head, and you feel it grow stronger
+and stronger and you can't grasp it; you have no means to express it.
+It's like standing on a street corner and seeing a gorgeous procession
+go by without being able to join it, or like opening a bottle of beer
+and having it foam all over you without having a glass to pour it into.”
+
+Genevieve burst out laughing.
+
+“But you can drink from the bottle, can't you?” she said, her eyes
+sparkling.
+
+“I'm trying to,” said Andrews.
+
+“Here we are. There's the cathedral. No, it's hidden,” cried Genevieve.
+
+They got to their feet. As they left the station, Andrews said: “But
+after all, it's only freedom that matters. When I'm out of the army!...”
+
+“Yes, I suppose you are right... for you that is. The artist should be
+free from any sort of entanglement.”
+
+“I don't see what difference there is between an artist and any other
+sort of workman,” said Andrews savagely.
+
+“No, but look.”
+
+From the square where they stood, above the green blur of a little park,
+they could see the cathedral, creamy yellow and rust color, with the
+sober tower and the gaudy tower, and the great rose window between, the
+whole pile standing nonchalantly, knee deep in the packed roofs of the
+town.
+
+They stood shoulder to shoulder, looking at it without speaking.
+
+In the afternoon they walked down the hill towards the river, that
+flowed through a quarter of tottering, peak-gabled houses and mills,
+from which came a sound of grinding wheels. Above them, towering over
+gardens full of pear trees in bloom, the apse of the cathedral bulged
+against the pale sky. On a narrow and very ancient bridge they stopped
+and looked at the water, full of a shimmer of blue and green and grey
+from the sky and from the vivid new leaves of the willow trees along the
+bank.
+
+Their senses glutted with the beauty of the day and the intricate
+magnificence of the cathedral, languid with all they had seen and said,
+they were talking of the future with quiet voices.
+
+“It's all in forming a habit of work,” Andrews was saying. “You have to
+be a slave to get anything done. It's all a question of choosing your
+master, don't you think so?”
+
+“Yes. I suppose all the men who have left their imprint on people's
+lives have been slaves in a sense,” said Genevieve slowly. “Everyone has
+to give up a great deal of life to live anything deeply. But it's worth,
+it.” She looked Andrews full in the eyes.
+
+“Yes, I think it's worth it,” said Andrews. “But you must help me. Now
+I am like a man who has come up out of a dark cellar. I'm almost too
+dazzled by the gorgeousness of everything. But at least I am out of the
+cellar.”
+
+“Look, a fish jumped,” cried Genevieve. “I wonder if we could hire a
+boat anywhere.... Don't you think it'd be fun to go out in a boat?”
+
+A voice broke in on Genevieve's answer: “Let's see your pass, will you?”
+
+Andrews turned round. A soldier with a round brown face and red cheeks
+stood beside him on the bridge. Andrews looked at him fixedly. A little
+zigzag scar above his left eye showed white on his heavily tanned skin.
+
+“Let's see your pass,” the man said again; he had a high pitched,
+squeaky voice.
+
+Andrews felt the blood thumping in his ears. “Are you an M. P.?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well I'm in the Sorbonne Detachment.”
+
+“What the hell's that?” said the M. P., laughing thinly.
+
+“What does he say?” asked Genevieve, smiling.
+
+“Nothing. I'll have to go see the officer and explain,” said Andrews in
+a breathless voice. “You go back to your Aunt's and I'll come as soon as
+I've arranged it.”
+
+“No, I'll come with you.”
+
+“Please go back. It may be serious. I'll come as soon as I can,” said
+Andrews harshly.
+
+She walked up the hill with swift decisive steps, without turning round.
+
+“Tough luck, buddy,” said the M. P. “She's a good-looker. I'd like to
+have a half-hour with her myself.”
+
+“Look here. I'm in the Sorbonne School Detachment in Paris, and I came
+down here without a pass. Is there anything I can do about it?”
+
+“They'll fix you up, don't worry,” cried the M. P. shrilly. “You ain't a
+member of the General Staff in disguise, are ye? School Detachment! Gee,
+won't Bill Huggis laugh when he hears that? You pulled the best one yet,
+buddy.... But come along,” he added in a confidential tone. “If you come
+quiet I won't put the handcuffs on ye.”
+
+“How do I know you're an M. P.?”
+
+“You'll know soon enough.”
+
+They turned down a narrow street between grey stucco walls leprous with
+moss and water stains.
+
+At a chair inside the window of a small wine shop a man with a red M. P.
+badge sat smoking. He got up when he saw them pass and opened the door
+with one hand on his pistol holster.
+
+“I got one bird, Bill,” said the man, shoving Andrews roughly in the
+door.
+
+“Good for you, Handsome; is he quiet?”
+
+“Um.” Handsome grunted.
+
+“Sit down there. If you move you'll git a bullet in your guts.”
+
+The M. P. stuck out a square jaw; he had a sallow skin, puffy under the
+eyes that were grey and lustreless.
+
+“He says he's in some goddam School Detachment. First time that's been
+pulled, ain't it?”
+
+“School Detachment. D'you mean an O. T. C?” Bill sank laughing into his
+chair by the window, spreading his legs out over the floor.
+
+“Ain't that rich?” said Handsome, laughing shrilly again.
+
+“Got any papers on ye? Ye must have some sort of papers.”
+
+Andrews searched his pockets. He flushed.
+
+“I ought to have a school pass.”
+
+“You sure ought. Gee, this guy's simple,” said Bill, leaning far back in
+the chair and blowing smoke through his nose.
+
+“Look at his dawg-tag, Handsome.”
+
+The man strode over to Andrews and jerked open the top of his tunic.
+Andrews pulled his body away.
+
+“I haven't got any on. I forgot to put any on this morning.”
+
+“No tag, no insignia.”
+
+“Yes, I have, infantry.”
+
+“No papers.... I bet he's been out a hell of a time,” said Handsome
+meditatively.
+
+“Better put the cuffs on him,” said Bill in the middle of a yawn.
+
+“Let's wait a while. When's the loot coming?”
+
+“Not till night.”
+
+“Sure?”
+
+“Yes. Ain't no train.”
+
+“How about a side car?”
+
+“No, I know he ain't comin',” snarled Bill.
+
+“What d'you say we have a little liquor, Bill? Bet this bloke's
+got money. You'll set us up to a glass o' cognac, won't you, School
+Detachment?”
+
+Andrews sat very stiff in his chair, staring at them.
+
+“Yes,” he said, “order up what you like.”
+
+“Keep an eye on him, Handsome. You never can tell what this quiet kind's
+likely to pull off on you.”
+
+Bill Huggis strode out of the room with heavy steps. In a moment he came
+back swinging a bottle of cognac in his hand.
+
+“Tole the Madame you'd pay, Skinny,” said the man as he passed Andrews's
+chair. Andrews nodded.
+
+The two M. P.'s drew up to the table beside which Andrews sat. Andrews
+could not keep his eyes off them. Bill Huggis hummed as he pulled the
+cork out of the bottle.
+
+“It's the smile that makes you happy, It's the smile that makes you sad.”
+
+Handsome watched him, grinning.
+
+Suddenly they both burst out laughing.
+
+“An' the damn fool thinks he's in a school battalion,” said Handsome in
+his shrill voice.
+
+“It'll be another kind of a battalion you'll be in, Skinny,” cried Bill
+Huggis. He stifled his laughter with a long drink from the bottle.
+
+He smacked his lips.
+
+“Not so goddam bad,” he said. Then he started humming again:
+
+“It's the smile that makes you happy, It's the smile that makes you sad.”
+
+“Have some, Skinny?” said Handsome, pushing the bottle towards Andrews.
+
+“No, thanks,” said Andrews.
+
+“Ye won't be gettin' good cognac where yer goin', Skinny, not by a damn
+sight,” growled Bill Huggis in the middle of a laugh.
+
+“All right, I'll take a swig.” An idea had suddenly come into Andrews's
+head.
+
+“Gee, the bastard kin drink cognac,” cried Handsome.
+
+“Got enough money to buy us another bottle?”
+
+Andrews nodded. He wiped his mouth absently with his handkerchief; he
+had drunk the raw cognac without tasting it.
+
+“Get another bottle, Handsome,” said Bill Huggis carelessly. A purplish
+flush had appeared in the lower part of his cheeks. When the other man
+came back, he burst out laughing.
+
+“The last cognac this Skinny guy from the school detachment'll get for
+many a day. Better drink up strong, Skinny.... They don't have that
+stuff down on the farm.... School Detachment; I'll be goddamned!” He
+leaned back in his chair, shaking with laughter.
+
+Handsome's face was crimson. Only the zigzag scar over his eye remained
+white. He was swearing in a low voice as he worked the cork out of the
+bottle.
+
+Andrews could not keep his eyes off the men's faces. They went from one
+to the other, in spite of him. Now and then, for an instant, he caught
+a glimpse of the yellow and brown squares of the wall paper and the bar
+with a few empty bottles behind it. He tried to count the bottles; “one,
+two, three...” but he was staring in the lustreless grey eyes of Bill
+Huggis, who lay back in his chair, blowing smoke out of his nose, now
+and then reaching for the cognac bottle, all the while humming faintly,
+under his breath:
+
+“It's the smile that makes you happy, It's the smile that makes you sad.”
+
+Handsome sat with his elbows on the table, and his chin in his beefy
+hands. His face was flushed crimson, but the skin was softly moulded,
+like a woman's.
+
+The light in the room was beginning to grow grey.
+
+Handsome and Bill Huggis stood up. A young officer, with clearly-marked
+features and a campaign hat worn a little on one side, came in, stood
+with his feet wide apart in the middle of the floor.
+
+Andrews went up to him.
+
+“I'm in the Sorbonne Detachment, Lieutenant, stationed in Paris.”
+
+“Don't you know enough to salute?” said the officer, looking him up and
+down. “One of you men teach him to salute,” he said slowly.
+
+Handsome made a step towards Andrews and hit him with his fist between
+the eyes. There was a flash of light and the room swung round, and there
+was a splitting crash as his head struck the floor. He got to his feet.
+The fist hit him in the same place, blinding him, the three figures and
+the bright oblong of the window swung round. A chair crashed down
+with him, and a hard rap in the back of his skull brought momentary
+blackness.
+
+“That's enough, let him be,” he heard a voice far away at the end of a
+black tunnel.
+
+A great weight seemed to be holding him down as he struggled to get up,
+blinded by tears and blood. Rending pains darted like arrows through his
+head. There were handcuffs on his wrists.
+
+“Git up,” snarled a voice.
+
+He got to his feet, faint light came through the streaming tears in his
+eyes. His forehead flamed as if hot coals were being pressed against it.
+
+“Prisoner, attention!” shouted the officer's voice. “March!”
+
+Automatically, Andrews lifted one foot and then the other. He felt in
+his face the cool air of the street. On either side of him were the
+hard steps of the M. P.'s. Within him a nightmare voice was shrieking,
+shrieking.
+
+
+
+
+PART SIX: UNDER THE WHEELS
+
+
+                              I
+
+The uncovered garbage cans clattered as they were thrown one by one into
+the truck. Dust, and a smell of putrid things, hung in the air about the
+men as they worked. A guard stood by with his legs wide apart, and his
+rifle-butt on the pavement between them. The early mist hung low,
+hiding the upper windows of the hospital. From the door beside which the
+garbage cans were ranged came a thick odor of carbolic. The last garbage
+can rattled into place on the truck, the four prisoners and the guard
+clambered on, finding room as best they could among the cans, from which
+dripped bloody bandages, ashes, and bits of decaying food, and the truck
+rumbled off towards the incinerator, through the streets of Paris that
+sparkled with the gaiety of early morning.
+
+The prisoners wore no tunics; their shirts and breeches had dark stains
+of grease and dirt; on their hands were torn canvas gloves. The guard
+was a sheepish, pink-faced youth, who kept grinning apologetically, and
+had trouble keeping his balance when the truck went round corners.
+
+“How many days do they keep a guy on this job, Happy?” asked a boy with
+mild blue eyes and a creamy complexion, and reddish curly hair.
+
+“Damned if I know, kid; as long as they please, I guess,” said the
+bull-necked man next him, who had a lined prize fighter's face, with a
+heavy protruding jaw.
+
+Then, after looking at the boy for a minute, with his face twisted into
+an astonished sort of grin, he went on: “Say, kid, how in hell did you
+git here? Robbin' the cradle, Oi call it, to send you here, kid.”
+
+“I stole a Ford,” the boy answered cheerfully.
+
+“Like hell you did!”
+
+“Sold it for five hundred francs.”
+
+Happy laughed, and caught hold of an ash can to keep from being thrown
+out of the jolting truck.
+
+“Kin ye beat that, guard?” he cried. “Ain't that somethin'?”
+
+The guard sniggered.
+
+“Didn't send me to Leavenworth 'cause I was so young,” went on the kid
+placidly.
+
+“How old are you, kid?” asked Andrews, who was leaning against the
+driver's seat.
+
+“Seventeen,” said the boy, blushing and casting his eyes down.
+
+“He must have lied like hell to git in this goddam army,” boomed the
+deep voice of the truck driver, who had leaned over to spit s long
+squirt of tobacco juice.
+
+The truck driver jammed the brakes on. The garbage cans banged against
+each other.
+
+The Kid cried out in pain: “Hold your horses, can't you? You nearly
+broke my leg.”
+
+The truck driver was swearing in a long string of words.
+
+“Goddam these dreamin', skygazin' sons of French bastards. Why don't
+they get out of your way? Git out an' crank her up, Happy.”
+
+“Guess a feller'd be lucky if he'd break his leg or somethin'; don't you
+think so, Skinny?” said the fourth prisoner in a low voice.
+
+“It'll take mor'n a broken leg to git you out o' this labor battalion,
+Hoggenback. Won't it, guard?” said Happy, as he climbed on again.
+
+The truck jolted away, trailing a haze of cinder dust and a sour stench
+of garbage behind it. Andrews noticed all at once that they were
+going down the quais along the river. Notre Dame was rosy in the misty
+sunlight, the color of lilacs in full bloom. He looked at it fixedly
+a moment, and then looked away. He felt very far from it, like a man
+looking at the stars from the bottom of a pit.
+
+“My mate, he's gone to Leavenworth for five years,” said the Kid when
+they had been silent some time listening to the rattle of the garbage
+cans as the trucks jolted over the cobbles.
+
+“Helped yer steal the Ford, did he?” asked Happy.
+
+“Ford nothin'! He sold an ammunition train. He was a railroad man. He
+was a mason, that's why he only got five years.”
+
+“I guess five years in Leavenworth's enough for anybody,” muttered
+Hoggenback, scowling. He was a square-shouldered dark man, who always
+hung his head when he worked.
+
+“We didn't meet up till we got to Paris; we was on a hell of a party
+together at the Olympia. That's where they picked us up. Took us to the
+Bastille. Ever been in the Bastille?”
+
+“I have,” said Hoggenback.
+
+“Ain't no joke, is it?”
+
+“Christ!” said Hoggenback. His face flushed a furious red. He turned
+away and looked at the civilians walking briskly along the early morning
+streets, at the waiters in shirt sleeves swabbing off the cafe tables,
+at the women pushing handcarts full of bright-colored vegetables over
+the cobblestones.
+
+“I guess they ain't nobody gone through what we guys go through with,”
+ said Happy. “It'd be better if the ole war was still a' goin', to my
+way o' thinkin'. They'd chuck us into the trenches then. Ain't so low as
+this.”
+
+“Look lively,” shouted the truck driver, as the truck stopped in a dirty
+yard full of cinder piles. “Ain't got all day. Five more loads to get
+yet.”
+
+The guard stood by with angry face and stiff limbs; for he feared there
+were officers about, and the prisoners started unloading the garbage
+cans; their nostrils were full of the stench of putrescence; between
+their lips was a gritty taste of cinders.
+
+
+
+The air in the dark mess shack was thick with steam from the kitchen at
+one end. The men filed past the counter, holding out their mess kits,
+into which the K. P.'s splashed the food. Occasionally someone stopped
+to ask for a larger helping in an ingratiating voice. They ate packed
+together at long tables of roughly planed boards, stained from the
+constant spilling of grease and coffee and still wet from a perfunctory
+scrubbing. Andrews sat at the end of a bench, near the door through
+which came the glimmer of twilight, eating slowly, surprised at
+the relish with which he ate the greasy food, and at the exhausted
+contentment that had come over him almost in spite of himself.
+Hoggenback sat opposite him.
+
+“Funny,” he said to Hoggenback, “it's not really as bad as I thought it
+would be.”
+
+“What d'you mean, this labor battalion? Hell, a feller can put up with
+anything; that's one thing you learn in the army.”
+
+“I guess people would rather put up with things than make an effort to
+change them.”
+
+“You're goddam right. Got a butt?”
+
+Andrews handed him a cigarette. They got to their feet and walked out
+into the twilight, holding their mess kits in front of them. As they
+were washing their mess kits in a tub of greasy water, where bits of
+food floated in a thick scum, Hoggenback suddenly said in a low voice:
+
+“But it all piles up, Buddy; some day there'll be an accountin'. D'you
+believe in religion?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Neither do I. I come of folks as done their own accountin'. My father
+an' my gran'father before him. A feller can't eat his bile day after
+day, day after day.”
+
+“I'm afraid he can, Hoggenback,” broke in Andrews. They walked towards
+the barracks.
+
+“Goddam it, no,” cried Hoggenback aloud. “There comes a point where you
+can't eat yer bile any more, where it don't do no good to cuss. Then you
+runs amuck.” Hanging his head he went slowly into the barracks.
+
+Andrews leaned against the outside of the building, staring up at the
+sky. He was trying desperately to think, to pull together a few threads
+of his life in this moment of respite from the nightmare. In five
+minutes the bugle would din in his ears, and he would be driven into
+the barracks. A tune came to his head that he played with eagerly for a
+moment, and then, as memory came to him, tried to efface with a shudder
+of disgust.
+
+     “There's the smile that makes you happy,
+     There's the smile that makes you sad.”
+
+It was almost dark. Two men walked slowly by in front of him.
+
+“Sarge, may I speak to you?” came a voice in a whisper.
+
+The sergeant grunted.
+
+“I think there's two guys trying to break loose out of here.”
+
+“Who? If you're wrong it'll be the worse for you, remember that.”
+
+“Surley an' Watson. I heard 'em talkin' about it behind the latrine.”
+
+“Damn fools.”
+
+“They was sayin' they'd rather be dead than keep up this life.”
+
+“They did, did they?”
+
+“Don't talk so loud, Sarge. It wouldn't do for any of the fellers to
+know I was talkin' to yer. Say, Sarge...” the voice became whining,
+“don't you think I've nearly served my time down here?”
+
+“What do I know about that? 'Tain't my job.”
+
+“But, Sarge, I used to be company clerk with my old outfit. Don't
+ye need a guy round the office?” Andrews strode past them into the
+barracks. Dull fury possessed him. He took off his clothes and got
+silently into his blankets.
+
+Hoggenback and Happy were talking beside his bunk.
+
+“Never you mind,” said Hoggenback, “somebody'll get that guy sooner or
+later.”
+
+“Git him, nauthin'! The fellers in that camp was so damn skeered they
+jumped if you snapped yer fingers at 'em. It's the discipline. I'm
+tellin' yer, it gits a feller in the end,” said Happy.
+
+Andrews lay without speaking, listening to their talk, aching in every
+muscle from the crushing work of the day.
+
+“They court-martialled that guy, a feller told me,” went on Hoggenback.
+“An' what d'ye think they did to him? Retired on half pay. He was a
+major.”
+
+“Gawd, if I iver git out o' this army, I'll be so goddam glad,” began
+Happy. Hoggenback interrupted:
+
+“That you'll forgit all about the raw deal they gave you, an' tell
+everybody how fine ye liked it.”
+
+Andrews felt the mocking notes of the bugle outside stabbing his ears.
+A non-com's voice roared: “Quiet,” from the end of the building, and the
+lights went out. Already Andrews could hear the deep breathing of men
+asleep. He lay awake, staring into the darkness, his body throbbing with
+the monotonous rhythms of the work of the day. He seemed still to hear
+the sickening whine in the man's voice as he talked to the sergeant
+outside in the twilight. “And shall I be reduced to that?” he was asking
+himself.
+
+
+
+Andrews was leaving the latrine when he heard a voice call softly,
+“Skinny.”
+
+“Yes,” he said.
+
+“Come here, I want to talk to you.” It was the Kid's voice. There was no
+light in the ill-smelling shack that served for a latrine. Outside they
+could hear the guard humming softly to himself as he went back and forth
+before the barracks door.
+
+“Let's you and me be buddies, Skinny.”
+
+“Sure,” said Andrews.
+
+“Say, what d'you think the chance is o' cuttin' loose?”
+
+“Pretty damn poor,” said Andrews.
+
+“Couldn't you just make a noise like a hoop an' roll away?”
+
+They giggled softly.
+
+Andrews put his hand on the boy's arm.
+
+“But, Kid, it's too risky. I got in this fix by taking a risk. I don't
+feel like beginning over again, and if they catch you, it's desertion.
+Leavenworth for twenty years, or life. That'd be the end of everything.”
+
+“Well, what the hell's this?”
+
+“Oh, I don't know; they've got to let us out some day.”
+
+“Sh... sh....”
+
+Kid put his hand suddenly over Andrews's mouth. They stood rigid, so
+that they could hear their hearts pounding.
+
+Outside there was a brisk step on the gravel. The sentry halted and
+saluted. The steps faded into the distance, and the sentry's humming
+began again.
+
+“They put two fellers in the jug for a month for talking like we are....
+In solitary,” whispered Kid.
+
+“But, Kid, I haven't got the guts to try anything now.”
+
+“Sure you have, Skinny. You an' me's got more guts than all the rest of
+'em put together. God, if people had guts, you couldn't treat 'em like
+they were curs. Look, if I can ever get out o' this, I've got a hunch I
+can make a good thing writing movie scenarios. I want to get on in the
+world, Skinny.”
+
+“But, Kid, you won't be able to go back to the States.”
+
+“I don't care. New Rochelle's not the whole world. They got the movies
+in Italy, ain't they?”
+
+“Sure. Let's go to bed.”
+
+“All right. Look, you an' me are buddies from now on, Skinny.”
+
+Andrews felt the Kid's hand press his arm.
+
+In his dark, airless bunk, in the lowest of three tiers, Andrews lay
+awake a long time, listening to the snores and the heavy breathing
+about him. Thoughts fluttered restlessly in his head, but in his blank
+hopelessness he could only frown and bite his lips, and roll his head
+from side to side on the rolled-up tunic he used for a pillow, listening
+with desperate attention to the heavy breathing of the men who slept
+above him and beside him.
+
+When he fell asleep he dreamed that he was alone with Genevieve Rod
+in the concert hall of the Schola Cantorum, and that he was trying
+desperately hard to play some tune for her on the violin, a tune he kept
+forgetting, and in the agony of trying to remember, the tears streamed
+down his cheeks. Then he had his arms round Genevieve's shoulders and
+was kissing her, kissing her, until he found that it was a wooden board
+he was kissing, a wooden board on which was painted a face with broad
+forehead and great pale brown eyes, and small tight lips, and all the
+while a boy who seemed to be both Chrisfield and the Kid kept telling
+him to run or the M.P.'s would get him. Then he sat frozen in icy terror
+with a bottle in his hand, while a frightful voice behind him sang very
+loud:
+
+     “There's the smile that makes you happy,
+     There's the smile that makes you sad.”
+
+The bugle woke him, and he sat up with such a start that he hit his head
+hard against the bunk above him. He lay back cringing from the pain like
+a child. But he had to hurry desperately to get his clothes on in time
+for roll call. It was with a feeling of relief that he found that mess
+was not ready, and that men were waiting in line outside the kitchen
+shack, stamping their feet and clattering their mess kits as they moved
+about through the chilly twilight of the spring morning. Andrews found
+he was standing behind Hoggenback.
+
+“How's she comin', Skinny?” whispered Hoggenback, in his low mysterious
+voice.
+
+“Oh, we're all in the same boat,” said Andrews with a laugh.
+
+“Wish it'd sink,” muttered the other man. “D'ye know,” he went on after
+a pause, “I kinder thought an edicated guy like you'd be able to keep
+out of a mess like this. I wasn't brought up without edication, but I
+guess I didn't have enough.”
+
+“I guess most of 'em can; I don't sec that it's much to the point. A man
+suffers as much if he doesn't know how to read and write as if he had a
+college education.”
+
+“I dunno, Skinny. A feller who's led a rough life can put up with an
+awful lot. The thing is, Skinny, I might have had a commission if I
+hadn't been so damned impatient.... I'm a lumberman by trade, and my
+dad's cleaned up a pretty thing in war contracts jus' a short time
+ago. He could have got me in the engineers if I hadn't gone off an'
+enlisted.”
+
+“Why did you?”
+
+“I was restless-like. I guess I wanted to see the world. I didn't care
+about the goddam war, but I wanted to see what things was like over
+here.”
+
+“Well, you've seen,” said Andrews, smiling.
+
+“In the neck,” said Hoggenback, as he pushed out his cup for coffee.
+
+
+
+In the truck that was taking them to work, Andrews and the Kid sat side
+by side on the jouncing backboard and tried to talk above the rumble of
+the exhaust.
+
+“Like Paris?” asked the Kid.
+
+“Not this way,” said Andrews.
+
+“Say, one of the guys said you could parlay French real well. I want
+you to teach me. A guy's got to know languages to get along in this
+country.”
+
+“But you must know some.”
+
+“Bedroom French,” said the Kid, laughing.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“But if I want to write a movie scenario for an Eytalian firm, I can't
+just write 'voulay-vous couchezavecmoa' over and over again.”
+
+“But you'll have to learn Italian, Kid.”
+
+“I'm goin' to. Say, ain't they taking us a hell of a ways today,
+Skinny?”
+
+“We're goin' to Passy Wharf to unload rock,” said somebody in a
+grumbling voice.
+
+“No, it's a cement... cement for the stadium we're presentin' the French
+Nation. Ain't you read in the 'Stars and Stripes' about it?”
+
+“I'd present 'em with a swift kick, and a hell of a lot of other people,
+too.”
+
+“So we have to sweat unloadin' cement all day,” muttered Hoggenback, “to
+give these goddam frawgs a stadium.”
+
+“If it weren't that it'd be somethin' else.”
+
+“But, ain't we got folks at home to work for?” cried Hoggenback.
+“Mightn't all this sweat be doin' some good for us? Building a stadium!
+My gawd!”
+
+“Pile out there.... Quick!” rasped a voice from the driver's seat.
+
+Through the haze of choking white dust, Andrews got now and then a
+glimpse of the grey-green river, with its tugboats sporting their white
+cockades of steam and their long trailing plumes of smoke, and its
+blunt-nosed barges and its bridges, where people walked jauntily back
+and forth, going about their business, going where they wanted to go.
+The bags of cement were very heavy, and the unaccustomed work sent
+racking pains through his back. The biting dust stung under his finger
+nails, and in his mouth and eyes. All the morning a sort of refrain
+went through his head: “People have spent their lives... doing only
+this. People have spent their lives doing only this.” As he crossed and
+recrossed the narrow plank from the barge to the shore, he looked at the
+black water speeding seawards and took extraordinary care not to let
+his foot slip. He did not know why, for one-half of him was thinking how
+wonderful it would be to drown, to forget in eternal black silence the
+hopeless struggle. Once he saw the Kid standing before the sergeant in
+charge in an attitude of complete exhaustion, and caught a glint of his
+blue eyes as he looked up appealingly, looking like a child begging out
+of a spanking. The sight amused him, and he said to himself: “If I had
+pink cheeks and cupid's bow lips, I might be able to go through life
+on my blue eyes”; and he pictured the Kid, a fat, cherubic old man,
+stepping out of a white limousine, the way people do in the movies, and
+looking about him with those same mild blue eyes. But soon he forgot
+everything in the agony of the heavy cement bags bearing down on his
+back and hips.
+
+In the truck on the way back to the mess the Kid, looking fresh and
+smiling among the sweating men, like ghosts from the white dust,
+talking hoarsely above the clatter of the truck, sidled up very close to
+Andrews.
+
+“D'you like swimmin', Skinny?”
+
+“Yes. I'd give a lot to get some of this cement dust off me,” said
+Andrews, without interest.
+
+“I once won a boy's swimmin' race at Coney,” said the Kid. Andrews did
+not answer.
+
+“Were you in the swimmin' team or anything like that, Skinny, when you
+went to school?”
+
+“No.... It would be wonderful to be in the water, though. I used to swim
+way out in Chesapeake Bay at night when the water was phosphorescent.”
+
+Andrews suddenly found the Kid's blue eyes, bright as flames from
+excitement, staring into his.
+
+“God, I'm an ass,” he muttered.
+
+He felt the Kid's fist punch him softly in the back. “Sergeant said they
+was goin' to work us late as hell tonight,” the Kid was saying aloud to
+the men round him.
+
+“I'll be dead if they do,” muttered Hoggenback.
+
+“An' you a lumberjack!”
+
+“It ain't that. I could carry their bloody bags two at a time if I
+wanted ter. A feller gets so goddam mad, that's all; so goddam mad.
+Don't he, Skinny?” Hoggenback turned to Andrews and smiled.
+
+Andrews nodded his head.
+
+After the first two or three bags Andrews carried in the afternoon, it
+seemed as if every one would be the last he could possibly lift. His
+back and thighs throbbed with exhaustion; his face and the tips of his
+fingers felt raw from the biting cement dust.
+
+When the river began to grow purple with evening, he noticed that two
+civilians, young men with buff-colored coats and canes, were watching
+the gang at work.
+
+“They says they's newspaper reporters, writing up how fast the army's
+being demobilized,” said one man in an awed voice.
+
+“They come to the right place.”
+
+“Tell 'em we're leavin' for home now. Loadin' our barracks bags on the
+steamer.”
+
+The newspaper men were giving out cigarettes. Several men grouped round
+them. One shouted out:
+
+“We're the guys does the light work. Blackjack Pershing's own pet labor
+battalion.”
+
+“They like us so well they just can't let us go.”
+
+“Damn jackasses,” muttered Hoggenback, as, with his eyes to the ground,
+he passed Andrews. “I could tell 'em some things'd make their goddam
+ears buzz.”
+
+“Why don't you?”
+
+“What the hell's the use? I ain't got the edication to talk up to guys
+like that.”
+
+The sergeant, a short, red-faced man with a mustache clipped very short,
+went up to the group round the newspaper men.
+
+“Come on, fellers, we've got a hell of a lot of this cement to get in
+before it rains,” he said in a kindly voice; “the sooner we get it in,
+the sooner we get off.”
+
+“Listen to that bastard, ain't he juss too sweet for pie when there's
+company?” muttered Hoggenback on his way from the barge with a bag of
+cement.
+
+The Kid brushed past Andrews without looking at him.
+
+“Do what I do, Skinny,” he said.
+
+Andrews did not turn round, but his heart started thumping very fast.
+A dull sort of terror took possession of him. He tried desperately to
+summon his will power, to keep from cringing, but he kept remembering
+the way the room had swung round when the M.P. had hit him, and heard
+again the cold voice of the lieutenant saying: “One of you men teach him
+how to salute.” Time dragged out interminably.
+
+At last, coming back to the edge of the wharf, Andrews saw that there
+were no more bags in the barge. He sat down on the plank, too exhausted
+to think. Blue-grey dusk was closing down on everything. The Passy
+bridge stood out, purple against a great crimson afterglow.
+
+The Kid sat down beside him, and threw an arm trembling with excitement
+round his shoulders.
+
+“The guard's lookin' the other way. They won't miss us till they get to
+the truck.... Come on, Skinny,” he said in a low, quiet voice.
+
+Holding on to the plank, he let himself down into the speeding water.
+Andrews slipped after him, hardly knowing what he was doing. The icy
+water closing about his body made him suddenly feel awake and vigorous.
+As he was swept by the big rudder of the barge, he caught hold of
+the Kid, who was holding on to a rope. They worked their way without
+speaking round to the outer side of the rudder. The swift river tugging
+savagely at them made it hard to hold on.
+
+“Now they can't see us,” said the Kid between clenched teeth. “Can you
+work your shoes an' pants off?”'
+
+Andrews started struggling with one boot, the Kid helping to hold him up
+with his free hand.
+
+“Mine are off,” he said. “I was all fixed.” He laughed, though his teeth
+were chattering.
+
+“All right. I've broken the laces,” said Andrews.
+
+“Can you swim under water?”
+
+Andrews nodded.
+
+“We want to make for that bunch of barges the other side of the bridge.
+The barge people'll hide us.”
+
+“How d'ye know they will?”
+
+The Kid had disappeared.
+
+Andrews hesitated a moment, then let go his hold and started swimming
+with the current for all his might.
+
+At first he felt strong and exultant, but very soon he began to feel
+the icy grip of the water bearing him down; his arms and legs seemed
+to stiffen. More than against the water, he was struggling against
+paralysis within him, so that he thought that every moment his limbs
+would go rigid. He came to the surface and gasped for air. He had a
+second's glimpse of figures, tiny like toy soldiers, gesticulating
+wildly on the deck of the barge. The report of a rifle snapped through
+the air. He dove again, without thinking, as if his body were working
+independently of his mind.
+
+The next time he came up, his eyes were blurred from the cold. There was
+a taste of blood in his mouth. The shadow of the bridge was just above
+him. He turned on his back for a second. There were lights on the
+bridge. A current swept him past one barge and then another. Certainty
+possessed him that he was going to be drowned. A voice seemed to sob
+in his ears grotesquely: “And so John Andrews was drowned in the Seine,
+drowned in the Seine, in the Seine.”
+
+Then he was kicking and fighting in a furious rage against the coils
+about him that wanted to drag him down and away. The black side of a
+barge was slipping up stream beside him with lightning speed. How fast
+those barges go, he thought. Then suddenly he found that he had hold of
+a rope, that his shoulders were banging against the bow of a small boat,
+while in front of him, against the dull purple sky, towered the rudder
+of the barge. A strong warm hand grasped his shoulder from behind, and
+he was being drawn up and up, over the bow of the boat that hurt his
+numbed body like blows, out of the clutching coils of the water.
+
+“Hide me, I'm a deserter,” he said over and over again in French. A
+brown and red face with a bristly white beard, a bulbous, mullioned sort
+of face, hovered over him in the middle of a pinkish mist.
+
+
+
+                             II
+
+“Oh, qu'il est propre! Oh, qu'il a la peau blanche!” Women's voices were
+shrilling behind the mist. A coverlet that felt soft and fuzzy against
+his skin was being put about him. He was very warm and torpid. But
+somewhere in his thoughts a black crawling thing like a spider was
+trying to reach him, trying to work its way through the pinkish veils
+of torpor. After a long while he managed to roll over, and looked about
+him.
+
+“Mais reste tranquille,” came the woman's shrill voice again.
+
+“And the other one? Did you see the other one?” he asked in a choked
+whisper.
+
+“Yes, it's all right. I'm drying it by the stove,” came another woman's
+voice, deep and growling, almost like a man's.
+
+“Maman's drying your money by the stove. It's all safe. How rich they
+are, these Americans!”
+
+“And to think that I nearly threw it overboard with the trousers,” said
+the other woman again.
+
+John Andrews began to look about him. He was in a dark low cabin. Behind
+him, in the direction of the voices, a yellow light flickered. Great
+dishevelled shadows of heads moved about on the ceiling. Through the
+close smell of the cabin came a warmth of food cooking. He could hear
+the soothing hiss of frying grease.
+
+“But didn't you see the Kid?” he asked in English, dazedly trying to
+pull himself together, to think coherently. Then he went on in French in
+a more natural voice:
+
+“There was another one with me.”
+
+“We saw no one. Rosaline, ask the old man,” said the older woman.
+
+“No, he didn't see anyone,” came the girl's shrill voice. She walked
+over to the bed and pulled the coverlet round Andrews with an awkward
+gesture. Looking up at her, he had a glimpse of the bulge of her breasts
+and her large teeth that glinted in the lamplight, and very vague in the
+shadow, a mop of snaky, disordered hair.
+
+“Qu'il parle bien francais,” she said, beaming at him. Heavy steps
+shuffled across the cabin as the older woman came up to the bed and
+peered in his face.
+
+“Il va mieux,” she said, with a knowing air.
+
+She was a broad woman with a broad flat face and a swollen body swathed
+in shawls. Her eyebrows were very bushy, and she had thick grey whiskers
+that came down to a point on either side of her mouth, as well as a few
+bristling hairs on her chin. Her voice was deep and growling, and seemed
+to come from far down inside her huge body.
+
+Steps creaked somewhere, and the old man looked at him through
+spectacles placed on the end of his nose. Andrews recognized the
+irregular face full of red knobs and protrusions.
+
+“Thanks very much,” he said.
+
+All three looked at him silently for some time. Then the old man pulled
+a newspaper out of his pocket, unfolded it carefully, and fluttered
+it above Andrews's eyes. In the scant light Andrews made out the name:
+“Libertaire.”
+
+“That's why,” said the old man, looking at Andrews fixedly, through his
+spectacles.
+
+“I'm a sort of a socialist,” said Andrews.
+
+“Socialists are good-for-nothings,” snarled the old man, every red
+protrusion on his face seeming to get redder.
+
+“But I have great sympathy for anarchist comrades,” went on Andrews,
+feeling a certain liveliness of amusement go through him and fade again.
+
+“Lucky you caught hold of my rope, instead of getting on to the next
+barge. He'd have given you up for sure. Sont des royalistes, ces
+salauds-la.”
+
+“We must give him something to eat; hurry, Maman.... Don't worry, he'll
+pay, won't you, my little American?”
+
+Andrews nodded his head.
+
+“All you want,” he said.
+
+“No, if he says he's a comrade, he shan't pay, not a sou,” growled the
+old man.
+
+“We'll see about that,” cried the old woman, drawing her breath in with
+an angry whistling sound.
+
+“It's only that living's so dear nowadays,” came the girl's voice.
+
+“Oh, I'll pay anything I've got,” said Andrews peevishly, closing his
+eyes again.
+
+He lay a long while on his back without moving.
+
+A hand shoved in between his back and the pillow roused him. He sat up.
+Rosaline was holding a bowl of broth in front of him that steamed in his
+face.
+
+“Mange ca,” she said.
+
+He looked into her eyes, smiling. Her rusty hair was neatly combed. A
+bright green parrot with a scarlet splash in its wings, balanced itself
+unsteadily on her shoulder, looking at Andrews out of angry eyes, hard
+as gems.
+
+“Il est jaloux, Coco,” said Rosaline, with a shrill little giggle.
+
+Andrews took the bowl in his two hands and drank some of the scalding
+broth.
+
+“It's too hot,” he said, leaning back against the girl's arm.
+
+The parrot squawked out a sentence that Andrews did not understand.
+
+Andrews heard the old man's voice answer from somewhere behind him:
+
+“Nom de Dieu!”
+
+The parrot squawked again.
+
+Rosaline laughed.
+
+“It's the old man who taught him that,” she said. “Poor Coco, he doesn't
+know what he's saying.”
+
+“What does he say?” asked Andrews.
+
+“'Les bourgeois a la lanterne, nom de dieu!' It's from a song,” said
+Rosaline. “Oh, qu'il est malin, ce Coco!”
+
+Rosaline was standing with her arms folded beside the bunk. The parrot
+stretched out his neck and rubbed it against her cheek, closing and
+unclosing his gem-like eyes. The girl formed her lips into a kiss, and
+murmured in a drowsy voice:
+
+“Tu m'aimes, Coco, n'est-ce pas, Coco? Bon Coco.”
+
+“Could I have something more, I'm awfully hungry,” said Andrews.
+
+“Oh, I was forgetting,” cried Rosaline, running off with the empty bowl.
+
+In a moment she came back without the parrot, with the bowl in her hand
+full of a brown stew of potatoes and meat.
+
+Andrews ate it mechanically, and handed back the bowl.
+
+“Thank you,” he said, “I am going to sleep.”
+
+He settled himself into the bunk. Rosaline drew the covers up about
+him and tucked them in round his shoulders. Her hand seemed to linger a
+moment as it brushed past his cheek. But Andrews had already sunk into a
+torpor again, feeling nothing but the warmth of the food within him and
+a great stiffness in his legs and arms.
+
+When he woke up the light was grey instead of yellow, and a swishing
+sound puzzled him. He lay listening to it for a long time, wondering
+what it was. At last the thought came with a sudden warm spurt of joy
+that the barge must be moving.
+
+He lay very quietly on his back, looking up at the faint silvery light
+on the ceiling of the bunk, thinking of nothing, with only a vague dread
+in the back of his head that someone would come to speak to him, to
+question him.
+
+After a long time he began to think of Genevieve Rod. He was having a
+long conversation with her about his music, and in his imagination she
+kept telling him that he must finish the “Queen of Sheba,” and that she
+would show it to Monsieur Gibier, who was a great friend of a certain
+concert director, who might get it played. How long ago it must be
+since they had talked about that. A picture floated through his mind
+of himself and Genevieve standing shoulder to shoulder looking at the
+Cathedral at Chartres, which stood up nonchalantly, above the tumultuous
+roofs of the town, with its sober tower and its gaudy towers and the
+great rose windows between. Inexorably his memory carried him forward,
+moment by moment, over that day, until he writhed with shame and revolt.
+Good god! Would he have to go on all his life remembering that? “Teach
+him how to salute,” the officer had said, and Handsome had stepped up to
+him and hit him. Would he have to go on all his life remembering that?
+
+“We tied up the uniform with some stones, and threw it overboard,” said
+Rosaline, jabbing him in the shoulder to draw his attention.
+
+“That was a good idea.”
+
+“Are you going to get up? It's nearly time to eat. How you have slept.”
+
+“But I haven't anything to put on,” said Andrews, laughing, and waved a
+bare arm above the bedclothes.
+
+“Wait, I'll find something of the old man's. Say, do all Americans have
+skin so white as that? Look.”
+
+She put her brown hand, with its grimed and broken nails, on Andrews's
+arm, that was white with a few silky yellow hairs.
+
+“It's because I'm blond,” said Andrews. “There are plenty of blond
+Frenchmen, aren't there?”
+
+Rosaline ran off giggling, and came back in a moment with a pair of
+corduroy trousers and a torn flannel shirt that smelt of pipe tobacco.
+
+“That'll do for now,” she said. “It's warm today for April. Tonight
+we'll buy you some clothes and shoes. Where are you going?”
+
+“By God, I don't know.”
+
+“We're going to Havre for cargo.” She put both hands to her head and
+began rearranging her straggling rusty-colored hair. “Oh, my hair,” she
+said, “it's the water, you know. You can't keep respectable-looking on
+these filthy barges. Say, American, why don't you stay with us a while?
+You can help the old man run the boat.”
+
+He found suddenly that her eyes were looking into his with trembling
+eagerness.
+
+“I don't know what to do,” he said carelessly. “I wonder if it's safe to
+go on deck.”
+
+She turned away from him petulantly and led the way up the ladder.
+
+“Oh, v'la le camarade,” cried the old man who was leaning with all his
+might against the long tiller of the barge. “Come and help me.”
+
+The barge was the last of a string of four that were describing a
+wide curve in the midst of a reach of silvery river full of glittering
+patches of pale, pea-green lavender, hemmed in on either side by
+frail blue roots of poplars. The sky was a mottled luminous grey with
+occasional patches, the color of robins' eggs. Andrews breathed in the
+dank smell of the river and leaned against the tiller when he was told
+to, answering the old man's curt questions.
+
+He stayed with the tiller when the rest of them went down to the cabin
+to eat. The pale colors and the swishing sound of the water and the
+blue-green banks slipping by and unfolding on either hand, were as
+soothing as his deep sleep had been. Yet they seemed only a veil
+covering other realities, where men stood interminably in line and
+marched with legs made all the same length on the drill field, and wore
+the same clothes and cringed before the same hierarchy of polished belts
+and polished puttees and stiff-visored caps, that had its homes in vast
+offices crammed with index cards and card catalogues; a world full of
+the tramp of marching, where cold voices kept saying:--“Teach him how to
+salute.” Like a bird in a net, Andrews's mind struggled to free itself
+from the obsession.
+
+Then he thought of his table in his room in Paris, with its piled sheets
+of ruled paper, and he felt he wanted nothing in the world except to
+work. It would not matter what happened to him if he could only have
+time to weave into designs the tangled skein of music that seethed
+through him as the blood seethed through his veins.
+
+There he stood, leaning against the long tiller, watching the blue-green
+poplars glide by, here and there reflected in the etched silver mirror
+of the river, feeling the moist river wind flutter his ragged shirt,
+thinking of nothing.
+
+After a while the old man came up out of the cabin, his face purplish,
+puffing clouds of smoke out of his pipe.
+
+“All right, young fellow, go down and eat,” he said.
+
+
+
+Andrews lay flat on his belly on the deck, with his chin resting on the
+back of his two hands. The barge was tied up along the river bank among
+many other barges. Beside him, a small fuzzy dog barked furiously at a
+yellow mongrel on the shore. It was nearly dark, and through the pearly
+mist of the river came red oblongs of light from the taverns along the
+bank. A slip of a new moon, shrouded in haze, was setting behind the
+poplar trees. Amid the round of despairing thoughts, the memory of the
+Kid intruded itself. He had sold a Ford for five hundred francs, and
+gone on a party with a man who'd stolen an ammunition train, and he
+wanted to write for the Italian movies. No war could down people like
+that. Andrews smiled, looking into the black water. Funny, the Kid was
+dead, probably, and he, John Andrews, was alive and free. And he lay
+there moping, still whimpering over old wrongs. “For God's sake be a
+man!” he said to himself. He got to his feet.
+
+At the cabin door, Rosaline was playing with the parrot.
+
+“Give me a kiss, Coco,” she was saying in a drowsy voice, “just a little
+kiss. Just a little kiss for Rosaline, poor little Rosaline.”
+
+The parrot, which Andrews could hardly see in the dusk, leaned towards
+her, fluttering his feathers, making little clucking noises.
+
+Rosaline caught sight of Andrews.
+
+“Oh, I thought you'd gone to have a drink with the old man,” she cried.
+
+“No. I stayed here.”
+
+“D'you like it, this life?”
+
+Rosaline put the parrot back on his perch, where he swayed from side to
+side, squawking in protest: “Les bourgeois a la lanterne, nom de dieu!”
+
+They both laughed.
+
+“Oh, it must be a wonderful life. This barge seems like heaven after the
+army.”
+
+“But they pay you well, you Americans.”
+
+“Seven francs a day.”
+
+“That's luxury, that.”
+
+“And be ordered around all day long!”
+
+“But you have no expenses.... It's clear gain.... You men are funny. The
+old man's like that too.... It's nice here all by ourselves, isn't it,
+Jean?”
+
+Andrews did not answer. He was wondering what Genevieve Rod would say
+when she found out he was a deserter.
+
+“I hate it.... It's dirty and cold and miserable in winter,” went on
+Rosaline. “I'd like to see them at the bottom of the river, all these
+barges.... And Paris women, did you have a good time with them?”
+
+“I only knew one. I go very little with women.”
+
+“All the same, love's nice, isn't it?”
+
+They were sitting on the rail at the bow of the barge. Rosaline had
+sidled up so that her leg touched Andrews's leg along its whole length.
+
+The memory of Genevieve Rod became more and more vivid in his mind. He
+kept thinking of things she had said, of the intonations of her voice,
+of the blundering way she poured tea, and of her pale-brown eyes wide
+open on the world, like the eyes of a woman in an encaustic painting
+from a tomb in the Fayoum.
+
+“Mother's talking to the old woman at the Creamery. They're great
+friends. She won't be home for two hours yet,” said Rosaline.
+
+“She's bringing my clothes, isn't she?”
+
+“But you're all right as you are.”
+
+“But they're your father's.”
+
+“What does that matter?”
+
+“I must go back to Paris soon. There is somebody I must see in Paris.”
+
+“A woman?”
+
+Andrews nodded.
+
+“But it's not so bad, this life on the barge. I'm just lonesome and sick
+of the old people. That's why I talk nastily about it.... We could have
+good times together if you stayed with us a little.”
+
+She leaned her head on his shoulder and put a hand awkwardly on his bare
+forearm.
+
+“How cold these Americans are!” she muttered, giggling drowsily.
+
+Andrews felt her hair tickle his cheek.
+
+“No, it's not a bad life on the barge, honestly. The only thing is,
+there's nothing but old people on the river. It isn't life to be always
+with old people.... I want to have a good time.”
+
+She pressed her cheek against his. He could feel her breath heavy in his
+face.
+
+“After all, it's lovely in summer to drowse on the deck that's all warm
+with the sun, and see the trees and the fields and the little houses
+slipping by on either side.... If there weren't so many old people....
+All the boys go away to the cities.... I hate old people; they're so
+dirty and slow. We mustn't waste our youth, must we?”
+
+Andrews got to his feet.
+
+“What's the matter?” she cried sharply.
+
+“Rosaline,” Andrews said in a low, soft voice, “I can only think of
+going to Paris.”
+
+“Oh, the Paris woman,” said Rosaline scornfully. “But what does that
+matter? She isn't here now.”
+
+“I don't know.... Perhaps I shall never see her again anyway,” said
+Andrews.
+
+“You're a fool. You must amuse yourself when you can in this life. And
+you a deserter.... Why, they may catch you and shoot you any time.”
+
+“Oh, I know, you're right. You're right. But I'm not made like that,
+that's all.”
+
+“She must be very good to you, your little Paris girl.”
+
+“I've never touched her.”
+
+Rosaline threw her head back and laughed raspingly.
+
+“But you aren't sick, are you?” she cried.
+
+“Probably I remember too vividly, that's all.... Anyway, I'm a fool,
+Rosaline, because you're a nice girl.”
+
+There were steps on the plank that led to the shore. A shawl over her
+head and a big bundle under her arm, the old woman came up to them,
+panting wheezily. She looked from one to the other, trying to make out
+their faces in the dark.
+
+“It's a danger... like that... youth,” she muttered between hard short
+breaths.
+
+“Did you find the clothes?” asked Andrews in a casual voice.
+
+“Yes. That leaves you forty-five francs out of your money, when I've
+taken out for your food and all that. Does that suit you?”
+
+“Thank you very much for your trouble.”
+
+“You paid for it. Don't worry about that,” said the old woman. She gave
+him the bundle. “Here are your clothes and the forty-five francs. If you
+want, I'll tell you exactly what each thing cost.”
+
+“I'll put them on first,” he said, with a laugh.
+
+He climbed down the ladder into the cabin.
+
+Putting on new, unfamiliar-shaped clothes made him suddenly feel strong
+and joyous. The old woman had bought him corduroy trousers, cheap cloth
+shoes, a blue cotton shirt, woollen socks, and a second-hand black serge
+jacket. When he came on deck she held up a lantern to look at him.
+
+“Doesn't he look fine, altogether French?” she said.
+
+Rosaline turned away without answering. A little later she picked up the
+perch and carried the parrot, that swayed sleepily on the crosspiece,
+down the ladder.
+
+“Les bourgeois a la lanterne, nom de dieu!” came the old man's voice
+singing on the shore.
+
+“He's drunk as a pig,” muttered the old woman. “If only he doesn't fall
+off the gang plank.”
+
+A swaying shadow appeared at the end of the plank, standing out against
+the haze of light from the houses behind the poplar trees.
+
+Andrews put out a hand to catch him, as he reached the side of the
+barge. The old man sprawled against the cabin.
+
+“Don't bawl me out, dearie,” he said, dangling an arm round Andrews's
+neck, and a hand beckoning vaguely towards his wife.
+
+“I've found a comrade for the little American.”
+
+“What's that?” said Andrews sharply. His mouth suddenly went dry with
+terror. He felt his nails pressing into the palms of his cold-hands.
+
+“I've found another American for you,” said the old man in an important
+voice. “Here he comes.” Another shadow appeared at the end of the
+gangplank.
+
+“Les bourgeois a la lanterne, nom de dieu!” shouted the old man.
+
+Andrews backed away cautiously towards the other side of the barge. All
+the little muscles of his thighs were trembling. A hard voice was saying
+in his head: “Drown yourself, drown yourself. Then they won't get you.”
+
+The man was standing on the end of the plank. Andrews could see the
+contour of the uniform against the haze of light behind the poplar
+trees.
+
+“God, if I only had a pistol,” he thought.
+
+“Say, Buddy, where are you?” came an American voice.
+
+The man advanced towards him across the deck.
+
+Andrews stood with every muscle taut.
+
+“Gee! You've taken off your uniform.... Say, I'm not an M.P. I'm
+A.W.O.L. too. Shake.” He held out his hand.
+
+Andrews took the hand doubtfully, without moving from the edge of the
+barge.
+
+“Say, Buddy, it's a damn fool thing to take off your uniform. Ain't you
+got any? If they pick you up like that it's life, kid.”
+
+“I can't help it. It's done now.”
+
+“Gawd, you still think I'm an M.P., don't yer?... I swear I ain't. Maybe
+you are. Gawd, it's hell, this life. A feller can't put his trust in
+nobody.”
+
+“What division are you from?”
+
+“Hell, I came to warn you this bastard frawg's got soused an' has been
+blabbin' in the gin mill there how he was an anarchist an' all that, an'
+how he had an American deserter who was an anarchist an' all that, an'
+I said to myself: 'That guy'll git nabbed if he ain't careful,' so
+I cottoned up to the old frawg an' said I'd go with him to see the
+camarade, an' I think we'd better both of us make tracks out o' this
+burg.”
+
+“It's damn decent. I'm sorry I was so suspicious. I was scared green
+when I first saw you.”
+
+“You were goddam right to be. But why did yous take yer uniform off?”
+
+“Come along, let's beat it. I'll tell you about that.”
+
+Andrews shook hands with the old man and the old woman. Rosaline had
+disappeared.
+
+“Goodnight...Thank you,” he said, and followed the other man across the
+gangplank.
+
+As they walked away along the road they heard the old man's voice
+roaring:
+
+“Les bourgeois a la lanterne, nom de dieu!”
+
+“My name's Eddy Chambers,” said the American.
+
+“Mine's John Andrews.”
+
+“How long've you been out?”
+
+“Two days.”
+
+Eddy let the air out through his teeth in a whistle.
+
+“I got away from a labor battalion in Paris. They'd picked me up in
+Chartres without a pass.”
+
+“Gee, I've been out a month an' more. Was you infantry too?”
+
+“Yes. I was in the School Detachment in Paris when I was picked up.
+But I never could get word to them. They just put me to work without a
+trial. Ever been in a labor battalion?”
+
+“No, thank Gawd, they ain't got my number yet.”
+
+They were walking fast along a straight road across a plain under a
+clear star-powdered sky.
+
+“I been out eight weeks yesterday. What'd you think o' that?” said Eddy.
+
+“Must have had plenty of money to go on.”
+
+“I've been flat fifteen days.”
+
+“How d'you work it?”
+
+“I dunno. I juss work it though.... Ye see, it was this way. The gang I
+was with went home when I was in hauspital, and the damn skunks put me
+in class A and was goin' to send me to the Army of Occupation. Gawd, it
+made me sick, goin' out to a new outfit where I didn't know anybody, an'
+all the rest of my bunch home walkin' down Water Street with brass bands
+an' reception committees an' girls throwing kisses at 'em an' all that.
+Where are yous goin'?”
+
+“Paris.”
+
+“Gee, I wouldn't. Risky.”
+
+“But I've got friends there. I can get hold of some money.”
+
+“Looks like I hadn't got a friend in the world. I wish I'd gone to that
+goddam outfit now.... I ought to have been in the engineers all the
+time, anyway.”
+
+“What did you do at home?”
+
+“Carpenter.”
+
+“But gosh, man, with a trade like that you can always make a living
+anywhere.”
+
+“You're goddam right, I could, but a guy has to live underground, like
+a rabbit, at this game. If I could git to a country where I could walk
+around like a man, I wouldn't give a damn what happened. If the army
+ever moves out of here an' the goddam M.P.'s, I'll set up in business
+in one of these here little towns. I can parlee pretty well. I'd juss as
+soon marry a French girl an' git to be a regular frawg myself. After the
+raw deal they've given me in the army, I don't want to have nothin' more
+to do with their damn country. Democracy!”
+
+He cleared his throat and spat angrily on the road before him. They
+walked on silently. Andrews was looking at the sky, picking out
+constellations he knew among the glittering masses of stars.
+
+“Why don't you try Spain or Italy?” he said after a while.
+
+“Don't know the lingo. No, I'm going to Scotland.”
+
+“But how can you get there?”
+
+“Crossing on the car ferries to England from Havre. I've talked to guys
+has done it.”
+
+“But what'll you do when you do get there?”
+
+“How should I know? Live around best I can. What can a feller do when he
+don't dare show his face in the street?”
+
+“Anyway, it makes you feel as if you had some guts in you to be out on
+your own this way,” cried Andrews boisterously.
+
+“Wait till you've been at it two months, boy, and you'll think what I'm
+tellin' yer.... The army's hell when you're in it; but it's a hell of a
+lot worse when you're out of it, at the wrong end.”
+
+“It's a great night, anyway,” said Andrews.
+
+“Looks like we ought to be findin' a haystack to sleep in.”
+
+“It'd be different,” burst out Andrews, suddenly, “if I didn't have
+friends here.”
+
+“O, you've met up with a girl, have you?” asked Eddy ironically.
+
+“Yes. The thing is we really get along together, besides all the rest.”
+
+Eddy snorted.
+
+“I bet you ain't ever even kissed her,” he said. “Gee, I've had buddies
+has met up with that friendly kind. I know a guy married one, an' found
+out after two weeks.”
+
+“It's silly to talk about it. I can't explain it.... It gives you
+confidence in anything to feel there's someone who'll always understand
+anything you do.”
+
+“I s'pose you're goin' to git married.”
+
+“I don't see why. That would spoil everything.”
+
+Eddy whistled softly.
+
+They walked along briskly without speaking for a long time, their steps
+ringing on the hard road, while the dome of the sky shimmered above
+their heads. And from the ditches came the singsong shrilling of toads.
+For the first time in months Andrews felt himself bubbling with a spirit
+of joyous adventure. The rhythm of the three green horsemen that was to
+have been the prelude to the Queen of Sheba began rollicking through his
+head.
+
+“But, Eddy, this is wonderful. It's us against the universe,” he said in
+a boisterous voice.
+
+“You wait,” said Eddy.
+
+
+
+When Andrews walked by the M.P. at the Gare-St. Lazare, his hands were
+cold with fear. The M.P. did not look at him. He stopped on the crowded
+pavement a little way from the station and stared into a mirror in a
+shop window. Unshaven, with a check cap on the side of his head and his
+corduroy trousers, he looked like a young workman who had been out of
+work for a month.
+
+“Gee, clothes do make a difference,” he said to himself. He smiled when
+he thought how shocked Walters would be when he turned up in that rig,
+and started walking with leisurely stride across Paris, where everything
+bustled and jingled with early morning, where from every cafe came a hot
+smell of coffee, and fresh bread steamed in the windows of the bakeries.
+He still had three francs in his pocket. On a side street the fumes of
+coffee roasting attracted him into a small bar. Several men were
+arguing boisterously at the end of the bar. One of them turned a ruddy,
+tow-whiskered face to Andrews, and said:
+
+“Et toi, tu vas chomer le premier mai?”
+
+“I'm on strike already,” answered Andrews laughing.
+
+The man noticed his accent, looked at him sharply a second, and turned
+back to the conversation, lowering his voice as he did so. Andrews drank
+down his coffee and left the bar, his heart pounding. He could not help
+glancing back over his shoulder now and then to see if he was being
+followed. At a corner he stopped with his fists clenched and leaned a
+second against a house wall.
+
+“Where's your nerve. Where's your nerve?” He was saying to himself.
+
+He strode off suddenly, full of bitter determination not to turn round
+again. He tried to occupy his mind with plans. Let's see, what should he
+do? First he'd go to his room and look up old Henslowe and Walters. Then
+he would go to see Genevieve. Then he'd work, work, forget everything in
+his work, until the army should go back to America and there should be
+no more uniforms on the streets. And as for the future, what did he care
+about the future?
+
+When he turned the corner into the familiar street where his room was,
+a thought came to him. Suppose he should find M.P.'s waiting for him
+there? He brushed it aside angrily and strode fast up the sidewalk,
+catching up to a soldier who was slouching along in the same direction,
+with his hands in his pockets and eyes on the ground. Andrews stopped
+suddenly as he was about to pass the soldier and turned. The man looked
+up. It was Chrisfield.
+
+Andrews held out his hand.
+
+Chrisfield seized it eagerly and shook it for a long time. “Jesus
+Christ! Ah thought you was a Frenchman, Andy.... Ah guess you got yer
+dis-charge then. God, Ah'm glad.”
+
+“I'm glad I look like a Frenchman, anyway.... Been on leave long,
+Chris?”
+
+Two buttons were off the front of Chrisfield's uniform; there were
+streaks of dirt on his face, and his puttees were clothed with mud. He
+looked Andrews seriously in the eyes, and shook his head.
+
+“No. Ah done flew the coop, Andy,” he said in a low voice.
+
+“Since when?”
+
+“Ah been out a couple o' weeks. Ah'll tell you about it, Andy. Ah was
+comin' to see you now. Ah'm broke.”
+
+“Well look, I'll be able to get hold of some money tomorrow.... I'm out
+too.”
+
+“What d'ye mean?”
+
+“I haven't got a discharge. I'm through with it all. I've deserted.”
+
+“God damn! That's funny that you an' me should both do it, Andy. But why
+the hell did you do it?”
+
+“Oh, it's too long to tell here. Come up to my room.”
+
+“There may be fellers there. Ever been at the Chink's?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“I'm stayin' there. There're other fellers who's A.W. O.L. too. The
+Chink's got a gin mill.”
+
+“Where is it.”
+
+“Eight, rew day Petee Jardings.”
+
+“Where's that?”
+
+“Way back of that garden where the animals are.”
+
+“Look, I can find you there tomorrow morning, and I'll bring some
+money.”
+
+“Ah'll wait for ye, Andy, at nine. It's a bar. Ye won't be able to git
+in without me, the kids is pretty scared of plainclothes men.”
+
+“I think it'll be perfectly safe to come up to my place now.”
+
+“Now, Ah'm goin' to git the hell out of here.”
+
+“But Chris, why did you go A.W.O.L.?”
+
+“Oh, Ah doan know.... A guy who's in the Paris detachment got yer
+address for me.”
+
+“But, Chris, did they say anything to him about me?”
+
+“No, nauthin'.”
+
+“That's funny.... Well, Chris, I'll be there tomorrow, if I can find the
+place.”
+
+“Man, you've got to be there.”
+
+“Oh, I'll turn up,” said Andrews with a smile.
+
+They shook hands nervously.
+
+“Say, Andy,” said Chrisfield, still holding on to Andrews's hand, “Ah
+went A.W.O.L. 'cause a sergeant...God damn it; it's weighin' on ma mind
+awful these days.... There's a sergeant that knows.”
+
+“What you mean?”
+
+“Ah told ye about Anderson...Ah know you ain't tole anybody, Andy.”
+ Chrisfield dropped Andrews's hand and looked at him in the face with an
+unexpected sideways glance. Then he went on through clenched teeth: “Ah
+swear to Gawd Ah ain't tole another livin' soul.... An' the sergeant in
+Company D knows.”
+
+“For God's sake, Chris, don't lose your nerve like that.”
+
+“Ah ain't lost ma nerve. Ah tell you that guy knows.”
+
+Chrisfield's voice rose, suddenly shrill.
+
+“Look, Chris, we can't stand talking out here in the street like this.
+It isn't safe.”
+
+“But mebbe you'll be able to tell me what to do. You think, Andy. Mebbe,
+tomorrow, you'll have thought up somethin' we can do...So long.”
+
+Chrisfield walked away hurriedly. Andrews looked after him a moment, and
+then went in through the court to the house where his room was.
+
+At the foot of the stairs an old woman's voice startled him.
+
+“Mais, Monsieur Andre, que vous avez l'air etrange; how funny you look
+dressed like that.”
+
+The concierge was smiling at him from her cubbyhole beside the stairs.
+She sat knitting with a black shawl round her head, a tiny old woman
+with a hooked bird-like nose and eyes sunk in depressions full of little
+wrinkles, like a monkey's eyes.
+
+“Yes, at the town where I was demobilized, I couldn't get anything
+else,” stammered Andrews.
+
+“Oh, you're demobilized, are you? That's why you've been away so long.
+Monsieur Valters said he didn't know where you were.... It's better that
+way, isn't it?”
+
+“Yes,” said Andrews, starting up the stairs.
+
+“Monsieur Valters is in now,” went on the old woman, talking after him.
+“And you've got in just in time for the first of May.”
+
+“Oh, yes, the strike,” said Andrews, stopping half-way up the flight.
+
+“It'll be dreadful,” said the old woman. “I hope you won't go out. Young
+folks are so likely to get into trouble...Oh, but all your friends have
+been worried about your being away so long.”
+
+“Have they?'” said Andrews. He continued up the stairs.
+
+“Au revoir, Monsieur.”
+
+“Au revoir, Madame.”
+
+
+
+                              III
+
+“No, nothing can make me go back now. It's no use talking about it.”
+
+“But you're crazy, man. You're crazy. One man alone can't buck the
+system like that, can he, Henslowe?”
+
+Walters was talking earnestly, leaning across the table beside the
+lamp. Henslowe, who sat very stiff on the edge of a chair, nodded with
+compressed lips. Andrews lay at full length on the bed, out of the
+circle of light.
+
+“Honestly, Andy,” said Henslowe with tears in his voice, “I think you'd
+better do what Walters says. It's no use being heroic about it.”
+
+“I'm not being heroic, Henny,” cried Andrews, sitting up on the bed.
+He drew his feet under him, tailor fashion, and went on talking very
+quietly. “Look.. It's a purely personal matter. I've got to a point
+where I don't give a damn what happens to me. I don't care if I'm shot,
+or if I live to be eighty...I'm sick of being ordered round. One more
+order shouted at my head is not worth living to be eighty... to me.
+That's all. For God's sake let's talk about something else.”
+
+“But how many orders have you had shouted at your head since you got
+in this School Detachment? Not one. You can put through your discharge
+application probably....” Walters got to his feet, letting the chair
+crash to the floor behind him. He stopped to pick it up. “Look here;
+here's my proposition,” he went on. “I don't think you are marked
+A.W.O.L. in the School office. Things are so damn badly run there.
+You can turn up and say you've been sick and draw your back pay. And
+nobody'll say a thing. Or else I'll put it right up to the guy who's top
+sergeant. He's a good friend of mine. We can fix it up on the records
+some way. But for God's sake don't ruin your whole life on account of
+a little stubbornness, and some damn fool anarchistic ideas or other a
+feller like you ought to have had more sense than to pick up....”
+
+“He's right, Andy,” said Henslowe in a low voice.
+
+“Please don't talk any more about it. You've told me all that before,”
+ said Andrews sharply. He threw himself back on the bed and rolled over
+towards the wall.
+
+They were silent a long time. A sound of voices and footsteps drifted up
+from the courtyard.
+
+“But, look here, Andy,” said Henslowe nervously stroking his moustache.
+“You care much more about your work than any abstract idea of asserting
+your right of individual liberty. Even if you don't get caught.... I
+think the chances of getting caught are mighty slim if you use your
+head.... But even if you don't, you haven't enough money to live for
+long over here, you haven't....”
+
+“Don't you think I've thought of all that? I'm not crazy, you know. I've
+figured up the balance perfectly sanely. The only thing is, you fellows
+can't understand. Have you ever been in a labor battalion? Have you
+ever had a man you'd been chatting with five minutes before deliberately
+knock you down? Good God, you don't know what you are talking about,
+you two.... I've got to be free, now. I don't care at what cost. Being
+free's the only thing that matters.”
+
+Andrews lay on his back talking towards the ceiling.
+
+Henslowe was on his feet, striding nervously about the room.
+
+“As if anyone was ever free,” he muttered.
+
+“All right, quibble, quibble. You can argue anything away if you want
+to. Of course, cowardice is the best policy, necessary for survival. The
+man who's got most will to live is the most cowardly... go on.” Andrews's
+voice was shrill and excited, breaking occasionally like a half-grown
+boy's voice.
+
+“Andy, what on earth's got hold of you?... God, I hate to go away this
+way,” added Henslowe after a pause.
+
+“I'll pull through all right, Henny. I'll probably come to see you in
+Syria, disguised as an Arab sheik.” Andrews laughed excitedly.
+
+“If I thought I'd do any good, I'd stay.... But there's nothing I can
+do. Everybody's got to settle their own affairs, in their own damn fool
+way. So long, Walters.”
+
+Walters and Henslowe shook hands absently.
+
+Henslowe came over to the bed and held out his hand to Andrews.
+
+“Look, old man, you will be as careful as you can, won't you? And
+write me care American Red Cross, Jerusalem. I'll be damned anxious,
+honestly.”
+
+“Don't you worry, we'll go travelling together yet,” said Andrews,
+sitting up and taking Henslowe's hand.
+
+They heard Henslowe's steps fade down the stairs and then ring for a
+moment on the pavings of the courtyard.
+
+Walters moved his chair over beside Andrews's bed.
+
+“Now, look, let's have a man-to-man talk, Andrews. Even if you want to
+ruin your life, you haven't a right to. There's your family, and haven't
+you any patriotism?... Remember, there is such a thing as duty in the
+world.”
+
+Andrews sat up and said in a low, furious voice, pausing between each
+word:
+
+“I can't explain it.... But I shall never put a uniform on again.... So
+for Christ's sake shut up.”
+
+“All right, do what you goddam please; I'm through with you.”
+
+Walters suddenly flashed into a rage. He began undressing silently.
+Andrews lay a long while flat on his back in the bed, staring at the
+ceiling, then he too undressed, put the light out, and got into bed.
+
+
+
+The rue des Petits-Jardins was a short street in a district of
+warehouses. A grey, windowless wall shut out the light along all of one
+side. Opposite was a cluster of three old houses leaning together as if
+the outer ones were trying to support the beetling mansard roof of the
+center house. Behind them rose a huge building with rows and rows of
+black windows. When Andrews stopped to look about him, he found the
+street completely deserted. The ominous stillness that had brooded over
+the city during all the walk from his room near the Pantheon seemed here
+to culminate in sheer desolation. In the silence he could hear the light
+padding noise made by the feet of a dog that trotted across the end of
+the street. The house with the mansard roof was number eight. The front
+of the lower storey had once been painted in chocolate-color, across the
+top of which was still decipherable the sign: “Charbon, Bois. Lhomond.”
+ On the grimed window beside the door, was painted in white: “Debit de
+Boissons.”
+
+Andrews pushed on the door, which opened easily. Somewhere in the
+interior a bell jangled, startlingly loud after the silence of the
+street. On the wall opposite the door was a speckled mirror with a crack
+in it, the shape of a star, and under it a bench with three marble-top
+tables. The zinc bar filled up the third wall. In the fourth was a glass
+door pasted up with newspapers. Andrews walked over to the bar. The
+jangling of the bell faded to silence. He waited, a curious uneasiness
+gradually taking possession of him. Anyways, he thought, he was wasting
+his time; he ought to be doing something to arrange his future. He
+walked over to the street door. The bell jangled again when he opened
+it. At the same moment a man came out through the door the newspapers
+were pasted over. He was a stout man in a dirty white shirt stained to a
+brownish color round the armpits and caught in very tightly at the waist
+by the broad elastic belt that held up his yellow corduroy trousers.
+His face was flabby, of a greenish color; black eyes looked at Andrews
+fixedly through barely open lids, so that they seemed long slits above
+the cheekbones.
+
+“That's the Chink,” thought Andrews.
+
+“Well,” said the man, taking his place behind the bar with his legs far
+apart.
+
+“A beer, please,” said Andrews.
+
+“There isn't any.”
+
+“A glass of wine then.”
+
+The man nodded his head, and keeping his eyes fastened on Andrews all
+the while, strode out of the door again.
+
+A moment later, Chrisfield came out, with rumpled hair, yawning, rubbing
+an eye with the knuckles of one fist.
+
+“Lawsie, Ah juss woke up, Andy. Come along in back.”
+
+Andrews followed him through a small room with tables and benches,
+down a corridor where the reek of ammonia bit into his eyes, and up
+a staircase littered with dirt and garbage. Chrisfield opened a door
+directly on the stairs, and they stumbled into a large room with a
+window that gave on the court. Chrisfield closed the door carefully, and
+turned to Andrews with a smile.
+
+“Ah was right smart 'askeered ye wouldn't find it, Andy.”
+
+“So this is where you live?”
+
+“Um hum, a bunch of us lives here.”
+
+A wide bed without coverings, where a man in olive-drab slept rolled in
+a blanket, was the only furniture of the room.
+
+“Three of us sleeps in that bed,” said Chrisfield.
+
+“Who's that?” cried the man in the bed, sitting up suddenly.
+
+“All right, Al, he's a buddy o' mine,” said Chrisfield. “He's taken off
+his uniform.”
+
+“Jesus, you got guts,” said the man in the bed.
+
+Andrews looked at him sharply. A piece of towelling, splotched here and
+there with dried blood, was wrapped round his head, and a hand, swathed
+in bandages, was drawn up to his body. The man's mouth took on a twisted
+expression of pain as he let his head gradually down to the bed again.
+
+“Gosh, what did you do to yourself?” cried Andrews.
+
+“I tried to hop a freight at Marseilles.”
+
+“Needs practice to do that sort o' thing,” said Chrisfield, who sat on
+the bed, pulling his shoes off. “Ah'm go-in' to git back to bed, Andy.
+Ah'm juss dead tired. Ah chucked cabbages all night at the market. They
+give ye a job there without askin' no questions.”
+
+“Have a cigarette.” Andrews sat down on the foot of the bed and threw a
+cigarette towards Chrisfield. “Have one?” he asked Al.
+
+“No. I couldn't smoke. I'm almost crazy with this hand. One of the
+wheels went over it.... I cut what was left of the little finger off
+with a razor.” Andrews could see the sweat rolling down his cheek as he
+spoke.
+
+“Christ, that poor beggar's been havin' a time, Andy. We was 'askeert to
+get a doctor, and we all didn't know what to do.”
+
+“I got some pure alcohol an' washed it in that. It's not infected. I
+guess it'll be all right.”
+
+“Where are you from, Al?” asked Andrews.
+
+“'Frisco. Oh, I'm goin' to try to sleep. I haven't slept a wink for four
+nights.”
+
+“Why don't you get some dope?”
+
+“Oh, we all ain't had a cent to spare for anythin', Andy.”
+
+“Oh, if we had kale we could live like kings--not,” said Al in the
+middle of a nervous little giggle.
+
+“Look, Chris,” said Andrews, “I'll halve with you. I've got five hundred
+francs.”
+
+“Jesus Gawd, man, don't kid about anything like that.”
+
+“Here's two hundred and fifty.... It's not so much as it sounds.”
+
+Andrews handed him five fifty-franc notes.
+
+“Say, how did you come to bust loose?” said Al, turning his head towards
+Andrews.
+
+“I got away from a labor battalion one night. That's all.”
+
+“Tell me about it, buddy. I don't feel my hand so much when I'm talking
+to somebody.... I'd be home now if it wasn't for a gin mill in Alsace.
+Say, don't ye think that big headgear they sport up there is awful good
+looking? Got my goat every time I saw one.... I was comin' back from
+leave at Grenoble, an' I went through Strasburg. Some town. My outfit
+was in Coblenz. That's where I met up with Chris here. Anyway, we was
+raisin' hell round Strasburg, an' I went into a gin mill down a flight
+of steps. Gee, everything in that town's plumb picturesque, just like a
+kid I used to know at home whose folks were Eytalian used to talk about
+when he said how he wanted to come overseas. Well, I met up with a girl
+down there, who said she'd just come down to a place like that to look
+for her brother who was in the foreign legion.”
+
+Andrews and Chrisfield laughed.
+
+“What you laughin' at?” went on Al in an eager taut voice. “Honest to
+Gawd. I'm goin' to marry her if I ever get out of this. She's the best
+little girl I ever met up with. She was waitress in a restaurant, an'
+when she was off duty she used to wear that there Alsatian costume....
+Hell, I just stayed on. Every day, I thought I'd go away the next
+day.... Anyway, the war was over. I warn't a damn bit of use.... Hasn't
+a fellow got any rights at all? Then the M.P.'s started cleanin' up
+Strasburg after A.W.O.L.'s, an' I beat it out of there, an' Christ, it
+don't look as if I'd ever be able to get back.”
+
+“Say, Andy,” said Chrisfield, suddenly, “let's go down after some
+booze.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+“Say, Al, do you want me to get you anything at the drug store?”
+
+“No. I won't do anythin' but lay low and bathe it with alcohol now and
+then, against infection. Anyways, it's the first of May. You'll be crazy
+to go out. You might get pulled. They say there's riots going on.”
+
+“Gosh, I forgot it was the first of May,” cried Andrews. “They're
+running a general strike to protest against the war with Russia and....”
+
+“A guy told me,” interrupted Al, in a shrill voice, “there might be a
+revolution.”
+
+“Come along, Andy,” said Chris from the door.
+
+On the stairs Andrews felt Chrisfield's hand squeezing his arm hard.
+
+“Say, Andy,” Chris put his lips close to Andrews's ear and spoke in a
+rasping whisper. “You're the only one that knows... you know what. You
+an' that sergeant. Doan you say anythin' so that the guys here kin ketch
+on, d'ye hear?”
+
+“All right, Chris, I won't, but man alive, you oughtn't to lose your
+nerve about it. You aren't the only one who ever shot an...”
+
+“Shut yer face, d'ye hear?” muttered Chrisfield savagely.
+
+They went down the stairs in silence. In the room next, to the bar they
+found the Chink reading a newspaper.
+
+“Is he French?” whispered Andrews.
+
+“Ah doan know what he is. He ain't a white man, Ah'll wager that,” said
+Chris, “but he's square.”
+
+“D'you know anything about what's going on?” asked Andrews in French,
+going up to the Chink.
+
+“Where?” The Chink got up, flashing a glance at Andrews out of the
+corners of his slit-like eyes.
+
+“Outside, in the streets, in Paris, anywhere where people are out in the
+open and can do things. What do you think about the revolution?”
+
+The Chink shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Anything's possible,” he said.
+
+“D'you think they really can overthrow the army and the government in
+one day, like that?”
+
+“Who?” broke in Chrisfield.
+
+“Why, the people, Chris, the ordinary people like you and me, who are
+tired of being ordered round, who are tired of being trampled down by
+other people just like them, who've had the luck to get in right with
+the system.”
+
+“D'you know what I'll do when the revolution comes?” broke in the Chink
+with sudden intensity, slapping himself on the chest with one hand.
+“I'll go straight to one of those jewelry stores, rue Royale, and fill
+my pockets and come home with my hands full of diamonds.”
+
+“What good'll that do you?”
+
+“What good? I'll bury them back there in the court and wait. I'll need
+them in the end. D'you know what it'll mean, your revolution? Another
+system! When there's a system there are always men to be bought with
+diamonds. That's what the world's like.”
+
+“But they won't be worth anything. It'll only be work that is worth
+anything.”
+
+“We'll see,” said the Chink.
+
+“D'you think it could happen, Andy, that there'd be a revolution, an'
+there wouldn't be any more armies, an' we'd be able to go round like we
+are civilians? Ah doan think so. Fellers like us ain't got it in 'em to
+buck the system, Andy.”
+
+“Many a system's gone down before; it will happen again.”
+
+“They're fighting the Garde Republicaine now before the Gare de l'Est,”
+ said the Chink in an expressionless voice. “What do you want down here?
+You'd better stay in the back. You never know what the police may put
+over on us.”
+
+“Give us two bottles of vin blank, Chink,” said Chrisfield.
+
+“When'll you pay?”
+
+“Right now. This guy's given me fifty francs.”
+
+“Rich, are you?” said the Chink with hatred in his voice, turning to
+Andrews. “Won't last long at that rate. Wait here.”
+
+He strode into the bar, closing the door carefully after him. A sudden
+jangling of the bell was followed by a sound of loud voices and stamping
+feet. Andrews and Chrisfield tiptoed into the dark corridor, where they
+stood a long time, waiting, breathing the foul air that stung their
+nostrils with the stench of plaster-damp and rotting wine. At last the
+Chink came back with three bottles of wine.
+
+“Well, you're right,” he said to Andrews. “They are putting up
+barricades on the Avenue Magenta.”
+
+On the stairs they met a girl sweeping. She had untidy hair that
+straggled out from under a blue handkerchief tied under her chin, and a
+pretty-colored fleshy face. Chrisfield caught her up to him and kissed
+her, as he passed.
+
+“We all calls her the dawg-faced girl,” he said to Andrews in
+explanation. “She does our work. Ah like to had a fight with Slippery
+over her yisterday.... Didn't Ah, Slippery?”
+
+When he followed Chrisfield into the room, Andrews saw a man sitting
+on the window ledge smoking. He was dressed as a second lieutenant, his
+puttees were brilliantly polished, and he smoked through a long, amber
+cigarette-holder. His pink nails were carefully manicured.
+
+“This is Slippery, Andy,” said Chrisfield. “This guy's an ole buddy o'
+mine. We was bunkies together a hell of a time, wasn't we, Andy?”
+
+“You bet we were.”
+
+“So you've taken your uniform off, have you? Mighty foolish,” said
+Slippery. “Suppose they nab you?”
+
+“It's all up now anyway. I don't intend to get nabbed,” said Andrews.
+
+“We got booze,” said Chrisfield.
+
+Slippery had taken dice from his pocket and was throwing them
+meditatively on the floor between his feet, snapping his fingers with
+each throw.
+
+“I'll shoot you one of them bottles, Chris,” he said.
+
+Andrews walked over to the bed. Al was stirring uneasily, his face
+flushed and his mouth twitching.
+
+“Hello,” he said. “What's the news?”
+
+“They say they're putting up barricades near the Gare de l'Est. It may
+be something.”
+
+“God, I hope so. God, I wish they'd do everything here like they did
+in Russia; then we'd be free. We couldn't go back to the States for
+a while, but there wouldn't be no M.P.'s to hunt us like we were
+criminals.... I'm going to sit up a while and talk.” Al giggled
+hysterically for a moment.
+
+“Have a swig of wine?” asked Andrews.
+
+“Sure, it may set me up a bit; thanks.” He drank greedily from the
+bottle, spilling a little over his chin.
+
+“Say, is your face badly cut up, Al?”
+
+“No, it's just scotched, skin's off; looks like beefsteak, I reckon....
+Ever been to Strasburg?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Man, that's the town. And the girls in that costume.... Whee!”
+
+“Say, you're from San Francisco, aren't you?”
+
+“Sure.”
+
+“Well, I wonder if you knew a fellow I knew at training camp, a kid
+named Fuselli from 'Frisco?”
+
+“Knew him! Jesus, man, he's the best friend I've got.... Ye don't know
+where he is now, do you?”
+
+“I saw him here in Paris two months ago.”
+
+“Well, I'll be damned.... God, that's great!” Al's voice was staccato
+from excitement. “So you knew Dan at training camp? The last letter from
+him was 'bout a year ago. Dan'd just got to be corporal. He's a damn
+clever kid, Dan is, an' ambitious too, one of the guys always makes
+good.... Gawd, I'd hate to see him this way. D'you know, we used to see
+a hell of a lot of each other in 'Frisco, an' he always used to tell me
+how he'd make good before I did. He was goddam right, too. Said I was
+too soft about girls.... Did ye know him real well?”
+
+“Yes. I even remember that he used to tell me about a fellow he knew who
+was called Al.... He used to tell me about how you two used to go down
+to the harbor and watch the big liners come in at night, all aflare with
+lights through the Golden Gate. And he used to tell you he'd go over to
+Europe in one, when he'd made his pile.”
+
+“That's why Strasburg made me think of him,” broke in Al, tremendously
+excited. “'Cause it was so picturesque like.... But honest, I've tried
+hard to make good in this army. I've done everything a feller could. An'
+all I did was to get into a cushy job in the regimental office.... But
+Dan, Gawd, he may even be an officer by this time.”
+
+“No, he's not that,” said Andrews. “Look here, you ought to keep quiet
+with that hand of yours.”
+
+“Damn my hand. Oh, it'll heal all right if I forget about it. You
+see, my foot slipped when they shunted a car I was just climbing into,
+an'...I guess I ought to be glad I wasn't killed. But, gee, when I think
+that if I hadn't been a fool about that girl I might have been home by
+now....”
+
+“The Chink says they're putting up barricades on the Avenue Magenta.”
+
+“That means business, kid!”
+
+“Business nothin',” shouted Slippery from where he and Chrisfield leaned
+over the dice on the tile floor in front of the window. “One tank an'
+a few husky Senegalese'll make your goddam socialists run so fast
+they won't stop till they get to Dijon.... You guys ought to have more
+sense.” Slippery got to his feet and came over to the bed, jingling the
+dice in his hand. “It'll take more'n a handful o' socialists paid by the
+Boches to break the army. If it could be broke, don't ye think people
+would have done it long ago?”
+
+“Shut up a minute. Ah thought Ah heard somethin',” said Chrisfield
+suddenly, going to the window.
+
+They held their breath. The bed creaked as Al stirred uneasily in it.
+
+“No, warn't anythin'; Ah'd thought Ah'd heard people singin'.”
+
+“The Internationale,” cried Al.
+
+“Shut up,” said Chrisfield in a low gruff voice.
+
+Through the silence of the room they heard steps on the stairs.
+
+“All right, it's only Smiddy,” said Slippery, and he threw the dice down
+on the tiles again.
+
+The door opened slowly to let in a tall, stoop-shouldered man with a
+long face and long teeth.
+
+“Who's the frawg?” he asked in a startled way, with one hand on the door
+knob.
+
+“All right, Smiddy; it ain't a frawg; it's a guy Chris knows. He's taken
+his uniform off.”
+
+“'Lo, buddy,” said Smiddy, shaking Andrews's hand. “Gawd, you look like
+a frawg.”
+
+“That's good,” said Andrews.
+
+“There's hell to pay,” broke out Smiddy breathlessly. “You know Gus
+Evans and the little black-haired guy goes 'round with him? They been
+picked up. I seen 'em myself with some M. P.'s at Place de la Bastille.
+An' a guy I talked to under the bridge where I slep' last night said a
+guy'd tole him they were goin' to clean the A. W. O. L.'s out o' Paris
+if they had to search through every house in the place.”
+
+“If they come here they'll git somethin' they ain't lookin' for,”
+ muttered Chrisfield.
+
+“I'm goin' down to Nice; getting too hot around here,” said Slippery.
+“I've got travel orders in my pocket now.”
+
+“How did you get 'em?”
+
+“Easy as pie,” said Slippery, lighting a cigarette and puffing
+affectedly towards the ceiling. “I met up with a guy, a second loot, in
+the Knickerbocker Bar. We gets drunk together, an' goes on a party with
+two girls I know. In the morning I get up bright an' early, and now I've
+got five thousand francs, a leave slip and a silver cigarette case, an'
+Lootenant J. B. Franklin's runnin' around sayin' how he was robbed by
+a Paris whore, or more likely keepin' damn quiet about it. That's my
+system.”
+
+“But, gosh darn it, I don't see how you can go around with a guy an'
+drink with him, an' then rob him,” cried Al from the bed.
+
+“No different from cleaning a guy up at craps.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“An' suppose that feller knew that I was only a bloody private. Don't
+you think he'd have turned me over to the M. P.'s like winkin'?”
+
+“No, I don't think so,” said Al. “They're juss like you an me, skeered
+to death they'll get in wrong, but they won't light on a feller unless
+they have to.”
+
+“That's a goddam lie,” cried Chrisfield. “They like ridin' yer. A
+doughboy's less'n a dawg to 'em. Ah'd shoot anyone of 'em lake Ah'd
+shoot a nigger.”
+
+Andrews was watching Chrisfield's face; it suddenly flushed red. He was
+silent abruptly. His eyes met Andrews's eyes with a flash of fear.
+
+“They're all sorts of officers, like they're all sorts of us,” Al was
+insisting.
+
+“But you damn fools, quit arguing,” cried Smiddy. “What the hell are we
+goin' to do? It ain't safe here no more, that's how I look at it.”
+
+They were silent.
+
+At last Chrisfield said:
+
+“What you goin' to do, Andy?”
+
+“I hardly know. I think I'll go out to St. Germain to see a boy I know
+there who works on a farm to see if it's safe to take a job there. I
+won't stay in Paris. Then there's a girl here I want to look up. I must
+see her.” Andrews broke off suddenly, and started walking back and forth
+across the end of the room.
+
+“You'd better be damn careful; they'll probably shoot you if they catch
+you,” said Slippery.
+
+Andrews shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Well, I'd rather be shot than go to Leavenworth for twenty years, Gawd!
+I would,” cried Al.
+
+“How do you fellers eat here?” asked Slippery.
+
+“We buy stuff an' the dawg-faced girl cooks it for us.”
+
+“Got anything for this noon?”
+
+“I'll go see if I can buy some stuff,” said Andrews. “It's safer for me
+to go out than for you.”
+
+“All right, here's twenty francs,” said Slippery, handing Andrews a bill
+with an offhand gesture.
+
+Chrisfield followed Andrews down the stairs. When they reached the
+passage at the foot of the stairs, he put his hand on Andrews's shoulder
+and whispered:
+
+“Say, Andy, d'you think there's anything in that revolution business? Ah
+hadn't never thought they could buck the system thataway.”
+
+“They did in Russia.”
+
+“Then we'd be free, civilians, like we all was before the draft. But
+that ain't possible, Andy; that ain't possible, Andy.”
+
+“We'll see,” said Andrews, as, he opened the door to the bar.
+
+He went up excitedly to the Chink, who sat behind the row of bottles
+along the bar.
+
+“Well, what's happening?”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“By the Gare de l'Est, where they were putting up barricades?”
+
+“Barricades!” shouted a young man in a red sash who was drinking at a
+table. “Why, they tore down some of the iron guards round the trees, if
+you call that barricades. But they're cowards. Whenever the cops charge
+they run. They're dirty cowards.”
+
+“D'you think anything's going to happen?”
+
+“What can happen when you've got nothing but a bunch of dirty cowards?”
+
+“What d'you think about it?” said Andrews, turning to the Chink.
+
+The Chink shook his head without answering. Andrews went out.
+
+When he cams back he found Al and Chrisfield alone in their room.
+Chrisfield was walking up and down, biting his finger nails. On the wall
+opposite the window was a square of sunshine reflected from the opposite
+wall of the Court.
+
+“For God's sake beat it, Chris. I'm all right,” Al was saying in a weak,
+whining voice, his face twisted up by pain.
+
+“What's the matter?” cried Andrews, putting down a large bundle.
+
+“Slippery's seen a M. P. nosin' around in front of the gin mill.”
+
+“Good God!”
+
+“They've beat it.... The trouble is Al's too sick.... Honest to gawd,
+Ah'll stay with you, Al.”
+
+“No. If you know somewhere to go, beat it, Chris. I'll stay here with
+Al and talk French to the M. P.'s if they come. We'll fool 'em somehow.”
+ Andrews felt suddenly amused and joyous.
+
+“Honest to gawd, Andy, Ah'd stay if it warn't that that sergeant knows,”
+ said Chrisfield in a jerky voice.
+
+“Beat it, Chris. There may be no time to waste.”
+
+“So long, Andy.” Chrisfield slipped out of the door.
+
+“It's funny, Al,” said Andrews, sitting on the edge of the bed and
+unwrapping the package of food, “I'm not a damn bit scared any more. I
+think I'm free of the army, Al.... How's your hand?”
+
+“I dunno. Oh, how I wish I was in my old bunk at Coblenz. I warn't made
+for buckin' against the world this way.... If we had old Dan with us....
+Funny that you know Dan.... He'd have a million ideas for gettin' out
+of this fix. But I'm glad he's not here. He'd bawl me out so, for not
+havin' made good. He's a powerful ambitious kid, is Dan.”
+
+“But it's not the sort of thing a man can make good in, Al,” said
+Andrews slowly. They were silent. There was no sound in the courtyard,
+only very far away the clatter of a patrol of cavalry over cobblestones.
+The sky had become overcast and the room was very dark. The mouldy
+plaster peeling off the walls had streaks of green in it. The light from
+the courtyard had a greenish tinge that made their faces look pale and
+dead, like the faces of men that have long been shut up between damp
+prison walls.
+
+“And Fuselli had a girl named Mabe,” said Andrews.
+
+“Oh, she married a guy in the Naval Reserve. They had a grand wedding,”
+ said Al.
+
+
+
+                             IV
+
+“At last I've got to you!”
+
+John Andrews had caught sight of Genevieve on a bench at the end of the
+garden under an arbor of vines. Her hair flamed bright in a splotch of
+sun as she got to her feet. She held out both hands to him.
+
+“How good-looking you are like that,” she cried.
+
+He was conscious only of her hands in his hands and of her pale-brown
+eyes and of the bright sun-splotches and the green shadows fluttering
+all about them.
+
+“So you are out of prison,” she said, “and demobilized. How wonderful!
+Why didn't you write? I have been very uneasy about you. How did you
+find me here?”
+
+“Your mother said you were here.”
+
+“And how do you like it, my Poissac?”
+
+She made a wide gesture with her hand. They stood silent a moment, side
+by side, looking about them. In front of the arbor was a parterre of
+rounded box-bushes edging beds where disorderly roses hung in clusters
+of pink and purple and apricot-color. And beyond it a brilliant emerald
+lawn full of daisies sloped down to an old grey house with, at one end,
+a squat round tower that had an extinguisher-shaped roof. Beyond the
+house were tall, lush-green poplars, through which glittered patches of
+silver-grey river and of yellow sand banks. From somewhere came a drowsy
+scent of mown grass.
+
+“How brown you are!” she said again. “I thought I had lost you.... You
+might kiss me, Jean.”
+
+The muscles of his arms tightened about her shoulders. Her hair flamed
+in his eyes. The wind that rustled through broad grape-leaves made a
+flutter of dancing light and shadow about them.
+
+“How hot you are with the sun!” she said. “I love the smell of the sweat
+of your body. You must have run very hard, coming here.”
+
+“Do you remember one night in the spring we walked home from Pelleas and
+Melisande? How I should have liked to have kissed you then, like this!”
+ Andrews's voice was strange, hoarse, as if he spoke with difficulty.
+
+“There is the chateau tres froid et tres profond,” she said with a
+little laugh.
+
+“And your hair. 'Je les tiens dans les doits, je les tiens dans la
+bouche.... Toute ta chevelure, toute ta chevelure, Melisande, est tombee
+de la tour.... D'you remember?”
+
+“How wonderful you are.”
+
+They sat side by side on the stone bench without touching each other.
+
+“It's silly,” burst out Andrews excitedly. “We should have faith in our
+own selves. We can't live a little rag of romance without dragging in
+literature. We are drugged with literature so that we can never live at
+all, of ourselves.”
+
+“Jean, how did you come down here? Have you been demobilized long?”'
+
+“I walked almost all the way from Paris. You see, I am very dirty.”
+
+“How wonderful! But I'll be quiet. You must tell me everything from the
+moment you left me in Chartres.”
+
+“I'll tell you about Chartres later,” said Andrews gruffly. “It has been
+superb, one of the biggest weeks in my life, walking all day under the
+sun, with the road like a white ribbon in the sun over the hills and
+along river banks, where there were yellow irises blooming, and through
+woods full of blackbirds, and with the dust in a little white cloud
+round my feet, and all the time walking towards you, walking towards
+you.”
+
+“And la Reine de Saba, how is it coming?”
+
+“I don't know. It's a long time since I thought of it.... You have been
+here long?”
+
+“Hardly a week. But what are you going to do?”
+
+“I have a room overlooking the river in a house owned by a very fat
+woman with a very red face and a tuft of hair on her chin....”
+
+“Madame Boncour.”
+
+“Of course. You must know everybody.... It's so small.”
+
+“And you're going to stay here a long time?”
+
+“Almost forever, and work, and talk to you; may I use your piano now and
+then?”
+
+“How wonderful!”
+
+Genevieve Rod jumped to her feet. Then she stood looking at him, leaning
+against one of the twisted stems of the vines, so that the broad leaves
+fluttered about her face, A white cloud, bright as silver, covered the
+sun, so that the hairy young leaves and the wind-blown grass of the lawn
+took on a silvery sheen. Two white butterflies fluttered for a second
+about the arbor.
+
+“You must always dress like that,” she said after a while.
+
+Andrews laughed.
+
+“A little cleaner, I hope,” he said. “But there can't be much change. I
+have no other clothes and ridiculously little money.”
+
+“Who cares for money?” cried Genevieve. Andrews fancied he detected
+a slight affectation in her tone, but he drove the idea from his mind
+immediately.
+
+“I wonder if there is a farm round here where I could get work.”
+
+“But you couldn't do the work of a farm labourer,” cried Genevieve,
+laughing.
+
+“You just watch me.”
+
+“It'll spoil your hands for the piano.”
+
+“I don't care about that; but all that's later, much later. Before
+anything else I must finish a thing I am working on. There is a theme
+that came to me when I was first in the army, when I was washing windows
+at the training camp.”
+
+“How funny you are, Jean! Oh, it's lovely to have you about again. But
+you're awfully solemn today. Perhaps it's because I made you kiss me.”
+
+“But, Genevieve, it's not in one day that you can unbend a slave's back,
+but with you, in this wonderful place.... Oh, I've never seen such sappy
+richness of vegetation! And think of it, a week's walking first across
+those grey rolling uplands, and then at Blois down into the haze of
+richness of the Loire.... D'you know Vendome? I came by a funny little
+town from Vendome to Blois. You see, my feet.... And what wonderful cold
+baths I've had on the sand banks of the Loire.... No, after a while
+the rhythm of legs all being made the same length on drill fields, the
+hopeless caged dullness will be buried deep in me by the gorgeousness of
+this world of yours!”
+
+He got to his feet and crushed a leaf softly between his fingers.
+
+“You see, the little grapes are already forming.... Look up there,” she
+said as she brushed the leaves aside just above his head. “These grapes
+here are the earliest; but I must show you my domain, and my cousins and
+the hen yard and everything.”
+
+She took his hand and pulled him out of the arbor. They ran like
+children, hand in hand, round the box-bordered paths.
+
+“What I mean is this,” he stammered, following her across the lawn. “If
+I could once manage to express all that misery in music, I could shove
+it far down into my memory. I should be free to live my own existence,
+in the midst of this carnival of summer.”
+
+At the house she turned to him; “You see the very battered ladies over
+the door,” she said. “They are said to be by a pupil of Jean Goujon.”
+
+“They fit wonderfully in the landscape, don't they? Did I ever tell you
+about the sculptures in the hospital where I was when I was wounded?”
+
+“No, but I want you to look at the house now. See, that's the tower; all
+that's left of the old building. I live there, and right under the roof
+there's a haunted room I used to be terribly afraid of. I'm still afraid
+of it.... You see this Henri Quatre part of the house was just a fourth
+of the house as planned. This lawn would have been the court. We dug up
+foundations where the roses are. There are all sorts of traditions as to
+why the house was never finished.”
+
+“You must tell me them.”
+
+“I shall later; but now you must come and meet my aunt and my cousins.”
+
+“Please, not just now, Genevieve.... I don't feel like talking to anyone
+except you. I have so much to talk to you about.”
+
+“But it's nearly lunch time, Jean. We can have all that after lunch.”
+
+“No, I can't talk to anyone else now. I must go and clean myself up a
+little anyway.”
+
+“Just as you like.... But you must come this afternoon and play to us.
+Two or three people are coming to tea.... It would be very sweet of you,
+if you'd play to us, Jean.”
+
+“But can't you understand? I can't see you with other people now.”
+
+“Just as you like,” said Genevieve, flushing, her hand on the iron latch
+of the door.
+
+“Can't I come to see you tomorrow morning? Then I shall feel more like
+meeting people, after talking to you a long while. You see, I....”
+ He paused, with his eyes on the ground. Then he burst out in a low,
+passionate voice: “Oh, if I could only get it out of my mind... those
+tramping feet, those voices shouting orders.”
+
+His hand trembled when he put it in Genevieve's hand. She looked in his
+eyes calmly with her wide brown eyes.
+
+“How strange you are today, Jean! Anyway, come back early tomorrow.”
+
+She went in the door. He walked round the house, through the carriage
+gate, and went off with long strides down the road along the river that
+led under linden trees to the village.
+
+Thoughts swarmed teasingly through his head, like wasps about a rotting
+fruit. So at last he had seen Genevieve, and had held her in his arms
+and kissed her. And that was all. His plans for the future had never
+gone beyond that point. He hardly knew what he had expected, but in
+all the sunny days of walking, in all the furtive days in Paris, he had
+thought of nothing else. He would see Genevieve and tell her all
+about himself; he would unroll his life like a scroll before her eyes.
+Together they would piece together the future. A sudden terror took
+possession of him. She had failed him. Floods of denial seethed through
+his mind. It was that he had expected so much; he had expected her
+to understand him without explanation, instinctively. He had told her
+nothing. He had not even told her he was a deserter. What was it
+that had kept him from telling her? Puzzle as he would, he could not
+formulate it. Only, far within him, the certainty lay like an icy
+weight: she had failed him. He was alone. What a fool he had been to
+build his whole life on a chance of sympathy? No. It was rather this
+morbid playing at phrases that was at fault. He was like a touchy old
+maid, thinking imaginary results. “Take life at its face value,” he
+kept telling himself. They loved each other anyway, somehow; it did not
+matter how. And he was free to work. Wasn't that enough?
+
+But how could he wait until tomorrow to see her, to tell her everything,
+to break down all the silly little barriers between them, so that they
+might look directly into each other's lives?
+
+The road turned inland from the river between garden walls at the
+entrance to the village. Through half-open doors Andrews got glimpses
+of neatly-cultivated kitchen-gardens and orchards where silver-leaved
+boughs swayed against the sky. Then the road swerved again into
+the village, crowded into a narrow paved street by the white and
+cream-colored houses with green or grey shutters and pale, red-tiled
+roofs. At the end, stained golden with lichen, the mauve-grey tower
+of the church held up its bells against the sky in a belfry of broad
+pointed arches. In front of the church Andrews turned down a little lane
+towards the river again, to come out in a moment on a quay shaded by
+skinny acacia trees. On the corner house, a ramshackle house with roofs
+and gables projecting in all directions, was a sign: “Rendezvous de la
+Marine.” The room he stepped into was so low, Andrews had to stoop
+under the heavy brown beams as he crossed it. Stairs went up from a door
+behind a worn billiard table in the corner. Mme. Boncour stood between
+Andrews and the stairs. She was a flabby, elderly woman with round eyes
+and a round, very red face and a curious smirk about the lips.
+
+“Monsieur payera un petit peu d'advance, n'est-ce pas, Monsieur?”
+
+“All right,” said Andrews, reaching for his pocketbook. “Shall I pay you
+a week in advance?”
+
+The woman smiled broadly.
+
+“Si Monsieur desire.... It's that life is so dear nowadays. Poor people
+like us can barely get along.”
+
+“I know that only too well,” said Andrews.
+
+“Monsieur est etranger....” began the woman in a wheedling tone, when
+she had received the money.
+
+“Yes. I was only demobilized a short time ago.”
+
+“Aha! Monsieur est demobilise. Monsieur remplira la petite feuille pour
+la police, n'est-ce pas?”
+
+The woman brought from behind her back a hand that held a narrow printed
+slip.
+
+“All right. I'll fill it out now,” said Andrews, his heart thumping.
+
+Without thinking what he was doing, he put the paper on the edge of
+the billiard table and wrote: “John Brown, aged 23. Chicago Ill.,
+Etats-Unis. Musician. Holder of passport No. 1,432,286.”
+
+“Merci, Monsieur. A bientot, Monsieur. Au revoir, Monsieur.”
+
+The woman's singing voice followed him up the rickety stairs to his
+room. It was only when he had closed the door that he remembered that he
+had put down for a passport number his army number. “And why did I write
+John Brown as a name?” he asked himself.
+
+     “John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
+      But his soul goes marching on.
+      Glory, glory, hallelujah!
+      But his soul goes marching on.”
+
+He heard the song so vividly that he thought for an instant someone must
+be standing beside him singing it. He went to the window and ran his
+hand through his hair. Outside the Loire rambled in great loops towards
+the blue distance, silvery reach upon silvery reach, with here and there
+the broad gleam of a sand bank. Opposite were poplars and fields patched
+in various greens rising to hills tufted with dense shadowy groves. On
+the bare summit of the highest hill a windmill waved lazy arms against
+the marbled sky.
+
+Gradually John Andrews felt the silvery quiet settle about him. He
+pulled a sausage and a piece of bread out of the pocket of his coat,
+took a long swig of water from the pitcher on his washstand, and settled
+himself at the table before the window in front of a pile of ruled
+sheets of music paper. He nibbled the bread and the sausage meditatively
+for a long while, then wrote “Arbeit und Rhythmus” in a large careful
+hand at the top of the paper. After that he looked out of the window
+without moving, watching the plumed clouds sail like huge slow ships
+against the slate-blue sky. Suddenly he scratched out what he had
+written and scrawled above it: “The Body and Soul of John Brown.” He got
+to his feet and walked about the room with clenched hands.
+
+“How curious that I should have written that name. How curious that I
+should have written that name!” he said aloud.
+
+He sat down at the table again and forgot everything in the music that
+possessed him.
+
+
+
+The next morning he walked out early along the river, trying to occupy
+himself until it should be time to go to see Genevieve. The memory of
+his first days in the army, spent washing windows at the training camp,
+was very vivid in his mind. He saw himself again standing naked in the
+middle of a wide, bare room, while the recruiting sergeant measured and
+prodded him. And now he was a deserter. Was there any sense to it all?
+Had his life led in any particular direction, since he had been caught
+haphazard in the treadmill, or was it all chance? A toad hopping across
+a road in front of a steam roller.
+
+He stood still, and looked about him. Beyond a clover field was the
+river with its sand banks and its broad silver reaches. A boy was wading
+far out in the river catching minnows with a net. Andrews watched his
+quick movements as he jerked the net through the water. And that boy,
+too, would be a soldier; the lithe body would be thrown into a mould
+to be made the same as other bodies, the quick movements would be
+standardized into the manual at arms, the inquisitive, petulant mind
+would be battered into servility. The stockade was built; not one of the
+sheep would escape. And those that were not sheep? They were deserters;
+every rifle muzzle held death for them; they would not live long. And
+yet other nightmares had been thrown off the shoulders of men. Every man
+who stood up courageously to die loosened the grip of the nightmare.
+
+Andrews walked slowly along the road, kicking his feet into the dust
+like a schoolboy. At a turning he threw himself down on the grass
+under some locust trees. The heavy fragrance of their flowers and the
+grumbling of the bees that hung drunkenly on the white racemes made him
+feel very drowsy. A cart passed, pulled by heavy white horses; an old
+man with his back curved like the top of a sunflower stalk hobbled
+after, using the whip as a walking stick. Andrews saw the old man's eyes
+turned on him suspiciously. A faint pang of fright went through him; did
+the old man know he was a deserter? The cart and the old man had
+already disappeared round the bend in the road. Andrews lay a long while
+listening to the jingle of the harness thin into the distance, leaving
+him again to the sound of the drowsy bees among the locust blossoms.
+
+When he sat up, he noticed that through a break in the hedge beyond the
+slender black trunks of the locusts, he could see rising above the trees
+the extinguisher-shaped roof of the tower of Genevieve Rod's house.
+He remembered the day he had first seen Genevieve, and the boyish
+awkwardness with which she poured tea. Would he and Genevieve ever find
+a moment of real contact? All at once a bitter thought came to him. “Or
+is it that she wants a tame pianist as an ornament to a clever young
+woman's drawing room?” He jumped to his feet and started walking fast
+towards the town again. He would go to see her at once and settle all
+that forever. The village clock had begun to strike; the clear notes
+vibrated crisply across the fields: ten.
+
+Walking back to the village he began to think of money. His room was
+twenty francs a week. He had in his purse a hundred and twenty-four
+francs. After fishing in all his pockets for silver, he found three
+francs and a half more. A hundred and twenty-seven francs fifty. If he
+could live on forty francs a week, he would have three weeks in which to
+work on the “Body and Soul of John Brown.” Only three weeks; and then he
+must find work. In any case he would write Henslowe to send him money
+if he had any; this was no time for delicacy; everything depended on
+his having money. And he swore to himself that he would work for three
+weeks, that he would throw the idea that flamed within him into shape
+on paper, whatever happened. He racked his brains to think of someone
+in America he could write to for money, A ghastly sense of solitude
+possessed him. And would Genevieve fail him too?
+
+Genevieve was coming out by the front door of the house when he reached
+the carriage gate beside the road.
+
+She ran to meet him.
+
+“Good morning. I was on my way to fetch you.”
+
+She seized his hand and pressed it hard.
+
+“How sweet of you!”
+
+“But, Jean, you're not coming from the village.”
+
+“I've been walking.”
+
+“How early you must get up!”
+
+“You see, the sun rises just opposite my window, and shines in on my
+bed. That makes me get up early.”
+
+She pushed him in the door ahead of her. They went through the hall to
+a long high room that had a grand piano and many old high-backed chairs,
+and in front of the French windows that opened on the garden, a round
+table of black mahogany littered with books. Two tall girls in muslin
+dresses stood beside the piano.
+
+“These are my cousins.... Here he is at last. Monsieur Andrews, ma
+cousine Berthe et ma cousine Jeanne. Now you've got to play to us; we
+are bored to death with everything we know.”
+
+“All right.... But I have a great deal to talk to you about later,” said
+Andrews in a low voice.
+
+Genevieve nodded understandingly.
+
+“Why don't you play us La Reine de Saba, Jean?”
+
+“Oh, do play that,” twittered the cousins.
+
+“If you don't mind, I'd rather play some Bach.”
+
+“There's a lot of Bach in that chest in the corner,” cried Genevieve.
+“It's ridiculous; everything in the house is jammed with music.”
+
+They leaned over the chest together, so that Andrews felt her hair
+brush against his cheek, and the smell of her hair in his nostrils. The
+cousins remained by the piano.
+
+“I must talk to you alone soon,” whispered Andrews.
+
+“All right,” she said, her face reddening as she leaned over the chest.
+
+On top of the music was a revolver.
+
+“Look out, it's loaded,” she said, when he picked it up.
+
+He looked at her inquiringly. “I have another in my room. You see Mother
+and I are often alone here, and then, I like firearms. Don't you?”
+
+“I hate them,” muttered Andrews.
+
+“Here's tons of Bach.”
+
+“Fine.... Look, Genevieve,” he said suddenly, “lend me that revolver for
+a few days. I'll tell you why I want it later.”
+
+“Certainly. Be careful, because it's loaded,” she said in an offhand
+manner, walking over to the piano with two volumes under each arm.
+Andrews closed the chest and followed her, suddenly bubbling with
+gaiety. He opened a volume haphazard.
+
+“To a friend to dissuade him from starting on a journey,” he read. “Oh,
+I used to know that.”
+
+He began to play, putting boisterous vigor into the tunes. In a
+pianissimo passage he heard one cousin whisper to the other: “Qu'il a
+l'air interessant.”
+
+“Farouche, n'est-ce pas? Genre revolutionnaire,” answered the other
+cousin, tittering. Then he noticed that Mme. Rod was smiling at him. He
+got to his feet.
+
+“Mais ne vous derangez pas,” she said.
+
+A man with white flannel trousers and tennis shoes and a man in black
+with a pointed grey beard and amused grey eyes had come into the room,
+followed by a stout woman in hat and veil, with long white cotton gloves
+on her arms. Introductions were made. Andrews's spirits began to
+ebb. All these people were making strong the barrier between him and
+Genevieve. Whenever he looked at her, some well-dressed person stepped
+in front of her with a gesture of politeness. He felt caught in a
+ring of well-dressed conventions that danced about him with grotesque
+gestures of politeness. All through lunch he had a crazy desire to jump
+to his feet and shout: “Look at me; I'm a deserter. I'm under the wheels
+of your system. If your system doesn't succeed in killing me, it will be
+that much weaker, it will have less strength to kill others.” There was
+talk about his demobilization, and his music, and the Schola Cantorum.
+He felt he was being exhibited. “But they don't know what they're
+exhibiting,” he said to himself with a certain bitter joy.
+
+After lunch they went out into the grape arbor, where coffee was
+brought. Andrews sat silent, not listening to the talk, which was
+about Empire furniture and the new taxes, staring up into the broad
+sun-splotched leaves of the grape vines, remembering how the sun and
+shade had danced about Genevieve's hair when they had been in the arbor
+alone the day before, turning it all to red flame. Today she sat in
+shadow, and her hair was rusty and dull. Time dragged by very slowly.
+
+At last Genevieve got to her feet.
+
+“You haven't seen my boat,” she said to Andrews. “Let's go for a row.
+I'll row you about.”
+
+Andrews jumped up eagerly.
+
+“Make her be careful, Monsieur Andrews, she's dreadfully imprudent,'”
+ said Madame Rod.
+
+“You were bored to death,” said Genevieve, as they walked out on the
+road.
+
+“No, but those people all seemed to be building new walls between you
+and me. God knows there are enough already.”
+
+She looked him sharply in the eyes a second, but said nothing.
+
+They walked slowly through the sand of the river edge, till they came to
+an old flat-bottomed boat painted green with an orange stripe, drawn up
+among the reeds.
+
+“It will probably sink; can you swim?” she asked, laughing.
+
+Andrews smiled, and said in a stiff voice:
+
+“I can swim. It was by swimming that I got out of the army.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“When I deserted.”
+
+“When you deserted?”
+
+Genevieve leaned over to pull on the boat. Their heads almost touching,
+they pulled the boat down to the water's edge, then pushed it half out
+on to the river.
+
+“And if you are caught?”
+
+“They might shoot me; I don't know. Still, as the war is over, it would
+probably be life imprisonment, or at least twenty years.”
+
+“You can speak of it as coolly as that?”
+
+“It is no new idea to my mind.”
+
+“What induced you to do such a thing?”
+
+“I was not willing to submit any longer to the treadmill.”
+
+“Come let's go out on the river.”
+
+Genevieve stepped into the boat and caught up the oars.
+
+“Now push her off, and don't fall in,” she cried.
+
+The boat glided out into the water. Genevieve began pulling on the oars
+slowly and regularly. Andrews looked at her without speaking.
+
+“When you're tired, I'll row,” he said after a while.
+
+Behind them the village, patched white and buff-color and russet and
+pale red with stucco walls and steep, tiled roofs, rose in an irregular
+pyramid to the church. Through the wide pointed arches of the belfry
+they could see the bells hanging against the sky. Below in the river the
+town was reflected complete, with a great rift of steely blue across
+it where the wind ruffled the water. The oars creaked rhythmically as
+Genevieve pulled on them.
+
+“Remember, when you are tired,” said Andrews again after a long pause.
+
+Genevieve spoke through clenched teeth:
+
+“Of course, you have no patriotism.”
+
+“As you mean it, none.”
+
+They rounded the edge of a sand bank where the current ran hard. Andrews
+put his hands beside her hands on the oars, and pushed with her. The bow
+of the boat grounded in some reeds under willows.
+
+“We'll stay here,” she said, pulling in the oars that flashed in the sun
+as she jerked them, dripping silver, out of the water.
+
+She clasped her hands round her knees and leaned over towards him.
+
+“So that is why you want my revolver.... Tell me all about it, from
+Chartres,” she said, in a choked voice.
+
+“You see, I was arrested at Chartres and sent to a labor battalion, the
+equivalent for your army prison, without being able to get word to my
+commanding officer in the School Detachment....” He paused.
+
+A bird was singing in the willow tree. The sun was under a cloud; beyond
+the long pale green leaves that fluttered ever so slightly in the wind,
+the sky was full of silvery and cream-colored clouds, with here and
+there a patch the color of a robin's egg. Andrews began laughing softly.
+
+“But, Genevieve, how silly those words are, those pompous, efficient
+words: detachment, battalion, commanding officer. It would have all
+happened anyway. Things reached the breaking point; that was all. I
+could not submit any longer to the discipline.... Oh, those long Roman
+words, what millstones they are about men's necks! That was silly, too;
+I was quite willing to help in the killing of Germans, I had no quarrel
+with, out of curiosity or cowardice.... You see, it has taken me so long
+to find out how the world is. There was no one to show me the way.”
+
+He paused as if expecting her to speak. The bird in the willow tree was
+still singing.
+
+Suddenly a dangling twig blew aside a little so that Andrews could see
+him--a small grey bird, his throat all puffed out with song.
+
+“It seems to me,” he said very softly, “that human society has been
+always that, and perhaps will be always that: organizations growing and
+stifling individuals, and individuals revolting hopelessly against
+them, and at last forming new societies to crush the old societies and
+becoming slaves again in their turn....”
+
+“I thought you were a socialist,” broke in Genevieve sharply, in a voice
+that hurt him to the quick, he did not know why.
+
+“A man told me at the labor battalion,” began Andrews again, “that
+they'd tortured a friend of his there once by making him swallow lighted
+cigarettes; well, every order shouted at me, every new humiliation
+before the authorities, was as great an agony to me. Can't you
+understand?” His voice rose suddenly to a tone of entreaty.
+
+She nodded her head. They were silent. The willow leaves shivered in a
+little wind. The bird had gone.
+
+“But tell me about the swimming part of it. That sounds exciting.”
+
+“We were working unloading cement at Passy--cement to build the stadium
+the army is presenting to the French, built by slave labor, like the
+pyramids.”
+
+“Passy's where Balzac lived. Have you ever seen his house there?”
+
+“There was a boy working with me, the Kid, 'le gosse,' it'd be in
+French. Without him, I should never have done it. I was completely
+crushed.... I suppose that he was drowned.... Anyway, we swam under
+water as far as we could, and, as it was nearly dark, I managed to get
+on a barge, where a funny anarchist family took care of me. I've never
+heard of the Kid since. Then I bought these clothes that amuse you so,
+Genevieve, and came back to Paris to find you, mainly.”
+
+“I mean as much to you as that?” whispered Genevieve.
+
+“In Paris, too. I tried to find a boy named Marcel, who worked on a
+farm near St. Germain. I met him out there one day. I found he'd gone
+to sea.... If it had not been that I had to see you, I should have gone
+straight to Bordeaux or Marseilles. They aren't too particular who they
+take as a seaman now.”
+
+“But in the army didn't you have enough of that dreadful life,
+always thrown among uneducated people, always in dirty, foulsmelling
+surroundings, you, a sensitive person, an artist? No wonder you are
+almost crazy after years of that.” Genevieve spoke passionately, with
+her eyes fixed on his face.
+
+“Oh, it wasn't that,” said Andrews with despair in his voice. “I rather
+like the people you call low. Anyway, the differences between people
+are so slight....” His sentence trailed away. He stopped speaking, sat
+stirring uneasily on the seat, afraid he would cry out. He noticed the
+hard shape of the revolver against his leg.
+
+“But isn't there something you can do about it? You must have friends,”
+ burst out Genevieve. “You were treated with horrible injustice. You can
+get yourself reinstated and properly demobilised. They'll see you are a
+person of intelligence. They can't treat you as they would anybody.”
+
+“I must be, as you say, a little mad, Genevieve,” said Andrews.
+
+“But now that I, by pure accident, have made a gesture, feeble as it
+is, towards human freedom, I can't feel that.... Oh, I suppose I'm a
+fool.... But there you have me, just as I am, Genevieve.”
+
+He sat with his head drooping over his chest, his two hands clasping the
+gunwales of the boat. After a long while Genevieve said in a dry little
+voice:
+
+“Well, we must go back now; it's time for tea.”
+
+Andrews looked up. There was a dragon fly poised on the top of a reed,
+with silver wings and a long crimson body.
+
+“Look just behind you, Genevieve.”
+
+“Oh, a dragon fly! What people was it that made them the symbol of life?
+It wasn't the Egyptians. O, I've forgotten.”
+
+“I'll row,” said Andrews.
+
+The boat was hurried along by the current. In a very few minutes they
+had pulled it up on the bank in front of the Rods' house.
+
+“Come and have some tea,” said Genevieve.
+
+“No, I must work.”
+
+“You are doing something new, aren't you?”
+
+Andrews nodded.
+
+“What's its name?”
+
+“The Soul and Body of John Brown.”
+
+“Who's John Brown?”
+
+“He was a madman who wanted to free people. There's a song about him.”
+
+“It is based on popular themes?”
+
+“Not that I know of.... I only thought of the name yesterday. It came to
+me by a very curious accident.”
+
+“You'll come tomorrow?”
+
+“If you're not too busy.”
+
+“Let's see, the Boileaus are coming to lunch. There won't be anybody at
+tea time. We can have tea together alone.”
+
+He took her hand and held it, awkward as a child with a new playmate.
+
+“All right, at about four. If there's nobody there, we'll play music,”
+ he said.
+
+She pulled her hand from him hurriedly, made a curious formal gesture of
+farewell, and crossed the road to the gate without looking back. There
+was one idea in his head, to get to his room and lock the door and throw
+himself face down on the bed. The idea amused some distant part of his
+mind. That had been what he had always done when, as a child, the world
+had seemed too much for him. He would run upstairs and lock the door and
+throw himself face downward on the bed. “I wonder if I shall cry?” he
+thought.
+
+Madame Boncour was coming down the stairs as he went up. He backed down
+and waited. When she got to the bottom, pouting a little, she said:
+
+“So you are a friend of Mme. Rod, Monsieur?”
+
+“How did you know that?”
+
+A dimple appeared near her mouth in either cheek.
+
+“You know, in the country, one knows everything,” she said.
+
+“Au revoir,” he said, starting up the stairs.
+
+“Mais, Monsieur. You should have told me. If I had known I should
+not have asked you to pay in advance. Oh, never. You must pardon me,
+Monsieur.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+“Monsieur est Americain? You see I know a lot.” Her puffy cheeks shook
+when she giggled. “And Monsieur has known Mme. Rod et Mlle. Rod a long
+time. An old friend. Monsieur is a musician.”
+
+“Yes. Bon soir.” Andrews ran up the stairs.
+
+“Au revoir, Monsieur.” Her chanting voice followed him up the stairs.
+
+He slammed the door behind him and threw himself on the bed.
+
+When Andrews awoke next morning, his first thought was how long he had
+to wait that day to see Genevieve. Then he remembered their talk of
+the day before. Was it worth while going to see her at all, he asked
+himself. And very gradually he felt cold despair taking hold of him. He
+felt for a moment that he was the only living thing in a world of dead
+machines; the toad hopping across the road in front of a steam roller.
+Suddenly he thought of Jeanne. He remembered her grimy, overworked
+fingers lying in her lap. He pictured her walking up and down in front
+of the Cafe de Rohan one Wednesday night, waiting for him. In the place
+of Genevieve, what would Jeanne have done? Yet people were always alone,
+really; however much they loved each other, there could be no real
+union. Those who rode in the great car could never feel as the others
+felt; the toads hopping across the road. He felt no rancour against
+Genevieve.
+
+These thoughts slipped from him while he was drinking the coffee and
+eating the dry bread that made his breakfast; and afterwards, walking
+back and forth along the river bank, he felt his mind and body becoming
+as if fluid, and supple, trembling, bent in the rush of his music like
+a poplar tree bent in a wind. He sharpened a pencil and went up to his
+room again.
+
+The sky was cloudless that day. As he sat at his table the square of
+blue through the window and the hills topped by their windmill and the
+silver-blue of the river, were constantly in his eyes. Sometimes
+he wrote notes down fast, thinking nothing, feeling nothing, seeing
+nothing; other times he sat for long periods staring at the sky and at
+the windmill vaguely happy, playing with unexpected thoughts that came
+and vanished, as now and then a moth fluttered in the window to blunder
+about the ceiling beams, and, at last, to disappear without his knowing
+how.
+
+When the clock struck twelve, he found he was very hungry. For two
+days he had eaten nothing but bread, sausage and cheese. Finding Madame
+Boncour behind the bar downstairs, polishing glasses, he ordered dinner
+of her. She brought him a stew and a bottle of wine at once, and stood
+over him watching him eat it, her arms akimbo and the dimples showing in
+her huge red cheeks.
+
+“Monsieur eats less than any young man I ever saw,” she said.
+
+“I'm working hard,” said Andrews, flushing.
+
+“But when you work you have to eat a great deal, a great deal.”
+
+“And if the money is short?” asked Andrews with a smile.
+
+Something in the steely searching look that passed over her eyes for a
+minute startled him.
+
+“There are not many people here now, Monsieur, but you should see it on
+a market day.... Monsieur will take some dessert?”
+
+“Cheese and coffee.”
+
+“Nothing more? It's the season of strawberries.”
+
+“Nothing more, thank you.”
+
+When Madame Boncour came back with the cheese, she said:
+
+“I had Americans here once, Monsieur. A pretty time I had with them,
+too. They were deserters. They went away without paying, with the
+gendarmes after them I hope they were caught and sent to the front,
+those good-for-nothings.”
+
+“There are all sorts of Americans,” said Andrews in a low voice. He was
+angry with himself because his heart beat so.
+
+“Well, I'm going for a little walk. Au revoir, Madame.”
+
+“Monsieur is going for a little walk. Amusez-vous bien, Monsieur. Au
+revoir, Monsieur,” Madame Boncour's singsong tones followed him out.
+
+A little before four Andrews knocked at the front door of the Rods'
+house. He could hear Santo, the little black and tan, barking inside.
+Madame Rod opened the door for him herself.
+
+“Oh, here you are,” she said. “Come and have some tea. Did the work go
+well to-day?”
+
+“And Genevieve?” stammered Andrews.
+
+“She went out motoring with some friends. She left a note for you. It's
+on the tea-table.”
+
+He found himself talking, making questions and answers, drinking tea,
+putting cakes into his mouth, all through a white dead mist. Genevieve's
+note said:
+
+“Jean:--I'm thinking of ways and means. You must get away to a neutral
+country. Why couldn't you have talked it over with me first, before
+cutting off every chance of going back. I'll be in tomorrow at the same
+time.
+
+“Bien a vous.                                                 G. R.”
+
+“Would it disturb you if I played the piano a few minutes, Madame Rod?”
+ Andrews found himself asking all at once.
+
+“No, go ahead. We'll come in later and listen to you.”
+
+It was only as he left the room that he realized he had been talking to
+the two cousins as well as to Madame Rod.
+
+At the piano he forgot everything and regained his mood of vague
+joyousness. He found paper and a pencil in his pocket, and played the
+theme that had come to him while he had been washing windows at the top:
+of a step-ladder at training camp arranging it, modelling it, forgetting
+everything, absorbed in his rhythms and cadences. When he stopped work
+it was nearly dark. Genevieve Rod, a veil round her head, stood in the
+French window that led to the garden.
+
+“I heard you,” she said. “Go on.”
+
+“I'm through. How was your motor ride?”
+
+“I loved it. It's not often I get a chance to go motoring.”
+
+“Nor is it often I get a chance to talk to you alone,” cried Andrews
+bitterly.
+
+“You seem to feel you have rights of ownership over me. I resent it. No
+one has rights over me.” She spoke as if it were not the first time she
+had thought of the phrase.
+
+He walked over and leaned against the window beside her.
+
+“Has it made such a difference to you, Genevieve, finding out that I am
+a deserter?”
+
+“No, of course not,” she said hastily.
+
+“I think it has, Genevieve.... What do you want me to do? Do you think
+I should give myself up? A man I knew in Paris has given himself up, but
+he hadn't taken his uniform off. It seems that makes a difference. He
+was a nice fellow. His name was Al, he was from San Francisco. He had
+nerve, for he amputated his own little finger when his hand was crushed
+by a freight car.”
+
+“Oh, no, no. Oh, this is so frightful. And you would have been a great
+composer. I feel sure of it.”
+
+“Why, would have been? The stuff I'm doing now's better than any of the
+dribbling things I've done before, I know that.”
+
+“Oh, yes, but you'll need to study, to get yourself known.”
+
+“If I can pull through six months, I'm safe. The army will have gone. I
+don't believe they extradite deserters.”
+
+“Yes, but the shame of it, the danger of being found out all the time.”
+
+“I am ashamed of many things in my life, Genevieve. I'm rather proud of
+this.”
+
+“But can't you understand that other people haven't your notions of
+individual liberty?”
+
+“I must go, Genevieve.”
+
+“You must come in again soon.”
+
+“One of these days.”
+
+And he was out in the road in the windy twilight, with his music papers
+crumpled in his hand. The sky was full of tempestuous purple clouds;
+between them were spaces of clear claret-colored light, and here and
+there a gleam of opal. There were a few drops of rain in the wind that
+rustled the broad leaves of the lindens and filled the wheat fields
+with waves like the sea, and made the river very dark between rosy sand
+banks. It began to rain. Andrews hurried home so as not to drench his
+only suit. Once in his room he lit four candles and placed them at the
+corners of his table. A little cold crimson light still filtered in
+through the rain from the afterglow, giving the candles a ghostly
+glimmer. Then he lay on his bed, and staring up at the flickering light
+on the ceiling, tried to think.
+
+“Well, you're alone now, John Andrews,” he said aloud, after a
+half-hour, and jumped jauntily to his feet. He stretched himself and
+yawned. Outside the rain pattered loudly and steadily. “Let's have a
+general accounting,” he said to himself. “It'll be easily a month before
+I hear from old Howe in America, and longer before I hear from Henslowe,
+and already I've spent twenty francs on food. Can't make it this way.
+Then, in real possessions, I have one volume of Villon, a green book on
+counterpoint, a map of France torn in two, and a moderately well-stocked
+mind.”
+
+He put the two books on the middle of the table before him, on top of
+his disorderly bundle of music papers and notebooks. Then he went on,
+piling his possessions there as he thought of them. Three pencils, a
+fountain pen. Automatically he reached for his watch, but he remembered
+he'd given it to Al to pawn in case he didn't decide to give himself
+up, and needed money. A toothbrush. A shaving set. A piece of soap. A
+hairbrush and a broken comb. Anything else? He groped in the musette
+that hung on the foot of the bed. A box of matches. A knife with one
+blade missing, and a mashed cigarette. Amusement growing on him every
+minute, he contemplated the pile. Then, in the drawer, he remembered,
+was a clean shirt and two pairs of soiled socks. And that was all,
+absolutely all. Nothing saleable there. Except Genevieve's revolver.
+He pulled it out of his pocket. The candlelight flashed on the bright
+nickel. No, he might need that; it was too valuable to sell. He pointed
+it towards himself. Under the chin was said to be the best place.
+He wondered if he would pull the trigger when the barrel was pressed
+against his chin. No, when his money gave out he'd sell the revolver.
+An expensive death for a starving man. He sat on the edge of the bed and
+laughed.
+
+Then he discovered he was very hungry. Two meals in one day; shocking!
+He said to himself. Whistling joyfully, like a schoolboy, he strode down
+the rickety stairs to order a meal of Madame Boncour.
+
+It was with a strange start that he noticed that the tune he was
+whistling was:
+
+     “John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
+     But his soul goes marching on.”
+
+
+The lindens were in bloom. From a tree beside the house great gusts of
+fragrance, heavy as incense, came in through the open window. Andrews
+lay across the table with his eyes closed and his cheek in a mass of
+ruled papers. He was very tired. The first movement of the “Soul and
+Body of John Brown” was down on paper. The village clock struck two. He
+got to his feet and stood a moment looking absently out of the window.
+It was a sultry afternoon of swollen clouds that hung low over the
+river. The windmill on the hilltop opposite was motionless. He seemed to
+hear Genevieve's voice the last time he had seen her, so long ago.
+“You would have been a great composer.” He walked over to the table and
+turned over some sheets without looking at them. “Would have been!”
+ He shrugged his shoulders. So you couldn't be a great composer and a
+deserter too in the year 1919. Probably Genevieve was right. But he must
+have something to eat.
+
+“But how late it is,” expostulated Madame Boncour, when he asked for
+lunch.
+
+“I know it's very late. I have just finished a third of the work I'm
+doing.
+
+“And do you get paid a great deal, when that is finished?” asked Madame
+Boncour, the dimples appearing in her broad cheeks.
+
+“Some day, perhaps.”
+
+“You will be lonely now that the Rods have left.”
+
+“Have they left?”
+
+“Didn't you know? Didn't you go to say goodby? They've gone to the
+seashore.... But I'll make you a little omelette.”
+
+“Thank you.”
+
+When Madame Boncour cams back with the omelette and fried potatoes, she
+said to him in a mysterious voice:
+
+“You didn't go to see the Rods as often these last weeks.”
+
+“No.”
+
+Madame Boncour stood staring at him, with her red arms folded round her
+breasts, shaking her head.
+
+When he got up to go upstairs again, she suddenly shouted:
+
+“And when are you going to pay me? It's two weeks since you have paid
+me.”
+
+“But, Madame Boncour, I told you I had no money. If you wait a day or
+two, I'm sure to get some in the mail. It can't be more than a day or
+two.”
+
+“I've heard that story before.”
+
+“I've even tried to get work at several farms round here.”
+
+Madame Boncour threw back her head and laughed, showing the blackened
+teeth of her lower jaw.
+
+“Look here,” she said at length, “after this week, it's finished. You
+either pay me, or...And I sleep very lightly, Monsieur.” Her voice took
+on suddenly its usual sleek singsong tone.
+
+Andrews broke away and ran upstairs to his room.
+
+“I must fly the coop tonight,” he said to himself. But suppose then
+letters came with money the next day. He writhed in indecision all the
+afternoon.
+
+That evening he took a long walk. In passing the Rods' house he saw
+that the shutters were closed. It gave him a sort of relief to know that
+Genevieve no longer lived near him. His solitude was complete, now.
+
+And why, instead of writing music that would have been worth while if he
+hadn't been a deserter, he kept asking himself, hadn't he tried long ago
+to act, to make a gesture, however feeble, however forlorn, for other
+people's freedom? Half by accident he had managed to free himself from
+the treadmill. Couldn't he have helped others? If he only had his life
+to live over again. No; he had not lived up to the name of John Brown.
+
+It was dark when he got back to the village. He had decided to wait one
+more day.
+
+The next morning he started working on the second movement. The lack of
+a piano made it very difficult to get ahead, yet he said to himself that
+he should put down what he could, as it would be long before he found
+leisure again.
+
+One night he had blown out his candle and stood at the window watching
+the glint of the moon on the river. He heard a soft heavy step on the
+landing outside his room. A floorboard creaked, and the key turned in
+the lock. The step was heard again on the stairs. John Andrews laughed
+aloud. The window was only twenty feet from the ground, and there was a
+trellis. He got into bed contentedly. He must sleep well, for tomorrow
+night he would slip out of the window and make for Bordeaux.
+
+Another morning. A brisk wind blew, fluttering Andrews's papers as
+he worked. Outside the river was streaked blue and silver and
+slate-colored. The windmill's arms waved fast against the piled clouds.
+The scent of the lindens came only intermittently on the sharp wind. In
+spite of himself, the tune of “John Brown's Body” had crept in among his
+ideas. Andrews sat with a pencil at his lips, whistling softly, while in
+the back of his mind a vast chorus seemed singing:
+
+     “John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
+      But his soul goes marching on.
+      Glory, glory, hallelujah!
+      But his soul goes marching on.”
+
+If one could only find freedom by marching for it, came the thought.
+
+All at once he became rigid, his hands clutched the table edge.
+
+There was an American voice under his window:
+
+“D'you think she's kiddin' us, Charley?”
+
+Andrews was blinded, falling from a dizzy height. God, could things
+repeat themselves like that? Would everything be repeated? And he seemed
+to hear voices whisper in his ears: “One of you men teach him how to
+salute.”
+
+He jumped to his feet and pulled open the drawer. It was empty. The
+woman had taken the revolver. “It's all planned, then. She knew,” he
+said aloud in a low voice.
+
+He became suddenly calm.
+
+A man in a boat was passing down the river. The boat was painted bright
+green; the man wore a curious jacket of a burnt-brown color, and held a
+fishing pole.
+
+Andrews sat in his chair again. The boat was out of sight now, but there
+was the windmill turning, turning against the piled white clouds.
+
+There were steps on the stairs.
+
+Two swallows, twittering, curved past the window, very near, so that
+Andrews could make out the marking on their wings and the way they
+folded their legs against their pale-grey bellies. There was a knock.
+
+“Come in,” said Andrews firmly.
+
+“I beg yer pardon,” said a soldier with his hat, that had a band, in his
+hand. “Are you the American?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well, the woman down there said she thought your papers wasn't in very
+good order.” The man stammered with embarrassment.
+
+Their eyes met.
+
+“No, I'm a deserter,” said Andrews.
+
+The M. P. snatched for his whistle and blew it hard. There was an
+answering whistle from outside the window.
+
+“Get your stuff together.”
+
+“I have nothing.”
+
+“All right, walk downstairs slowly in front of me.”
+
+Outside the windmill was turning, turning, against the piled white
+clouds of the sky.
+
+Andrews turned his eyes towards the door. The M. P. closed the door
+after them, and followed on his heels down the steps.
+
+On John Andrews's writing table the brisk wind rustled among the broad
+sheets of paper. First one sheet, then another, blew off the table,
+until the floor was littered with them.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Three Soldiers, by John Dos Passos
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE SOLDIERS ***
+
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@@ -0,0 +1,22514 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Three Soldiers, by John Dos Passos
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Three Soldiers, by John Dos Passos
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Three Soldiers
+
+Author: John Dos Passos
+
+Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6362]
+Last Updated: March 16, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE SOLDIERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eve Sobol and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      THREE SOLDIERS
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By John Dos Passos
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      <br /><br /> 1921 <br /> <br />
+    </h3>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_PART1"> PART ONE: MAKING THE MOULD </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_PART2"> PART TWO: THE METAL COOLS </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_PART3"> PART THREE: MACHINES </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_PART4"> PART FOUR: RUST </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_PART5"> PART FIVE: THE WORLD OUTSIDE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_PART6"> PART SIX: UNDER THE WHEELS </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;Les contemporains qui souffrent de certaines choses ne peuvent
+  s'en souvenir qu'avec une horreur qui paralyse tout autre plaisir,
+  meme celui de lire un conte.&rdquo;
+
+                                            STENDHAL
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PART1" id="link2H_PART1">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PART ONE: MAKING THE MOULD
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The company stood at attention, each man looking straight before him at
+      the empty parade ground, where the cinder piles showed purple with
+      evening. On the wind that smelt of barracks and disinfectant there was a
+      faint greasiness of food cooking. At the other side of the wide field long
+      lines of men shuffled slowly into the narrow wooden shanty that was the
+      mess hall. Chins down, chests out, legs twitching and tired from the
+      afternoon's drilling, the company stood at attention. Each man stared
+      straight in front of him, some vacantly with resignation, some trying to
+      amuse themselves by noting minutely every object in their field of vision,&mdash;the
+      cinder piles, the long shadows of the barracks and mess halls where they
+      could see men standing about, spitting, smoking, leaning against clapboard
+      walls. Some of the men in line could hear their watches ticking in their
+      pockets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Someone moved, his feet making a crunching noise in the cinders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant's voice snarled out: &ldquo;You men are at attention. Quit yer
+      wrigglin' there, you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The men nearest the offender looked at him out of the corners of their
+      eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two officers, far out on the parade ground, were coming towards them. By
+      their gestures and the way they walked, the men at attention could see
+      that they were chatting about something that amused them. One of the
+      officers laughed boyishly, turned away and walked slowly back across the
+      parade ground. The other, who was the lieutenant, came towards them
+      smiling. As he approached his company, the smile left his lips and he
+      advanced his chin, walking with heavy precise steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sergeant, you may dismiss the company.&rdquo; The lieutenant's voice was
+      pitched in a hard staccato.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant's hand snapped up to salute like a block signal. &ldquo;Companee
+      dis...missed,&rdquo; he rang out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The row of men in khaki became a crowd of various individuals with dusty
+      boots and dusty faces. Ten minutes later they lined up and marched in a
+      column of fours to mess. A few red filaments of electric lights gave a
+      dusty glow in the brownish obscurity where the long tables and benches and
+      the board floors had a faint smell of garbage mingled with the smell of
+      the disinfectant the tables had been washed off with after the last meal.
+      The men, holding their oval mess kits in front of them, filed by the great
+      tin buckets at the door, out of which meat and potatoes were splashed into
+      each plate by a sweating K.P. in blue denims.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't look so bad tonight,&rdquo; said Fuselli to the man opposite him as he
+      hitched his sleeves up at the wrists and leaned over his steaming food. He
+      was sturdy, with curly hair and full vigorous lips that he smacked
+      hungrily as he ate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It ain't,&rdquo; said the pink flaxen-haired youth opposite him, who wore his
+      broad-brimmed hat on the side of his head with a certain jauntiness:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I got a pass tonight,&rdquo; said Fuselli, tilting his head vainly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goin' to tear things up?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Man...I got a girl at home back in Frisco. She's a good kid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yer right not to go with any of the girls in this goddam town.... They
+      ain't clean, none of 'em.... That is if ye want to go overseas.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The flaxen-haired youth leaned across the table earnestly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm goin' to git some more chow: Wait for me, will yer?&rdquo; said Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What yer going to do down town?&rdquo; asked the flaxen-haired youth when
+      Fuselli came back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dunno,&mdash;run round a bit an' go to the movies,&rdquo; he answered, filling
+      his mouth with potato.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gawd, it's time fer retreat.&rdquo; They overheard a voice behind them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli stuffed his mouth as full as he could and emptied the rest of his
+      meal reluctantly into the garbage pail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few moments later he stood stiffly at attention in a khaki row that was
+      one of hundreds of other khaki rows, identical, that filled all sides of
+      the parade ground, while the bugle blew somewhere at the other end where
+      the flag-pole was. Somehow it made him think of the man behind the desk in
+      the office of the draft board who had said, handing him the papers sending
+      him to camp, &ldquo;I wish I was going with you,&rdquo; and had held out a white bony
+      hand that Fuselli, after a moment's hesitation, had taken in his own
+      stubby brown hand. The man had added fervently, &ldquo;It must be grand, just
+      grand, to feel the danger, the chance of being potted any minute. Good
+      luck, young feller.... Good luck.&rdquo; Fuselli remembered unpleasantly his
+      paper-white face and the greenish look of his bald head; but the words had
+      made him stride out of the office sticking out his chest, brushing
+      truculently past a group of men in the door. Even now the memory of it,
+      mixing with the strains of the national anthem made him feel important,
+      truculent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Squads right!&rdquo; came an order. Crunch, crunch, crunch in the gravel. The
+      companies were going back to their barracks. He wanted to smile but he
+      didn't dare. He wanted to smile because he had a pass till midnight,
+      because in ten minutes he'd be outside the gates, outside the green fence
+      and the sentries and the strands of barbed wire. Crunch, crunch, crunch;
+      oh, they were so slow in getting back to the barracks and he was losing
+      time, precious free minutes. &ldquo;Hep, hep, hep,&rdquo; cried the sergeant, glaring
+      down the ranks, with his aggressive bulldog expression, to where someone
+      had fallen out of step.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The company stood at attention in the dusk. Fuselli was biting the inside
+      of his lips with impatience. Minutes at last, as if reluctantly, the
+      sergeant sang out:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dis...missed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli hurried towards the gate, brandishing his pass with an important
+      swagger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once out on the asphalt of the street, he looked down the long row of
+      lawns and porches where violet arc lamps already contested the faint
+      afterglow, drooping from their iron stalks far above the recently planted
+      saplings of the avenue. He stood at the corner slouched against a
+      telegraph pole, with the camp fence, surmounted by three strands of barbed
+      wire, behind him, wondering which way he would go. This was a hell of a
+      town anyway. And he used to think he wanted to travel round and see
+      places.&mdash;&ldquo;Home'll be good enough for me after this,&rdquo; he muttered.
+      Walking down the long street towards the centre of town, where was the
+      moving-picture show, he thought of his home, of the dark apartment on the
+      ground floor of a seven-storey house where his aunt lived. &ldquo;Gee, she used
+      to cook swell,&rdquo; he murmured regretfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On a warm evening like this he would have stood round at the corner where
+      the drugstore was, talking to fellows he knew, giggling when the girls who
+      lived in the street, walking arm and arm, twined in couples or trios,
+      passed by affecting ignorance of the glances that followed them. Or
+      perhaps he would have gone walking with Al, who worked in the same
+      optical-goods store, down through the glaring streets of the theatre and
+      restaurant quarter, or along the wharves and ferry slips, where they would
+      have sat smoking and looking out over the dark purple harbor, with its
+      winking lights and its moving ferries spilling swaying reflections in the
+      water out of their square reddish-glowing windows. If they had been lucky,
+      they would have seen a liner come in through the Golden Gate, growing from
+      a blur of light to a huge moving brilliance, like the front of a
+      high-class theatre, that towered above the ferry boats. You could often
+      hear the thump of the screw and the swish of the bow cutting the calm
+      baywater, and the sound of a band playing, that came alternately faint and
+      loud. &ldquo;When I git rich,&rdquo; Fuselli had liked to say to Al, &ldquo;I'm going to
+      take a trip on one of them liners.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yer dad come over from the old country in one, didn't he?&rdquo; Al would ask.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, he came steerage. I'd stay at home if I had to do that. Man, first
+      class for me, a cabin de lux, when I git rich.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But here he was in this town in the East, where he didn't know anybody and
+      where there was no place to go but the movies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Lo, buddy,&rdquo; came a voice beside him. The tall youth who had sat opposite
+      at mess was just catching up to him. &ldquo;Goin' to the movies?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yare, nauthin' else to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here's a rookie. Just got to camp this mornin',&rdquo; said the tall youth,
+      jerking his head in the direction of the man beside him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll like it. Ain't so bad as it seems at first,&rdquo; said Fuselli
+      encouragingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was just telling him,&rdquo; said the other, &ldquo;to be careful as hell not to
+      get in wrong. If ye once get in wrong in this damn army... it's hell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You bet yer life... so they sent ye over to our company, did they,
+      rookie? Ain't so bad. The sergeant's sort o' decent if yo're in right with
+      him, but the lieutenant's a stinker.... Where you from?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;New York,&rdquo; said the rookie, a little man of thirty with an ash-colored
+      face and a shiny Jewish nose. &ldquo;I'm in the clothing business there. I
+      oughtn't to be drafted at all. It's an outrage. I'm consumptive.&rdquo; He
+      spluttered in a feeble squeaky voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They'll fix ye up, don't you fear,&rdquo; said the tall youth. &ldquo;They'll make
+      you so goddam well ye won't know yerself. Yer mother won't know ye, when
+      you get home, rookie.... But you're in luck.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bein' from New York. The corporal, Tim Sidis, is from New York, an' all
+      the New York fellers in the company got a graft with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What kind of cigarettes d'ye smoke?&rdquo; asked the tall youth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't smoke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye'd better learn. The corporal likes fancy ciggies and so does the
+      sergeant; you jus' slip 'em each a butt now and then. May help ye to get
+      in right with 'em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't do no good,&rdquo; said Fuselli.... &ldquo;It's juss luck. But keep neat-like
+      and smilin' and you'll get on all right. And if they start to ride ye,
+      show fight. Ye've got to be hard boiled to git on in this army.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye're goddam right,&rdquo; said the tall youth. &ldquo;Don't let 'em ride yer....
+      What's yer name, rookie?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eisenstein.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This feller's name's Powers.... Bill Powers. Mine's Fuselli.... Goin' to
+      the movies, Mr. Eisenstein?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I'm trying to find a skirt.&rdquo; The little man leered wanly. &ldquo;Glad to
+      have got ackwainted.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goddam kike!&rdquo; said Powers as Eisenstein walked off up a side street,
+      planted, like the avenue, with saplings on which the sickly leaves rustled
+      in the faint breeze that smelt of factories and coal dust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kikes ain't so bad,&rdquo; said Fuselli, &ldquo;I got a good friend who's a kike.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were coming out of the movies in a stream of people in which the
+      blackish clothes of factory-hands predominated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came near bawlin' at the picture of the feller leavin' his girl to go
+      off to the war,&rdquo; said Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did yer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was just like it was with me. Ever been in Frisco, Powers?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The tall youth shook his head. Then he took off his broad-brimmed hat and
+      ran his fingers over his stubby tow-head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee, it was some hot in there,&rdquo; he muttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it's like this,&rdquo; said Fuselli. &ldquo;You have to cross the ferry to
+      Oakland. My aunt... ye know I ain't got any mother, so I always live at my
+      aunt's.... My aunt an' her sister-in-law an' Mabe... Mabe's my girl...
+      they all came over on the ferry-boat, 'spite of my tellin' 'em I didn't
+      want 'em. An' Mabe said she was mad at me, 'cause she'd seen the letter I
+      wrote Georgine Slater. She was a toughie, lived in our street, I used to
+      write mash notes to. An' I kep' tellin' Mabe I'd done it juss for the hell
+      of it, an' that I didn't mean nawthin' by it. An' Mabe said she wouldn't
+      never forgive me, an' then I said maybe I'd be killed an' she'd never see
+      me again, an' then we all began to bawl. Gawd! it was a mess.... &rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's hell sayin' good-by to girls,&rdquo; said Powers, understandingly. &ldquo;Cuts a
+      feller all up. I guess it's better to go with coosies. Ye don't have to
+      say good-by to them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ever gone with a coosie?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not exactly,&rdquo; admitted the tall youth, blushing all over his pink face,
+      so that it was noticeable even under the ashen glare of the arc lights on
+      the avenue that led towards camp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have,&rdquo; said Fuselli, with a certain pride. &ldquo;I used to go with a
+      Portugee girl. My but she was a toughie. I've given all that up now I'm
+      engaged, though.... But I was tellin' ye.... Well, we finally made up an'
+      I kissed her an' Mabe said she'd never marry any one but me. So when we
+      was walkin&rdquo; up the street I spied a silk service flag in a winder, that
+      was all fancy with a star all trimmed up to beat the band, an' I said to
+      myself, I'm goin' to give that to Mabe, an' I ran in an' bought it. I
+      didn't give a hoot in hell what it cost. So when we was all kissin' and
+      bawlin' when I was goin' to leave them to report to the overseas
+      detachment, I shoved it into her hand, an' said, 'Keep that, girl, an'
+      don't you forgit me.' An' what did she do but pull out a five-pound box o'
+      candy from behind her back an' say, 'Don't make yerself sick, Dan.' An'
+      she'd had it all the time without my knowin' it. Ain't girls clever?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yare,&rdquo; said the tall youth vaguely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Along the rows of cots, when Fuselli got back to the barracks, men were
+      talking excitedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's hell to pay, somebody's broke out of the jug.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damned if I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sergeant Timmons said he made a rope of his blankets.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, the feller on guard helped him to get away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Like hell he did. It was like this. I was walking by the guardhouse when
+      they found out about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What company did he belong ter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dunno.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's his name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some guy on trial for insubordination. Punched an officer in the jaw.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd a liked to have seen that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anyhow he's fixed himself this time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're goddam right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you fellers quit talkin'? It's after taps,&rdquo; thundered the sergeant,
+      who sat reading the paper at a little board desk at the door of the
+      barracks under the feeble light of one small bulb, carefully screened.
+      &ldquo;You'll have the O. D. down on us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli wrapped the blanket round his head and prepared to sleep. Snuggled
+      down into the blankets on the narrow cot, he felt sheltered from the
+      sergeant's thundering voice and from the cold glare of officers' eyes. He
+      felt cosy and happy like he had felt in bed at home, when he had been a
+      little kid. For a moment he pictured to himself the other man, the man who
+      had punched an officer's jaw, dressed like he was, maybe only nineteen,
+      the same age like he was, with a girl like Mabe waiting for him somewhere.
+      How cold and frightful it must feel to be out of the camp with the guard
+      looking for you! He pictured himself running breathless down a long street
+      pursued by a company with guns, by officers whose eyes glinted cruelly
+      like the pointed tips of bullets. He pulled the blanket closer round his
+      head, enjoying the warmth and softness of the wool against his cheek. He
+      must remember to smile at the sergeant when he passed him off duty.
+      Somebody had said there'd be promotions soon. Oh, he wanted so hard to be
+      promoted. It'd be so swell if he could write back to Mabe and tell her to
+      address her letters Corporal Dan Fuselli. He must be more careful not to
+      do anything that would get him in wrong with anybody. He must never miss
+      an opportunity to show them what a clever kid he was. &ldquo;Oh, when we're
+      ordered overseas, I'll show them,&rdquo; he thought ardently, and picturing to
+      himself long movie reels of heroism he went off to sleep.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ A sharp voice beside his cot woke him with a jerk.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get up, you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The white beam of a pocket searchlight was glaring in the face of the man
+      next to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The O. D.&rdquo; said Fuselli to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get up, you,&rdquo; came the sharp voice again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man in the next cot stirred and opened his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here, sir,&rdquo; muttered the man in the next cot, his eyes blinking sleepily
+      in the glare of the flashlight. He got out of bed and stood unsteadily at
+      attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you know better than to sleep in your O. D. shirt? Take it off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's your name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man looked up, blinking, too dazed to speak. &ldquo;Don't know your own
+      name, eh?&rdquo; said the officer, glaring at the man savagely, using his curt
+      voice like a whip.&mdash;&ldquo;Quick, take off yer shirt and pants and get back
+      to bed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Officer of the Day moved on, flashing his light to one side and the
+      other in his midnight inspection of the barracks. Intense blackness again,
+      and the sound of men breathing deeply in sleep, of men snoring. As he went
+      to sleep Fuselli could hear the man beside him swearing, monotonously, in
+      an even whisper, pausing now and then to think of new filth, of new
+      combinations of words, swearing away his helpless anger, soothing himself
+      to sleep by the monotonous reiteration of his swearing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A little later Fuselli woke with a choked nightmare cry. He had dreamed
+      that he had smashed the O. D. in the jaw and had broken out of the jug and
+      was running, breathless, stumbling, falling, while the company on guard
+      chased him down an avenue lined with little dried-up saplings, gaining on
+      him, while with voices metallic as the clicking of rifle triggers officers
+      shouted orders, so that he was certain to be caught, certain to be shot.
+      He shook himself all over, shaking off the nightmare as a dog shakes off
+      water, and went back to sleep again, snuggling into his blankets.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                             II
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      John Andrews stood naked in the center of a large bare room, of which the
+      walls and ceiling and floor were made of raw pine boards. The air was
+      heavy from the steam heat. At a desk in one corner a typewriter clicked
+      spasmodically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, young feller, d'you know how to spell imbecility?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      John Andrews walked over to the desk, told him, and added, &ldquo;Are you going
+      to examine me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man went on typewriting without answering. John Andrews stood in the
+      center of the floor with his arms folded, half amused, half angry,
+      shifting his weight from one foot to the other, listening to the sound of
+      the typewriter and of the man's voice as he read out each word of the
+      report he was copying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Recommendation for discharge&rdquo;... click, click..."Damn this typewriter....
+      Private Coe Elbert&rdquo;... click, click. &ldquo;Damn these rotten army
+      typewriters.... Reason... mental deficiency. History of Case....&rdquo; At that
+      moment the recruiting sergeant came back. &ldquo;Look here, if you don't have
+      that recommendation ready in ten minutes Captain Arthurs'll be mad as hell
+      about it, Hill. For God's sake get it done. He said already that if you
+      couldn't do the work, to get somebody who could. You don't want to lose
+      your job do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hullo,&rdquo; the sergeant's eyes lit on John Andrews, &ldquo;I'd forgotten you. Run
+      around the room a little.... No, not that way. Just a little so I can test
+      yer heart.... God, these rookies are thick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While he stood tamely being prodded and measured, feeling like a prize
+      horse at a fair, John Andrews listened to the man at the typewriter, whose
+      voice went on monotonously. &ldquo;No... record of sexual dep.... O hell, this
+      eraser's no good!... pravity or alcoholism; spent... normal... youth on
+      farm. App-ear-ance normal though im... say, how many 'm's' in immature?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, put yer clothes on,&rdquo; said the recruiting sergeant. &ldquo;Quick, I
+      can't spend all day. Why the hell did they send you down here alone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The papers were balled up,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Scores ten years... in test B,&rdquo; went on the voice of the man at the
+      typewriter. &ldquo;Sen... exal ment... m-e-n-t-a-l-i-t-y that of child of eight.
+      Seems unable... to either.... Goddam this man's writin'. How kin I copy it
+      when he don't write out his words?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right. I guess you'll do. Now there are some forms to fill out. Come
+      over here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews followed the recruiting sergeant to a desk in the far corner of
+      the room, from which he could hear more faintly the click, click of the
+      typewriter and the man's voice mumbling angrily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgets to obey orders.... Responds to no form of per... suasion.
+      M-e-m-o-r-y, nil.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right. Take this to barracks B.... Fourth building, to the right;
+      shake a leg,&rdquo; said the recruiting sergeant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews drew a deep breath of the sparkling air outside. He stood
+      irresolutely a moment on the wooden steps of the building looking down the
+      row of hastily constructed barracks. Some were painted green, some were of
+      plain boards, and some were still mere skeletons. Above his head great
+      piled, rose-tinted clouds were moving slowly across the immeasurable free
+      sky. His glance slid down the sky to some tall trees that flamed bright
+      yellow with autumn outside the camp limits, and then to the end of the
+      long street of barracks, where was a picket fence and a sentry walking to
+      and fro, to and fro. His brows contracted for a moment. Then he walked
+      with a sort of swagger towards the fourth building to the right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John Andrews was washing windows. He stood in dirty blue denims at the top
+      of a ladder, smearing with a soapy cloth the small panes of the barrack
+      windows. His nostrils were full of a smell of dust and of the sandy
+      quality of the soap. A little man with one lined greyish-red cheek puffed
+      out by tobacco followed him up also on a ladder, polishing the panes with
+      a dry cloth till they shone and reflected the mottled cloudy sky.
+      Andrews's legs were tired from climbing up and down the ladder, his hands
+      were sore from the grittiness of the soap; as he worked he looked down,
+      without thinking, on rows of cots where the blankets were all folded the
+      same way, on some of which men were sprawled in attitudes of utter
+      relaxation. He kept remarking to himself how strange it was that he was
+      not thinking of anything. In the last few days his mind seemed to have
+      become a hard meaningless core.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long do we have to do this?&rdquo; he asked the man who was working with
+      him. The man went on chewing, so that Andrews thought he was not going to
+      answer at all. He was just beginning to speak again when the man,
+      balancing thoughtfully on top of his ladder, drawled out:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Four o'clock.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We won't finish today then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man shook his head and wrinkled his face into a strange spasm as he
+      spat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Been here long?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Three months.... Ain't so long.&rdquo; The man spat again, and climbing down
+      from his ladder waited, leaning against the wall, until Andrews should
+      finish soaping his window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll go crazy if I stay here three months.... I've been here a week,&rdquo;
+       muttered Andrews between his teeth as he climbed down and moved his ladder
+      to the next window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They both climbed their ladders again in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How's it you're in Casuals?&rdquo; asked Andrews again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't got no lungs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't they discharge you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Reckon they're going to, soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They worked on in silence for a long time. Andrews stared at the upper
+      right-hand corner and smeared with soap each pane of the window in turn.
+      Then he climbed down, moved his ladder, and started on the next window. At
+      times he would start in the middle of the window for variety. As he worked
+      a rhythm began pushing its way through the hard core of his mind,
+      leavening it, making it fluid. It expressed the vast dusty dullness, the
+      men waiting in rows on drill fields, standing at attention, the monotony
+      of feet tramping in unison, of the dust rising from the battalions going
+      back and forth over the dusty drill fields. He felt the rhythm filling his
+      whole body, from his sore hands to his legs, tired from marching back and
+      forth from making themselves the same length as millions of other legs.
+      His mind began unconsciously, from habit, working on it, orchestrating it.
+      He could imagine a vast orchestra swaying with it. His heart was beating
+      faster. He must make it into music; he must fix it in himself, so that he
+      could make it into music and write it down, so that orchestras could play
+      it and make the ears of multitudes feel it, make their flesh tingle with
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went on working through the endless afternoon, climbing up and down his
+      ladder, smearing the barrack windows with a soapy rag. A silly phrase took
+      the place of the welling of music in his mind: &ldquo;Arbeit und Rhythmus.&rdquo; He
+      kept saying it over and over to himself: &ldquo;Arbeit und Rhythmus.&rdquo; He tried
+      to drive the phrase out of his mind, to bury his mind in the music of the
+      rhythm that had come to him, that expressed the dusty boredom, the harsh
+      constriction of warm bodies full of gestures and attitudes and aspirations
+      into moulds, like the moulds toy soldiers are cast in. The phrase became
+      someone shouting raucously in his ears: &ldquo;Arbeit und Rhythmus,&rdquo;&mdash;drowning
+      everything else, beating his mind hard again, parching it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But suddenly he laughed aloud. Why, it was in German. He was being got
+      ready to kill men who said that. If anyone said that, he was going to kill
+      him. They were going to kill everybody who spoke that language, he and all
+      the men whose feet he could hear tramping on the drill field, whose legs
+      were all being made the same length on the drill field.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                             III
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It was Saturday morning. Directed by the corporal, a bandy-legged Italian
+      who even on the army diet managed to keep a faint odour of garlic about
+      him, three soldiers in blue denims were sweeping up the leaves in the
+      street between the rows of barracks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You fellers are slow as molasses.... Inspection in twenty-five minutes,&rdquo;
+       he kept saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldiers raked on doggedly, paying no attention. &ldquo;You don't give a
+      damn. If we don't pass inspection, I get hell&mdash;not you. Please
+      queeck. Here, you, pick up all those goddam cigarette butts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews made a grimace and began collecting the little grey sordid ends of
+      burnt-out cigarettes. As he leant over he found himself looking into the
+      dark-brown eyes of the soldier who was working beside him. The eyes were
+      contracted with anger and there was a flush under the tan of the boyish
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah didn't git in this here army to be ordered around by a goddam wop,&rdquo; he
+      muttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doesn't matter much who you're ordered around by, you're ordered around
+      just the same,&rdquo; said Andrews. &ldquo;Where d'ye come from, buddy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I come from New York. My folks are from Virginia,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indiana's ma state. The tornado country.... Git to work; here's that
+      bastard wop comin' around the buildin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't pick 'em up that-a-way; sweep 'em up,&rdquo; shouted the corporal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews and the Indiana boy went round with a broom and a shovel
+      collecting chewed-out quids of tobacco and cigar butts and stained bits of
+      paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's your name? Mahn's Chrisfield. Folks all call me Chris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mine's Andrews, John Andrews.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ma dad uster have a hired man named Andy. Took sick an' died last summer.
+      How long d'ye reckon it'll be before us-guys git overseas?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God, I don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah want to see that country over there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You bet I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, what you fellers stand here for? Go and dump them garbage
+      cans. Lively!&rdquo; shouted the corporal waddling about importantly on his
+      bandy legs. He kept looking down the row of barracks, muttering to
+      himself, &ldquo;Goddam.... Time fur inspectin' now, goddam. Won't never pass
+      this time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His face froze suddenly into obsequious immobility. He brought his hand up
+      to the brim of his hat. A group of officers strode past him into the
+      nearest building.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John Andrews, coming back from emptying the garbage pails, went in the
+      back door of his barracks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Attention!&rdquo; came the cry from the other end. He made his neck and arms as
+      rigid as possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through the silent barracks came the hard clank of the heels of the
+      officers inspecting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A sallow face with hollow eyes and heavy square jaw came close to
+      Andrews's eyes. He stared straight before him noting the few reddish hairs
+      on the officer's Adam's apple and the new insignia on either side of his
+      collar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sergeant, who is this man?&rdquo; came a voice from the sallow face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't know, sir; a new recruit, sir. Corporal Valori, who is this man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The name's Andrews, sergeant,&rdquo; said the Italian corporal with an
+      obsequious whine in his voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The officer addressed Andrews directly, speaking fast and loud. &ldquo;How long
+      have you been in the army?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One week, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you know you have to be clean and shaved and ready for inspection
+      every Saturday morning at nine?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was cleaning the barracks, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To teach you not to answer back when an officer addresses you....&rdquo; The
+      officer spaced his words carefully, lingering on them. As he spoke he
+      glanced out of the corner of his eye at his superior and noticed the major
+      was frowning. His tone changed ever so slightly. &ldquo;If this ever occurs
+      again you may be sure that disciplinary action will be taken.... Attention
+      there!&rdquo; At the other end of the barracks a man had moved. Again, amid
+      absolute silence, could be heard the clanking of the officers' heels as
+      the inspection continued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, fellows, all together,&rdquo; cried the &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man who stood with his arms
+      stretched wide in front of the movie screen. The piano started jingling
+      and the roomful of crowded soldiers roared out:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Hail, Hail, the gang's all here;
+      We're going to get the Kaiser,
+      We're going to get the Kaiser,
+      We're going to get the Kaiser,
+      Now!&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The rafters rang with their deep voices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man twisted his lean face into a facetious expression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Somebody tried to put one over on the 'Y' man and sing 'What the hell do
+      we care?' But you do care, don't you, Buddy?&rdquo; he shouted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a little rattle of laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, once more,&rdquo; said the &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man again, &ldquo;and lots of guts in the get and
+      lots of kill in the Kaiser. Now all together.... &rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The moving pictures had begun. John Andrews looked furtively about him, at
+      the face of the Indiana boy beside him intent on the screen, at the tanned
+      faces and the close-cropped heads that rose above the mass of
+      khaki-covered bodies about him. Here and there a pair of eyes glinted in
+      the white flickering light from the screen. Waves of laughter or of little
+      exclamations passed over them. They were all so alike, they seemed at
+      moments to be but one organism. This was what he had sought when he had
+      enlisted, he said to himself. It was in this that he would take refuge
+      from the horror of the world that had fallen upon him. He was sick of
+      revolt, of thought, of carrying his individuality like a banner above the
+      turmoil. This was much better, to let everything go, to stamp out his
+      maddening desire for music, to humble himself into the mud of common
+      slavery. He was still tingling with sudden anger from the officer's voice
+      that morning: &ldquo;Sergeant, who is this man?&rdquo; The officer had stared in his
+      face, as a man might stare at a piece of furniture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't this some film?&rdquo; Chrisfield turned to him with a smile that drove
+      his anger away in a pleasant feeling of comradeship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The part that's comin's fine. I seen it before out in Frisco,&rdquo; said the
+      man on the other side of Andrews. &ldquo;Gee, it makes ye hate the Huns.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man at the piano jingled elaborately in the intermission between the
+      two parts of the movie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Indiana boy leaned in front of John Andrews, putting an arm round his
+      shoulders, and talked to the other man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You from Frisco?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yare.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's goddam funny. You're from the Coast, this feller's from New York,
+      an' Ah'm from ole Indiana, right in the middle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What company you in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah ain't yet. This feller an me's in Casuals.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's a hell of a place.... Say, my name's Fuselli.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mahn's Chrisfield.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mine's Andrews.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How soon's it take a feller to git out o' this camp?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dunno. Some guys says three weeks and some says six months.... Say, mebbe
+      you'll get into our company. They transferred a lot of men out the other
+      day, an' the corporal says they're going to give us rookies instead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goddam it, though, but Ah want to git overseas.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's swell over there,&rdquo; said Fuselli, &ldquo;everything's awful pretty-like.
+      Picturesque, they call it. And the people wears peasant costumes.... I had
+      an uncle who used to tell me about it. He came from near Torino.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dunno. He's an Eyetalian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, how long does it take to git overseas?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, a week or two,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As long as that?&rdquo; But the movie had begun again, unfolding scenes of
+      soldiers in spiked helmets marching into Belgian cities full of little
+      milk carts drawn by dogs and old women in peasant costume. There were
+      hisses and catcalls when a German flag was seen, and as the troops were
+      pictured advancing, bayonetting the civilians in wide Dutch pants, the old
+      women with starched caps, the soldiers packed into the stuffy Y. M. C. A.
+      hut shouted oaths at them. Andrews felt blind hatred stirring like
+      something that had a life of its own in the young men about him. He was
+      lost in it, carried away in it, as in a stampede of wild cattle. The
+      terror of it was like ferocious hands clutching his throat. He glanced at
+      the faces round him. They were all intent and flushed, glinting with sweat
+      in the heat of the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he was leaving the hut, pressed in a tight stream of soldiers moving
+      towards the door, Andrews heard a man say:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never raped a woman in my life, but by God, I'm going to. I'd give a
+      lot to rape some of those goddam German women.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hate 'em too,&rdquo; came another voice, &ldquo;men, women, children and unborn
+      children. They're either jackasses or full of the lust for power like
+      their rulers are, to let themselves be governed by a bunch of warlords
+      like that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah'd lahk te cepture a German officer an' make him shine ma boots an'
+      then shoot him dead,&rdquo; said Chris to Andrews as they walked down the long
+      row towards their barracks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You would?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Ah'd a damn side rather shoot somebody else Ah know,&rdquo; went on Chris
+      intensely. &ldquo;Don't stay far from here either. An' Ah'll do it too, if he
+      don't let off pickin' on me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who's that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That big squirt Anderson they made a file closer at drill yesterday. He
+      seems to think that just because Ah'm littler than him he can do anything
+      he likes with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews turned sharply and looked in his companion's face; something in
+      the gruffness of the boy's tone startled him. He was not accustomed to
+      this. He had thought of himself as a passionate person, but never in his
+      life had he wanted to kill a man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D'you really want to kill him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not now, but he gits the hell started in me, the way he teases me. Ah
+      pulled ma knife on him yisterday. You wasn't there. Didn't ye notice Ah
+      looked sort o' upsot at drill?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes... but how old are you, Chris!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah'm twenty. You're older than me, ain't yer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm twenty-two.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were leaning against the wall of their barracks, looking up at the
+      brilliant starry night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, is the stars the same over there, overseas, as they is here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess so,&rdquo; said Andrews, laughing. &ldquo;Though I've never been to see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah never had much schoolin',&rdquo; went on Chris. &ldquo;I lef school when I was
+      twelve, 'cause it warn't much good, an' dad drank so the folks needed me
+      to work on the farm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you grow in your part of the country?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mostly coan. A little wheat an' tobacca. Then we raised a lot o'
+      stock.... But Ah was juss going to tell ye Ah nearly did kill a guy once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah was drunk at the time. Us boys round Tallyville was a pretty tough
+      bunch then. We used ter work juss long enough to git some money to tear
+      things up with. An' then we used to play craps an' drink whiskey. This
+      happened just at coan-shuckin' time. Hell, Ah don't even know what it was
+      about, but Ah got to quarrellin' with a feller Ah'd been right smart
+      friends with. Then he laid off an' hit me in the jaw. Ah don't know what
+      Ah done next, but before Ah knowed it Ah had a hold of a shuck-in' knife
+      and was slashin' at him with it. A knife like that's a turruble thing to
+      stab a man with. It took four of 'em to hold me down an' git it away from
+      me. They didn't keep me from givin' him a good cut across the chest,
+      though. Ah was juss crazy drunk at the time. An' man, if Ah wasn't a mess
+      to go home, with half ma clothes pulled off and ma shirt torn. Ah juss
+      fell in the ditch an' slep' there till daylight an' got mud all through ma
+      hair.... Ah don't scarcely tech a drop now, though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you're in a hurry to get overseas, Chris, like me,&rdquo; said Andrews after
+      a long pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah'll push that guy Anderson into the sea, if we both go over on the same
+      boat,&rdquo; said Chrisfield laughing; but he added after a pause: &ldquo;It would
+      have been hell if Ah'd killed that feller, though. Honest Ah wouldn't
+      a-wanted to do that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's the job that pays, a violinist,&rdquo; said somebody.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it don't,&rdquo; came a melancholy drawling voice from a lanky man who sat
+      doubled up with his long face in his hands and his elbows resting on his
+      knees. &ldquo;Just brings a living wage... a living wage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Several men were grouped at the end of the barracks. From them the long
+      row of cots, with here and there a man asleep or a man hastily undressing,
+      stretched, lighted by occasional feeble electric-light bulbs, to the
+      sergeant's little table beside the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're gettin' a dis-charge, aren't you?&rdquo; asked a man with a brogue, and
+      the red face of a jovial gorilla, that signified the bartender.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Flannagan, I am,&rdquo; said the lanky man dolefully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't he got hard luck?&rdquo; came a voice from the crowd.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I have got hard luck, Buddy,&rdquo; said the lanky man, looking at the
+      faces about him out of sunken eyes. &ldquo;I ought to be getting forty dollars a
+      week and here I am getting seven and in the army besides.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I meant that you were gettin' out of this goddam army.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The army, the army, the democratic army,&rdquo; chanted someone under his
+      breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, begorry, I want to go overseas and 'ave a look at the 'uns,&rdquo; said
+      Flannagan, who managed with strange skill to combine a cockney whine with
+      his Irish brogue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Overseas?&rdquo; took up the lanky man. &ldquo;If I could have gone an' studied
+      overseas, I'd be making as much as Kubelik. I had the makings of a good
+      player in me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't you go?&rdquo; asked Andrews, who stood on the outskirts with Fuselli
+      and Chris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at me... t. b.,&rdquo; said the lanky man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, they can't get me over there soon enough,&rdquo; said Flannagan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Must be funny not bein' able to understand what folks say. They say 'we'
+      over there when they mean 'yes,' a guy told me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye can make signs to them, can't ye?&rdquo; said Flannagan &ldquo;an' they can
+      understand an Irishman anywhere. But ye won't 'ave to talk to the 'uns.
+      Begorry I'll set up in business when I get there, what d'ye think of
+      that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Everybody laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How'd that do? I'll start an Irish House in Berlin, I will, and there'll
+      be O'Casey and O'Ryan and O'Reilly and O'Flarrety, and begod the King of
+      England himself'll come an' set the goddam Kaiser up to a drink.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Kaiser'll be strung up on a telephone pole by that time; ye needn't
+      worry, Flannagan.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They ought to torture him to death, like they do niggers when they lynch
+      'em down south.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A bugle sounded far away outside on the parade ground. Everyone slunk away
+      silently to his cot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John Andrews arranged himself carefully in his blankets, promising himself
+      a quiet time of thought before going to sleep. He needed to be awake and
+      think at night this way, so that he might not lose entirely the thread of
+      his own life, of the life he would take up again some day if he lived
+      through it. He brushed away the thought of death. It was uninteresting. He
+      didn't care anyway. But some day he would want to play the piano again, to
+      write music. He must not let himself sink too deeply into the helpless
+      mentality of the soldier. He must keep his will power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No, but that was not what he had wanted to think about. He was so bored
+      with himself. At any cost he must forget himself. Ever since his first
+      year at college he seemed to have done nothing but think about himself,
+      talk about himself. At least at the bottom, in the utterest degradation of
+      slavery, he could find forgetfulness and start rebuilding the fabric of
+      his life, out of real things this time, out of work and comradeship and
+      scorn. Scorn&mdash;that was the quality he needed. It was such a raw,
+      fantastic world he had suddenly fallen into. His life before this week
+      seemed a dream read in a novel, a picture he had seen in a shop window&mdash;it
+      was so different. Could it have been in the same world at all? He must
+      have died without knowing it and been born again into a new, futile hell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had been a child he had lived in a dilapidated mansion that stood
+      among old oaks and chestnuts, beside a road where buggies and oxcarts
+      passed rarely to disturb the sandy ruts that lay in the mottled shade. He
+      had had so many dreams; lying under the crepe-myrtle bush at the end of
+      the overgrown garden he had passed the long Virginia afternoons, thinking,
+      while the dryflies whizzed sleepily in the sunlight, of the world he would
+      live in when he grew up. He had planned so many lives for himself: a
+      general, like Caesar, he was to conquer the world and die murdered in a
+      great marble hall; a wandering minstrel, he would go through all countries
+      singing and have intricate endless adventures; a great musician, he would
+      sit at the piano playing, like Chopin in the engraving, while beautiful
+      women wept and men with long, curly hair hid their faces in their hands.
+      It was only slavery that he had not foreseen. His race had dominated for
+      too many centuries for that. And yet the world was made of various
+      slaveries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John Andrews lay on his back on his cot while everyone about him slept and
+      snored in the dark barracks. A certain terror held him. In a week the
+      great structure of his romantic world, so full of many colors and
+      harmonies, that had survived school and college and the buffeting of
+      making a living in New York, had fallen in dust about him. He was utterly
+      in the void. &ldquo;How silly,&rdquo; he thought; &ldquo;this is the world as it has
+      appeared to the majority of men, this is just the lower half of the
+      pyramid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He thought of his friends, of Fuselli and Chrisfield and that funny little
+      man Eisenstein. They seemed at home in this army life. They did not seem
+      appalled by the loss of their liberty. But they had never lived in the
+      glittering other world. Yet he could not feel the scorn of them he wanted
+      to feel. He thought of them singing under the direction of the &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Hail, Hail, the gang's all here;
+      We're going to get the Kaiser,
+      We're going to get the Kaiser,
+      We're going to get the Kaiser,
+      Now!&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      He thought of himself and Chrisfield picking up cigarette butts and the
+      tramp, tramp, tramp of feet on the drill field. Where was the connection?
+      Was this all futile madness? They'd come from such various worlds, all
+      these men sleeping about him, to be united in this. And what did they
+      think of it, all these sleepers? Had they too not had dreams when they
+      were boys? Or had the generations prepared them only for this?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He thought of himself lying under the crepe-myrtle bush through the hot,
+      droning afternoon, watching the pale magenta flowers flutter down into the
+      dry grass, and felt, again, wrapped in his warm blankets among all these
+      sleepers, the straining of limbs burning with desire to rush untrammelled
+      through some new keen air. Suddenly darkness overspread his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He woke with a start. The bugle was blowing outside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, look lively!&rdquo; the sergeant was shouting. Another day.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                             IV
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The stars were very bright when Fuselli, eyes stinging with sleep,
+      stumbled out of the barracks. They trembled like bits of brilliant jelly
+      in the black velvet of the sky, just as something inside him trembled with
+      excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anybody know where the electricity turns on?&rdquo; asked the sergeant in a
+      good-humored voice. &ldquo;Here it is.&rdquo; The light over the door of the barracks
+      snapped on, revealing a rotund cheerful man with a little yellow mustache
+      and an unlit cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth. Grouped
+      about him, in overcoats and caps, the men of the company rested their
+      packs against their knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right; line up, men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Eyes looked curiously at Fuselli as he lined up with the rest. He had been
+      transferred into the company the night before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Attenshun,&rdquo; shouted the sergeant. Then he wrinkled up his eyes and
+      grinned hard at the slip of paper he had in his hand, while the men of his
+      company watched him affectionately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Answer 'Here' when your name is called. Allan, B.C.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yo!&rdquo; came a shrill voice from the end of the line.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anspach.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile outside the other barracks other companies could be heard
+      calling the roll. Somewhere from the end of the street came a cheer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I guess I can tell you now, fellers,&rdquo; said the sergeant with his
+      air of quiet omniscience, when he had called the last name. &ldquo;We're going
+      overseas.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Everybody cheered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shut up, you don't want the Huns to hear us, do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The company laughed, and there was a broad grin on the sergeant's round
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seem to have a pretty decent top-kicker,&rdquo; whispered Fuselli to the man
+      next to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You bet yer, kid, he's a peach,&rdquo; said the other man in a voice full of
+      devotion. &ldquo;This is some company, I can tell you that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You bet it is,&rdquo; said the next man along. &ldquo;The corporal's in the Red Sox
+      outfield.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The lieutenant appeared suddenly in the area of light in front of the
+      barracks. He was a pink-faced boy. His trench coat, a little too large,
+      was very new and stuck out stiffly from his legs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everything all right, sergeant? Everything all right?&rdquo; he asked several
+      times, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All ready for entrainment, sir,&rdquo; said the sergeant heartily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good, I'll let you know the order of march in a minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli's ears pounded with strange excitement. These phrases,
+      &ldquo;entrainment,&rdquo; &ldquo;order of march,&rdquo; had a businesslike sound. He suddenly
+      started to wonder how it would feel to be under fire. Memories of movies
+      flickered in his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gawd, ain't I glad to git out o' this hell-hole,&rdquo; he said to the man next
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The next one may be more of a hell-hole yet, buddy,&rdquo; said the sergeant
+      striding up and down with his important confident walk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everybody laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's some sergeant, our sergeant is,&rdquo; said the man next to Fuselli. &ldquo;He's
+      got brains in his head, that boy has.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, break ranks,&rdquo; said the sergeant, &ldquo;but if anybody moves away
+      from this barracks, I'll put him in K. P. Till&mdash;till he'll be able to
+      peel spuds in his sleep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The company laughed again. Fuselli noticed with displeasure that the tall
+      man with the shrill voice whose name had been called first on the roll did
+      not laugh but spat disgustedly out of the corner of his mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, there are bad eggs in every good bunch,&rdquo; thought Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It gradually grew grey with dawn. Fuselli's legs were tired from standing
+      so long. Outside all the barracks, as far as he could see up the street,
+      men stood in ragged lines waiting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sun rose hot on a cloudless day. A few sparrows twittered about the
+      tin roof of the barracks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell, we're not goin' this day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo; asked somebody savagely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Troops always leaves at night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The hell they do!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here comes Sarge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Everybody craned their necks in the direction pointed out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant strolled up with a mysterious smile on his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Put away your overcoats and get out your mess kits.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mess kits clattered and gleamed in the slanting rays of the sun. They
+      marched to the mess hall and back again, lined up again with packs and
+      waited some more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everybody began to get tired and peevish. Fuselli wondered where his old
+      friends of the other company were. They were good kids too, Chris and that
+      educated fellow, Andrews. Tough luck they couldn't have come along.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sun rose higher. Men sneaked into the barracks one by one and lay down
+      on the bare cots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What you want to bet we won't leave this camp for a week yet?&rdquo; asked
+      someone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At noon they lined up for mess again, ate dismally and hurriedly. As
+      Fuselli was leaving the mess hall tapping a tattoo on his kit with two
+      dirty finger nails, the corporal spoke to him in a low voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be sure to wash yer kit, buddy. We may have pack inspection.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The corporal was a slim yellow-faced man with a wrinkled skin, though he
+      was still young, and an arrow-shaped mouth that opened and shut like the
+      paper mouths children make.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, corporal,&rdquo; Fuselli answered cheerfully. He wanted to make a
+      good impression. &ldquo;Fellers'll be sayin' 'All right, corporal,' to me soon,&rdquo;
+       he thought. An idea that he repelled came into his mind. The corporal
+      didn't look strong. He wouldn't last long overseas. And he pictured Mabe
+      writing Corporal Dan Fuselli, O.A.R.D.5.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of the afternoon, the lieutenant appeared suddenly, his face
+      flushed, his trench coat stiffer than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, sergeant; line up your men,&rdquo; he said in a breathless voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All down the camp street companies were forming. One by one they marched
+      out in columns of fours and halted with their packs on. The day was
+      getting amber with sunset. Retreat sounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli's mind had suddenly become very active. The notes of the bugle and
+      of the band playing &ldquo;The Star Spangled Banner&rdquo; sifted into his
+      consciousness through a dream of what it would be like over there. He was
+      in a place like the Exposition ground, full of old men and women in
+      peasant costume, like in the song, &ldquo;When It's Apple Blossom Time in
+      Normandy.&rdquo; Men in spiked helmets who looked like firemen kept charging
+      through, like the Ku-Klux Klan in the movies, jumping from their horses
+      and setting fire to buildings with strange outlandish gestures, spitting
+      babies on their long swords. Those were the Huns. Then there were flags
+      blowing very hard in the wind, and the sound of a band. The Yanks were
+      coming. Everything was lost in a scene from a movie in which khaki-clad
+      regiments marched fast, fast across the scene. The memory of the shouting
+      that always accompanied it drowned out the picture. &ldquo;The guns must make a
+      racket, though,&rdquo; he added as an after-thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Atten-shun!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forwa&mdash;ard, march!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The long street of the camp was full of the tramping of feet. They were
+      off. As they passed through the gate Fuselli caught a glimpse of Chris
+      standing with his arm about Andrews's shoulders. They both waved. Fuselli
+      grinned and expanded his chest. They were just rookies still. He was going
+      overseas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The weight of the pack tugged at his shoulders and made his feet heavy as
+      if they were charged with lead. The sweat ran down his close-clipped head
+      under the overseas cap and streamed into his eyes and down the sides of
+      his nose. Through the tramp of feet he heard confusedly cheering from the
+      sidewalk. In front of him the backs of heads and the swaying packs got
+      smaller, rank by rank up the street. Above them flags dangled from
+      windows, flags leisurely swaying in the twilight. But the weight of the
+      pack, as the column marched under arc lights glaring through the
+      afterglow, inevitably forced his head to droop forward. The soles of boots
+      and legs wrapped in puttees and the bottom strap of the pack of the man
+      ahead of him were all he could see. The pack seemed heavy enough to push
+      him through the asphalt pavement. And all about him was the faint jingle
+      of equipment and the tramp of feet. Every part of him was full of sweat.
+      He could feel vaguely the steam of sweat that rose from the ranks of
+      struggling bodies about him. But gradually he forgot everything but the
+      pack tugging at his shoulders, weighing down his thighs and ankles and
+      feet, and the monotonous rhythm of his feet striking the pavement and of
+      the other feet, in front of him, behind him, beside him, crunching,
+      crunching.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The train smelt of new uniforms on which the sweat had dried, and of the
+      smoke of cheap cigarettes. Fuselli awoke with a start. He had been asleep
+      with his head on Bill Grey's shoulder. It was already broad daylight. The
+      train was jolting slowly over cross-tracks in some dismal suburb, full of
+      long soot-smeared warehouses and endless rows of freight cars, beyond
+      which lay brown marshland and slate-grey stretches of water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God! that must be the Atlantic Ocean,&rdquo; cried Fuselli in excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't yer never seen it before? That's the Perth River,&rdquo; said Bill Grey
+      scornfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I come from the Coast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They stuck their heads out of the window side by side so that their cheeks
+      touched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee, there's some skirts,&rdquo; said Bill Grey. The train jolted to a stop.
+      Two untidy red-haired girls were standing beside the track waving their
+      hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give us a kiss,&rdquo; cried Bill Grey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; said a girl,&mdash;&ldquo;anythin' fer one of our boys.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stood on tiptoe and Grey leaned far out of the window, just managing
+      to reach the girl's forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli felt a flush of desire all over him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hol' onter my belt,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I'll kiss her right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He leaned far out, and, throwing his arms around the girl's pink gingham
+      shoulders, lifted her off the ground and kissed her furiously on the lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lemme go, lemme go,&rdquo; cried the girl. Men leaning out of the other windows
+      of the car cheered and shouted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli kissed her again and then dropped her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye're too rough, damn ye,&rdquo; said the girl angrily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A man from one of the windows yelled, &ldquo;I'll go an' tell mommer&rdquo;; and
+      everybody laughed. The train moved on. Fuselli looked about him proudly.
+      The image of Mabe giving him the five-pound box of candy rose a moment in
+      his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't no harm in havin' a little fun. Don't mean nothin',&rdquo; he said aloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You just wait till we hit France. We'll hit it up some with the
+      Madimerzels, won't we, kid?&rdquo; said Bill Grey, slapping Fuselli on the knee.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Beautiful Katy,
+      Ki-Ki-Katy,
+      You're the only gugugu-girl that I adore;
+      And when the mo-moon shines
+      Over the cowshed,
+      I'll be waiting at the ki-ki-ki-kitchen door.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Everybody sang as the thumping of wheels over rails grew faster. Fuselli
+      looked about contentedly at the company sprawling over their packs and
+      equipment in the smoky car.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's great to be a soldier,&rdquo; he said to Bill Grey. &ldquo;Ye kin do anything ye
+      goddam please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This,&rdquo; said the corporal, as the company filed into barracks identical to
+      those they had left two days before, &ldquo;is an embarkation camp, but I'd like
+      to know where the hell we embark at.&rdquo; He twisted his face into a smile,
+      and then shouted with lugubrious intonation: &ldquo;Fall in for mess.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was pitch dark in that part of the camp. The electric lights had a
+      sparse reddish glow. Fuselli kept straining his eyes, expecting to see a
+      wharf and the masts of a ship at the end of every alley. The line filed
+      into a dim mess hall, where a thin stew was splashed into the mess kits.
+      Behind the counter of the kitchen the non-coms, the jovial first sergeant,
+      and the businesslike sergeant who looked like a preacher, and the
+      wrinkled-faced corporal who had been on the Red Sox outfield, could be
+      seen eating steak. A faint odor of steak frying went through the mess hall
+      and made the thin chilly stew utterly tasteless in comparison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli looked enviously towards the kitchen and thought of the day when
+      he would be a non-com too. &ldquo;I got to get busy,&rdquo; he said to himself
+      earnestly. Overseas, under fire, he'd have a chance to show what he was
+      worth; and he pictured himself heroically carrying a wounded captain back
+      to a dressing tent, pursued by fierce-whiskered men with spiked helmets
+      like firemen's helmets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The strumming of a guitar came strangely down the dark street of the camp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some guy sure can play,&rdquo; said Bill Grey who, with his hands in his
+      pockets, slouched along beside Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They looked in the door of one of the barracks. A lot of soldiers were
+      sitting in a ring round two tall negroes whose black faces and chests
+      glistened like jet in the faint light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come on, Charley, give us another,&rdquo; said someone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do Ah git it now, or mus' Ah hesit-ate?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One negro began chanting while the other strummed carelessly on the
+      guitar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, give us the 'Titanic.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The guitar strummed in a crooning rag-time for a moment. The negro's voice
+      broke into it suddenly, pitched high.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dis is de song ob de Titanic, Sailin' on de sea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The guitar strummed on. There had been a tension in the negro's voice that
+      had made everyone stop talking. The soldiers looked at him curiously.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;How de Titanic ran in dat cole iceberg,
+      How de Titanic ran in dat cole iceberg
+      Sailin' on de sea.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      His voice was confidential and soft, and the guitar strummed to the same
+      sobbing rag-time. Verse after verse the voice grew louder and the
+      strumming faster.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;De Titanic's sinkin' in de deep blue,
+      Sinkin' in de deep blue, deep blue,
+      Sinkin' in de sea.
+      O de women an' de chilen a-floatin' in de sea,
+      O de women an' de chilen a-floatin' in de sea,
+      Roun' dat cole iceberg,
+      Sung 'Nearer, my gawd, to Thee,'
+      Sung 'Nearer, my gawd, to Thee,
+      Nearer to Thee.'&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The guitar was strumming the hymn-tune. The negro was singing with every
+      cord in his throat taut, almost sobbing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A man next to Fuselli took careful aim and spat into the box of sawdust in
+      the middle of the ring of motionless soldiers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The guitar played the rag-time again, fast, almost mockingly. The negro
+      sang in low confidential tones.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;O de women an' de chilen dey sank in de sea.
+      O de women an' de chilen dey sank in de sea,
+      Roun' dat cole iceberg.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Before he had finished a bugle blew in the distance. Everybody scattered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli and Bill Grey went silently back to their barracks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must be an awful thing to drown in the sea,&rdquo; said Grey as he rolled
+      himself in his blankets. &ldquo;If one of those bastard U-boats...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't give a damn,&rdquo; said Fuselli boisterously; but as he lay staring
+      into the darkness, cold terror stiffened him suddenly. He thought for a
+      moment of deserting, pretending he was sick, anything to keep from going
+      on the transport.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;O de women an' de chilen dey sank in de sea,
+      Roun&rdquo; dat cole iceberg.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      He could feel himself going down through icy water. &ldquo;It's a hell of a
+      thing to send a guy over there to drown,&rdquo; he said to himself, and he
+      thought of the hilly streets of San Francisco, and the glow of the sunset
+      over the harbor and ships coming in through the Golden Gate. His mind went
+      gradually blank and he went to sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The column was like some curious khaki-colored carpet, hiding the road as
+      far as you could see. In Fuselli's company the men were shifting their
+      weight from one foot to the other, muttering, &ldquo;What the hell a' they
+      waiting for now?&rdquo; Bill Grey, next to Fuselli in the ranks, stood bent
+      double so as to take the weight of his pack off his shoulders. They were
+      at a cross-roads on fairly high ground so that they could see the long
+      sheds and barracks of the camp stretching away in every direction, in rows
+      and rows, broken now and then by a grey drill field. In front of them the
+      column stretched to the last bend in the road, where it disappeared on a
+      hill among mustard-yellow suburban houses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli was excited. He kept thinking of the night before, when he had
+      helped the sergeant distribute emergency rations, and had carried about
+      piles of boxes of hard bread, counting them carefully without a mistake.
+      He felt full of desire to do things, to show what he was good for. &ldquo;Gee,&rdquo;
+       he said to himself, &ldquo;this war's a lucky thing for me. I might have been in
+      the R.C. Vicker Company's store for five years an' never got a raise, an'
+      here in the army I got a chance to do almost anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Far ahead down the road the column was beginning to move. Voices shouting
+      orders beat crisply on the morning air. Fuselli's heart was thumping. He
+      felt proud of himself and of the company&mdash;the damn best company in
+      the whole outfit. The company ahead was moving, it was their turn now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forwa&mdash;ard, march!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were lost in the monotonous tramp of feet. Dust rose from the road,
+      along which like a drab brown worm crawled the column.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A sickening unfamiliar smell choked their nostrils.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are they taking us down here for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damned if I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were filing down ladders into the terrifying pit which the hold of
+      the ship seemed to them. Every man had a blue card in his hand with a
+      number on it. In a dim place like an empty warehouse they stopped. The
+      sergeant shouted out:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess this is our diggings. We'll have to make the best of it.&rdquo; Then he
+      disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli looked about him. He was sitting in one of the lowest of three
+      tiers of bunks roughly built of new pine boards. Electric lights placed
+      here and there gave a faint reddish tone to the gloom, except at the
+      ladders, where high-power lamps made a white glare. The place was full of
+      tramping of feet and the sound of packs being thrown on bunks as endless
+      files of soldiers poured in down every ladder. Somewhere down the alley an
+      officer with a shrill voice was shouting to his men: &ldquo;Speed it up there;
+      speed it up there.&rdquo; Fuselli sat on his bunk looking at the terrifying
+      confusion all about, feeling bewildered and humiliated. For how many days
+      would they be in that dark pit? He suddenly felt angry. They had no right
+      to treat a feller like that. He was a man, not a bale of hay to be bundled
+      about as anybody liked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' if we're torpedoed a fat chance we'll have down here,&rdquo; he said aloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They got sentries posted to keep us from goin up on deck,&rdquo; said someone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God damn them. They treat you like you was a steer being taken over for
+      meat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you're not a damn sight more. Meat for the guns.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A little man lying in one of the upper bunks had spoken suddenly,
+      contracting his sallow face into a curious spasm, as if the words had
+      burst from him in spite of an effort to keep them in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everybody looked up at him angrily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That goddam kike Eisenstein,&rdquo; muttered someone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, tie that bull outside,&rdquo; shouted Bill Grey good-naturedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fools,&rdquo; muttered Eisenstein, turning over and burying his face in his
+      hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee, I wonder what it is makes it smell so funny down here,&rdquo; said
+      Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli lay flat on deck resting his head on his crossed arms. When he
+      looked straight up he could see a lead-colored mast sweep back and forth
+      across the sky full of clouds of light grey and silver and dark
+      purplish-grey showing yellowish at the edges. When he tilted his head a
+      little to one side he could see Bill Grey's heavy colorless face and the
+      dark bristles of his unshaven chin and his mouth a little twisted to the
+      left, from which a cigarette dangled unlighted. Beyond were heads and
+      bodies huddled together in a mass of khaki overcoats and life preservers.
+      And when the roll tipped the deck he had a view of moving green waves and
+      of a steamer striped grey and white, and the horizon, a dark taut line,
+      broken here and there by the tops of waves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O God, I feel sick,&rdquo; said Bill Grey, taking the cigarette out of his
+      mouth and looking at it revengefully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd be all right if everything didn't stink so. An' that mess hall.
+      Nearly makes a guy puke to think of it.&rdquo; Fuselli spoke in a whining voice,
+      watching the top of the mast move like a pencil scrawling on paper, back
+      and forth across the mottled clouds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You belly-achin' again?&rdquo; A brown moon-shaped face with thick black
+      eyebrows and hair curling crisply about a forehead with many horizontal
+      wrinkles rose from the deck on the other side of Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get the hell out of here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Feel sick, sonny?&rdquo; came the deep voice again, and the dark eyebrows
+      contracted in an expression of sympathy. &ldquo;Funny, I'd have my sixshooter
+      out if I was home and you told me to get the hell out, sonny.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, who wouldn't be sore when they have to go on K.P.?&rdquo; said Fuselli
+      peevishly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ain't been down to mess in three days. A feller who lives on the plains
+      like I do ought to take to the sea like a duck, but it don't seem to suit
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God, they're a sick lookin' bunch I have to sling the hash to,&rdquo; said
+      Fuselli more cheerfully. &ldquo;I don't know how they get that way. The fellers
+      in our company ain't that way. They look like they was askeered somebody
+      was going to hit 'em. Ever noticed that, Meadville?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what d'ye expect of you guys who live in the city all your lives
+      and don't know the butt from the barrel of a gun an' never straddled
+      anything more like a horse than a broomstick. Ye're juss made to be sheep.
+      No wonder they have to herd you round like calves.&rdquo; Meadville got to his
+      feet and went unsteadily to the rail, keeping, as he threaded his way
+      through the groups that covered the transport's after deck, a little of
+      his cowboy's bow-legged stride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know what it is that makes men's eyes blink when they go down to that
+      putrid mess,&rdquo; came a nasal voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli turned round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eisenstein was sitting in the place Meadville had just left.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do, do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's part of the system. You've got to turn men into beasts before ye can
+      get 'em to act that way. Ever read Tolstoi?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. Say, you want to be careful how you go talkin' around the way you
+      do.&rdquo; Fuselli lowered his voice confidentially. &ldquo;I heard of a feller bein'
+      shot at Camp Merritt for talkin' around.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't care.... I'm a desperate man,&rdquo; said Eisenstein.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't ye feel sick? Gawd, I do.... Did you get rid o' any of it,
+      Meadville?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't they fight their ole war somewhere a man can get to on a
+      horse?... Say that's my seat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The place was empty.... I sat down in it,&rdquo; said Eisenstein, lowering his
+      head sullenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You kin have three winks to get out o' my place,&rdquo; said Meadville,
+      squaring his broad shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are stronger than me,&rdquo; said Eisenstein, moving off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God, it's hell not to have a gun,&rdquo; muttered Meadville as he settled
+      himself on the deck again. &ldquo;D'ye know, sonny, I nearly cried when I found
+      I was going to be in this damn medical corps? I enlisted for the tanks.
+      This is the first time in my life I haven't had a gun. I even think I had
+      one in my cradle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's funny,&rdquo; said Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant appeared suddenly in the middle of the group, his face red.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, fellers,&rdquo; he said in a low voice, &ldquo;go down an' straighten out the
+      bunks as fast as you goddam can. They're having an inspection. It's a hell
+      of a note.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They all filed down the gang planks into the foul-smelling hold, where
+      there was no light but the invariable reddish glow of electric bulbs. They
+      had hardly reached their bunks when someone called, &ldquo;Attention!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Three officers stalked by, their firm important tread a little disturbed
+      by the rolling. Their heads were stuck forward and they peered from side
+      to side among the bunks with the cruel, searching glance of hens looking
+      for worms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fuselli,&rdquo; said the first sergeant, &ldquo;bring up the record book to my
+      stateroom; 213 on the lower deck.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, Sarge,&rdquo; said Fuselli with alacrity. He admired the first
+      sergeant and wished he could imitate his jovial, domineering manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the first time he had been in the upper part of the ship. It seemed
+      a different world. The long corridors with red carpets, the white paint
+      and the gilt mouldings on the partitions, the officers strolling about at
+      their ease&mdash;it all made him think of the big liners he used to watch
+      come in through the Golden Gate, the liners he was going to Europe on some
+      day, when he got rich. Oh, if he could only get to be a sergeant
+      first-class, all this comfort and magnificence would be his. He found the
+      number and knocked on the door. Laughter and loud talking came from inside
+      the stateroom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait a sec!&rdquo; came an unfamiliar voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sergeant Olster here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it's one o' my gang,&rdquo; came the sergeant's voice. &ldquo;Let him in. He
+      won't peach on us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The door opened and he saw Sergeant Olster and two other young men sitting
+      with their feet dangling over the red varnished boards that enclosed the
+      bunks. They were talking gaily, and had glasses in their hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Paris is some town, I can tell you,&rdquo; one was saying. &ldquo;They say the girls
+      come up an' put their arms round you right in the main street.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here's the records, sergeant,&rdquo; said Fuselli stiffly in his best military
+      manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh thanks.... There's nothing else I want,&rdquo; said the sergeant, his voice
+      more jovial than ever. &ldquo;Don't fall overboard like the guy in Company C.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli laughed as he closed the door, growing serious suddenly on
+      noticing that one of the young men wore in his shirt the gold bar of a
+      second lieutenant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee,&rdquo; he said to himself. &ldquo;I ought to have saluted.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He waited a moment outside the closed door of the stateroom, listening to
+      the talk and the laughter, wishing he were one of that merry group talking
+      about women in Paris. He began thinking. Sure he'd get private first-class
+      as soon as they got overseas. Then in a couple of months he might be
+      corporal. If they saw much service, he'd move along all right, once he got
+      to be a non-com.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I mustn't get in wrong. Oh, I mustn't get in wrong,&rdquo; he kept saying
+      to himself as he went down the ladder into the hold. But he forgot
+      everything in the seasickness that came on again as he breathed in the
+      fetid air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The deck now slanted down in front of him, now rose so that he was walking
+      up an incline. Dirty water slushed about from one side of the passage to
+      the other with every lurch of the ship. When he reached the door the
+      whistling howl of the wind through the hinges and cracks made Fuselli
+      hesitate a long time with his hand on the knob. The moment he turned the
+      knob the door flew open and he was in the full sweep of the wind. The deck
+      was deserted. The wet ropes strung along it shivered dismally in the wind.
+      Every other moment came the rattle of spray, that rose up in white fringy
+      trees to windward and smashed against him like hail. Without closing the
+      door he crept forward along the deck, clinging as hard as he could to the
+      icy rope. Beyond the spray he could see huge marbled green waves rise in
+      constant succession out of the mist. The roar of the wind in his ears
+      confused him and terrified him. It seemed ages before he reached the door
+      of the forward house that opened on a passage that smelt of drugs; and
+      breathed out air, where men waited in a packed line, thrown one against
+      the other by the lurching of the boat, to get into the dispensary. The
+      roar of the wind came to them faintly, and only now and then the hollow
+      thump of a wave against the bow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You sick?&rdquo; a man asked Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naw, I'm not sick; but Sarge sent me to get some stuff for some guys
+      that's too sick to move.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An awful lot o' sickness on this boat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two fellers died this mornin' in that there room,&rdquo; said another man
+      solemnly, pointing over his shoulder with a jerk of the thumb. &ldquo;Ain't
+      buried 'em yet. It's too rough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What'd they die of?&rdquo; asked Fuselli eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Spinal somethin'....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Menegitis,&rdquo; broke in a man at the end of the line.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, that's awful catchin' ain't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It sure is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where does it hit yer?&rdquo; asked Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yer neck swells up, an' then you juss go stiff all over,&rdquo; came the man's
+      voice from the end of the line.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a silence. From the direction of the infirmary a man with a
+      packet of medicines in his hand began making his way towards the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Many guys in there?&rdquo; asked Fuselli in a low voice as the man brushed past
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the door closed again the man beside Fuselli, who was tall and broad
+      shouldered with heavy black eyebrows, burst out, as if he were saying
+      something he'd been trying to keep from saying for a long while:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It won't be right if that sickness gets me; indeed it won't.... I've got
+      a girl waitin' for me at home. It's two years since I ain't touched a
+      woman all on account of her. It ain't natural for a fellow to go so long
+      as that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why didn't you marry her before you left?&rdquo; somebody asked mockingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Said she didn't want to be no war bride, that she could wait for me
+      better if I didn't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Several men laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It wouldn't be right if I took sick an' died of this sickness, after
+      keepin' myself clean on account of that girl.... It wouldn't be right,&rdquo;
+       the man muttered again to Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli was picturing himself lying in his bunk with a swollen neck, while
+      his arms and legs stiffened, stiffened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A red-faced man half way up the passage started speaking:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I thinks to myself how much the folks need me home, it makes me feel
+      sort o' confident-like, I dunno why. I juss can't cash in my checks,
+      that's all.&rdquo; He laughed jovially.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No one joined in the laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it awfully catchin'?&rdquo; asked Fuselli of the man next him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Most catchin' thing there is,&rdquo; he answered solemnly. &ldquo;The worst of it
+      is,&rdquo; another man was muttering in a shrill hysterical voice, &ldquo;bein' thrown
+      over to the sharks. Gee, they ain't got a right to do that, even if it is
+      war time, they ain't got a right to treat a Christian like he was a dead
+      dawg.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They got a right to do anythin' they goddam please, buddy. Who's goin' to
+      stop 'em I'd like to know,&rdquo; cried the red-faced man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he was an awficer, they wouldn't throw him over like that,&rdquo; came the
+      shrill hysterical voice again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cut that,&rdquo; said someone else, &ldquo;no use gettin' in wrong juss for the sake
+      of talkin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But ain't it dangerous, waitin' round up here so near where those fellers
+      are with that sickness,&rdquo; whispered Fuselli to the man next him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Reckon it is, buddy,&rdquo; came the other man's voice dully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli started making his way toward the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lemme out, fellers, I've got to puke,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Shoot,&rdquo; he was thinking,
+      &ldquo;I'll tell 'em the place was closed; they'll never come to look.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he opened the door he thought of himself crawling back to his bunk and
+      feeling his neck swell and his hands burn with fever and his arms and legs
+      stiffen until everything would be effaced in the blackness of death. But
+      the roar of the wind and the lash of the spray as he staggered back along
+      the deck drowned all other thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli and another man carried the dripping garbage-can up the ladder
+      that led up from the mess hall. It smelt of rancid grease and coffee
+      grounds and greasy juice trickled over their fingers as they struggled
+      with it. At last they burst out on to the deck where a free wind blew out
+      of the black night. They staggered unsteadily to the rail and emptied the
+      pail into the darkness. The splash was lost in the sound of the waves and
+      of churned water fleeing along the sides. Fuselli leaned over the rail and
+      looked down at the faint phosphorescence that was the only light in the
+      whole black gulf. He had never seen such darkness before. He clutched hold
+      of the rail with both hands, feeling lost and terrified in the blackness,
+      in the roaring of the wind in his ears and the sound of churned water
+      fleeing astern. The alternative was the stench of below decks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll bring down the rosie, don't you bother,&rdquo; he said to the other man,
+      kicking the can that gave out a ringing sound as he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He strained his eyes to make out something. The darkness seemed to press
+      in upon his eyeballs, blinding him. Suddenly he noticed voices near him.
+      Two men were talking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ain't never seen the sea before this, I didn't know it was like this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We're in the zone, now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That means we may go down any minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yare.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Christ, how black it is.... It'ld be awful to drown in the dark like
+      this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It'ld be over soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Fred, have you ever been so skeered that...?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D'you feel a-skeert?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Feel my hand, Fred.... No.... There it is. God, it's so hellish black you
+      can't see yer own hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's cold. Why are you shiverin' so? God, I wish I had a drink.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ain't never seen the sea before...I didn't know...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli heard distinctly the man's teeth chattering in the darkness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God, pull yerself together, kid. You can't be skeered like this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a long pause. Fuselli heard nothing but the churned water
+      speeding along the ship's side and the wind roaring in his ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ain't never seen the sea before this time, Fred, an' it sort o' gits my
+      goat, all this sickness an' all.... They dropped three of 'em overboard
+      yesterday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell, kid, don't think of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Fred, if I... if I... if you're saved, Fred, an' not me, you'll
+      write to my folks, won't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed I will. But I reckon you an' me'll both go down together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't say that. An' you won't forget to write that girl I gave you the
+      address of?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll do the same for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no, Fred, I'll never see land.... Oh, it's no use. An' I feel so well
+      an' husky.... I don't want to die. I can't die like this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it only wasn't so goddam black.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PART2" id="link2H_PART2">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PART TWO: THE METAL COOLS I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was purplish dusk outside the window. The rain fell steadily making
+      long flashing stripes on the cracked panes, beating a hard monotonous
+      tattoo on the tin roof overhead. Fuselli had taken off his wet slicker and
+      stood in front of the window looking out dismally at the rain. Behind him
+      was the smoking stove into which a man was poking wood, and beyond that a
+      few broken folding chairs on which soldiers sprawled in attitudes of utter
+      boredom, and the counter where the &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man stood with a set smile doling
+      out chocolate to a line of men that filed past.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee, you have to line up for everything here, don't you?&rdquo; Fuselli
+      muttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's about all you do do in this hell-hole, buddy,&rdquo; said a man beside
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man pointed with his thumb at the window and said again:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See that rain? Well, I been in this camp three weeks and it ain't stopped
+      rainin' once. What d'yer think of that fer a country?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It certainly ain't like home,&rdquo; said Fuselli. &ldquo;I'm going to have some
+      chauclate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's damn rotten.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I might as well try it once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli slouched over to the end of the line and stood waiting his turn.
+      He was thinking of the steep streets of San Francisco and the glimpses he
+      used to get of the harbor full of yellow lights, the color of amber in a
+      cigarette holder, as he went home from work through the blue dusk. He had
+      begun to think of Mabe handing him the five-pound box of candy when his
+      attention was distracted by the talk of the men behind him. The man next
+      to him was speaking with hurried nervous intonation. Fuselli could feel
+      his breath on the back of his neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll be goddamned,&rdquo; the man said, &ldquo;was you there too? Where d'you get
+      yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the leg; it's about all right, though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ain't. I won't never be all right. The doctor says I'm all right now,
+      but I know I'm not, the lyin' fool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some time, wasn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll be damned to hell if I do it again. I can't sleep at night thinkin'
+      of the shape of the Fritzies' helmets. Have you ever thought that there
+      was somethin' about the shape of them goddam helmets...?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't they just or'nary shapes?&rdquo; asked Fuselli, half turning round. &ldquo;I
+      seen 'em in the movies.&rdquo; He laughed apologetically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen to the rookie, Tub, he's seen 'em in the movies!&rdquo; said the man
+      with the nervous twitch in his voice, laughing a croaking little laugh.
+      &ldquo;How long you been in this country, buddy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, we only been here two months, ain't we, Tub?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Four months; you're forgettin', kid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man turned his set smile on Fuselli while he filled his tin cup up
+      with chocolate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A franc; one of those looks like a quarter,&rdquo; said the &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man, his
+      well-fed voice full of amiable condescension.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's a hell of a lot for a cup of chauclate,&rdquo; said Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're at the war, young man, remember that,&rdquo; said the &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man severely.
+      &ldquo;You're lucky to get it at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A cold chill gripped Fuselli's spine as he went back to the stove to drink
+      the chocolate. Of course he mustn't crab. He was in the war now. If the
+      sergeant had heard him crabbing, it might have spoiled his chances for a
+      corporalship. He must be careful. If he just watched out and kept on his
+      toes, he'd be sure to get it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why ain't there no more chocolate, I want to know?&rdquo; the nervous voice
+      of the man who had stood in line behind Fuselli rose to a sudden shriek.
+      Everybody looked round. The &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man was moving his head from side to side
+      in a flustered way, saying in a shrill little voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've told you there's no more. Go away!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You ain't got no right to tell me to go away. You got to get me some
+      chocolate. You ain't never been at the front, you goddam slacker.&rdquo; The man
+      was yelling at the top of his lungs. He had hold of the counter with two
+      hands and swayed from side to side. His friend was trying to pull him
+      away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here, none of that, I'll report you,&rdquo; said the &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man. &ldquo;Is there a
+      non-commissioned officer in the hut?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go ahead, you can't do nothin'. I can't never have nothing done worse
+      than what's been done to me already.&rdquo; The man's voice had reached a
+      sing-song fury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there a non-commissioned officer in the room?&rdquo; The &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man kept
+      looking from side to side. His little eyes were hard and spiteful and his
+      lips were drawn up in a thin straight line.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Keep quiet, I'll get him away,&rdquo; said the other man in a low voice. &ldquo;Can't
+      you see he's not...?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A strange terror took hold of Fuselli. He hadn't expected things to be
+      like that. When he had sat in the grandstand in the training camp and
+      watched the jolly soldiers in khaki marching into towns, pursuing
+      terrified Huns across potato fields, saving Belgian milk-maids against
+      picturesque backgrounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does many of 'em come back that way?&rdquo; he asked a man beside him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some do. It's this convalescent camp.&rdquo; The man and his friend stood side
+      by side near the stove talking in low voices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pull yourself together, kid,&rdquo; the friend was saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, Tub; I'm all right now, Tub. That slacker got my goat, that
+      was all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli was looking at him curiously. He had a yellow parchment face and a
+      high, gaunt forehead going up to sparse, curly brown hair. His eyes had a
+      glassy look about them when they met Fuselli's. He smiled amiably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, there's the kid who's seen Fritzies' helmets in the movies.... Come
+      on, buddy, come and have a beer at the English canteen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you get beer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure, over in the English camp.&rdquo; They went out into the slanting rain. It
+      was nearly dark, but the sky had a purplish-red color that was reflected a
+      little on the slanting sides of tents and on the roofs of the rows of
+      sheds that disappeared into the rainy mist in every direction. A few
+      lights gleamed, a very bright polished yellow. They followed a board-walk
+      that splashed mud up from the puddles under the tramp of their heavy
+      boots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At one place they flattened themselves against the wet flap of a tent and
+      saluted as an officer passed waving a little cane jauntily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long does a fellow usually stay in these rest camps?&rdquo; asked Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Depends on what's goin' on out there,&rdquo; said Tub, pointing carelessly to
+      the sky beyond the peaks of the tents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll leave here soon enough. Don't you worry, buddy,&rdquo; said the man with
+      the nervous voice. &ldquo;What you in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Medical Replacement Unit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A medic are you? Those boys didn't last long at the Chateau, did they,
+      Tub?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, they didn't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Something inside Fuselli was protesting; &ldquo;I'll last out though. I'll last
+      out though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you remember the fellers went out to get poor ole Corporal Jones, Tub?
+      I'll be goddamned if anybody ever found a button of their pants.&rdquo; He
+      laughed his creaky little laugh. &ldquo;They got in the way of a torpedo.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;wet&rdquo; canteen was full of smoke and a cosy steam of beer. It was
+      crowded with red-faced men, with shiny brass buttons on their khaki
+      uniforms, among whom was a good sprinkling of lanky Americans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tommies,&rdquo; said Fuselli to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After standing in line a while, Fuselli's cup was handed back to him
+      across the counter, foaming with beer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, Fuselli,&rdquo; Meadville clapped him on the shoulder. &ldquo;You found the
+      liquor pretty damn quick, looks like to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I sit with you fellers?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure, come along,&rdquo; said Fuselli proudly, &ldquo;these guys have been to the
+      front.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have?&rdquo; asked Meadville. &ldquo;The Huns are pretty good scrappers, they
+      say. Tell me, do you use your rifle much, or is it mostly big gun work?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naw; after all the months I spent learnin' how to drill with my goddam
+      rifle, I'll be a sucker if I've used it once. I'm in the grenade squad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Someone at the end of the room had started singing:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O Mademerselle from Armenteers, Parley voo!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man with the nervous voice went on talking, while the song roared
+      about them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't spend a night without thinkin' o' them funny helmets the Fritzies
+      wear. Have you ever thought that there was something goddam funny about
+      the shape o' them helmets?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can the helmets, kid,&rdquo; said his friend. &ldquo;You told us all about them
+      onct.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ain't told you why I can't forgit 'em, have I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;A German officer crossed the Rhine;
+          Parley voo?
+      A German officer crossed the Rhine;
+      He loved the women and liked the wine;
+          Hanky Panky, parley voo.... &rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen to this, fellers,&rdquo; said the man in his twitching nervous voice,
+      staring straight into Fuselli's eyes. &ldquo;We made a little attack to
+      straighten out our trenches a bit just before I got winged. Our barrage
+      cut off a bit of Fritzie's trench an' we ran right ahead juss about dawn
+      an' occupied it. I'll be goddamned if it wasn't as quiet as a Sunday
+      morning at home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was!&rdquo; said his friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' I had a bunch of grenades an' a feller came runnin' up to me,
+      whisperin', 'There's a bunch of Fritzies playin' cards in a dugout. They
+      don't seem to know they're captured. We'd better take 'em pris'ners!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Pris'ners, hell,' says I, 'We'll go and clear the buggars out.' So we
+      crept along to the steps and looked down.... &rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The song had started again:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      &ldquo;O Mademerselle from Armenteers,
+             Parley voo?
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Their helmets looked so damn like toadstools I came near laughin'. An'
+      they sat round the lamp layin' down the cards serious-like, the way I've
+      seen Germans do in the Rathskeller at home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      &ldquo;He loved the women and liked the wine,
+             Parley voo?
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I lay there lookin' at 'em for a hell of a time, an' then I clicked a
+      grenade an' tossed it gently down the steps. An' all those funny helmets
+      like toadstools popped up in the air an' somebody gave a yell an' the
+      light went out an' the damn grenade went off. Then I let 'em have the rest
+      of 'em an' went away 'cause one o' 'em was still moanin'-like. It was
+      about that time they let their barrage down on us and I got mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;The Yanks are havin' a hell of a time,
+            Parley voo?
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' the first thing I thought of when I woke up was how those goddam
+      helmets looked. It upsets a feller to think of a thing like that.&rdquo; His
+      voice ended in a whine like the broken voice of a child that has been
+      beaten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You need to pull yourself together, kid,&rdquo; said his friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know what I need, Tub. I need a woman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know where you get one?&rdquo; asked Meadville. &ldquo;I'd like to get me a nice
+      little French girl a rainy night like this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must be a hell of a ways to the town.... They say it's full of M. P.'s
+      too,&rdquo; said Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know a way,&rdquo; said the man with the nervous voice, &ldquo;Come on; Tub.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I've had enough of these goddam frog women.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They all left the canteen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the two men went off down the side of the building, Fuselli heard the
+      nervous twitching voice through the metallic patter of the rain:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't find no way of forgettin' how funny the helmets looked all round
+      the lamp... I can't find no way.... &rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bill Grey and Fuselli pooled their blankets and slept together. They lay
+      on the hard floor of the tent very close to each other, listening to the
+      rain pattering endlessly on the drenched canvas that slanted above their
+      heads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell, Bill, I'm gettin' pneumonia,&rdquo; said Fuselli, clearing his nose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's the only thing that scares me in the whole goddam business. I'd
+      hate to die o' sickness... an' they say another kid's kicked off with that&mdash;what
+      d'they call it?&mdash;menegitis.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was that what was the matter with Stein?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The corporal won't say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ole Corp. looks sort o' sick himself,&rdquo; said Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's this rotten climate&rdquo; whispered Bill Grey, in the middle of a fit of
+      coughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For cat's sake quit that coughin'. Let a feller sleep,&rdquo; came a voice from
+      the other side of the tent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go an' get a room in a hotel if you don't like it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's it, Bill, tell him where to get off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you fellers don't quit yellin', I'll put the whole blame lot of you on
+      K. P.,&rdquo; came the sergeant's good-natured voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you know that taps has blown?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The tent was silent except for the fast patter of the rain and Bill Grey's
+      coughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That sergeant gives me a pain in the neck,&rdquo; muttered Bill Grey peevishly,
+      when his coughing had stopped, wriggling about under the blankets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a while Fuselli said in a very low voice, so that no one but his
+      friend should hear:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Bill, ain't it different from what we thought it was going to be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yare.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean fellers don't seem to think about beatin' the Huns at all, they're
+      so busy crabbin' on everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's the guys higher up that does the thinkin',&rdquo; said Grey
+      grandiloquently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell, but I thought it'd be excitin' like in the movies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess that was a lot o' talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maybe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli went to sleep on the hard floor, feeling the comfortable warmth of
+      Grey's body along the side of him, hearing the endless, monotonous patter
+      of the rain on the drenched canvas above his head. He tried to stay awake
+      a minute to remember what Mabe looked like, but sleep closed down on him
+      suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bugle wrenched them out of their blankets before it was light. It was
+      not raining. The air was raw and full of white mist that was cold as snow
+      against their faces still warm from sleep. The corporal called the roll,
+      lighting matches to read the list. When he dismissed the formation the
+      sergeant's voice was heard from the tent, where he still lay rolled in his
+      blankets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Corp, go an' tell Fuselli to straighten out Lieutenant Stanford's
+      room at eight sharp in Officers' Barracks, Number Four.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you hear, Fuselli?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said Fuselli. His blood boiled up suddenly. This was the
+      first time he'd had to do servants' work. He hadn't joined the army to be
+      a slavey to any damned first loot. It was against army regulations anyway.
+      He'd go and kick. He wasn't going to be a slavey.... He walked towards the
+      door of the tent, thinking what he'd say to the sergeant. But he noticed
+      the corporal coughing into his handkerchief with an expression of pain on
+      his face. He turned and strolled away. It would get him in wrong if he
+      started kicking like that. Much better shut his mouth and put up with it.
+      The poor old corp couldn't last long at this rate. No, it wouldn't do to
+      get in wrong.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At eight, Fuselli, with a broom in his hand, feeling dull fury pounding
+      and fluttering within him, knocked on the unpainted board door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who's that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To clean the room, sir,&rdquo; said Fuselli. &ldquo;Come back in about twenty
+      minutes,&rdquo; came the voice of the lieutenant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli leaned against the back of the barracks and smoked a cigarette.
+      The air stung his hands as if they had been scraped by a nutmeg-grater.
+      Twenty minutes passed slowly. Despair seized hold of him. He was so far
+      from anyone who cared about him, so lost in the vast machine. He was
+      telling himself that he'd never get on, would never get up where he could
+      show what he was good for. He felt as if he were in a treadmill. Day after
+      day it would be like this,&mdash;the same routine, the same helplessness.
+      He looked at his watch. Twenty-five minutes had passed. He picked up his
+      broom and moved round to the lieutenant's room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come in,&rdquo; said the lieutenant carelessly. He was in his shirtsleeves,
+      shaving. A pleasant smell of shaving soap filled the dark clapboard room,
+      which had no furniture but three cots and some officers' trunks. He was a
+      red-faced young man with flabby cheeks and dark straight eyebrows. He had
+      taken command of the company only a day or two before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Looks like a decent feller,&rdquo; thought Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's your name?&rdquo; asked the lieutenant, speaking into the small nickel
+      mirror, while he ran the safety razor obliquely across his throat. He
+      stuttered a little. To Fuselli he seemed to speak like an Englishman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fuselli.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Italian parentage, I presume?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Fuselli sullenly, dragging one of the cots away from the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Parla Italiano?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean, do I speak Eyetalian? Naw, sir,&rdquo; said Fuselli emphatically, &ldquo;I
+      was born in Frisco.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed? But get me some more water, will you, please?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Fuselli came back, he stood with his broom between his knees, blowing
+      on his hands that were blue and stiff from carrying the heavy bucket. The
+      lieutenant was dressed and was hooking the top hook of the uniform
+      carefully. The collar made a red mark on his pink throat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right; when you're through, report back to the Company.&rdquo; The
+      lieutenant went out, drawing on a pair of khaki-colored gloves with a
+      satisfied and important gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli walked back slowly to the tents where the Company was quartered,
+      looking about him at the long lines of barracks, gaunt and dripping in the
+      mist, at the big tin sheds of the cook shacks where the cooks and K. P.'s
+      in greasy blue denims were slouching about amid a steam of cooking food.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Something of the gesture with which the lieutenant drew on his gloves
+      caught in the mind of Fuselli. He had seen peoople make gestures like that
+      in the movies, stout dignified people in evening suits. The president of
+      the Company that owned the optical goods store, where he had worked, at
+      home in Frisco, had had something of that gesture about him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he pictured himself drawing on a pair of gloves that way, importantly,
+      finger by finger, with a little wave, of self-satisfaction when the
+      gesture was completed.... He'd have to get that corporalship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's a long, long trail a-winding Through no man's land in France.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The company sang lustily as it splashed through the mud down a grey road
+      between high fences covered with great tangles of barbed wire, above which
+      peeked the ends of warehouses and the chimneys of factories.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lieutenant and the top sergeant walked side by side chatting, now and
+      then singing a little of the song in a deprecating way. The corporal sang,
+      his eyes sparkling with delight. Even the sombre sergeant who rarely spoke
+      to anyone, sang. The company strode along, its ninety-six legs splashing
+      jauntily through the deep putty-colored puddles. The packs swayed merrily
+      from side to side as if it were they and not the legs that were walking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's a long, long trail a-winding Through no man's land in France.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At last they were going somewhere. They had separated from the contingent
+      they had come over with. They were all alone now. They were going to be
+      put to work. The lieutenant strode along importantly. The sergeant strode
+      along importantly. The corporal strode along importantly. The right guard
+      strode along more importantly than anyone. A sense of importance, of
+      something tremendous to do, animated the company like wine, made the packs
+      and the belts seem less heavy, made their necks and shoulders less stiff
+      from struggling with the weight of the packs, made the ninety-six legs
+      tramp jauntily in spite of the oozy mud and the deep putty-colored
+      puddles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was cold in the dark shed of the freight station where they waited.
+      Some gas lamps flickered feebly high up among the rafters, lighting up in
+      a ghastly way white piles of ammunition boxes and ranks and ranks of
+      shells that disappeared in the darkness. The raw air was full of coal
+      smoke and a smell of freshly-cut boards. The captain and the top sergeant
+      had disappeared. The men sat about, huddled in groups, sinking as far as
+      they could into their overcoats, stamping their numb wet feet on the
+      mud-covered cement of the floor. The sliding doors were shut. Through them
+      came a monotonous sound of cars shunting, of buffers bumping against
+      buffers, and now and then the shrill whistle of an engine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell, the French railroads are rotten,&rdquo; said someone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How d'you know?&rdquo; snapped Eisenstein, who sat on a box away from the rest
+      with his lean face in his hands staring at his mud-covered boots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at this,&rdquo; Bill Grey made a disgusted gesture towards the ceiling.
+      &ldquo;Gas. Don't even have electric light.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Their trains run faster than ours,&rdquo; said Eisenstein.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The hell they do. Why, a fellow back in that rest camp told me that it
+      took four or five days to get anywhere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was stuffing you,&rdquo; said Eisenstein. &ldquo;They used to run the fastest
+      trains in the world in France.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so fast as the 'Twentieth Century.' Goddam, I'm a railroad man and I
+      know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want five men to help me sort out the eats,&rdquo; said the top sergeant,
+      coming suddenly out of the shadows. &ldquo;Fuselli, Grey, Eisenstein, Meadville,
+      Williams... all right, come along.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Sarge, this guy says that frog trains are faster than our trains.
+      What d'ye think o' that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant put on his comic expression. Everybody got ready to laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, if he'd rather take the side-door Pullmans we're going to get
+      aboard tonight than the 'Sunset Limited,' he's welcome. I've seen 'em. You
+      fellers haven't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Everybody laughed. The top sergeant turned confidentially to the five men
+      who followed him into a small well-lighted room that looked like a freight
+      office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We've got to sort out the grub, fellers. See those cases? That's three
+      days' rations for the outfit. I want to sort it into three lots, one for
+      each car. Understand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli pulled open one of the boxes. The cans of bully beef flew under
+      his fingers. He kept looking out of the corner of his eye at Eisenstein,
+      who seemed very skilful in a careless way. The top sergeant stood beaming
+      at them with his legs wide apart. Once he said something in a low voice to
+      the corporal. Fuselli thought he caught the words: &ldquo;privates first-class,&rdquo;
+       and his heart started thumping hard. In a few minutes the job was done,
+      and everybody stood about lighting cigarettes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, fellers,&rdquo; said Sergeant Jones, the sombre man who rarely spoke, &ldquo;I
+      certainly didn't reckon when I used to be teachin' and preachin' and
+      tendin' Sunday School and the like that I'd come to be usin' cuss words,
+      but I think we got a damn good company.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, we'll have you sayin' worse things than 'damn' when we get you out on
+      the front with a goddam German aeroplane droppin' bombs on you,&rdquo; said the
+      top sergeant, slapping him on the back. &ldquo;Now, I want you five men to look
+      out for the grub.&rdquo; Fuselli's chest swelled. &ldquo;The company'll be in charge
+      of the corporal for the night. Sergeant Jones and I have got to be with
+      the lieutenant, understand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They all walked back to the dingy room where the rest of the company
+      waited huddled in their coats, trying to keep their importance from being
+      too obvious in their step.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've really started now,&rdquo; thought Fuselli to himself. &ldquo;I've really
+      started now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The bare freight car clattered and rumbled monotonously over the rails. A
+      bitter cold wind blew up through the cracks in the grimy splintered boards
+      of the floor. The men huddled in the corners of the car, curled up
+      together like puppies in a box. It was pitch black. Fuselli lay half
+      asleep, his head full of curious fragmentary dreams, feeling through his
+      sleep the aching cold and the unending clattering rumble of the wheels and
+      the bodies and arms and legs muffled in coats and blankets pressing
+      against him. He woke up with a start. His teeth were chattering. The
+      clanking rumble of wheels seemed to be in his head. His head was being
+      dragged along, bumping over cold iron rails. Someone lighted a match. The
+      freight car's black swaying walls, the packs piled in the center, the
+      bodies heaped in the corners where, out of khaki masses here and there
+      gleamed an occasional white face or a pair of eyes&mdash;all showed clear
+      for a moment and then vanished again in the utter blackness. Fuselli
+      pillowed his head in the crook of someone's arm and tried to go to sleep,
+      but the scraping rumble of wheels over rails was too loud; he stayed with
+      open eyes staring into the blackness, trying to draw his body away from
+      the blast of cold air that blew up through a crack in the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the first greyness began filtering into the car, they all stood up
+      and stamped and pounded each other and wrestled to get warm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When it was nearly light, the train stopped and they opened the sliding
+      doors. They were in a station, a foreign-looking station where the walls
+      were plastered with unfamiliar advertisements. &ldquo;V-E-R-S-A-I-L-L-E-S&rdquo;;
+      Fuselli spelt out the name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Versales,&rdquo; said Eisenstein. &ldquo;That's where the kings of France used to
+      live.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The train started moving again slowly. On the platform stood the top
+      sergeant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How d'ye sleep,&rdquo; he shouted as the car passed him. &ldquo;Say, Fuselli, better
+      start some grub going.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, Sarge,&rdquo; said Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant ran back to the front of the car and climbed on. With a
+      delicious feeling of leadership, Fuselli divided up the bread and the cans
+      of bully beef and the cheese. Then he sat on his pack eating dry bread and
+      unsavoury beef, whistling joyfully, while the train rumbled and clattered
+      along through a strange, misty-green countryside,&mdash;whistling joyfully
+      because he was going to the front, where there would be glory and
+      excitement, whistling joyfully because he felt he was getting along in the
+      world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was noon. A pallid little sun like a toy balloon hung low in the
+      reddish-grey sky. The train had stopped on a siding in the middle of a
+      russet plain. Yellow poplars, faint as mist, rose slender against the sky
+      along a black shining stream that swirled beside the track. In the
+      distance a steeple and a few red roofs were etched faintly in the
+      greyness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men stood about balancing first on one foot and then on the other,
+      stamping to get warm. On the other side of the river an old man with an
+      oxcart had stopped and was looking sadly at the train.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, where's the front?&rdquo; somebody shouted to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everybody took up the cry; &ldquo;Say, where's the front?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man waved his hand, shook his head and shouted to the oxen. The
+      oxen took up again their quiet processional gait and the old man walked
+      ahead of them, his eyes on the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, ain't the frogs dumb?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Dan,&rdquo; said Bill Grey, strolling away from a group of men he had been
+      talking to. &ldquo;These guys say we are going to the Third Army.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, fellers,&rdquo; shouted Fuselli. &ldquo;They say we're going to the Third Army.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the Oregon forest,&rdquo; ventured somebody.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's at the front, ain't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment the lieutenant strode by. A long khaki muffler was thrown
+      carelessly round his neck and hung down his back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here, men,&rdquo; he said severely, &ldquo;the orders are to stay in the cars.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The men slunk back into the cars sullenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A hospital train passed, clanking slowly over the cross-tracks. Fuselli
+      looked fixedly at the dark enigmatic windows, at the red crosses, at the
+      orderlies in white who leaned out of the doors, waving their hands.
+      Somebody noticed that there were scars on the new green paint of the last
+      car.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Huns have been shooting at it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D'ye hear that? The Huns tried to shoot up that hospital train.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli remembered the pamphlet &ldquo;German Atrocities&rdquo; he had read one night
+      in the Y. M. C. A. His mind became suddenly filled with pictures of
+      children with their arms cut off, of babies spitted on bayonets, of women
+      strapped on tables and violated by soldier after soldier. He thought of
+      Mabe. He wished he were in a combatant service; he wanted to fight, fight.
+      He pictured himself shooting dozens of men in green uniforms, and he
+      thought of Mabe reading about it in the papers. He'd have to try to get
+      into a combatant service. No, he couldn't stay in the medics.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The train had started again. Misty russet fields slipped by and dark
+      clumps of trees that gyrated slowly waving branches of yellow and brown
+      leaves and patches of black lace-work against the reddish-grey sky.
+      Fuselli was thinking of the good chance he had of getting to be corporal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At night. A dim-lighted station platform. The company waited in two lines,
+      each man sitting on his pack. On the opposite platform crowds of little
+      men in blue with mustaches and long, soiled overcoats that reached almost
+      to their feet were shouting and singing. Fuselli watched them with a faint
+      disgust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee, they got funny lookin' helmets, ain't they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They're the best fighters in the world,&rdquo; said Eisenstein, &ldquo;not that
+      that's sayin' much about a man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, that's an M. P.,&rdquo; said Bill Grey, catching Fuselli's arm. &ldquo;Let's go
+      ask him how near the front we are. I thought I heard guns a minute ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you? I guess we're in for it now,&rdquo; said Fuselli. &ldquo;Say, buddy, how
+      near the front are we?&rdquo; they spoke together excitedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The front?&rdquo; said the M. P., who was a red-faced Irishman with a crushed
+      nose. &ldquo;You're 'way back in the middle of France.&rdquo; The M. P. spat
+      disgustedly. &ldquo;You fellers ain't never goin' to the front, don't you
+      worry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell!&rdquo; said Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll be goddamned if I don't get there somehow,&rdquo; said Bill Grey, squaring
+      his jaw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A fine rain was falling on the unprotected platform. On the other side the
+      little men in blue were singing a song Fuselli could not understand,
+      drinking out of their ungainly-looking canteens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli announced the news to the company. Everybody clustered round him
+      cursing. But the faint sense of importance it gave him did not compensate
+      for the feeling he had of being lost in the machine, of being as helpless
+      as a sheep in a flock. Hours passed. They stamped about the platform in
+      the fine rain or sat in a row on their packs, waiting for orders. A grey
+      belt appeared behind the trees. The platform began to take on a silvery
+      gleam. They sat in a row on their packs, waiting.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                             II
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The company stood at attention lined up outside of their barracks, a long
+      wooden shack covered with tar paper, in front of them was a row of
+      dishevelled plane trees with white trunks that looked like ivory in the
+      faint ruddy sunlight. Then there was a rutted road on which stood a long
+      line of French motor trucks with hunched grey backs like elephants. Beyond
+      these were more plane trees and another row of barracks covered with tar
+      paper, outside of which other companies were lined up standing at
+      attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A bugle was sounding far away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lieutenant stood at attention very stiffly. Fuselli's eyes followed
+      the curves of his brilliantly-polished puttees up to the braid on his
+      sleeves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Parade rest!&rdquo; shouted the lieutenant in a muffled voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feet and hands moved in unison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli was thinking of the town. After retreat you could go down the
+      irregular cobbled street from the old fair-ground where the camp was to a
+      little square where there was a grey stone fountain and a gin-mill where
+      you could sit at an oak table and have beer and eggs and fried potatoes
+      served you by a girl with red cheeks and plump white appetizing arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Attention!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Feet and hands moved in unison again. They could hardly hear the bugle, it
+      was so faint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Men, I have some appointments to announce,&rdquo; said the lieutenant, facing
+      the company and taking on an easy conversational tone. &ldquo;At rest!... You've
+      done good work in the storehouse here, men. I'm glad I have such a willing
+      bunch of men under me. And I certainly hope that we can manage to make as
+      many promotions as possible&mdash;as many as possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli's hands were icy, and his heart was pumping the blood so fast to
+      his ears that he could hardly hear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The following privates to private first-class, read the lieutenant in a
+      routine voice: &ldquo;Grey, Appleton, Williams, Eisenstein, Porter...Eisenstein
+      will be company clerk.... &ldquo; Fuselli was almost ready to cry. His name was
+      not on the list. The sergeant's voice came after a long pause, smooth as
+      velvet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You forget Fuselli, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, so I did,&rdquo; the lieutenant laughed&mdash;a small dry laugh.&mdash;&ldquo;And
+      Fuselli.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee, I must write Mabe tonight,&rdquo; Fuselli was saying to himself. &ldquo;She'll
+      be a proud kid when she gets that letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Companee dis... missed!&rdquo;, shouted the sergeant genially.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;O Madermoiselle from Armenteers,
+           Parley voo?
+      O Madermoiselle from Armenteers,
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      struck up the sergeant in his mellow voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The front room of the cafe was full of soldiers. Their khaki hid the worn
+      oak benches and the edges of the square tables and the red tiles of the
+      floor. They clustered round the tables, where glasses and bottles gleamed
+      vaguely through the tobacco smoke. They stood in front of the bar,
+      drinking out of bottles, laughing, scraping their feet on the floor. A
+      stout girl with red cheeks and plump white arms moved contentedly among
+      them, carrying away empty bottles, bringing back full ones, taking the
+      money to a grim old woman with a grey face and eyes like bits of jet, who
+      stared carefully at each coin, fingered it with her grey hands and dropped
+      it reluctantly into the cash drawer. In the corner sat Sergeant Olster
+      with a flush on his face, and the corporal who had been on the Red Sox
+      outfield and another sergeant, a big man with black hair and a black
+      mustache. About them clustered, with approbation and respect in their
+      faces, Fuselli, Bill Grey and Meadville the cowboy, and Earl Williams, the
+      blue-eyed and yellow-haired drug-clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O the Yanks are having the hell of a time, Parley voo?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They pounded their bottles on the table in time to the song.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a good job,&rdquo; the top sergeant said, suddenly interrupting the song.
+      &ldquo;You needn't worry about that, fellers. I saw to it that we got a good
+      job.... And about getting to the front, you needn't worry about that.
+      We'll all get to the front soon enough.... Tell me&mdash;this war is going
+      to last ten years.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess we'll all be generals by that time, eh, Sarge?&rdquo; said Williams.
+      &ldquo;But, man, I wish I was back jerkin' soda water.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a great life if you don't weaken,&rdquo; murmured Fuselli automatically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I'm beginnin' to weaken,&rdquo; said Williams. &ldquo;Man, I'm homesick. I don't
+      care who knows it. I wish I could get to the front and be done with it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, have a heart. You need a drink,&rdquo; said the top sergeant, banging his
+      fist on the table. &ldquo;Say, mamselle, mame shows, mame shows!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't know you could talk French, Sarge,&rdquo; said Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;French, hell!&rdquo; said the top sergeant. &ldquo;Williams is the boy can talk
+      French.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Voulay vous couchay aveck moy.... That's all I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Everybody laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey, mamzelle,&rdquo; cried the top sergeant. &ldquo;Voulay vous couchay aveck moy?
+      We We, champagne.&rdquo; Everybody laughed, uproariously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl slapped his head good-naturedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment a man stamped noisily into the cafe, a tall
+      broad-shouldered man in a loose English tunic, who had a swinging swagger
+      that made the glasses ring on all the tables. He was humming under his
+      breath and there was a grin on his broad red face. He went up to the girl
+      and pretended to kiss her, and she laughed and talked familiarly with him
+      in French.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's wild Dan Cohan,&rdquo; said the dark-haired sergeant. &ldquo;Say, Dan, Dan.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here, yer honor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come over and have a drink. We're going to have some fizzy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never known to refuse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They made room for him on the bench.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'm confined to barracks,&rdquo; said Dan Cohan. &ldquo;Look at me!&rdquo; He laughed
+      and gave his head a curious swift jerk to one side. &ldquo;Compree?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't ye scared they'll nab you?&rdquo; said Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nab me, hell, they can't do nothin' to me. I've had three court-martials
+      already and they're gettin' a fourth up on me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dan Cohan pushed his head to one side and laughed. &ldquo;I got a friend. My old
+      boss is captain, and he's goin' to fix it up. I used to alley around
+      politics chez moy. Compree?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The champagne came and Dan Cohan popped the cork up to the ceiling with
+      dexterous red fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was just wondering who was going to give me a drink,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Ain't
+      had any pay since Christ was a corporal. I've forgotten what it looks
+      like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The champagne fizzed into the beer-glasses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is the life,&rdquo; said Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye're damn right, buddy, if yer don't let them ride yer,&rdquo; said Dan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What they got yer up for now, Dan?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Murder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Murder, hell! How's that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is, if that bloke dies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The hell you say!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It all started by that goddam convoy down from Nantes...Bill Rees an'
+      me.... They called us the shock troops.&mdash;Hy! Marie! Ancore champagne,
+      beaucoup.&mdash;I was in the Ambulance service then. God knows what rotten
+      service I'm in now.... Our section was on repo and they sent some of us
+      fellers down to Nantes to fetch a convoy of cars back to Sandrecourt. We
+      started out like regular racers, just the chassis, savey? Bill Rees an' me
+      was the goddam tail of the peerade. An' the loot was a hell of a blockhead
+      that didn't know if he was coming or going.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where the hell's Nantes?&rdquo; asked the top sergeant, as if it had just
+      slipped his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the coast,&rdquo; answered Fuselli. &ldquo;I seen it on the map.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nantes's way off to hell and gone anyway,&rdquo; said wild Dan Cohan, taking a
+      gulp of champagne that he held in his mouth a moment, making his mouth
+      move like a cow ruminating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' as Bill Rees an' me was the tail of the peerade an' there was lots of
+      cafes and little gin-mills, Bill Rees an' me'd stop off every now and then
+      to have a little drink an' say 'Bonjour' to the girls an' talk to the
+      people, an' then we'd go like a bat out of hell to catch up. Well, I don't
+      know if we went too fast for 'em or if they lost the road or what, but we
+      never saw that goddam convoy from the time we went out of Nantes. Then we
+      thought we might as well see a bit of the country, compree?... An' we did,
+      goddam it.... We landed up in Orleans, soused to the gills and without any
+      gas an' with an M. P; climbing up on the dashboard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did they nab you, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a bit of it,&rdquo; said wild Dan Cohen, jerking his head to one side.
+      &ldquo;They gave us gas and commutation of rations an' told us to go on in the
+      mornin'. You see we put up a good line of talk, compree?... Well, we went
+      to the swankiest restaurant.... You see we had on those bloody British
+      uniforms they gave us when the O. D. gave out, an' the M. P.'s didn't know
+      just what sort o' birds we were. So we went and ordered up a regular meal
+      an' lots o' vin rouge an' vin blank an' drank a few cognacs an' before we
+      knew it we were eating dinner with two captains and a sergeant. One o' the
+      captains was the drunkest man I ever did see.... Good kid! We all had
+      dinner and Bill Rees says, 'Let's go for a joy-ride.' An' the captains
+      says, 'Fine,' and the sergeant would have said, 'Fine,' but he was so
+      goggle-eyed drunk he couldn't. An' we started off!... Say, fellers, I'm
+      dry as hell! Let's order up another bottle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; said everyone.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Ban swar, ma cherie,
+      Comment allez vous?&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Encore champagne, Marie, gentille!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;we went like a bat out of hell along a good state
+      road, and it was all fine until one of the captains thought we ought to
+      have a race. We did.... Compree? The flivvers flivved all right, but the
+      hell of it was we got so excited about the race we forgot about the
+      sergeant an' he fell off an' nobody missed him. An' at last we all pull up
+      before a gin-mill an' one captain says, 'Where's the sergeant?' an' the
+      other captain says there hadn't been no sergeant. An' we all had a drink
+      on that. An' one captain kept sayin', 'It's all imagination. Never was a
+      sergeant. I wouldn't associate with a sergeant, would I, lootenant?' He
+      kept on calling me lootenant.... Well that was how they got this new
+      charge against me. Somebody picked up the sergeant an' he got concussion
+      o' the brain an' there's hell to pay, an' if the poor buggar croaks....
+      I'm it.... Compree? About that time the captains start wantin' to go to
+      Paris, an' we said we'd take 'em, an' so we put all the gas in my car an'
+      the four of us climbed on that goddam chassis an' off we went like a bat
+      out of hell! It'ld all have been fine if I wasn't lookin' cross-eyed....
+      We piled up in about two minutes on one of those nice little stone piles
+      an' there we were. We all got up an' one o' the captains had his arm
+      broke, an' there was hell to pay, worse than losing the sergeant. So we
+      walked on down the road. I don't know how it got to be daylight. But we
+      got to some hell of a town or other an' there was two M. P.'s all ready to
+      meet us.... Compree?... Well, we didn't mess around with them captains. We
+      just lit off down a side street an' got into a little cafe an' went in
+      back an' had a hell of a lot o' cafe o' lay. That made us feel sort o'
+      good an' I says to Bill, 'Bill, we've got to get to headquarters an' tell
+      'em that we accidentally smashed up our car, before the M. P.'s get busy.'
+      An' he says, 'You're goddamned right,' an' at that minute I sees an M. P.
+      through a crack in the door comin' into the cafe. We lit out into the
+      garden and made for the wall. We got over that, although we left a good
+      piece of my pants in the broken glass. But the hell of it was the M. P.'s
+      got over too an' they had their pop-guns out. An' the last I saw of Bill
+      Rees was&mdash;there was a big fat woman in a pink dress washing clothes
+      in a big tub, an' poor ole Bill Rees runs head on into her an' over they
+      both goes into the washtub. The M. P.'s got him all right. That's how I
+      got away. An' the last I saw of Bill Rees he was squirming about on top of
+      the washtub like he was swimmin', an' the fat woman was sittin' on the
+      ground shaking her fist at him. Bill Rees was the best buddy I ever had.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused and poured the rest of the champagne in his glass and wiped the
+      sweat off his face with his big red hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You ain't stringin' us, are you?&rdquo; asked Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You just ask Lieutenant Whitehead, who's defending me in the
+      court-martial, if I'm stringin' yer. I been in the ring, kid, and you can
+      bet your bottom dollar that a man's been in the ring'll tell the truth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on, Dan,&rdquo; said the sergeant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' I never heard a word about Bill Rees since. I guess they got him into
+      the trenches and made short work of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dan Cohan paused to light a cigarette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, one o' the M. P.'s follows after me and starts shootin'. An' don't
+      you believe I ran. Gee, I was scared! But I was in luck 'cause a Frenchman
+      had just started his camion an' I jumped in and said the gendarmes were
+      after me. He was white, that frog was. He shot the juice into her an' went
+      off like a bat out of hell an' there was a hell of a lot of traffic on the
+      road because there was some damn-fool attack or other goin' on. So I got
+      up to Paris.... An' then it'ld all have been fine if I hadn't met up with
+      a Jane I knew. I still had five hundred francs on me, an' so we raised
+      hell until one day we was havin' dinner in the cafe de Paris, both of us
+      sort of jagged up, an' we didn't have enough money to pay the bill an'
+      Janey made a run for it, but an M. P. got me an' then there was hell to
+      pay.... Compree? They put me in the Bastille, great place.... Then they
+      shipped me off to some damn camp or other an' gave me a gun an' made me
+      drill for a week an' then they packed a whole gang of us, all A. W. O.
+      L's, into a train for the front. That was nearly the end of little Daniel
+      again. But when we was in Vitry-le-Francois, I chucked my rifle out of one
+      window and jumped out of the other an' got on a train back to Paris an'
+      went an' reported to headquarters how I'd smashed the car an' been in the
+      Bastille an' all, an' they were sore as hell at the M. P.'s an' sent me
+      out to a section an' all went fine until I got ordered back an' had to
+      alley down to this goddam camp. Ah' now I don't know what they're goin' to
+      do to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee whiz!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a great war, I tell you, Sarge. It's a great war. I wouldn't have
+      missed it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Across the room someone was singing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's drown 'em out,&rdquo; said the top sergeant boisterously.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;O Mademerselle from Armenteers,
+      Parley voo?&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I've got to get the hell out of here,&rdquo; said wild Dan Cohan, after a
+      minute. &ldquo;I've got a Jane waitin' for me. I'm all fixed up,... Compree?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He swaggered out singing:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Bon soir, ma cherie,
+      Comment alley vous?
+      Si vous voulez
+      Couche avec moi....&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The door slammed behind him, leaving the cafe quiet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many men had left. Madame had taken up her knitting and Marie of the plump
+      white arms sat beside her, leaning her head back among the bottles that
+      rose in tiers behind the bars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli was staring at a door on one side of the bar. Men kept opening it
+      and looking in and closing it again with a peculiar expression on their
+      faces. Now and then someone would open it with a smile and go into the
+      next room, shuffling his feet and closing the door carefully behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, I wonder what they've got there,&rdquo; said the top sergeant, who had
+      been staring at the door. &ldquo;Mush be looked into, mush be looked into,&rdquo; he
+      added, laughing drunkenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dunno,&rdquo; said Fuselli. The champagne was humming in his head like a fly
+      against a window pane. He felt very bold and important.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The top sergeant got to his feet unsteadily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Corporal, take charge of the colors,&rdquo; he said, and walked to the door. He
+      opened it a little, peeked in; winked elaborately to his friends and
+      skipped into the other room, closing the door carefully behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The corporal went over next. He said, &ldquo;Well, I'll be damned,&rdquo; and walked
+      straight in, leaving the door ajar. In a moment it was closed from the
+      inside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come on, Bill, let's see what the hell they got in there,&rdquo; said Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, old kid,&rdquo; said Bill Grey. They went together over to the door.
+      Fuselli opened it and looked in. He let out a breath through his teeth
+      with a faint whistling sound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee, come in, Bill,&rdquo; he said, giggling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The room was small, nearly filled up by a dining table with a red cloth.
+      On the mantel above the empty fireplace were candlesticks with dangling
+      crystals that glittered red and yellow and purple in the lamplight, in
+      front of a cracked mirror that seemed a window into another dingier room.
+      The paper was peeling off the damp walls, giving a mortuary smell of
+      mildewed plaster that not even the reek of beer and tobacco had done away
+      with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at her, Bill, ain't she got style?&rdquo; whispered Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bill Grey grunted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, d'ye think the Jane that feller was tellin' us he raised hell with
+      in Paris was like that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of the table, leaning on her elbows, was a woman with black
+      frizzy hair cut short, that stuck out from her head in all directions. Her
+      eyes were dark and her lips red with a faint swollen look. She looked with
+      a certain defiance at the men who stood about the walls and sat at the
+      table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men stared at her silently. A big man with red hair and a heavy jaw
+      who sat next her kept edging up nearer. Someone knocked against the table
+      making the bottles and liqueur glasses clustered in the center jingle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She ain't clean; she's got bobbed hair,&rdquo; said the man next Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman said something in French.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Only one man understood it. His laugh rang hollowly in the silent room and
+      stopped suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman looked attentively at the faces round her for a moment, shrugged
+      her shoulders, and began straightening the ribbon on the hat she held on
+      her lap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How the hell did she get here? I thought the M. P.'s ran them out of town
+      the minute they got here,&rdquo; said one man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman continued plucking at her hat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You venay Paris?&rdquo; said a boy with a soft voice who sat near her. He had
+      blue eyes and a milky complexion, faintly tanned, that went strangely with
+      the rough red and brown faces in the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oui; de Paris,&rdquo; she said after a pause, glancing suddenly in the boy's
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's a liar, I can tell you that,&rdquo; said the red-haired man, who by this
+      time had moved his chair very close to the woman's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You told him you came from Marseilles, and him you came from Lyon,&rdquo; said
+      the boy with the milky complexion, smiling genially. &ldquo;Vraiment de ou venay
+      vous?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I come from everywhere,&rdquo; she said, and tossed the hair back from her
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Travelled a lot?&rdquo; asked the boy again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A feller told me,&rdquo; said Fuselli to Bill Grey, &ldquo;that he'd talked to a girl
+      like that who'd been to Turkey an' Egypt I bet that girl's seen some
+      life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman jumped to her feet suddenly screaming with rage. The man with
+      the red hair moved away sheepishly. Then he lifted his large dirty hands
+      in the air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kamarad,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nobody laughed. The room was silent except for feet scraping occasionally
+      on the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She put her hat on and took a little box from the chain bag in her lap and
+      began powdering her face, making faces into the mirror she held in the
+      palm of her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men stared at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Guess she thinks she's the Queen of the May,&rdquo; said one man, getting to
+      his feet. He leaned across the table and spat into the fireplace. &ldquo;I'm
+      going back to barracks.&rdquo; He turned to the woman and shouted in a voice
+      full of hatred, &ldquo;Bon swar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman was putting the powder puff away in her jet bag. She did not
+      look up; the door closed sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come along,&rdquo; said the woman, suddenly, tossing her head back. &ldquo;Come along
+      one at a time; who go with me first?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nobody spoke. The men stared at her silently. There was no sound except
+      that of feet scraping occasionally on the floor.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                              III
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The oatmeal flopped heavily into the mess-kit. Fuselli's eyes were still
+      glued together with sleep. He sat at the dark greasy bench and took a gulp
+      of the scalding coffee that smelt vaguely of dish rags. That woke him up a
+      little. There was little talk in the mess shack. The men, that the bugle
+      had wrenched out of their blankets but fifteen minutes before, sat in
+      rows, eating sullenly or blinking at each other through the misty
+      darkness. You could hear feet scraping in the ashes of the floor and mess
+      kits clattering against the tables and here and there a man coughing. Near
+      the counter where the food was served out one of the cooks swore
+      interminably in a whiny sing-sing voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee, Bill, I've got a head,&rdquo; said Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye're ought to have,&rdquo; growled Bill Grey. &ldquo;I had to carry you up into the
+      barracks. You said you were goin' back and love up that goddam girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did I?&rdquo; said Fuselli, giggling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had a hell of a time getting you past the guard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some cognac!... I got a hangover now,&rdquo; said Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm goddamned if I can go this much longer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were washing their mess-kits in the tub of warm water thick with
+      grease from the hundred mess-kits that had gone before, in front of the
+      shack. An electric light illumined faintly the wet trunk of a plane tree
+      and the surface of the water where bits of oatmeal floated and coffee
+      grounds,&mdash;and the garbage pails with their painted signs: WET
+      GARBAGE, DRY GARBAGE; and the line of men who stood waiting to reach the
+      tub.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This hell of a life!&rdquo; said Bill Grey, savagely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What d'ye mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doin' nothin' but pack bandages in packin' cases and take bandages out of
+      packin' cases. I'll go crazy. I've tried gettin' drunk; it don't do no
+      good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee; I've got a head,&rdquo; said Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bill Grey put his heavy muscular hand round Fuselli's shoulder as they
+      strolled towards the barracks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Dan, I'm goin' A. W. O. L.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't ye do it, Bill. Hell, look at the chance we've got to get ahead. We
+      can both of us get promoted if we don't get in wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't give a hoot in hell for all that.... What d'ye think I got in
+      this goddamed army for? Because I thought I'd look nice in the uniform?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bill Grey thrust his hands into his pockets and spat dismally in front of
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Bill, you don't want to stay a buck private, do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to get to the front.... I don't want to stay here till I get in
+      the jug for being spiffed or get a court-martial.... Say, Dan, will you
+      come with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell, Bill, you ain't goin'. You're just kiddin', ain't yer? They'll send
+      us there soon enough. I want to get to be a corporal,&rdquo;&mdash;he puffed out
+      his chest a little&mdash;&ldquo;before I go to the front, so's to be able to
+      show what I'm good for. See, Bill?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A bugle blew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's fatigue, an' I ain't done my bunk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me neither.... They won't do nothin', Dan.... Don't let them ride yer,
+      Dan.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They lined up in the dark road feeling the mud slopping under their feet.
+      The ruts were full of black water, in which gleamed a reflection of
+      distant electric lights.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All you fellows work in Storehouse A today,&rdquo; said the sergeant, who had
+      been a preacher, in his sad, drawling voice. &ldquo;Lieutenant says that's all
+      got to be finished by noon. They're sending it to the front today.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somebody let his breath out in a whistle of surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who did that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nobody answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dismissed!&rdquo; snapped the sergeant disgustedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They straggled off into the darkness towards one of the lights, their feet
+      splashing confusedly in the puddles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli strolled up to the sentry at the camp gate. He was picking his
+      teeth meditatively with the splinter of a pine board.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Phil, you couldn't lend me a half a dollar, could you?&rdquo; Fuselli
+      stopped, put his hands in his pockets and looked at the sentry with the
+      splinter sticking out of a corner of his mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sorry, Dan,&rdquo; said the other man; &ldquo;I'm cleaned out. Ain't had a cent since
+      New Year's.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why the hell don't they pay us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You guys signed the pay roll yet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure. So long!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli strolled on down the dark road, where the mud was frozen into deep
+      ruts, towards the town. It was still strange to him, this town of little
+      houses faced with cracked stucco, where the damp made grey stains and
+      green stains, of confused red-tiled roofs, and of narrow cobbled streets
+      that zigzagged in and out among high walls overhung with balconies. At
+      night, when it was dark except for where a lamp in a window spilt gold
+      reflections out on the wet street or the light streamed out from a store
+      or a cafe, it was almost frighteningly unreal. He walked down into the
+      main square, where he could hear the fountain gurgling. In the middle he
+      stopped indecisively, his coat unbuttoned, his hands pushed to the bottom
+      of his trousers pockets, where they encountered nothing but the cloth. He
+      listened a long time to the gurgling of the fountain and to the shunting
+      of trains far away in the freight yards. &ldquo;An' this is the war,&rdquo; he
+      thought. &ldquo;Ain't it queer? It's quieter than it was at home nights.&rdquo; Down
+      the street at the end of the square a band of white light appeared, the
+      searchlight of a staff car. The two eyes of the car stared straight into
+      his eyes, dazzling him, then veered off to one side and whizzed past,
+      leaving a faint smell of gasoline and a sound of voices. Fuselli watched
+      the fronts of houses light up as the car made its way to the main road.
+      Then the town was dark and silent again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He strolled across the square towards the Cheval Blanc, the large cafe
+      where the officers went.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Button yer coat,&rdquo; came a gruff voice. He saw a stiff tall figure at the
+      edge of the curve. He made out the shape of the pistol holster that hung
+      like a thin ham at the man's thigh. An M. P. He buttoned his coat
+      hurriedly and walked off with rapid steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stopped outside a cafe that had &ldquo;Ham and Eggs&rdquo; written in white paint
+      on the window and looked in wistfully. Someone from behind him put two big
+      hands over his eyes. He wriggled his head free.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, Dan,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;How did you get out of the jug?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm a trusty, kid,&rdquo; said Dan Cohan. &ldquo;Got any dough?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a damn cent!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me neither.... Come on in anyway,&rdquo; said Cohan. &ldquo;I'll fix it up with
+      Marie.&rdquo; Fuselli followed doubtfully. He was a little afraid of Dan Cohan;
+      he remembered how a man had been court-martialed last week for trying to
+      bolt out of a cafe without paying for his drinks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat down at a table near the door. Dan had disappeared into the back
+      room. Fuselli felt homesick. He was thinking how long it was since, he had
+      had a letter from Mabe. &ldquo;I bet she's got another feller,&rdquo; he told himself
+      savagely. He tried to remember how she looked, but he had to take out his
+      watch and peep in the back before he could make out if her nose were
+      straight or snub. He looked up, clicking the watch in his pocket. Marie of
+      the white arms was coming laughing out of the inner room. Her large firm
+      breasts, neatly held in by the close-fitting blouse, shook a little when
+      she laughed. Her cheeks were very red and a strand of chestnut hair hung
+      down along her neck. She picked it up hurriedly and caught it up with a
+      hairpin, walking slowly into the middle of the room as she did so with her
+      hands behind her head. Dan Cohan followed her into the room, a broad grin
+      on his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, kid,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I told her you'ld pay when Uncle Sam came
+      across. Ever had any Kummel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the hell's that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They sat down before a dish of fried eggs at the table in the corner, the
+      favoured table, where Marie herself often sat and chatted, when wizened
+      Madame did not have her eye upon her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Several men drew up their chairs. Wild Dan Cohan always had an audience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Looks like there was going to be another offensive at Verdun,&rdquo; said Dan
+      Cohan. Someone answered vaguely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Funny how little we know about what's going on out there,&rdquo; said one man.
+      &ldquo;I knew more about the war when I was home in Minneapolis than I do here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess we're lightin' into 'em all right,&rdquo; said Fuselli in a patriotic
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell! Nothin' doin' this time o' year anyway,&rdquo; said Cohan. A grin spread
+      across his red face. &ldquo;Last time I was at the front the Boche had just made
+      a coup de main and captured a whole trenchful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of who?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of Americans&mdash;of us!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The hell you say!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's a goddam lie,&rdquo; shouted a black-haired man with an ill-shaven jaw,
+      who had just come in. &ldquo;There ain't never been an American captured, an'
+      there never will be, by God!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long were you at the front, buddy,&rdquo; asked Cohan coolly. &ldquo;I guess you
+      been to Berlin already, ain't yer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say that any man who says an American'ld let himself be captured by a
+      stinkin' Hun, is a goddam liar,&rdquo; said the man with the ill-shaven jaw,
+      sitting down sullenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you'd better not say it to me,&rdquo; said Cohan laughing, looking
+      meditatively at one of his big red fists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There had been a look of apprehension on Marie's face. She looked at
+      Cohan's fist and shrugged her shoulders and laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another crowd had just slouched into the cafe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well if that isn't wild Dan! Hello, old kid, how are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, Dook!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A small man in a coat that looked almost like an officer's coat, it was so
+      well cut, was shaking hands effusively with Cohan. He wore a corporal's
+      stripes and a British aviator's fatigue cap. Cohan made room for him on
+      the bench.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you doing in this hole, Dook?&rdquo; The man twisted his mouth so that
+      his neat black mustache was a slant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;G. O. 42,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Battle of Paris?&rdquo; said Cohan in a sympathetic voice. &ldquo;Battle of Nice! I'm
+      going back to my section soon. I'd never have got a court-martial if I'd
+      been with my outfit. I was in the Base Hospital 15 with pneumonia.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tough luck!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was a hell of a note.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Dook, your outfit was working with ours at Chamfort that time,
+      wasn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean when we evacuated the nut hospital?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, wasn't that hell?&rdquo; Dan Cohan gulped down half a glass of red wine,
+      smacked his thick lips, and began in his story-telling voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our section had just come out of Verdun where we'd been getting hell for
+      three weeks on the Bras road. There was one little hill where we'd have to
+      get out and shove every damn time, the mud was so deep, and God, it stank
+      there with the shells turning up the ground all full of mackabbies as the
+      poilus call them.... Say, Dook, have you got any money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've got some,&rdquo; said Dook, without enthusiasm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, the champagne's damn good here. I'm part of the outfit in this gin
+      mill; they'll give it to you at a reduction.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dan Cohan turned round and whispered something to Marie. She laughed and
+      dived down behind the curtain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But that Chamfort was worse yet. Everybody was sort o' nervous because
+      the Germans had dropped a message sayin' they'd give 'em three days to
+      clear the hospital out, and that then they'd shell hell out of the place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Germans done that! Quit yer kiddin',&rdquo; said Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They did it at Souilly, too,&rdquo; said Dook. &ldquo;Hell, yes.... A funny thing
+      happened there. The hospital was in a big rambling house, looked like an
+      Atlantic City hotel.... We used to run our car in back and sleep in it. It
+      was where we took the shell-shock cases, fellows who were roarin' mad, and
+      tremblin' all over, and some of 'em paralysed like.... There was a man in
+      the wing opposite where we slept who kept laugh-in'. Bill Rees was on the
+      car with me, and we laid in our blankets in the bottom of the car and
+      every now and then one of us'ld turn over and whisper: 'Ain't this hell,
+      kid?' 'cause that feller kept laughin' like a man who had just heard a
+      joke that was so funny he couldn't stop laughin'. It wasn't like a crazy
+      man's laugh usually is. When I first heard it I thought it was a man
+      really laughin', and I guess I laughed too. But it didn't stop.... Bill
+      Rees an' me laid in our car shiverin', listenin' to the barrage in the
+      distance with now and then the big noise of an aeroplane bomb, an' that
+      feller laughin', laughin', like he'd just heard a joke, like something had
+      struck him funny.&rdquo; Cohan took a gulp of champagne and jerked his head to
+      one side. &ldquo;An that damn laughin' kept up until about noon the next day
+      when the orderlies strangled the feller.... Got their goat, I guess.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli was looking towards the other side of the room, where a faint
+      murmur of righteous indignation was rising from the dark man with the
+      unshaven jaw and his companions. Fuselli was thinking that it wasn't good
+      to be seen round too much with a fellow like Cohan, who talked about the
+      Germans notifying hospitals before they bombarded them and who was waiting
+      for a court-martial. Might get him in wrong. He slipped out of the cafe
+      into the dark. A dank wind blew down the irregular street, ruffling the
+      reflected light in the puddles, making a shutter bang interminably
+      somewhere. Fuselli went to the main square again, casting an envious
+      glance in the window of the Cheval Blanc, where he saw officers playing
+      billiards in a well-lighted room painted white and gold, and a blond girl
+      in a raspberry-colored shirtwaist enthroned haughtily behind the bar. He
+      remembered the M. P. and automatically hastened his steps. In a narrow
+      street the other side of the square he stopped before the window of a
+      small grocery shop and peered inside, keeping carefully out of the oblong
+      of light that showed faintly the grass-grown cobbles and the green and
+      grey walls opposite. A girl sat knitting beside the small counter with her
+      two little black feet placed demurely side by side on the edge of a box
+      full of red beets. She was very small and slender. The lamplight gleamed
+      on her black hair, done close to her head. Her face was in the shadow.
+      Several soldiers lounged awkwardly against the counter and the jambs of
+      the door, following her movements with their eyes as dogs watch a plate of
+      meat being moved about in a kitchen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a little the girl rolled up her knitting and jumped to her feet,
+      showing her face,&mdash;an oval white face with large dark lashes and an
+      impertinent mouth. She stood looking at the soldiers who stood about her
+      in a circle, then twisted up her mouth in a grimace and disappeared into
+      the inner room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli walked to the end of the street where there was a bridge over a
+      small stream. He leaned on the cold stone rail and looked into the water
+      that was barely visible gurgling beneath between rims of ice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O this is a hell of a life,&rdquo; he muttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He shivered in the cold wind but remained leaning over the water. In the
+      distance trains rumbled interminably, giving him a sense of vast desolate
+      distances. The village clock struck eight. The bell had a soft note like
+      the bass string of a guitar. In the darkness Fuselli could almost see the
+      girl's face grimacing with its broad impertinent lips. He thought of the
+      sombre barracks and men sitting about on the end of their cots. Hell, he
+      couldn't go back yet. His whole body was taut with desire for warmth and
+      softness and quiet. He slouched back along the narrow street cursing in a
+      dismal monotone. Before the grocery store he stopped. The men had gone. He
+      went in jauntily pushing his cap a little to one side so that some of his
+      thick curly hair came out over his forehead. The little bell in the door
+      clanged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl came out of the inner room. She gave him her hand indifferently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Comment ca va! Yvonne? Bon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His pidgin-French made her show her little pearly teeth in a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good,&rdquo; she said in English.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They laughed childishly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, will you be my girl, Yvonne?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked in his eyes and laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Non compris,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We, we; voulez vous et' ma fille?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shrieked with laughter and slapped him hard on the cheek. &ldquo;Venez,&rdquo; she
+      said, still laughing. He followed her. In the inner room was a large oak
+      table with chairs round it. At the end Eisenstein and a French soldier
+      were talking excitedly, so absorbed in what they were saying that they did
+      not notice the other two. Yvonne took the Frenchman by the hair and pulled
+      his head back and told him, still laughing, what Fuselli had said. He
+      laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, you must not say that,&rdquo; he said in English, turning to Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli was angry and sat down sullenly at the end of the table, keeping
+      his eyes on Yvonne. She drew the knitting out of the pocket of her apron
+      and holding it up comically between two fingers, glanced towards the dark
+      corner of the room where an old woman with a lace cap on her head sat
+      asleep, and then let herself fall into a chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Boom!&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli laughed until the tears filled his eyes. She laughed too. They sat
+      a long while looking at each other and giggling, while Eisenstein and the
+      Frenchman talked. Suddenly Fuselli caught a phrase that startled him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What would you Americans do if revolution broke out in France?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'd do what we were ordered to,&rdquo; said Eisenstein bitterly. &ldquo;We're a
+      bunch of slaves.&rdquo; Fuselli noticed that Eisenstein's puffy sallow face was
+      flushed and that there was a flash in his eyes he had never seen before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you mean, revolution?&rdquo; asked Fuselli in a puzzled voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Frenchman turned black eyes searchingly upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean, stop the butchery,&mdash;overthrow the capitalist government.&mdash;The
+      social revolution.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you're a republic already, ain't yer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As much as you are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You talk like a socialist,&rdquo; said Fuselli. &ldquo;They tell me they shoot guys
+      in America for talkin' like that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see!&rdquo; said Eisenstein to the Frenchman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are they all like that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Except a very few. It's hopeless,&rdquo; said Eisenstein, burying his face in
+      his hands. &ldquo;I often think of shooting myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better shoot someone else,&rdquo; said the Frenchman. &ldquo;It will be more useful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli stirred uneasily in his chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where'd you fellers get that stuff anyway?&rdquo; he asked. In his mind he was
+      saying: &ldquo;A kike and a frog, that's a good combination.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His eye caught Yvonne's and they both laughed, Yvonne threw her knitting
+      ball at him. It rolled down under the table and they both scrambled about
+      under the chairs looking for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Twice I have thought it was going to happen,&rdquo; said the Frenchman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When was that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little while ago a division started marching on Paris.... And when I
+      was in Verdun.... O there will be a revolution.... France is the country
+      of revolutions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll always be here to shoot you down,&rdquo; said Eisenstein.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait till you've been in the war a little while. A winter in the trenches
+      will make any army ready for revolution.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But we have no way of learning the truth. And in the tyranny of the army
+      a man becomes a brute, a piece of machinery. Remember you are freer than
+      we are. We are worse than the Russians!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is curious!... O but you must have some feeling of civilization. I
+      have always heard that Americans were free and independent. Will they let
+      themselves be driven to the slaughter always?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O I don't know.&rdquo; Eisenstein got to his feet. &ldquo;We'd better be getting to
+      barracks. Coming, Fuselli?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Guess so,&rdquo; said Fuselli indifferently, without getting up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eisenstein and the Frenchman went out into the shop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bon swar,&rdquo; said Fuselli, softly, leaning across the table. &ldquo;Hey, girlie?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He threw himself on his belly on the wide table and put his arms round her
+      neck and kissed her, feeling everything go blank in a flame of desire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She pushed him away calmly with strong little arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; she said, and jerked her head in the direction of the old woman in
+      the chair in the dark corner of the room. They stood side by side
+      listening to her faint wheezy snoring. He put his arms round her and
+      kissed her long on the mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Demain,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli walked fast up the dark street towards the camp. The blood pounded
+      happily through his veins. He caught up with Eisenstein.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Eisenstein,&rdquo; he said in a comradely voice, &ldquo;I don't think you ought
+      to go talking round like that. You'll get yourself in too deep one of
+      these days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't care!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, hell, man, you don't want to get in the wrong that bad. They shoot
+      fellers for less than you said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Christ, man, you don't want to be a damn fool,&rdquo; expostulated Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How old are you, Fuselli?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm twenty now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm thirty. I've lived more, kid. I know what's good and what's bad. This
+      butchery makes me unhappy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God, I know. It's a hell of a note. But who brought it on? If somebody
+      had shot that Kaiser.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Eisenstein laughed bitterly. At the entrance of camp Fuselli lingered a
+      moment watching the small form of Eisenstein disappear with its curious
+      waddly walk into the darkness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going to be damn careful who I'm seen goin' into barracks with,&rdquo; he
+      said to himself. &ldquo;That damn kike may be a German spy or a secret-service
+      officer.&rdquo; A cold chill of terror went over him, shattering his mood of
+      joyous self-satisfaction. His feet slopped in the puddles, breaking
+      through the thin ice, as he walked up the road towards the barracks. He
+      felt as if people were watching him from everywhere out of the darkness,
+      as if some gigantic figure were driving him forward through the darkness,
+      holding a fist over his head, ready to crush him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he was rolled up in his blankets in the bunk next to Bill Grey, he
+      whispered to his friend:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Bill, I think I've got a skirt all fixed up in town.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yvonne&mdash;don't tell anybody.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bill Grey whistled softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're some highflyer, Dan.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli chuckled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell, man, the best ain't good enough for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'm going to leave you,&rdquo; said Bill Grey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn soon. I can't go this life. I don't see how you can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli did not answer. He snuggled warmly into his blankets, thinking of
+      Yvonne and the corporalship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the light of the one flickering lamp that made an unsteady circle of
+      reddish glow on the station platform Fuselli looked at his pass. From
+      Reveille on February fourth to Reveille on February fifth he was a free
+      man. His eyes smarted with sleep as he walked up and down the cold station
+      platform. For twenty-four hours he wouldn't have to obey anybody's orders.
+      Despite the loneliness of going away on a train in a night like this in a
+      strange country Fuselli was happy. He clinked the money in his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Down the track a red eye appeared and grew nearer. He could hear the hard
+      puffing of the engine up the grade. Huge curves gleamed as the engine
+      roared slowly past him. A man with bare arms black with coal dust was
+      leaning out of the cab, lit up from behind by a yellowish red glare. Now
+      the cars were going by, flat cars with guns, tilted up like the muzzles of
+      hunting dogs, freight cars out of which here and there peered a man's
+      head. The train almost came to a stop. The cars clanged one against the
+      other all down the train. Fuselli was looking into a pair of eyes that
+      shone in the lamplight; a hand was held out to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So long, kid,&rdquo; said a boyish voice. &ldquo;I don't know who the hell you are,
+      but so long; good luck.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So long,&rdquo; stammered Fuselli. &ldquo;Going to the front?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yer goddam right,&rdquo; answered another voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The train took up speed again; the clanging of car against car ceased and
+      in a moment they were moving fast before Fuselli's eyes. Then the station
+      was dark and empty again, and he was watching the red light grow smaller
+      and paler while the train rumbled on into the darkness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A confusion of gold and green and crimson silks and intricate designs of
+      naked pink-fleshed cupids filled Fuselli's mind, when, full of wonder, he
+      walked down the steps of the palace out into the faint ruddy sunlight of
+      the afternoon. A few names, Napoleon, Josephine, the Empire, that had
+      never had significance in his mind before, flared with a lurid gorgeous
+      light in his imagination like a tableau of living statues at a vaudeville
+      theatre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They must have had a heap of money, them guys,&rdquo; said the man who was with
+      him, a private in Aviation. &ldquo;Let's go have a drink.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli was silent and absorbed in his thoughts. Here was something that
+      supplemented his visions of wealth and glory that he used to tell Al
+      about, when they'd sit and watch the big liners come in, all glittering
+      with lights, through the Golden Gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They didn't mind having naked women about, did they?&rdquo; said the private in
+      Aviation, a morose foul-mouthed little man who had been in the woolen
+      business. &ldquo;D'ye blame them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I can't say's I do.... I bet they was immoral, them guys,&rdquo; he
+      continued vaguely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They wandered about the streets of Fontainebleau listlessly, looking into
+      shop windows, staring at women, lolling on benches in the parks where the
+      faint sunlight came through a lacework of twigs purple and crimson and
+      yellow, that cast intricate lavender-grey shadows on the asphalt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's go have another drink,&rdquo; said the private in Aviation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli looked at his watch; they had hours before train time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A girl in a loose dirty blouse wiped off the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Vin blank,&rdquo; said the other man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mame shows,&rdquo; said Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His head was full of gold and green mouldings and silk and crimson velvet
+      and intricate designs in which naked pink-fleshed cupids writhed
+      indecently. Some day, he was saying to himself, he'd make a hell of a lot
+      of money and live in a house like that with Mabe; no, with Yvonne, or with
+      some other girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Must have been immoral, them guys,&rdquo; said the private in Aviation, leering
+      at the girl in the dirty blouse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli remembered a revel he'd seen in a moving picture of &ldquo;Quo Vadis,&rdquo;
+       people in bath robes dancing around with large cups in their hands and
+      tables full of dishes being upset.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cognac, beaucoup,&rdquo; said the private in Aviation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mame shows,&rdquo; said Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cafe was full of gold and green silks, and great brocaded beds with
+      heavy carvings above them, beds in which writhed, pink-fleshed and
+      indecent, intricate patterns of cupids.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somebody said, &ldquo;Hello, Fuselli.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was on the train; his ears hummed and his head had an iron band round
+      it. It was dark except for the little light that flickered in the ceiling.
+      For a minute he thought it was a goldfish in a bowl, but it was a light
+      that flickered in the ceiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, Fuselli,&rdquo; said Eisenstein. &ldquo;Feel all right?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; said Fuselli with a thick voice. &ldquo;Why shouldn't I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did you find that house?&rdquo; said Eisenstein seriously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell, I don't know,&rdquo; muttered Fuselli. &ldquo;I'm goin' to sleep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His mind was a jumble. He remembered vast halls full of green and gold
+      silks, and great beds with crowns over them where Napoleon and Josephine
+      used to sleep. Who were they? O yes, the Empire,&mdash;or was it the
+      Abdication? Then there were patterns of flowers and fruits and cupids, all
+      gilded, and a dark passage and stairs that smelt musty, where he and the
+      man in Aviation fell down. He remembered how it felt to rub his nose hard
+      on the gritty red plush carpet of the stairs. Then there were women in
+      open-work skirts standing about, or were those the pictures on the walls?
+      And there was a bed with mirrors round it. He opened his eyes. Eisenstein
+      was talking to him. He must have been talking to him for some time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I look at it this way,&rdquo; he was saying. &ldquo;A feller needs a little of that
+      to keep healthy. Now, if he's abstemious and careful...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli went to sleep. He woke up again thinking suddenly: he must borrow
+      that little blue book of army regulations. It would be useful to know that
+      in case something came up. The corporal who had been in the Red Sox
+      outfield had been transferred to a Base Hospital. It was t. b. so Sergeant
+      Osier said. Anyway they were going to appoint an acting corporal. He
+      stared at the flickering little light in the ceiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did you get a pass?&rdquo; Eisenstein was asking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, the sergeant fixed me up with one,&rdquo; answered Fuselli mysteriously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're in pretty good with the sergeant, ain't yer?&rdquo; said Eisenstein.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli smiled deprecatingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, d'ye know that little kid Stockton?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The white-faced little kid who's clerk in that outfit that has the other
+      end of the barracks?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's him,&rdquo; said Eisenstein. &ldquo;I wish I could do something to help that
+      kid. He just can't stand the discipline.... You ought to see him wince
+      when the red-haired sergeant over there yells at him.... The kid looks
+      sicker every day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, he's got a good soft job: clerk,&rdquo; said Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye think it's soft? I worked twelve hours day before yesterday getting
+      out reports,&rdquo; said Eisenstein, indignantly. &ldquo;But the kid's lost it and
+      they keep ridin' him for some reason or other. It hurts a feller to see
+      that. He ought to be at home at school.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's got to take his medicine,&rdquo; said Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You wait till we get butchered in the trenches. We'll see how you like
+      your medicine,&rdquo; said Eisenstein.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn fool,&rdquo; muttered Fuselli, composing himself to sleep again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bugle wrenched Fuselli out of his blankets, half dead with sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Bill, I got a head again,&rdquo; he muttered. There was no answer. It was
+      only then that he noticed that the cot next to his was empty. The blankets
+      were folded neatly at the foot. Sudden panic seized him. He couldn't get
+      along without Bill Grey, he said to himself, he wouldn't have anyone to go
+      round with. He looked fixedly at the empty cot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Attention!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The company was lined up in the dark with their feet in the mud puddles of
+      the road. The lieutenant strode up and down in front of them with the tail
+      of his trench coat sticking out behind. He had a pocket flashlight that he
+      kept flashing at the gaunt trunks of trees, in the faces of the company,
+      at his feet, in the puddles of the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If any man knows anything about the whereabouts of Private 1st-class
+      William Grey, report at once, as otherwise we shall have to put him down
+      A. W. O. L. You know what that means?&rdquo; The lieutenant spoke in short
+      shrill periods, chopping off the ends of his words as if with a hatchet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No one said anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess he's S. O. L.&rdquo;; this from someone behind Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I have one more announcement to make, men,&rdquo; said the lieutenant in
+      his natural voice. &ldquo;I'm going to appoint Fuselli, 1st-class private,
+      acting corporal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli's knees were weak under him. He felt like shouting and dancing
+      with joy. He was glad it was dark so that no one could see how excited he
+      was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sergeant, dismiss the company,&rdquo; said the lieutenant bringing his voice
+      back to its military tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Companee dis-missed!&rdquo; said out the sergeant jovially.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In groups, talking with crisp voices, cheered by the occurrence of events,
+      the company straggled across the great stretch of mud puddles towards the
+      mess shack.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                             IV
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Yvonne tossed the omelette in the air. It landed sizzling in the pan
+      again, and she came forward into the light, holding the frying pan before
+      her. Behind her was the dark stove and above it a row of copper kettles
+      that gleamed through the bluish obscurity. She flicked the omelette out of
+      the pan into the white dish that stood in the middle of the table, full in
+      the yellow lamplight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tiens,&rdquo; she said, brushing a few stray hairs off her forehead with the
+      back of her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're some cook,&rdquo; said Fuselli getting to his feet. He had been
+      sprawling on a chair in the other end of the kitchen, watching Yvonne's
+      slender body in tight black dress and blue apron move in and out of the
+      area of light as she got dinner ready. A smell of burnt butter with a
+      faint tang of pepper in it, filled the kitchen, making his mouth water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is the real stuff,&rdquo; he was saying to himself,&mdash;&ldquo;like home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood with his hands deep in his pockets and his head thrown back,
+      watching her cut the bread, holding the big loaf to her chest and pulling
+      the knife towards her, she brushed some crumbs off her dress with a thin
+      white hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're my girl, Yvonne; ain't yer?&rdquo; Fuselli put his arms round her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sale bete,&rdquo; she said, laughing and pushing him away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a brisk step outside and another girl came into the kitchen, a
+      thin yellow-faced girl with a sharp nose and long teeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ma cousine.... Mon 'tit americain.&rdquo; They both laughed. Fuselli blushed as
+      he shook the girl's hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Il est beau, hein?&rdquo; said Yvonne gruffly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mais, ma petite, il est charmant, vot' americain!&rdquo; They laughed again.
+      Fuselli who did not understand laughed too, thinking to himself, &ldquo;They'll
+      let the dinner get cold if they don't sit down soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get maman, Dan,&rdquo; said Yvonne. Fuselli went into the shop through the room
+      with the long oak table. In the dim light that came from the kitchen he
+      saw the old woman's white bonnet. Her face was in shadow but there was a
+      faint gleam of light in her small beady eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Supper, ma'am,&rdquo; he shouted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Grumbling in her creaky little voice, the old woman followed him back into
+      the kitchen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Steam, gilded by the lamplight, rose in pillars to the ceiling from the
+      big tureen of soup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a white cloth on the table and a big loaf of bread at the end.
+      The plates, with borders of little roses on them, seemed, after the army
+      mess, the most beautiful things Fuselli had ever seen. The wine bottle was
+      black beside the soup tureen and the wine in the glasses cast a dark
+      purple stain on the cloth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli ate his soup silently understanding very little of the French that
+      the two girls rattled at each other. The old woman rarely spoke and when
+      she did one of the girls would throw her a hasty remark that hardly
+      interrupted their chatter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli was thinking of the other men lining up outside the dark mess
+      shack and the sound the food made when it flopped into the mess kits. An
+      idea came to him. He'd have to bring Sarge to see Yvonne. They could set
+      him up to a feed. &ldquo;It would help me to stay in good with him,&rdquo; He had a
+      minute's worry about his corporalship. He was acting corporal right
+      enough, but he wanted them to send in his appointment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The omelette melted in his mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn bon,&rdquo; he said to Yvonne with his mouth full.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him fixedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bon, bon,&rdquo; he said again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You.... Dan, bon,&rdquo; she said and laughed. The cousin was looking from one
+      to the other enviously, her upper lip lifted away from her teeth in a
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old woman munched her bread in a silent preoccupied fashion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's somebody in the store,&rdquo; said Fuselli after a long pause. &ldquo;Je
+      irey.&rdquo; He put his napkin down and went out wiping his mouth on the back of
+      his hand. Eisenstein and a chalky-faced boy were in the shop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hullo! are you keepin' house here?&rdquo; asked Eisenstein.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; said Fuselli conceitedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you got any chawclit?&rdquo; asked the chalky-faced boy in a thin
+      bloodless voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli looked round the shelves and threw a cake of chocolate down on the
+      counter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anything else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing, thank you, corporal. How much is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Whistling &ldquo;There's a long, long trail a-winding,&rdquo; Fuselli strode back into
+      the inner room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Combien chocolate?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had received the money, he sat down at his place at table again,
+      smiling importantly. He must write Al about all this, he was thinking, and
+      he was wondering vaguely whether Al had been drafted yet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After dinner the women sat a long time chatting over their coffee, while
+      Fuselli squirmed uneasily on his chair, looking now and then at his watch.
+      His pass was till twelve only; it was already getting on to ten. He tried
+      to catch Yvonne's eye, but she was moving about the kitchen putting things
+      in order for the night, and hardly seemed to notice him. At last the old
+      woman shuffled into the shop and there was the sound of a key clicking
+      hard in the outside door. When she came back, Fuselli said good-night to
+      everyone and left by the back door into the court. There he leaned sulkily
+      against the wall and waited in the dark, listening to the sounds that came
+      from the house. He could see shadows passing across the orange square of
+      light the window threw on the cobbles of the court. A light went on in an
+      upper window, sending a faint glow over the disorderly tiles of the roof
+      of the shed opposite. The door opened and Yvonne and her cousin stood on
+      the broad stone doorstep chattering. Fuselli had pushed himself in behind
+      a big hogshead that had a pleasant tang of old wood damp with sour wine.
+      At last the heads of the shadows on the cobbles came together for a moment
+      and the cousin clattered across the court and out into the empty streets.
+      Her rapid footsteps died away. Yvonne's shadow was still in the door:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dan,&rdquo; she said softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli came out from behind the hogshead, his whole body flushing with
+      delight. Yvonne pointed to his shoes. He took them off, and left them
+      beside the door. He looked at his watch. It was a quarter to eleven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Viens,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He followed her, his knees trembling a little from excitement, up the
+      steep stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The deep broken strokes of the town clock had just begun to strike
+      midnight when Fuselli hurried in the camp gate. He gave up his pass
+      jauntily to the guard and strolled towards his barracks. The long shed was
+      pitch black, full of a sound of deep breathing and of occasional snoring.
+      There was a thick smell of uniform wool on which the sweat had dried.
+      Fuselli undressed without haste, stretching his arms luxuriously. He
+      wriggled into his blankets feeling cool and tired, and went to sleep with
+      a smile of self-satisfaction on his lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The companies were lined up for retreat, standing stiff as toy soldiers
+      outside their barracks. The evening was almost warm. A little playful
+      wind, oozing with springtime, played with the swollen buds on the plane
+      trees. The sky was a drowsy violet color, and the blood pumped hot and
+      stinging through the stiffened arms and legs of the soldiers who stood at
+      attention. The voices of the non-coms were particularly harsh and metallic
+      this evening. It was rumoured that a general was about. Orders were
+      shouted with fury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Standing behind the line of his company, Fuselli's chest was stuck out
+      until the buttons of his tunic were in danger of snapping off. His shoes
+      were well-shined, and he wore a new pair of puttees, wound so tightly that
+      his legs ached.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the bugle sounded across the silent camp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Parade rest!&rdquo; shouted the lieutenant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli's mind was full of the army regulations which he had been studying
+      assiduously for the last week. He was thinking of an imaginary examination
+      for the corporalship, which he would pass, of course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the company was dismissed, he went up familiarly to the top sergeant:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Sarge, doin' anything this evenin'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the hell can a man do when he's broke?&rdquo; said the top sergeant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you come down town with me. I want to introjuce you to somebody.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Great!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Sarge, have they sent that appointment in yet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, they haven't, Fuselli,&rdquo; said the top sergeant. &ldquo;It's all made out,&rdquo;
+       he added encouragingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They walked towards the town silently. The evening was silvery-violet. The
+      few windows in the old grey-green houses that were lighted shone orange.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'm goin' to get it, ain't I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A staff car shot by, splashing them with mud, leaving them a glimpse of
+      officers leaning back in the deep cushions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You sure are,&rdquo; said the top sergeant in his good-natured voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had reached the square. They saluted stiffly as two officers brushed
+      past them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the regulations about a feller marryin' a French girl?&rdquo; broke out
+      Fuselli suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thinking of getting hitched up, are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell, no.&rdquo; Fuselli was crimson. &ldquo;I just sort o' wanted to know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Permission of C. O., that's all I know of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They had stopped in front of the grocery shop. Fuselli peered in through
+      the window. The shop was full of soldiers lounging against the counter and
+      the walls. In the midst of them, demurely knitting, sat Yvonne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's go and have a drink an' then come back,&rdquo; said Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They went to the cafe where Marie of the white arms presided. Fuselli paid
+      for two hot rum punches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see it's this way, Sarge,&rdquo; he said confidentially, &ldquo;I wrote all my
+      folks at home I'd been made corporal, an' it'ld be a hell of a note to be
+      let down now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The top sergeant was drinking his hot drink in little sips. He smiled
+      broadly and put his hand paternal-fashion on Fuselli's knee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure; you needn't worry, kid. I've got you fixed up all right,&rdquo; he said;
+      then he added jovially, &ldquo;Well, let's go see that girl of yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They went out into the dark streets, where the wind, despite the smell of
+      burnt gasolene and army camps, had a faint suavity, something like the
+      smell of mushrooms; the smell of spring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yvonne sat under the lamp in the shop, her feet up on a box of canned
+      peas, yawning dismally. Behind her on the counter was the glass case full
+      of yellow and greenish-white cheeses. Above that shelves rose to the
+      ceiling in the brownish obscurity of the shop where gleamed faintly large
+      jars and small jars, cans neatly placed in rows, glass jars and
+      vegetables. In the corner, near the glass curtained door that led to the
+      inner room, hung clusters of sausages large and small, red, yellow, and
+      speckled. Yvonne jumped up when Fuselli and the sergeant opened the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are good,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Je mourrais de cafard.&rdquo; They laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know what that mean&mdash;cafard?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is only since the war. Avant la guerre on ne savais pas ce que c'etait
+      le cafard. The war is no good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Funny, ain't it?&rdquo; said Fuselli to the top sergeant, &ldquo;a feller can't juss
+      figure out what the war is like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you worry. We'll all get there,&rdquo; said the top sergeant knowingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is the sarjon, Yvonne,&rdquo; said Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oui, oui, je sais,&rdquo; said Yvonne, smiling at the top sergeant. They sat in
+      the little room behind the shop and drank white wine, and talked as best
+      they could to Yvonne, who, very trim in her black dress and blue apron,
+      perched on the edge of her chair with her feet in tiny pumps pressed
+      tightly together, and glanced now and then at the elaborate stripes on the
+      top sergeant's arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli strode familiarly into the grocery shop, whistling, and threw open
+      the door to the inner room. His whistling stopped in the middle of a bar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello,&rdquo; he said in an annoyed voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, corporal,&rdquo; said Eisenstein. Eisenstein, his French soldier friend,
+      a lanky man with a scraggly black heard and burning black eyes, and
+      Stockton, the chalky-faced boy, were sitting at the table that filled up
+      the room, chatting intimately and gaily with Yvonne, who leaned against
+      the yellow wall beside the Frenchman and showed all her little pearly
+      teeth in a laugh. In the middle of the dark oak table was a pot of
+      hyacinths and some glasses that had had wine in them. The odor of the
+      hyacinths hung in the air with a faint warm smell from the kitchen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a second's hesitation, Fuselli sat down to wait until the others
+      should leave. It was long after pay-day and his pockets were empty, so he
+      had nowhere else to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How are they treatin' you down in your outfit now?&rdquo; asked Eisenstein of
+      Stockton, after a silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Same as ever,&rdquo; said Stockton in his thin voice, stuttering a little....
+      &ldquo;Sometimes I wish I was dead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hum,&rdquo; said Eisenstein, a curious expression of understanding on his
+      flabby face. &ldquo;We'll be civilians some day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won't&rdquo; said Stockton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell,&rdquo; said Eisenstein. &ldquo;You've got to keep your upper lip stiff. I
+      thought I was goin' to die in that troopship coming over here. An' when I
+      was little an' came over with the emigrants from Poland, I thought I was
+      goin' to die. A man can stand more than he thinks for.... I never thought
+      I could stand being in the army, bein' a slave like an' all that, an' I'm
+      still here. No, you'll live long and be successful yet.&rdquo; He put his hand
+      on Stockton's shoulder. The boy winced and drew his chair away. &ldquo;What for
+      you do that? I ain't goin' to hurt you,&rdquo; said Eisenstein.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli looked at them both with a disgusted interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll tell you what you'd better do, kid,&rdquo; he said condescendingly. &ldquo;You
+      get transferred to our company. It's an Al bunch, ain't it, Eisenstein?
+      We've got a good loot an' a good top-kicker, an' a damn good bunch o'
+      fellers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our top-kicker was in here a few minutes ago,&rdquo; said Eisenstein.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was?&rdquo; asked Fuselli. &ldquo;Where'd he go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damned if I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yvonne and the French soldier were talking in low voices, laughing a
+      little now and then. Fuselli leaned back in his chair looking at them,
+      feeling out of things, wishing despondently that he knew enough French to
+      understand what they were saying. He scraped his feet angrily back and
+      forth on the floor. His eyes lit on the white hyacinths. They made him
+      think of florists' windows at home at Eastertime and the noise and bustle
+      of San Francisco's streets. &ldquo;God, I hate this rotten hole,&rdquo; he muttered to
+      himself. He thought of Mabe. He made a noise with his lips. Hell, she was
+      married by this time. Anyway Yvonne was the girl for him. If he could only
+      have Yvonne to himself; far away somewhere, away from the other men and
+      that damn frog and her old mother. He thought of himself going to the
+      theatre with Yvonne. When he was a sergeant he would be able to afford
+      that sort of thing. He counted up the months. It was March. Here he'd been
+      in Europe five months and he was still only a corporal, and not that yet.
+      He clenched his fists with impatience. But once he got to be a non-com it
+      would go faster, he told himself reassuringly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He leaned over and sniffed loudly at the hyacinths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They smell good,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Que disay vous, Yvonne?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yvonne looked at him as if she had forgotten that he was in the room. Her
+      eyes looked straight into his, and she burst out laughing. Her glance had
+      made him feel warm all over, and he leaned back in his chair again,
+      looking at her slender body so neatly cased in its black dress and at her
+      little head with its tightly-done hair, with a comfortable feeling of
+      possession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yvonne, come over here,&rdquo; he said, beckoning with his head. She looked
+      from him to the Frenchman provocatively. Then she came over and stood
+      behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Que voulez-vous?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli glanced at Eisenstein. He and Stockton were deep in excited
+      conversation with the Frenchman again. Fuselli heard that uncomfortable
+      word that always made him angry, he did not know why, &ldquo;Revolution.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yvonne,&rdquo; he said so that only she could hear, &ldquo;what you say you and me
+      get married?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Marries.... moi et toi?&rdquo; asked Yvonne in a puzzled voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We we.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked him in the eyes a moment, and then threw hack her head in a
+      paroxysm of hysterical laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli flushed scarlet, got to his feet and strode out, slamming the door
+      behind him so that the glass rang. He walked hurriedly back to camp,
+      splashed with mud by the long lines of grey motor trucks that were
+      throbbing their way slowly through the main street, each with a yellow eye
+      that lit up faintly the tailboards of the truck ahead. The barracks were
+      dark and nearly empty. He sat down at the sergeant's desk and began
+      moodily turning over the pages of the little blue book of Army
+      Regulations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The moonlight glittered in the fountain at the end of the main square of
+      the town. It was a warm dark night of faint clouds through which the moon
+      shone palely as through a thin silk canopy. Fuselli stood by the fountain
+      smoking a cigarette, looking at the yellow windows of the Cheval Blanc at
+      the other end of the square, from which came a sound of voices and of
+      billiard balls clinking. He stood quiet letting the acrid cigarette smoke
+      drift out through his nose, his ears full of the silvery tinkle of the
+      water in the fountain beside him. There were little drifts of warm and
+      chilly air in the breeze that blew fitfully from the west. Fuselli was
+      waiting. He took out his watch now and then and strained his eyes to see
+      the time, but there was not light enough. At last the deep broken note of
+      the bell in the church spire struck once. It must be half past ten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He started walking slowly towards the street where Yvonne's grocery shop
+      was. The faint glow of the moon lit up the grey houses with the shuttered
+      windows and tumultuous red roofs full of little dormers and skylights.
+      Fuselli felt deliciously at ease with the world. He could almost feel
+      Yvonne's body in his arms and he smiled as he remembered the little faces
+      she used to make at him. He slunk past the shuttered windows of the shop
+      and dove into the darkness under the arch that led to the court. He walked
+      cautiously, on tiptoe, keeping close to the moss-covered wall, for he
+      heard voices in the court. He peeped round the edge of the building and
+      saw that there were several people in the kitchen door talking. He drew
+      his head back into the shadow. But he had caught a glimpse of the dark
+      round form of the hogshead beside the kitchen door. If he only could get
+      behind that as he usually did, he would be hidden until the people went
+      away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Keeping well in the shadow round the edge of the court, he slipped to the
+      other side, and was just about to pop himself in behind the hogshead when
+      he noticed that someone was there before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He caught his breath and stood still, his heart thumping. The figure
+      turned and in the dark he recognised the top sergeant's round face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Keep quiet, can't you?&rdquo; whispered the top sergeant peevishly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli stood still with his fists clenched. The blood flamed through his
+      head, making his scalp tingle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still the top sergeant was the top sergeant, came the thought. It would
+      never do to get in wrong with him. Fuselli's legs moved him automatically
+      back into a corner of the court, where he leaned against the damp wall;
+      glaring with smarting eyes at the two women who stood talking outside the
+      kitchen door, and at the dark shadow behind the hogshead. At last, after
+      several smacking kisses, the women went away and the kitchen door closed.
+      The bell in the church spire struck eleven slowly and mournfully. When it
+      had ceased striking, Fuselli heard a discreet tapping and saw the shadow
+      of the top sergeant against the door. As he slipped in, Fuselli heard the
+      top sergeant's good-natured voice in a large stage whisper, followed by a
+      choked laugh from Yvonne. The door closed and the light was extinguished,
+      leaving the court in darkness except for a faint marbled glow in the sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli strode out, making as much noise as he could with his heels on the
+      cobble stones. The streets of the town were silent under the pale moon. In
+      the square the fountain sounded loud and metallic. He gave up his pass to
+      the guard and strode glumly towards the barracks. At the door he met a man
+      with a pack on his back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hullo, Fuselli,&rdquo; said a voice he knew. &ldquo;Is my old bunk still there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damned if I know,&rdquo; said Fuselli; &ldquo;I thought they'd shipped you home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The corporal who had been on the Red Sox outfield broke into a fit of
+      coughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell, no,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They kep' me at that goddam hospital till they saw I
+      wasn't goin' to die right away, an' then they told me to come back to my
+      outfit. So here I am!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did they bust you?&rdquo; said Fuselli with sudden eagerness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell, no. Why should they? They ain't gone and got a new corporal, have
+      they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not exactly,&rdquo; said Fuselli.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                             V
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Meadville stood near the camp gate, watching the motor trucks go by on the
+      main road. Grey, lumbering, and mud-covered, they throbbed by sloughing in
+      and out of the mud holes in the worn road in an endless train stretching
+      as far as he could see into the town and as far as he could see up the
+      road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood with his legs far apart and spat into the center of the road;
+      then he turned to the corporal who had been in the Red Sox outfield and
+      said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll be goddamed if there ain't somethin' doin'!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A hell of a lot doin',&rdquo; said the corporal, shaking his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seen that guy Daniels who's been to the front?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, he says hell's broke loose. Hell's broke loose!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's happened?... Be gorry, we may see some active service,&rdquo; said
+      Meadville, grinning. &ldquo;By God, I'd give the best colt on my ranch to see
+      some action.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Got a ranch?&rdquo; asked the corporal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The motor trucks kept on grinding past monotonously; their drivers were so
+      splashed with mud it was hard to see what uniform they wore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What d'ye think?&rdquo; asked Meadville. &ldquo;Think I keep store?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli walked past them towards the town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Fuselli,&rdquo; shouted Meadville. &ldquo;Corporal says hell's broke loose out
+      there. We may smell gunpowder yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli stopped and joined them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess poor old Bill Grey's smelt plenty of gunpowder by this time,&rdquo; he
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish I had gone with him,&rdquo; said Meadville. &ldquo;I'll try that little trick
+      myself now the good weather's come on if we don't get a move on soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Too damn risky!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen to the kid. It'll be too damn risky in the trenches.... Or do you
+      think you're goin' to get a cushy job in camp here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell, no! I want to go to the front. I don't want to stay in this hole.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But ain't no good throwin' yerself in where it don't do no good.... A guy
+      wants to get on in this army if he can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the good o' gettin' on?&rdquo; said the corporal. &ldquo;Won't get home a bit
+      sooner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell! but you're a non-com.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another train of motor trucks went by, drowning their Talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli was packing medical supplies in a box in a great brownish
+      warehouse full of packing cases where a little sun filtered in through the
+      dusty air at the corrugated sliding tin doors. As he worked, he listened
+      to Daniels talking to Meadville who worked beside him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' the gas is the goddamndest stuff I ever heard of,&rdquo; he was saying.
+      &ldquo;I've seen fellers with their arms swelled up to twice the size like
+      blisters from it. Mustard gas, they call it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you get to go to the hospital?&rdquo; said Meadville.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only pneumonia,&rdquo; said Daniels, &ldquo;but I had a buddy who was split right in
+      half by a piece of a shell. He was standin' as near me as you are an' was
+      whistlin' 'Tipperary' under his breath when all at once there was a big
+      spurt o' blood an' there he was with his chest split in half an' his head
+      hangin' a thread like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Meadville moved his quid of tobacco from one cheek to the other and spat
+      on to the sawdust of the floor. The men within earshot stopped working and
+      looked admiringly at Daniels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well; what d'ye reckon's goin' on at the front now?&rdquo; said Meadville.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damned of I know. The goddam hospital at Orleans was so full up there was
+      guys in stretchers waiting all day on the pavement outside. I know
+      that.... Fellers there said hell'd broke loose for fair. Looks to me like
+      the Fritzies was advancin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Meadville looked at him incredulously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Those skunks?&rdquo; said Fuselli. &ldquo;Why they can't advance. They're starvin' to
+      death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The hell they are,&rdquo; said Daniels. &ldquo;I guess you believe everything you see
+      in the papers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Eyes looked at Daniels indignantly. They all went on working in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly the lieutenant, looking strangely flustered, strode into the
+      warehouse, leaving the tin door open behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can anyone tell me where Sergeant Osler is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was here a few minutes ago,&rdquo; spoke up Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, where is he now?&rdquo; snapped the lieutenant angrily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know, sir,&rdquo; mumbled Fuselli, flushing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go and see if you can find him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli went off to the other end of the warehouse. Outside the door he
+      stopped and bit off a cigarette in a leisurely fashion. His blood boiled
+      sullenly. How the hell should he know where the top sergeant was? They
+      didn't expect him to be a mind-reader, did they? And all the flood of
+      bitterness that had been collecting in his spirit seethed to the surface.
+      They had not treated him right, He felt full of hopeless anger against
+      this vast treadmill to which he was bound. The endless succession of the
+      days, all alike, all subject to orders, to the interminable monotony of
+      drills and line-ups, passed before his mind. He felt he couldn't go on,
+      yet he knew that he must and would go on, that there was no stopping, that
+      his feet would go on beating in time to the steps of the treadmill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He caught sight of the sergeant coming towards the warehouse, across the
+      new green grass, scarred by the marks of truck wheels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sarge,&rdquo; he called. Then he went up to him mysteriously. &ldquo;The loot wants
+      to see you at once in Warehouse B.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He slouched back to his work, arriving just in time to hear the lieutenant
+      say in a severe voice to the sergeant:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sergeant, do you know how to draw up court-martial papers?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; said the sergeant, a look of surprise on his face. He followed
+      the precise steps of the lieutenant out of the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli had a moment of panic terror, during which he went on working
+      methodically, although his hands trembled. He was searching his memory for
+      some infringement of a regulation that might be charged against him. The
+      terror passed as fast as it had come. Of course he had no reason to fear.
+      He laughed softly to himself. What a fool he'd been to get scared like
+      that, and a summary court-martial couldn't do much to you anyway. He went
+      on working as fast and as carefully as he could, through the long
+      monotonous afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That night nearly the whole company gathered in a group at the end of the
+      barracks. Both sergeants were away. The corporal said he knew nothing, and
+      got sulkily into bed, where he lay, rolled in his blankets, shaken by fit
+      after fit of coughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last someone said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I bet that kike Eisenstein's turned out to be a spy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I bet he has too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's foreign born, ain't he? Born in Poland or some goddam place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He always did talk queer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I always thought,&rdquo; said Fuselli, &ldquo;he'd get into trouble talking the way
+      he did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How'd he talk?&rdquo; asked Daniels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, he said that war was wrong and all that goddamed pro-German stuff.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D'ye know what they did out at the front?&rdquo; said Daniels. &ldquo;In the second
+      division they made two fellers dig their own graves and then shot 'em for
+      sayin' the war was wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell, they did?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're goddam right, they did. I tell you, fellers, it don't do to monkey
+      with the buzz-saw in this army.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For God's sake shut up. Taps has blown. Meadville, turn the lights out!&rdquo;
+       said the corporal angrily. The barracks was dark, full of a sound of men
+      undressing in their bunks, and of whispered talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The company was lined up for morning mess. The sun that had just risen was
+      shining in rosily through the soft clouds of the sky. The sparrows kept up
+      a great clattering in the avenue of plane trees. Their riotous chirping
+      could be heard above the sound of motors starting that came from a shed
+      opposite the mess shack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant appeared suddenly; walking past with his shoulders stiff, so
+      that everyone knew at once that something important was going on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Attention, men, a minute,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mess kits clattered as the men turned round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After mess I want you to go immediately to barracks and roll your packs.
+      After that every man must stand by his pack until orders come.&rdquo; The
+      company cheered and mess kits clattered together like cymbals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As you were,&rdquo; shouted the top sergeant jovially.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gluey oatmeal and greasy bacon were hurriedly bolted down, and every man
+      in the company, his heart pounding, ran to the barracks to do up his pack,
+      feeling proud under the envious eyes of the company at the other end of
+      the shack that had received no orders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the packs were done up, they sat on the empty hunks and drummed their
+      feet against the wooden partitions waiting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't suppose we'll leave here till hell freezes over,&rdquo; said Meadville,
+      who was doing up the last strap on his pack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's always like this.... You break your neck to obey orders an'...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Outside!&rdquo; shouted the sergeant, poking his head in the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fall in! Atten-shun!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The lieutenant in his trench coat and in a new pair of roll puttees stood
+      facing the company, looking solemn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Men,&rdquo; he said, biting off his words as a man bites through a piece of
+      hard stick candy; &ldquo;one of your number is up for courtmartial for possibly
+      disloyal statements found in a letter addressed to friends at home. I have
+      been extremely grieved to find anything of this sort in any company of
+      mine; I don't believe there is another man in the company... low enough to
+      hold... entertain such ideas....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Every man in the company stuck out his chest, vowing inwardly to entertain
+      no ideas at all rather than run the risk of calling forth such disapproval
+      from the lieutenant. The lieutenant paused:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All I can say is if there is any such man in the company, he had better
+      keep his mouth shut and be pretty damn careful what he writes home....
+      Dismissed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shouted the order grimly, as if it were the order for the execution of
+      the offender.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That goddam skunk Eisenstein,&rdquo; said someone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lieutenant heard it as he walked away. &ldquo;Oh, sergeant,&rdquo; he said
+      familiarly; &ldquo;I think the others have got the right stuff in them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The company went into the barracks and waited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant-major's office was full of a clicking of typewriters, and was
+      overheated by a black stove that stood in the middle of the floor, letting
+      out occasional little puffs of smoke from a crack in the stove pipe. The
+      sergeant-major was a small man with a fresh boyish face and a drawling
+      voice who lolled behind a large typewriter reading a magazine that lay on
+      his lap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli slipped in behind the typewriter and stood with his cap in his
+      hand beside the sergeant-major's chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well what do you want?&rdquo; asked the sergeant-major gruffly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A feller told me, Sergeant-Major, that you was look-in' for a man with
+      optical experience;&rdquo; Fuselli's voice was velvety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I worked three years in an optical-goods store at home in Frisco.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's your name, rank, company?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Daniel Fuselli, Private 1st-class, Company C, medical supply warehouse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, I'll attend to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, sergeant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right; out with what you've got to say, quick.&rdquo; The sergeant-major
+      fingered the leaves of his magazine impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My company's all packed up to go. The transfer'll have to be today,
+      sergeant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why the hell didn't you come in earlier?... Stevens, make out a transfer
+      to headquarters company and get the major to sign it when he goes
+      through.... That's the way it always is,&rdquo; he cried, leaning back
+      tragically in his swivel chair. &ldquo;Everybody always puts everything off on
+      me at the last minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, sir,&rdquo; said Fuselli, smiling. The sergeant-major ran his hand
+      through his hair and took up his magazine again peevishly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli hurried back to barracks where he found the company still waiting.
+      Several men were crouched in a circle playing craps. The rest lounged in
+      their bare bunks or fiddled with their packs. Outside it had begun to rain
+      softly, and a smell of wet sprouting earth came in through the open door.
+      Fuselli sat on the floor beside his bunk throwing his knife down so that
+      it stuck in the boards between his knees. He was whistling softly to
+      himself. The day dragged on. Several times he heard the town clock strike
+      in the distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the top sergeant came in, shaking the water off his slicker, a
+      serious, important expression on his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Inspection of medical belts,&rdquo; he shouted. &ldquo;Everybody open up their belt
+      and lay it on the foot of their bunk and stand at attention on the left
+      side.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The lieutenant and a major appeared suddenly at one end of the barracks
+      and came through slowly, pulling the little packets out of the belts. The
+      men looked at them out of the corners of their eyes. As they examined the
+      belts, they chatted easily, as if they had been alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said the major. &ldquo;We're in for it this time.... That damned
+      offensive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, we'll be able to show 'em what we're good for,&rdquo; said the
+      lieutenant, laughing. &ldquo;We haven't had a chance yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hum! Better mark that belt, lieutenant, and have it changed. Been to the
+      front yet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hum, well.... You'll look at things differently when you have,&rdquo; said the
+      major.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lieutenant frowned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, on the whole, lieutenant, your outfit is in very good shape.... At
+      ease, men!&rdquo; The lieutenant and the major stood at the door a moment
+      raising the collars of their coats; then they dove out into the rain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few minutes later the sergeant came in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, get your slickers on and line up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They stood lined up in the rain for a long while. It was a leaden
+      afternoon. The even clouds had a faint coppery tinge. The rain beat in
+      their faces, making them tingle. Fuselli was looking anxiously at the
+      sergeant. At last the lieutenant appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Attention!&rdquo; cried the sergeant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The roll was called and a new man fell in at the end of the line, a tall
+      man with large protruding eyes like a calf's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Private 1st-class Daniel Fuselli, fall out and report to headquarters
+      company!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli saw a look of surprise come over men's faces. He smiled wanly at
+      Meadville.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sergeant, take the men down to the station.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Squads, right,&rdquo; cried the sergeant. &ldquo;March!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The company tramped off into the streaming rain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli went back to the barracks, took off his pack and slicker and wiped
+      the water off his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rails gleamed gold in the early morning sunshine above the deep purple
+      cinders of the track. Fuselli's eyes followed the track until it curved
+      into a cutting where the wet clay was a bright orange in the clear light.
+      The station platform, where puddles from the night's rain glittered as the
+      wind ruffled them, was empty. Fuselli started walking up and down with his
+      hands in his pockets. He had been sent down to unload some supplies that
+      were coming on that morning's train. He felt free and successful since he
+      joined the headquarters company! At last, he told himself, he had a job
+      where he could show what he was good for. He walked up and down whistling
+      shrilly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A train pulled slowly into the station. The engine stopped to take water
+      and the couplings clanked all down the line of cars. The platform was
+      suddenly full of men in khaki, stamping their feet, running up and down
+      shouting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where you guys goin'?&rdquo; asked Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We're bound for Palm Beach. Don't we look it?&rdquo; someone snarled in reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Fuselli had seen a familiar face. He was shaking hands with two
+      browned men whose faces were grimy with days of travelling in freight
+      cars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hullo, Chrisfield. Hullo, Andrews!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;When did you fellows get
+      over here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, 'bout four months ago,&rdquo; said Chrisfield, whose black eyes looked at
+      Fuselli searchingly. &ldquo;Oh! Ah 'member you. You're Fuselli. We was at
+      trainin' camp together. 'Member him, Andy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; said Andrews. &ldquo;How are you makin' out?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fine,&rdquo; said Fuselli. &ldquo;I'm in the optical department here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where the hell's that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right here.&rdquo; Fuselli pointed vaguely behind the station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We've been training about four months near Bordeaux,&rdquo; said Andrews; &ldquo;and
+      now we're going to see what it's like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The whistle blew and the engine started puffing hard. Clouds of white
+      steam filled the station platform, where the soldiers scampered for their
+      cars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good luck!&rdquo; said Fuselli; but Andrews and Chrisfield had already gone. He
+      saw them again as the train pulled out, two brown and dirt-grimed faces
+      among many other brown and dirt-grimed faces. The steam floated up tinged
+      with yellow in the bright early morning air as the last car of the train
+      disappeared round the curve into the cutting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dust rose thickly about the worn broom. As it was a dark morning, very
+      little light filtered into the room full of great white packing cases,
+      where Fuselli was sweeping. He stopped now and then and leaned on his
+      broom. Far away he heard a sound of trains shunting and shouts and the
+      sound of feet tramping in unison from the drill ground. The building where
+      he was was silent. He went on sweeping, thinking of his company tramping
+      off through the streaming rain, and of those fellows he had known in
+      training Camp in America, Andrews and Chrisfield, jolting in box cars
+      towards the front, where Daniel's buddy had had his chest split in half by
+      a piece of shell. And he'd written home he'd been made a corporal. What
+      was he going to do when letters came for him, addressed Corporal Dan
+      Fuselli? Putting the broom away, he dusted the yellow chair and the table
+      covered with order slips that stood in the middle of the piles of packing
+      boxes. The door slammed somewhere below and there was a step on the stairs
+      that led to the upper part of the warehouse. A little man with a
+      monkey-like greyish-brown face and spectacles appeared and slipped out of
+      his overcoat, like a very small bean popping out of a very large pod.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant's stripes looked unusually wide and conspicuous on his thin
+      arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He grunted at Fuselli, sat down at the desk, and began at once peering
+      among the order slips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anything in our mailbox this morning?&rdquo; he asked Fuselli in a hoarse
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's all there, sergeant,&rdquo; said Fuselli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant peered about the desk some more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye'll have to wash that window today,&rdquo; he said after a pause. &ldquo;Major's
+      likely to come round here any time.... Ought to have been done yesterday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said Fuselli dully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He slouched over to the corner of the room, got the worn broom and began
+      sweeping down the stairs. The dust rose about him, making him cough. He
+      stopped and leaned on the broom. He thought of all the days that had gone
+      by since he'd last seen those fellows, Andrews and Chrisfield, at training
+      camp in America; and of all the days that would go by. He started sweeping
+      again, sweeping the dust down from stair to stair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli sat on the end of his bunk. He had just shaved. It was a Sunday
+      morning and he looked forward to having the afternoon off. He rubbed his
+      face on his towel and got to his feet. Outside, the rain fell in great
+      silvery sheets, so that the noise on the tarpaper roof of the barracks was
+      almost deafening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli noticed, at the other end of the row of bunks, a group of men who
+      all seemed to be looking at the same thing. Rolling down his sleeves, with
+      his tunic hitched over one arm, he walked down to see what was the matter.
+      Through the patter of the rain, he heard a thin voice say:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It ain't no use, sergeant, I'm sick. I ain't a' goin' to get up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The kid's crazy,&rdquo; someone beside Fuselli said, turning away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You get up this minute,&rdquo; roared the sergeant. He was a big man with black
+      hair who looked like a lumberman. He stood over the bunk. In the bunk at
+      the end of a bundle of blankets was the chalk-white face of Stockton. The
+      boy's teeth were clenched, and his eyes were round and protruding, it
+      seemed from terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You get out o' bed this minute,&rdquo; roared the sergeant again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy; was silent; his white cheeks quivered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the hell's the matter with him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't you yank him out yourself, Sarge?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You get out of bed this minute,&rdquo; shouted the sergeant again, paying no
+      attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men gathered about walked away. Fuselli watched fascinated from a
+      little distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, then, I'll get the lieutenant. This is a court-martial
+      offence. Here, Morton and Morrison, you're guards over this man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy lay still in his blankets. He closed his eyes. By the way the
+      blanket rose and fell over his chest, they could see that he was breathing
+      heavily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Stockton, why don't you get up, you fool?&rdquo;' said Fuselli. &ldquo;You can't
+      buck the whole army.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy didn't answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli walked away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's crazy,&rdquo; he muttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lieutenant was a stoutish red-faced man who came in puffing followed
+      by the tall sergeant. He stopped and shook the water off his Campaign hat.
+      The rain kept up its deafening patter on the roof.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here, are you sick? If you are, report sick call at once,&rdquo; said the
+      lieutenant in an elaborately kind voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy looked at him dully and did not answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should get up and stand at attention when an officer speaks to you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ain't goin' to get up,&rdquo; came the thin voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The officer's red face became crimson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sergeant, what's the matter with the man?&rdquo; he asked in a furious tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't do anything with him, lieutenant. I think he's gone crazy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rubbish.... Mere insubordination.... You're under arrest, d'ye hear?&rdquo; he
+      shouted towards the bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no answer. The rain pattered hard on the roof.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have him brought down to the guardhouse, by force if necessary,&rdquo; snapped
+      the lieutenant. He strode towards the door. &ldquo;And sergeant, start drawing
+      up court-martial papers at once.&rdquo; The door slammed behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now you've got to get him up,&rdquo; said the sergeant to the two guards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli walked away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't some people damn fools?&rdquo; he said to a man at the other end of the
+      barracks. He stood looking out of the window at the bright sheets of the
+      rain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, get him up,&rdquo; shouted the sergeant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy lay with his eyes closed, his chalk-white face half-hidden by the
+      blankets; he was very still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, will you get up and go to the guardhouse, or have we to carry you
+      there?&rdquo; shouted the sergeant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The guards laid hold of him gingerly and pulled him up to a sitting
+      posture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, yank him out of bed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The frail form in khaki shirt and whitish drawers was held up for a moment
+      between the two men. Then it fell a limp heap on the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Sarge, he's fainted.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The hell he has.... Say, Morrison, ask one of the orderlies to come up
+      from the Infirmary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He ain't fainted.... The kid's dead,&rdquo; said the other man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me a hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant helped lift the body on the bed again. &ldquo;Well, I'll be
+      goddamned,&rdquo; said the sergeant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The eyes had opened. They covered the head with a blanket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PART3" id="link2H_PART3">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PART THREE: MACHINES
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The fields and the misty blue-green woods slipped by slowly as the box car
+      rumbled and jolted over the rails, now stopping for hours on sidings amid
+      meadows, where it was quiet and where above the babel of voices of the
+      regiment you could hear the skylarks, now clattering fast over bridges and
+      along the banks of jade-green rivers where the slim poplars were just
+      coming into leaf and where now and then a fish jumped. The men crowded in
+      the door, grimy and tired, leaning on each other's shoulders and watching
+      the plowed lands slip by and the meadows where the golden-green grass was
+      dappled with buttercups, and the villages of huddled red roofs lost among
+      pale budding trees and masses of peach blossom. Through the smells of
+      steam and coal smoke and of unwashed bodies in uniforms came smells of
+      moist fields and of manure from fresh-sowed patches and of cows and
+      pasture lands just coming into flower.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Must be right smart o'craps in this country.... Ain't like that damn
+      Polignac, Andy?&rdquo; said Chrisfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, they made us drill so hard there wasn't any time for the grass to
+      grow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're damn right there warn't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah'd lak te live in this country a while,&rdquo; said Chrisfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We might ask 'em to let us off right here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can't be that the front's like this,&rdquo; said Judkins, poking his head out
+      between Andrews's and Chrisfield's heads so that the bristles of his
+      unshaven chin rubbed against Chrisfield's cheek. It was a large square
+      head with closely cropped light hair and porcelain-blue eyes under lids
+      that showed white in the red sunburned face, and a square jaw made a
+      little grey by the sprouting beard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Andy, how the hell long have we all been in this goddam train?...
+      Ah've done lost track o' the time....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the matter; are you gettin' old, Chris?&rdquo; asked Judkins laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield had slipped out of the place he held and began poking himself
+      in between Andrews and Judkins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We've been on this train four days and five nights, an' we've got half a
+      day's rations left, so we must be getting somewhere,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It can't be like this at the front.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must be spring there as well as here,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a day of fluffy mauve-tinted clouds that moved across the sky,
+      sometimes darkening to deep blue where a small rainstorm trailed across
+      the hills, sometimes brightening to moments of clear sunlight that gave
+      blue shadows to the poplars and shone yellow on the smoke of the engine
+      that puffed on painfully at the head of the long train.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Funny, ain't it? How li'l everythin' is,&rdquo; said Chrisfield. &ldquo;Out Indiana
+      way we wouldn't look at a cornfield that size. But it sort o' reminds me
+      the way it used to be out home in the spring o' the year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd like to see Indiana in the springtime,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well you'll come out when the war's over and us guys is all home... won't
+      you, Andy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You bet I will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were going into the suburbs of a town. Rows and clusters of little
+      brick and stucco houses were appearing along the roads. It began to rain
+      from a sky full of lights of amber and lilac color. The slate roofs and
+      the pinkish-grey streets of the town shone cheerfully in the rain. The
+      little patches of garden were all vivid emerald-green. Then they were
+      looking at rows and rows of red chimney pots over wet slate roofs that
+      reflected the bright sky. In the distance rose the purple-grey spire of a
+      church and the irregular forms of old buildings. They passed through a
+      station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dijon,&rdquo; read Andrews. On the platform were French soldiers in their blue
+      coats and a good sprinkling of civilians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee, those are about the first real civies I've seen since I came
+      overseas,&rdquo; said Judkins. &ldquo;Those goddam country people down at Polignac
+      didn't look like real civilians. There's folks dressed like it was New
+      York.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They had left the station and were rumbling slowly past interminable
+      freight trains. At last the train came to a dead stop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A whistle sounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't nobody get out,&rdquo; shouted the sergeant from the car ahead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell! They keep you in this goddam car like you was a convict,&rdquo; muttered
+      Chrisfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd like to get out and walk around Dijon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O boy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I swear I'd make a bee line for a dairy lunch,&rdquo; said Judkins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell of a fine dairy lunch you'll find among those goddam frogs. No, vin
+      blank is all you'ld get in that goddam town.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah'm goin' to sleep,&rdquo; said Chrisfield. He stretched himself out on the
+      pile of equipment at the end of the car. Andrews sat down near him and
+      stared at his mud-caked boots, running one of his long hands, as brown as
+      Chrisfield's now, through his light short-cut hair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield lay looking at the gaunt outline of Andrews's face against the
+      light through half-closed eyes. And he felt a warm sort of a smile inside
+      him as he said to himself: &ldquo;He's a damn good kid.&rdquo; Then he thought of the
+      spring in the hills of southern Indiana and the mocking-bird singing in
+      the moonlight among the flowering locust trees behind the house. He could
+      almost smell the heavy sweetness of the locust blooms, as he used to smell
+      them sitting on the steps after supper, tired from a day's heavy plowing,
+      while the clatter of his mother's housework came from the kitchen. He
+      didn't wish he was back there, but it was pleasant to think of it now and
+      then, and how the yellow farmhouse looked and the red barn where his
+      father never had been able to find time to paint the door, and the
+      tumble-down cowshed where the shingles were always coming off. He wondered
+      dully what it would be like out there at the front. It couldn't be green
+      and pleasant, the way the country was here. Fellows always said it was
+      hell out there. Well, he didn't give a damn. He went to sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He woke up gradually, the warm comfort of sleep giving place slowly to the
+      stiffness of his uncomfortable position with the hobnails of a boot from
+      the back of a pack sticking into his shoulder. Andrews was sitting in the
+      same position, lost in thought. The rest of the men sat at the open doors
+      or sprawled over the equipment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield got up, stretched himself, yawned, and went to the door to look
+      out. There was a heavy important step on the gravel outside. A large man
+      with black eyebrows that met over his nose and a very black stubbly beard
+      passed the car. There were a sergeants stripes on his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Andy,&rdquo; cried Chrisfield, &ldquo;that bastard is a sergeant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who's that?&rdquo; asked Andrews getting up with a smile, his blue eyes looking
+      mildly into Chrisfield's black ones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know who Ah mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Under their heavy tan Chrisfield's rounded cheeks were flushed. His eyes
+      snapped under their long black lashes. His fists were clutched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I know, Chris. I didn't know he was in this regiment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God damn him!&rdquo; muttered Chrisfield in a low voice, throwing himself down
+      on his packs again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hold your horses, Chris,&rdquo; said Andrews. &ldquo;We may all cash in our checks
+      before long... no use letting things worry us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't give a damn if we do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor do I, now.&rdquo; Andrews sat down beside Chrisfield again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a while the train got jerkily into motion. The wheels rumbled and
+      clattered over the rails and the clots of mud bounced up and down on the
+      splintered boards of the floor. Chrisfield pillowed his head on his arm
+      and went to sleep again, still smarting from the flush of his anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews looked out through his fingers at the swaying black box car, at
+      the men sprawled about on the floor, their heads nodding with each jolt,
+      and at the mauve-grey clouds and bits of sparkling blue sky that he could
+      see behind the silhouettes of the heads and shoulders of the men who stood
+      in the doors. The wheels ground on endlessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The car stopped with a jerk that woke up all the sleepers and threw one
+      man off his feet. A whistle blew shrilly outside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, out of the cars! Snap it up; snap it up!&rdquo; yelled the sergeant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men piled out stiffly, handing the equipment out from hand to hand
+      till it formed a confused heap of packs and rifles outside. All down the
+      train at each door there was a confused pile of equipment and struggling
+      men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Snap it up.... Full equipment.... Line up!&rdquo; the sergeant yelled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men fell into line slowly, with their packs and rifles. Lieutenants
+      hovered about the edges of the forming lines, tightly belted into their
+      stiff trench coats, scrambling up and down the coal piles of the siding.
+      The men were given &ldquo;at ease&rdquo; and stood leaning on their rifles staring at
+      a green water-tank on three wooden legs, over the top of which had been
+      thrown a huge piece of torn grey cheesecloth. When the confused sound of
+      tramping feet subsided, they could hear a noise in the distance, like
+      someone lazily shaking a piece of heavy sheet-iron. The sky was full of
+      little dabs of red, purple and yellow and the purplish sunset light was
+      over everything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The order came to march. They marched down a rutted road where the puddles
+      were so deep they had continually to break ranks to avoid them. In a
+      little pine-wood on one side were rows of heavy motor trucks and
+      ammunition caissons; supper was cooking in a field kitchen about which
+      clustered the truck drivers in their wide visored caps. Beyond the wood
+      the column turned off into a field behind a little group of stone and
+      stucco houses that had lost their roofs. In the field they halted. The
+      grass was brilliant emerald and the wood and the distant hills were shades
+      of clear deep blue. Wisps of pale-blue mist lay across the field. In the
+      turf here and there were small clean bites, that might have been made by
+      some strange animal. The men looked at them curiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No lights, remember we're in sight of the enemy. A match might annihilate
+      the detachment,&rdquo; announced the lieutenant dramatically after having given
+      the orders for the pup tents to be set up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the tents were ready, the men stood about in the chilly white mist
+      that kept growing denser, eating their cold rations. Everywhere were
+      grumbling snorting voices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God, let's turn in, Chris, before our bones are frozen,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Guards had been posted and walked up and down with a business-like stride,
+      peering now and then suspiciously into the little wood where the
+      truck-drivers were.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield and Andrews crawled into their little tent and rolled up
+      together in their blankets, getting as close to each other as they could.
+      At first it was very cold and hard, and they squirmed about restlessly,
+      but gradually the warmth from their bodies filled their thin blankets and
+      their muscles began to relax. Andrews went to sleep first and Chrisfield
+      lay listening to his deep breathing. There was a frown on his face. He was
+      thinking of the man who had walked past the train at Dijon. The last time
+      he had seen that man Anderson was at training camp. He had only been a
+      corporal then. He remembered the day the man had been made corporal. It
+      had not been long before that that Chrisfield had drawn his knife on him,
+      one night in the barracks. A fellow had caught his hand just in time.
+      Anderson had looked a bit pale that time and had walked away. But he'd
+      never spoken a word to Chrisfield since. As he lay with his eyes closed,
+      pressed close against Andrew's limp sleeping body, Chrisfield could see
+      the man's face, the eyebrows that joined across the nose and the jaw,
+      always blackish from the heavy beard, that looked blue when he had just
+      shaved. At last the tenseness of his mind slackened; he thought of women
+      for a moment, of a fair-haired girl he'd seen from the train, and then
+      suddenly crushing sleepiness closed down on him and everything went softly
+      warmly black, as he drifted off to sleep with no sense but the coldness of
+      one side and the warmth of his bunkie's body on the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the middle of the night he awoke and crawled out of the tent. Andrews
+      followed him. Their teeth chattered a little, and they stretched their
+      legs stiffly. It was cold, but the mist had vanished. The stars shone
+      brilliantly. They walked out a little way into the field away from the
+      bunch of tents to make water. A faint rustling and breathing noise, as of
+      animals herded together, came from the sleeping regiment. Somewhere a
+      brook made a shrill gurgling. They strained their ears, but they could
+      hear no guns. They stood side by side looking up at the multitudes of
+      stars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's Orion,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That bunch of stars there is called Orion. D'you see 'em. It's supposed
+      to look like a man with a bow, but he always looks to me like a fellow
+      striding across the sky.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some stars tonight, ain't there? Gee, what's that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind the dark hills a glow rose and fell like the glow in a forge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The front must be that way,&rdquo; said Andrews, shivering. &ldquo;I guess we'll know
+      tomorrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; tomorrow night we'll know more about it,&rdquo; said Andrews. They stood
+      silent a moment listening to the noise the brook made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God, it's quiet, ain't it? This can't be the front. Smell that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Smells like an apple tree in bloom somewhere.... Hell, let's git in,
+      before our blankets git cold.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews was still staring at the group of stars he had said was Orion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield pulled him by the arm. They crawled into their tent again,
+      rolled up together and immediately were crushed under an exhausted sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As far ahead of him as Chrisfield could see were packs and heads with caps
+      at a variety of angles, all bobbing up and down with the swing of the
+      brisk marching time. A fine warm rain was falling, mingling with the sweat
+      that ran down his face. The column had been marching a long time along a
+      straight road that was worn and scarred with heavy traffic. Fields and
+      hedges where clusters of yellow flowers were in bloom had given place to
+      an avenue of poplars. The light wet trunks and the stiff branches hazy
+      with green filed by, interminable, as interminable as the confused tramp
+      of feet and jingle of equipment that sounded in his ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, are we goin' towards the front?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goddamned if I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't no front within miles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Men's sentences came shortly through their heavy breathing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The column shifted over to the side of the road to avoid a train of motor
+      trucks going the other way. Chrisfield felt the heavy mud spurt up over
+      him as truck after truck rumbled by. With the wet back of one hand he
+      tried to wipe it off his face, but the grit, when he rubbed it, hurt his
+      skin, made tender by the rain. He swore long and whiningly, half aloud.
+      His rifle felt as heavy as an iron girder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They entered a village of plaster-and-timber houses. Through open doors
+      they could see into comfortable kitchens where copper pots gleamed and
+      where the floors were of clean red tiles. In front of some of the houses
+      were little gardens full of crocuses and hyacinths where box-bushes shone
+      a very dark green in the rain. They marched through the square with its
+      pavement of little yellow rounded cobbles, its grey church with a pointed
+      arch in the door, its cafes with names painted over them. Men and women
+      looked out of doors and windows. The column perceptibly slackened its
+      speed, but kept on, and as the houses dwindled and became farther apart
+      along the road the men's hope of stopping vanished. Ears were deafened by
+      the confused tramp of feet on the macadam road. Men's feet seemed as lead,
+      as if all the weight of the pack hung on them. Shoulders, worn callous,
+      began to grow tender and sore under the constant sweating. Heads drooped.
+      Each man's eyes were on the heels of the man ahead of him that rose and
+      fell, rose and fell endlessly. Marching became for each man a personal
+      struggle with his pack, that seemed to have come alive, that seemed
+      something malicious and overpowering, wrestling to throw him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rain stopped and the sky brightened a little, taking on pale yellowish
+      lights as if the clouds that hid the sun were growing thin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The column halted at the edge of a group of farms and barns that scattered
+      along the road. The men sprawled in all directions along the roadside
+      hiding the bright green grass with the mud-color of their uniforms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield lay in the field beside the road, pressing his hot face into
+      the wet sprouting clover. The blood throbbed through his ears. His arms
+      and legs seemed to cleave to the ground, as if he would never be able to
+      move them again. He closed his eyes. Gradually a cold chill began stealing
+      through his body. He sat up and slipped his arms out of the harness of his
+      pack. Someone was handing him a cigarette, and he sniffed a little acrid
+      sweet smoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews was lying beside him, his head propped against his pack, smoking,
+      and poking a cigarette towards his friend with a muddy hand. His blue eyes
+      looked strangely from out the flaming red of his mud-splotched face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield took the cigarette, and fumbled in his pocket for a match.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That nearly did it for me,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield grunted. He pulled greedily on the cigarette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A whistle blew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Slowly the men dragged themselves off the ground and fell into line,
+      drooping under the weight of their equipment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The companies marched off separately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield overheard the lieutenant saying to a sergeant:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn fool business that. Why the hell couldn't they have sent us here in
+      the first place?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So we ain't goin' to the front after all?&rdquo; said the sergeant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Front, hell!&rdquo; said the lieutenant. The lieutenant was a small man who
+      looked like a jockey with a coarse red face which, now that he was angry,
+      was almost purple.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess they're going to quarter us here,&rdquo; said somebody.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Immediately everybody began saying: &ldquo;We're going to be quartered here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They stood waiting in formation a long while, the packs cutting into their
+      backs and shoulders. At last the sergeant shouted out:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, take yer stuff upstairs.&rdquo; Stumbling on each others' heels they
+      climbed up into a dark loft, where the air was heavy with the smell of hay
+      and with an acridity of cow manure from the stables below. There was a
+      little straw in the corners, on which those who got there first spread
+      their blankets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield and Andrews tucked themselves in a corner from which through a
+      hole where the tiles had fallen off the roof, they could see down into the
+      barnyard, where white and speckled chickens pecked about with jerky
+      movements. A middle-aged woman stood in the doorway of the house looking
+      suspiciously at the files of khaki-clad soldiers that shuffled slowly into
+      the barns by every door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An officer went up to her, a little red book in his hand. A conversation
+      about some matter proceeded painfully. The officer grew very red. Andrews
+      threw back his head and laughed, luxuriously rolling from side to side in
+      the straw. Chrisfield laughed too, he hardly knew why. Over their heads
+      they could hear the feet of pigeons on the roof, and a constant drowsy
+      rou-cou-cou-cou.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through the barnyard smells began to drift... the greasiness of food
+      cooking in the field kitchen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah hope they give us somethin' good to eat,&rdquo; said Chrisfield. &ldquo;Ah'm
+      hongry as a thrasher.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So am I,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Andy, you kin talk their language a li'l', can't ye?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews nodded his head vaguely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, maybe we kin git some aigs or somethin' out of the lady down there.
+      Will ye try after mess?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They both lay back in the straw and closed their eyes. Their cheeks still
+      burned from the rain. Everything seemed very peaceful; the men sprawled
+      about talking in low drowsy voices. Outside, another shower had come up
+      and beat softly on the tiles of the roof. Chrisfield thought he had never
+      been so comfortable in his life, although his soaked shoes pinched his
+      cold feet and his knees were wet and cold. But in the drowsiness of the
+      rain and of voices talking quietly about him, he fell asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He dreamed he was home in Indiana, but instead of his mother cooking at
+      the stove in the kitchen, there was the Frenchwoman who had stood in the
+      farmhouse door, and near her stood a lieutenant with a little red book in
+      his hand. He was eating cornbread and syrup off a broken plate. It was
+      fine cornbread with a great deal of crust on it, crisp and hot, on which
+      the butter was cold and sweet to his tongue. Suddenly he stopped eating
+      and started swearing, shouting at the top of his lungs: &ldquo;You goddam...&rdquo; he
+      started, but he couldn't seem to think of anything more to say. &ldquo;You
+      goddam...&rdquo; he started again. The lieutenant looked towards him, wrinkling
+      his black eyebrows that met across his nose. He was Sergeant Anderson.
+      Chris drew his knife and ran at him, but it was Andy his bunkie he had run
+      his knife into. He threw his arms round Andy's body, crying hot tears....
+      He woke up. Mess kits were clinking all about the dark crowded loft. The
+      men had already started piling down the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The larks filled the wine-tinged air with a constant chiming of little
+      bells. Chrisfield and Andrews were strolling across a field of white
+      clover that covered the brow of a hill. Below in the valley they could see
+      a cluster of red roofs of farms and the white ribbon of the road where
+      long trains of motor trucks crawled like beetles. The sun had just set
+      behind the blue hills the other side of the shallow valley. The air was
+      full of the smell of clover and of hawthorn from the hedgerows. They took
+      deep breaths as they crossed the field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's great to get away from that crowd,&rdquo; Andrews was saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield walked on silently, dragging his feet through the matted
+      clover. A leaden dullness weighed like some sort of warm choking coverlet
+      on his limbs, so that it seemed an effort to walk, an effort to speak. Yet
+      under it his muscles were taut and trembling as he had known them to be
+      before when he was about to get into a fight or to make love to a girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why the hell don't they let us git into it?&rdquo; he said suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, anything'ld be better than this... wait, wait, wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They walked on, hearing the constant chirrup of the larks, the brush of
+      their feet through the clover, the faint jingle of some coins in
+      Chrisfield's pocket, and in the distance the irregular snoring of an
+      aeroplane motor. As they walked Andrews leaned over from time to time and
+      picked a couple of the white clover flowers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The aeroplane came suddenly nearer and swooped in a wide curve above the
+      field, drowning every sound in the roar of its exhaust. They made out the
+      figures of the pilot and the observer before the plane rose again and
+      vanished against the ragged purple clouds of the sky. The observer had
+      waved a hand at them as he passed. They stood still in the darkening
+      field, staring up at the sky, where a few larks still hung chirruping.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah'd lahk to be one o' them guys,&rdquo; said Chrisfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You would?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God damn it, Ah'd do anything to git out o' this hellish infantry. This
+      ain't no sort o' life for a man to be treated lahk he was a nigger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it's no sort of life for a man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If they'd let us git to the front an' do some fightin' an' be done with
+      it.... But all we do is drill and have grenade practice an' drill again
+      and then have bayonet practice an' drill again. 'Nough to drive a feller
+      crazy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the hell's the use of talking about it, Chris? We can't be any lower
+      than we are, can we?&rdquo; Andrews laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's that plane again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, just goin' down behind the piece o' woods.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's where their field is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah bet them guys has a good time. Ah put in an application back in
+      trainin' camp for Aviation. Ain't never heard nothing from it though. If
+      Ah had, Ah wouldn't be lower than dirt in this hawg-pen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's wonderful up here on the hill this evening,&rdquo; said Andrews, looking
+      dreamily at the pale orange band of light where the sun had set. &ldquo;Let's go
+      down and get a bottle of wine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now yo're talkin'. Ah wonder if that girl's down there tonight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Antoinette?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Um-hum.... Boy, Ah'd lahk to have her all by ma-self some night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Their steps grew brisker as they strode along a grass-grown road that led
+      through high hedgerows to a village under the brow of the hill. It was
+      almost dark under the shadow of the bushes on either side. Overhead the
+      purple clouds were washed over by a pale yellow light that gradually faded
+      to grey. Birds chirped and rustled among the young leaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews put his hand on Chrisfield's shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's walk slow,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;we don't want to get out of here too soon.&rdquo;
+       He grabbed carelessly at little cluster of hawthorn flowers as he passed
+      them, and seemed reluctant to untangle the thorny branches that caught in
+      his coat and on his loosely wound puttees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell, man,&rdquo; said Chrisfield, &ldquo;we won't have time to get a bellyful. It
+      must be gettin' late already.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They hastened their steps again and came in a moment to the first tightly
+      shuttered houses of the village.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the middle of the road was an M.P., who stood with his legs wide apart,
+      waving his &ldquo;billy&rdquo; languidly. He had a red face, his eyes were fixed on
+      the shuttered upper window of a house, through the chinks of which came a
+      few streaks of yellow light. His lips were puckered up as if to whistle,
+      but no sound came. He swayed back and forth indecisively. An officer came
+      suddenly out of the little green door of the house in front of the M.P.,
+      who brought his heels together with a jump and saluted, holding his hand a
+      long while to his cap. The officer flicked a hand up hastily to his hat,
+      snatching his cigar out of his mouth for an instant. As the officer's
+      steps grew fainter down the road, the M.P. gradually returned to his
+      former position.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield and Andrews had slipped by on the other side, and gone in at
+      the door of a small ramshackle house of which the windows were closed by
+      heavy wooden shutters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I bet there ain't many of them bastards at the front,&rdquo; said Chris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not many of either kind of bastards,&rdquo; said Andrews laughing, as he closed
+      the door behind them. They were in a room that had once been the parlor of
+      a farmhouse. The chandelier with its bits of crystal and the
+      orange-blossoms on a piece of dusty red velvet under a bell glass on the
+      mantelpiece denoted that. The furniture had been taken out, and four
+      square oak tables crowded in. At one of the tables sat three Americans and
+      at another a very young olive-skinned French soldier, who sat hunched over
+      his table looking moodily down into his glass of wine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A girl in a faded frock of some purplish material that showed the strong
+      curves of her shoulders and breasts slouched into the room, her hands in
+      the pocket of a dark blue apron against which her rounded forearms showed
+      golden brown. Her face had the same golden tan under a mass of dark blonde
+      hair. She smiled when she saw the two soldiers, drawing her thin lips away
+      from her ugly yellow teeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ca va bien, Antoinette?&rdquo; asked Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oui,&rdquo; she said, looking beyond their heads at the French soldier who sat
+      at the other side of the little room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A bottle of vin rouge, vite,&rdquo; said Chrisfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye needn't be so damn vite about it tonight, Chris,&rdquo; said one of the men
+      at the other table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't a-goin' to be no roll call. Corporal tole me his-self. Sarge's gone
+      out to git stewed, an' the Loot's away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; said another man, &ldquo;we kin stay out as late's we goddam please
+      tonight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's a new M.P. in town,&rdquo; said Chrisfield.... &ldquo;Ah saw him maself....
+      You did, too, didn't you, Andy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews nodded. He was looking at the Frenchman, who sat with his face in
+      shadow and his black lashes covering his eyes. A purplish flash had
+      suffused the olive skin at his cheekbones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, boy,&rdquo; said Chrisfield. &ldquo;That ole wine sure do go down fast.... Say,
+      Antoinette, got any cognac?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going to have some more wine,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go ahead, Andy; have all ye want. Ah want some-thin' to warm ma guts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Antoinette brought a bottle of cognac and two small glasses and sat down
+      in an empty chair with her red hands crossed on her apron. Her eyes moved
+      from Chrisfield to the Frenchman and back again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield turned a little round in his chair and looked at the Frenchman,
+      feeling in his eyes for a moment a glance of the man's yellowish-brown
+      eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews leaned back against the wall sipping his dark-colored wine, his
+      eyes contracted dreamily, fixed on the shadow of the chandelier, which the
+      cheap oil-lamp with its tin reflector cast on the peeling plaster of the
+      wall opposite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield punched him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wake up, Andy, are you asleep?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Andy smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have a li'l mo' cognac.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield poured out two more glasses unsteadily. His eyes were on
+      Antoinette again. The faded purple frock was hooked at the neck. The first
+      three hooks were undone revealing a V-shape of golden brown skin and a bit
+      of whitish underwear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Andy,&rdquo; he said, putting his arm round his friend's neck and talking
+      into his ear, &ldquo;talk up to her for me, will yer, Andy?... Ah won't let that
+      goddam frog get her, no, I won't, by Gawd. Talk up to her for me, Andy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll try,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But there's always the Queen of Sheba, Chris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Antoinette, j'ai un ami,&rdquo; started Andrews, making a gesture with a long
+      dirty hand towards Chris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Antoinette showed her bad teeth in a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Joli garcon,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Antoinette's face became impassive and beautiful again. Chrisfield leaned
+      back in his chair with an empty glass in his hand and watched his friend
+      admiringly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Antoinette, mon ami vous... vous admire,&rdquo; said Andrews in a courtly
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A woman put her head in the door. It was the same face and hair as
+      Antoinette's, ten years older, only the skin, instead of being golden
+      brown, was sallow and wrinkled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Viens,&rdquo; said the woman in a shrill voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Antoinette got up, brushed heavily against Chrisfield's leg as she passed
+      him and disappeared. The Frenchman walked across the room from his corner,
+      saluted gravely and went out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield jumped to his feet. The room was like a white box reeling about
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That frog's gone after her,&rdquo; he shouted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, he ain't, Chris,&rdquo; cried someone from the next table. &ldquo;Sit tight, ole
+      boy. We're bettin' on yer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sit down and have a drink, Chris,&rdquo; said Andy. &ldquo;I've got to have
+      somethin' more to drink. I haven't had a thing to drink all the evening.&rdquo;
+       He pulled him back into his chair. Chrisfield tried to get up again.
+      Andrews hung on him so that the chair upset. Then both sprawled on the red
+      tiles of the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The house is pinched!&rdquo; said a voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield saw Judkins standing over him, a grin on his large red face. He
+      got to his feet and sat sulkily in his chair again. Andrews was already
+      sitting opposite him, looking impassive as ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tables were full now. Someone was singing in a droning voice.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;O the oak and the ash and the weeping willow tree,
+     O green grows the grass in God's countree!&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ole Indiana,&rdquo; shouted Chris. &ldquo;That's the only God's country I know.&rdquo; He
+      suddenly felt that he could tell Andy all about his home and the wide
+      corn-fields shimmering and rustling under the July sun, and the creek with
+      red clay banks where he used to go in swimming. He seemed to see it all
+      before him, to smell the winey smell of the silo, to see the cattle, with
+      their chewing mouths always stained a little with green, waiting to get
+      through the gate to the water trough, and the yellow dust and roar of
+      wheat-thrashing, and the quiet evening breeze cooling his throat and neck
+      when he lay out on a shack of hay that he had been tossing all day long
+      under the tingling sun. But all he managed to say was:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indiana's God's country, ain't it, Andy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, he has so many,&rdquo; muttered Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah've seen a hailstone measured nine inches around out home, honest to
+      Gawd, Ah have.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Must be as good as a barrage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah'd like to see any goddam barrage do the damage one of our thunder an'
+      lightnin' storms'll do,&rdquo; shouted Chris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess all the barrage we're going to see's grenade practice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you worry, buddy,&rdquo; said somebody across the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll see enough of it. This war's going to last damn long....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah'd lak to get in some licks at those Huns tonight; honest to Gawd Ah
+      would, Andy,&rdquo; muttered Chris in a low voice. He felt his muscles contract
+      with a furious irritation. He looked through half-closed eyes at the men
+      in the room, seeing them in distorted white lights and reddish shadows. He
+      thought of himself throwing a grenade among a crowd of men. Then he saw
+      the face of Anderson, a ponderous white face with eyebrows that met across
+      his nose and a bluish, shaved chin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where does he stay at, Andy? I'm going to git him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews guessed what he meant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit down and have a drink, Chris,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;Remember you're going to
+      sleep with the Queen of Sheba tonight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not if I can't git them goddam....&rdquo; his voice trailed off into an
+      inaudible muttering of oaths.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;O the oak and the ash and the weeping willow tree,
+     O green grows the grass in God's countree!&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      somebody sang again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield saw a woman standing beside the table with her back to him,
+      collecting the bottles. Andy was paying her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Antoinette,&rdquo; he said. He got to his feet and put his arms round her
+      shoulders. With a quick movement of the elbows she pushed him back into
+      his chair. She turned round. He saw the sallow face and thin breasts of
+      the older sister. She looked in his eyes with surprise. He was grinning
+      drunkenly. As she left the room she made a sign to him with her head to
+      follow her. He got up and staggered out the door, pulling Andrews after
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the inner room was a big bed with curtains where the women slept, and
+      the fireplace where they did their cooking. It was dark except for the
+      corner where he and Andrews stood blinking in the glare of a candle on the
+      table. Beyond they could only see ruddy shadows and the huge curtained bed
+      with its red coverlet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Frenchman, somewhere in the dark of the room, said something several
+      times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Avions boches... ss-t!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were quiet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Above them they heard the snoring of aeroplane motors, rising and falling
+      like the buzzing of a fly against a window pane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They all looked at each other curiously. Antoinette was leaning against
+      the bed, her face expressionless. Her heavy hair had come undone and fell
+      in smoky gold waves about her shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The older woman was giggling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come on, let's see what's doing, Chris,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They went out into the dark village street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To hell with women, Chris, this is the war!&rdquo; cried Andrews in a loud
+      drunken voice as they reeled arm in arm up the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You bet it's the war.... Ah'm a-goin' to beat up....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield felt his friend's hand clapped over his mouth. He let himself
+      go limply, feeling himself pushed to the side of the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somewhere in the dark he heard an officer's voice say:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bring those men to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; came another voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Slow heavy footsteps came up the road in their direction. Andrews kept
+      pushing him back along the side of a house, until suddenly they both fell
+      sprawling in a manure pit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lie still for God's sake,&rdquo; muttered Andrews, throwing an arm over
+      Chrisfield's chest. A thick odor of dry manure filled their nostrils.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They heard the steps come nearer, wander about irresolutely and then go
+      off in the direction from which they had come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the throb of motors overhead grew louder and louder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; came the officer's voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Couldn't find them, sir,&rdquo; mumbled the other voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense. Those men were drunk,&rdquo; came the officer's voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; came the other voice humbly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield started to giggle. He felt he must yell aloud with laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The nearest motor stopped its singsong roar, making the night seem deathly
+      silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews jumped to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The air was split by a shriek followed by a racking snorting explosion.
+      They saw the wall above their pit light up with a red momentary glare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield got to his feet, expecting to see flaming ruins. The village
+      street was the same as ever. There was a little light from the glow the
+      moon, still under the horizon, gave to the sky. A window in the house
+      opposite showed yellow. In it was a blue silhouette of an officer's cap
+      and uniform.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A little group stood in the street below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was that?&rdquo; the form in the window was shouting in a peremptory
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;German aeroplane just dropped a bomb, Major,&rdquo; came a breathless voice in
+      reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why the devil don't he close that window?&rdquo; a voice was muttering all the
+      while. &ldquo;Juss a target for 'em to aim at... a target to aim at.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Any damage done?&rdquo; asked the major.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through the silence the snoring of the motors sing-songed ominously
+      overhead, like giant mosquitoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I seem to hear more,&rdquo; said the major, in his drawling voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O yes sir, yes sir, lots,&rdquo; answered an eager voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For God's sake tell him to close the window, Lieutenant,&rdquo; muttered
+      another voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How the hell can I tell him? You tell him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll all be killed, that's all there is about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are no shelters or dugouts,&rdquo; drawled the major from the window.
+      &ldquo;That's Headquarters' fault.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's the cellar!&rdquo; cried the eager voice, again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; said the major.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three snorting explosions in quick succession drowned everything in a red
+      glare. The street was suddenly filled with a scuttle of villagers running
+      to shelter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Andy, they may have a roll call,&rdquo; said Chrisfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'd better cut for home across country,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They climbed cautiously out of their manure pit. Chrisfield was surprised
+      to find that he was trembling. His hands were cold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was with difficulty he kept his teeth from chattering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God, we'll stink for a week.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's git out,&rdquo; muttered Chrisfield, &ldquo;o' this goddam village.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They ran out through an orchard, broke through a hedge and climbed up the
+      hill across the open fields.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Down the main road an anti-aircraft gun had started barking and the sky
+      sparkled with exploding shrapnel. The &ldquo;put, put, put&rdquo; of a machine gun had
+      begun somewhere. Chrisfield strode up the hill in step with his friend.
+      Behind them bomb followed bomb, and above them the air seemed full of
+      exploding shrapnel and droning planes. The cognac still throbbed a little
+      in their blood. They stumbled against each other now and then as they
+      walked. From the top of the hill they turned and looked back. Chrisfield
+      felt a tremendous elation thumping stronger than the cognac through his
+      veins. Unconsciously he put his arm round his friend's shoulders. They
+      seemed the only live things in a reeling world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Below in the valley a house was burning brightly. From all directions came
+      the yelp of anti-aircraft guns, and overhead unperturbed continued the
+      leisurely singsong of the motors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly Chrisfield burst out laughing. &ldquo;By God, Ah always have fun when
+      Ah'm out with you, Andy,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They turned and hurried down the other slope of the hill towards the farms
+      where they were quartered.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                             II
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      As far as he could see in every direction were the grey trunks of beeches
+      bright green with moss on one side. The ground was thick with last year's
+      leaves that rustled maddeningly with every step. In front of him his eyes
+      followed other patches of olive-drab moving among the tree trunks.
+      Overhead, through the mottled light and dark green of the leaves he could
+      see now and then a patch of heavy grey sky, greyer than the silvery trunks
+      that moved about him in every direction as he walked. He strained his eyes
+      down each alley until they were dazzled by the reiteration of mottled grey
+      and green. Now and then the rustling stopped ahead of him, and the
+      olive-drab patches were still. Then, above the clamour of the blood in his
+      ears, he could hear batteries &ldquo;pong, pong, pong&rdquo; in the distance, and the
+      woods ringing with a sound like hail as a heavy shell hurtled above the
+      tree tops to end in a dull rumble miles away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield was soaked with sweat, but he could not feel his arms or legs.
+      Every sense was concentrated in eyes and ears, and in the consciousness of
+      his gun. Time and again he pictured himself taking sight at something grey
+      that moved, and firing. His forefinger itched to press the trigger. He
+      would take aim very carefully, he told himself; he pictured a dab of grey
+      starting up from behind a grey tree trunk, and the sharp detonation of his
+      rifle, and the dab of grey rolling among the last year's leaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A branch carried his helmet off his head so that it rolled at his feet and
+      bounced with a faint metallic sound against the root of a tree.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was blinded by the sudden terror that seized him. His heart seemed to
+      roll from side to side in his chest. He stood stiff, as if paralyzed for a
+      moment before he could stoop and pick the helmet up. There was a curious
+      taste of blood in his mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah'll pay 'em fer that,&rdquo; he muttered between clenched teeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His fingers were still trembling when he stooped to pick up the helmet,
+      which he put on again very carefully, fastening it with the strap under
+      his chin. Furious anger had taken hold of him. The olive-drab patches
+      ahead had moved forward again. He followed, looking eagerly to the right
+      and the left, praying he might see something. In every direction were the
+      silvery trunk of the beeches, each with a vivid green streak on one side.
+      With every step the last year's russet leaves rustled underfoot,
+      maddeningly loud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Almost out of sight among the moving tree trunks was a log. It was not a
+      log; it was a bunch of grey-green cloth. Without thinking Chrisfield
+      strode towards it. The silver trunks of the beeches circled about him,
+      waving jagged arms. It was a German lying full length among the leaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield was furiously happy in the angry pumping of blood through his
+      veins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could see the buttons on the back of the long coat of the German, and
+      the red band on his cap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He kicked the German. He could feel the ribs against his toes through the
+      leather of his boot. He kicked again and again with all his might. The
+      German rolled over heavily. He had no face. Chrisfield felt the hatred
+      suddenly ebb out of him. Where the face had been was a spongy mass of
+      purple and yellow and red, half of which stuck to the russet leaves when
+      the body rolled over. Large flies with bright shiny green bodies circled
+      about it. In a brown clay-grimed hand was a revolver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield felt his spine go cold; the German had shot himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He ran off suddenly, breathlessly, to join the rest of the reconnoitering
+      squad. The silent beeches whirled about him, waving gnarled boughs above
+      his head. The German had shot himself. That was why he had no face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield fell into line behind the other men. The corporal waited for
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See anything?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a goddam thing,&rdquo; muttered Chrisfield almost inaudibly. The corporal
+      went off to the head of the line. Chrisfield was alone again. The leaves
+      rustled maddeningly loud underfoot.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                            III
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield's eyes were fixed on the leaves at the tops of the walnut
+      trees, etched like metal against the bright colorless sky, edged with
+      flicks and fringes of gold where the sunlight struck them. He stood stiff
+      and motionless at attention, although there was a sharp pain in his left
+      ankle that seemed swollen enough to burst the worn boot. He could feel the
+      presence of men on both sides of him, and of men again beyond them. It
+      seemed as if the stiff line of men in olive-drab, standing at attention,
+      waiting endlessly for someone to release them from their erect paralysis,
+      must stretch unbroken round the world. He let his glance fall to the
+      trampled grass of the field where the regiment was drawn up. Somewhere
+      behind him he could hear the clinking of spurs at some officer's heels.
+      Then there was the sound of a motor on the road suddenly shut off, and
+      there were steps coming down the line of men, and a group of officers
+      passed hurriedly, with a businesslike stride, as if they did nothing else
+      all their lives. Chrisfield made out eagles on tight khaki shoulders, then
+      a single star and a double star, above which was a red ear and some grey
+      hair; the general passed too soon for him to make out his face. Chrisfield
+      swore to himself a little because his ankle hurt so. His eyes travelled
+      back to the fringe of the trees against the bright sky. So this was what
+      he got for those weeks in dugouts, for all the times he had thrown himself
+      on his belly in the mud, for the bullets he had shot into the unknown at
+      grey specks that moved among the grey mud. Something was crawling up the
+      middle of his back. He wasn't sure if it were a louse or if he were
+      imagining it. An order had been shouted. Automatically he had changed his
+      position to parade rest. Somewhere far away a little man was walking
+      towards the long drab lines. A wind had come up, rustling the stiff leaves
+      of the grove of walnut trees. The voice squeaked above it, but Chrisfield
+      could not make out what it said. The wind in the trees made a vast
+      rhythmic sound like the churning of water astern of the transport he had
+      come over on. Gold flicks and olive shadows danced among the indented
+      clusters of leaves as they swayed, as if sweeping something away, against
+      the bright sky. An idea came into Chrisfield's head. Suppose the leaves
+      should sweep in broader and broader curves until they should reach the
+      ground and sweep and sweep until all this was swept away, all these pains
+      and lice and uniforms and officers with maple leaves or eagles or single
+      stars or double stars or triple stars on their shoulders. He had a sudden
+      picture of himself in his old comfortable overalls, with his shirt open so
+      that the wind caressed his neck like a girl blowing down it playfully,
+      lying on a shuck of hay under the hot Indiana sun. Funny he'd thought all
+      that, he said to himself. Before he'd known Andy he'd never have thought
+      of that. What had come over him these days?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The regiment was marching away in columns of fours. Chrisfield's ankle
+      gave him sharp hot pain with every step. His tunic was too tight and the
+      sweat tingled on his back. All about him were sweating irritated faces;
+      the woollen tunics with their high collars were like straight-jackets that
+      hot afternoon. Chrisfield marched with his fists clenched; he wanted to
+      fight somebody, to run his bayonet into a man as he ran it into the dummy
+      in that everlasting bayonet drill, he wanted to strip himself naked, to
+      squeeze the wrists of a girl until she screamed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His company was marching past another company that was lined up to be
+      dismissed in front of a ruined barn which had a roof that sagged in the
+      middle like an old cow's back. The sergeant stood in front of them with
+      his arms crossed, looking critically at the company that marched past. He
+      had a white heavy face and black eyebrows that met over his nose.
+      Chrisfield stared hard at him as he passed, but Sergeant Anderson did not
+      seem to recognize him. It gave him a dull angry feeling as if he'd been
+      cut by a friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The company melted suddenly into a group of men unbuttoning their shirts
+      and tunics in front of the little board shanty where they were quartered,
+      which had been put up by the French at the time of the Marne, years
+      before, so a man had told Andy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you dreamin' about, Indiana?&rdquo; said Judkins, punching Chrisfield
+      jovially in the ribs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield doubled his fists and gave him a smashing blow in the jaw that
+      Judkins warded of just in time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Judkins's face flamed red. He swung with a long bent arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the hell d'you think this is?&rdquo; shouted somebody. &ldquo;What's he want to
+      hit me for?&rdquo; spluttered Judkins, breathless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Men had edged in between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lemme git at him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shut up, you fool,&rdquo; said Andy, drawing Chrisfield away. The company
+      scattered sullenly. Some of the men lay down in the long uncut grass in
+      the shade of the ruins of the house, one of the walls of which made a wall
+      of the shanty where they lived. Andrews and Chrisfield strolled in silence
+      down the road, kicking their feet into the deep dust. Chrisfield was
+      limping. On both sides of the road were fields of ripe wheat, golden under
+      the sun. In the distance were low green hills fading to blue, pale yellow
+      in patches with the ripe grain. Here and there a thick clump of trees or a
+      screen of poplars broke the flatness of the long smooth hills. In the
+      hedgerows were blue cornflowers and poppies in all colors from carmine to
+      orange that danced in the wind on their wiry stalks. At the turn in the
+      road they lost the noise of the division and could hear the bees droning
+      in the big dull purple cloverheads and in the gold hearts of the daisies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're a wild man, Chris. What the hell came over you to try an' smash
+      poor old Judkie's jaw? He could lick you anyway. He's twice as heavy as
+      you are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield walked on in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God, I should think you'ld have had enough of that sort of thing.... I
+      should think you'ld be sick of wanting to hurt people. You don't like pain
+      yourself, do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews spoke in spurts, bitterly, his eyes on the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah think Ah sprained ma goddam ankle when Ah tumbled off the back o' the
+      truck yesterday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better go on sick call.... Say, Chris, I'm sick of this business....
+      Almost like you'd rather shoot yourself than keep on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah guess you're gettin' the dolefuls, Andy. Look... let's go in swimmin'.
+      There's a lake down the road.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've got my soap in my pocket. We can wash a few cooties off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't walk so goddam fast...Andy, you got more learnin' than I have. You
+      ought to be able to tell what it is makes a feller go crazy like that....
+      Ah guess Ah got a bit o' the devil in me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews was brushing the soft silk of a poppy petal against his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder if it'ld have any effect if I ate some of these,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They say you go to sleep if you lie down in a poppy-field. Wouldn't you
+      like to do that, Chris, an' not wake up till the war was over and you
+      could be a human being again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews bit into the green seed capsule he held in his hand. A milky juice
+      came out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's bitter...I guess it's the opium,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A stuff that makes you go to sleep and have wonderful dreams. In
+      China....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dreams,&rdquo; interrupted Chrisfield. &ldquo;Ah had one of them last night. Dreamed
+      Ah saw a feller that had shot hisself that I saw one time reconnoitrin'
+      out in the Bringy Wood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nawthin', juss a Fritzie had shot hisself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better than opium,&rdquo; said Andrews, his voice trembling with sudden
+      excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah dreamed the flies buzzin' round him was aeroplanes.... Remember the
+      last rest village?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the major who wouldn't close the window? You bet I do!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They lay down on the grassy bank that sloped from the road to the pond.
+      The road was hidden from them by the tall reeds through which the wind
+      lisped softly. Overhead huge white cumulus clouds, piled tier on tier like
+      fantastic galleons in full sail, floated, changing slowly in a greenish
+      sky. The reflection of clouds in the silvery glisten of the pond's surface
+      was broken by clumps of grasses and bits of floating weeds. They lay on
+      their backs for some time before they started taking their clothes off,
+      looking up at the sky, that seemed vast and free, like the ocean, vaster
+      and freer than the ocean.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sarge says a delousin' machine's comin' through this way soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We need it, Chris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews pulled his clothes off slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's great to feel the sun and the wind on your body, isn't it, Chris?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews walked towards the pond and lay flat on his belly on the fine soft
+      grass near the edge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's great to have your body there, isn't it?&rdquo; he said in a dreamy voice.
+      &ldquo;Your skin's so soft and supple, and nothing in the world has the feel a
+      muscle has.... Gee, I don't know what I'd do without my body.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look how ma ole ankle's raised.... Found any cooties yet?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll try and drown 'em,&rdquo; said Andrews. &ldquo;Chris, come away from those
+      stinking uniforms and you'll feel like a human being with the sun on your
+      flesh instead of like a lousy soldier.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, boys,&rdquo; came a high-pitched voice unexpectedly. A &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man with
+      sharp nose and chin had come up behind them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello,&rdquo; said Chrisfield sullenly, limping towards the water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Want the soap?&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Going to take a swim, boys?&rdquo; asked the &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man. Then he added in a tone
+      of conviction, &ldquo;That's great.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better come in, too,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks, thanks.... Say, if you don't mind my suggestion, why don't you
+      fellers get under the water.... You see there's two French girls looking
+      at you from the road.&rdquo; The &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man giggled faintly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They don't mind,&rdquo; said Andrews soaping, himself vigorously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah reckon they lahk it,&rdquo; said Chrisfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know they haven't any morals.... But still.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why should they not look at us? Maybe there won't be many people who
+      get a chance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you ever seen what a little splinter of a shell does to a feller's
+      body?&rdquo; asked Andrews savagely. He splashed into the shallow water and swam
+      towards the middle of the pond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye might ask 'em to come down and help us pick the cooties off,&rdquo; said
+      Chrisfield and followed in Andrews's wake. In the middle he lay on a sand
+      bank in the warm shallow water and looked back at the &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man, who still
+      stood on the bank. Behind him were other men undressing, and soon the
+      grassy slope was filled with naked men and yellowish grey underclothes,
+      and many dark heads and gleaming backs were bobbing up and down in the
+      water. When he came out, he found Andrews sitting cross-legged near his
+      clothes. He reached for his shirt and drew it on him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God, I can't make up my mind to put the damn thing on again,&rdquo; said
+      Andrews in a low voice, almost as if he were talking to himself; &ldquo;I feel
+      so clean and free. It's like voluntarily taking up filth and slavery
+      again.... I think I'll just walk off naked across the fields.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D'you call serving your country slavery, my friend?&rdquo; The &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man, who had
+      been roaming among the bathers, his neat uniform and well-polished boots
+      and puttees contrasting strangely with the mud-clotted, sweat-soaked
+      clothing of the men about him, sat down on the grass beside Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're goddam right I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll get into trouble, my boy, if you talk that way,&rdquo; said the &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man
+      in a cautious voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what is your definition of slavery?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must remember that you are a voluntary worker in the cause of
+      democracy.... You're doing this so that your children will be able to live
+      peaceful....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ever shot a man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.... No, of course not, but I'd have enlisted, really I would. Only my
+      eyes are weak.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess so,&rdquo; said Andrews under his breath. &ldquo;Remember that your women
+      folks, your sisters and sweethearts and mothers, are praying for you at
+      this instant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish somebody'd pray me into a clean shirt,&rdquo; said Andrews, starting to
+      get into his clothes. &ldquo;How long have you been over here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just three months.&rdquo; The man's sallow face, with its pinched nose and chin
+      lit up. &ldquo;But, boys, those three months have been worth all the other years
+      of my min&mdash;&rdquo; he caught himself&mdash;&ldquo;life.... I've heard the great
+      heart of America beat. O boys, never forget that you are in a great
+      Christian undertaking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come on, Chris, let's beat it.&rdquo; They left the &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man wandering among the
+      men along the bank of the pond, to which the reflection of the greenish
+      silvery sky and the great piled white clouds gave all the free immensity
+      of space. From the road they could still hear his high pitched voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that's what'll survive you and me,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Andy, you sure can talk to them guys,&rdquo; said Chris admiringly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the use of talking? God, there's a bit of honeysuckle still in
+      bloom. Doesn't that smell like home to you, Chris?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, how much do they pay those 'Y' men, Andy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damned if I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were just in time to fall into line for mess. In the line everyone
+      was talking and laughing, enlivened by the smell of food and the tinkle of
+      mess-kits. Near the field kitchen Chrisfield saw Sergeant Anderson talking
+      with Higgins, his own sergeant. They were laughing together, and he heard
+      Anderson's big voice saying jovially, &ldquo;We've pulled through this time,
+      Higgins.... I guess we will again.&rdquo; The two sergeants looked at each other
+      and cast a paternal, condescending glance over their men and laughed
+      aloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield felt powerless as an ox under the yoke. All he could do was
+      work and strain and stand at attention, while that white-faced Anderson
+      could lounge about as if he owned the earth and laugh importantly like
+      that. He held out his plate. The K.P. splashed the meat and gravy into it.
+      He leaned against the tar-papered wall of the shack, eating his food and
+      looking sullenly over at the two sergeants, who laughed and talked with an
+      air of leisure while the men of their two companies ate hurriedly as dogs
+      all round them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield glanced suddenly at Anderson, who sat in the grass at the back
+      of the house, looking out over the wheat fields, while the smoke of a
+      cigarette rose in spirals about his face and his fair hair. He looked
+      peaceful, almost happy. Chrisfield clenched his fists and felt the hatred
+      of that other man rising stingingly within him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Guess Ah got a bit of the devil in me,&rdquo; he thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The windows were so near the grass that the faint light had a greenish
+      color in the shack where the company was quartered. It gave men's faces,
+      tanned as they were, the sickly look of people who work in offices, when
+      they lay on their blankets in the bunks made of chicken wire, stretched
+      across mouldy scantlings. Swallows had made their nests in the peak of the
+      roof, and their droppings made white dobs and blotches on the floorboards
+      in the alley between the bunks, where a few patches of yellow grass had
+      not yet been completely crushed away by footsteps. Now that the shack was
+      empty, Chrisfield could hear plainly the peep-peep of the little swallows
+      in their mud nests. He sat quiet on the end of one of the bunks, looking
+      out of the open door at the blue shadows that were beginning to lengthen
+      on the grass of the meadow behind. His hands, that had got to be the color
+      of terra cotta, hung idly between his legs. He was whistling faintly. His
+      eyes, in their long black eyelashes, were fixed on the distance, though he
+      was not thinking. He felt a comfortable unexpressed well-being all over
+      him. It was pleasant to be alone in the barracks like this, when the other
+      men were out at grenade practice. There was no chance of anyone shouting
+      orders at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A warm drowsiness came over him. From the field kitchen alongside came the
+      voice of a man singing:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;O my girl's a lulu, every inch a lulu,
+      Is Lulu, that pretty lil' girl o' mi-ine.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      In their mud nests the young swallows twittered faintly overhead. Now and
+      then there was a beat of wings and a big swallow skimmed into the shack.
+      Chrisfield's cheeks began to feel very softly flushed. His head drooped
+      over on his chest. Outside the cook was singing over and over again in a
+      low voice, amid a faint clatter of pans:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;O my girl's a lulu, every inch a lulu,
+     Is Lulu, that pretty lil' girl o' mi-ine.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield fell asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He woke up with a start. The shack was almost dark. A tall man stood out
+      black against the bright oblong of the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you doing here?&rdquo; said a deep snarling voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield's eyes blinked. Automatically he got to his feet; it might be
+      an officer. His eyes focussed suddenly. It was Anderson's face that was
+      between him and the light. In the greenish obscurity the skin looked
+      chalk-white in contrast to the heavy eyebrows that met over the nose and
+      the dark stubble on the chin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How is it you ain't out with the company?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah'm barracks guard,&rdquo; muttered Chrisfield. He could feel the blood
+      beating in his wrists and temples, stinging his eyes like fire. He was
+      staring at the floor in front of Anderson's feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Orders was all the companies was to go out an' not leave any guard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll see about that when Sergeant Higgins comes in. Is this place tidy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You say Ah'm a goddamed liar, do ye?&rdquo; Chrisfield felt suddenly cool and
+      joyous. He felt anger taking possession of him. He seemed to be standing
+      somewhere away from himself watching himself get angry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This place has got to be cleaned up.... That damn General may come back
+      to look over quarters,&rdquo; went on Anderson coolly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You call me a goddam liar,&rdquo; said Chrisfield again, putting as much
+      insolence as he could summon into his voice. &ldquo;Ah guess you doan' remember
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I know, you're the guy tried to run a knife into me once,&rdquo; said
+      Anderson coolly, squaring his shoulders. &ldquo;I guess you've learned a little
+      discipline by this time. Anyhow you've got to clean this place up. God,
+      they haven't even brushed the birds' nests down! Must be some company!&rdquo;
+       said Anderson with a half laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah ain't agoin' to neither, fur you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here, you do it or it'll be the worse for you,&rdquo; shouted the sergeant
+      in his deep rasping voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If ever Ah gits out o' the army Ah'm goin' to shoot you. You've picked on
+      me enough.&rdquo; Chrisfield spoke slowly, as coolly as Anderson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, we'll see what a court-martial has to say to that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah doan give a hoot in hell what ye do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sergeant Anderson turned on his heel and went out, twisting the corner
+      button of his tunic in his big fingers. Already the sound of tramping feet
+      was heard and the shouted order, &ldquo;Dis-missed.&rdquo; Then men crowded into the
+      shack, laughing and talking. Chrisfield sat still on the end of the bunk,
+      looking at the bright oblong of the door. Outside he saw Anderson talking
+      to Sergeant Higgins. They shook hands, and Anderson disappeared.
+      Chrisfield heard Sergeant Higgins call after him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess the next time I see you I'll have to put my heels together an'
+      salute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andersen's booming laugh faded as he walked away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sergeant Higgins came into the shack and walked straight up to Chrisfield,
+      saying in a hard official voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're under arrest.... Small, guard this man; get your gun and cartridge
+      belt. I'll relieve you so you can get mess.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He went out. Everyone's eyes were turned curiously on Chrisfield. Small, a
+      red-faced man with a long nose that hung down over his upper lip, shuffled
+      sheepishly over to his place beside Chrisfield's cot and let the butt of
+      his rifle come down with a bang on the floor. Somebody laughed. Andrews
+      walked up to them, a look of trouble in his blue eyes and in the lines of
+      his lean tanned cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the matter, Chris?&rdquo; he asked in a low voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tol' that bastard Ah didn't give a hoot in hell what he did,&rdquo; said
+      Chrisfield in a broken voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Andy, I don't think I ought ter let anybody talk to him,&rdquo; said Small
+      in an apologetic tone. &ldquo;I don't see why Sarge always gives me all his
+      dirty work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews walked off without replying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind, Chris; they won't do nothin' to ye,&rdquo; said Jenkins, grinning
+      at him good-naturedly from the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah doan give a hoot in hell what they do,&rdquo; said Chrisfield again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He lay back in his bunk and looked at the ceiling. The barracks was full
+      of a bustle of cleaning up. Judkins was sweeping the floor with a broom
+      made of dry sticks. Another man was knocking down the swallows' nests with
+      a bayonet. The mud nests crumbled and fell on the floor and the bunks,
+      filling the air with a flutter of feathers and a smell of birdlime. The
+      little naked bodies, with their orange bills too big for them, gave a soft
+      plump when they hit the boards of the floor, where they lay giving faint
+      gasping squeaks. Meanwhile, with shrill little cries, the big swallows
+      flew back and forth in the shanty, now and then striking the low roof.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, pick 'em up, can't yer?&rdquo; said Small. Judkins was sweeping the little
+      gasping bodies out among the dust and dirt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A stoutish man stooped and picked the little birds up one by one,
+      puckering his lips into an expression of tenderness. He made his two hands
+      into a nest-shaped hollow, out of which stretched the long necks and the
+      gaping orange mouths. Andrews ran into him at the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, Dad,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;What the hell?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I just picked these up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So they couldn't let the poor little devils stay there? God! it looks to
+      me as if they went out of their way to give pain to everything, bird,
+      beast or man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;War ain't no picnic,&rdquo; said Judkins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, God damn it, isn't that a reason for not going out of your way to
+      raise more hell with people's feelings than you have to?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A face with peaked chin and nose on which was stretched a
+      parchment-colored skin appeared in the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, boys,&rdquo; said the &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man. &ldquo;I just thought I'd tell you I'm going to
+      open the canteen tomorrow, in the last shack on the Beaucourt road.
+      There'll be chocolate, ciggies, soap, and everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Everybody cheered. The &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man beamed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His eye lit on the little birds in Dad's hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How could you?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;An American soldier being deliberately cruel. I
+      would never have believed it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye've got somethin' to learn,&rdquo; muttered Dad, waddling out into the
+      twilight on his bandy legs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield had been watching the scene at the door with unseeing eyes. A
+      terrified nervousness that he tried to beat off had come over him. It was
+      useless to repeat to himself again and again that he didn't give a damn;
+      the prospect of being brought up alone before all those officers, of being
+      cross-questioned by those curt voices, frightened him. He would rather
+      have been lashed. Whatever was he to say, he kept asking himself; he would
+      get mixed up or say things he didn't mean to, or else he wouldn't be able
+      to get a word out at all. If only Andy could go up with him, Andy was
+      educated, like the officers were; he had more learning than the whole
+      shooting-match put together. He'd be able to defend himself, and defend
+      his friends, too, if only they'd let him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I felt just like those little birds that time they got the bead on our
+      trench at Boticourt,&rdquo; said Jenkins, laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield listened to the talk about him as if from another world.
+      Already he was cut off from his outfit. He'd disappear and they'd never
+      know or care what became of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mess-call blew and the men filed out. He could hear their talk
+      outside, and the sound of their mess-kits as they opened them. He lay on
+      his bunk staring up into the dark. A faint blue light still came from
+      outside, giving a curious purple color to Small's red face and long
+      drooping nose at the end of which hung a glistening drop of moisture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield found Andrews washing a shirt in the brook that flowed through
+      the ruins of the village the other side of the road from the buildings
+      where the division was quartered. The blue sky flicked with pinkish-white
+      clouds gave a shimmer of blue and lavender and white to the bright water.
+      At the bottom could be seen battered helmets and bits of equipment and tin
+      cans that had once held meat. Andrews turned his head; he had a smudge of
+      mud down his nose and soapsuds on his chin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, Chris,&rdquo; he said, looking him in the eyes with his sparkling blue
+      eyes, &ldquo;how's things?&rdquo; There was a faint anxious frown on his forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two-thirds of one month's pay an' confined to quarters,&rdquo; said Chrisfield
+      cheerfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee, they were easy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Um-hum, said Ah was a good shot an' all that, so they'd let me off this
+      time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews started scrubbing at his shirt again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've got this shirt so full of mud I don't think I ever will get it
+      clean,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Move ye ole hide away, Andy. Ah'll wash it. You ain't no good for
+      nothin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell no, I'll do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Move ye hide out of there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks awfully.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews got to his feet and wiped the mud off his nose with his bare
+      forearm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah'm goin' to shoot that bastard,&rdquo; said Chrisfield, scrubbing at the
+      shirt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be an ass, Chris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah swear to God Ah am.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the use of getting all wrought up. The thing's over. You'll
+      probably never see him again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah ain't all het up.... Ah'm goin' to do it though.&rdquo; He wrung the shirt
+      out carefully and flipped Andrews in the face with it. &ldquo;There ye are,&rdquo; he
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're a good fellow, Chris, even if you are an ass.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me we're going into the line in a day or two.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's been a devil of a lot of artillery going up the road; French,
+      British, every old kind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me they's raisin' hell in the Oregon forest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They walked slowly across the road. A motorcycle despatch-rider whizzed
+      past them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's them guys has the fun,&rdquo; said Chrisfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't believe anybody has much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What about the officers?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They're too busy feeling important to have a real hell of a time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The hard cold rain beat like a lash in his; face. There was no light
+      anywhere and no sound but the hiss of the rain in the grass. His eyes
+      strained to see through the dark until red and yellow blotches danced
+      before them. He walked very slowly and carefully, holding something very
+      gently in his hand under his raincoat. He felt himself full of a strange
+      subdued fury; he seemed to be walking behind himself spying on his own
+      actions, and what he saw made him feel joyously happy, made him want to
+      sing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned so that the rain beat against his cheek. Under his helmet he
+      felt his hair full of sweat that ran with the rain down his glowing face.
+      His fingers clutched very carefully the smooth stick he had in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stopped and shut his eyes for a moment; through the hiss of the rain he
+      had heard a sound of men talking in one of the shanties. When he shut his
+      eyes he saw the white face of Anderson before him, with its unshaven chin
+      and the eyebrows that met across the nose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly he felt the wall of a house in front of him. He put out his hand.
+      His hand jerked back from the rough wet feel of the tar paper, as if it
+      had touched something dead. He groped along the wall, stepping very
+      cautiously. He felt as he had felt reconnoitering in the Bringy Wood.
+      Phrases came to his mind as they had then. Without thinking what they
+      meant, the words Make the world safe for Democracy formed themselves in
+      his head. They were very comforting. They occupied his thoughts. He said
+      them to himself again and again. Meanwhile his free hand was fumbling very
+      carefully with the fastening that held the wooden shutter over a window.
+      The shutter opened a very little, creaking loudly, louder than the patter
+      of rain on the roof of the shack. A stream of water from the roof was
+      pouring into his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly a beam of light transformed everything, cutting the darkness in
+      two. The rain glittered like a bead curtain. Chrisfield was looking into a
+      little room where a lamp was burning. At a table covered with printed
+      blanks of different size sat a corporal; behind him was a bunk and a pile
+      of equipment. The corporal was reading a magazine. Chrisfield looked at
+      him a long time; his fingers were tight about the smooth stick. There was
+      no one else in the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A sort of panic seized Chrisfield; he strode away noisily from the window
+      and pushed open the door of the shack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's Sergeant Anderson?&rdquo; he asked in a breathless voice of the first
+      man he saw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Corp's there if it's anything important,&rdquo; said the man. &ldquo;Anderson's gone
+      to an O. T. C. Left day before yesterday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield was out in the rain again. It was beating straight in his face,
+      so that his eyes were full of water. He was trembling. He had suddenly
+      become terrified. The smooth stick he held seemed to burn him. He was
+      straining his ears for an explosion. Walking straight before him down the
+      road, he went faster and faster as if trying to escape from it. He
+      stumbled on a pile of stones. Automatically he pulled the string out of
+      the grenade and threw it far from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a minute's pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Red flame spurted in the middle of the wheatfield. He felt the sharp crash
+      in his eardrums.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked fast through the rain. Behind him, at the door of the shack, he
+      could hear excited voices. He walked recklessly on, the rain blinding him.
+      When he finally stepped into the light he was so dazzled he could not see
+      who was in the wine shop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'll be damned, Chris,&rdquo; said Andrews's voice. Chrisfield blinked
+      the rain out of his lashes. Andrews sat writing with a pile of papers
+      before him and a bottle of champagne. It seemed to Chrisfield to soothe
+      his nerves to hear Andy's voice. He wished he would go on talking a long
+      time without a pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you aren't the crowning idiot of the ages,&rdquo; Andrews went on in a low
+      voice. He took Chrisfield by the arm and led him into the little back
+      room, where was a high bed with a brown coverlet and a big kitchen table
+      on which were the remnants of a meal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the matter? Your arm's trembling like the devil. But why.... O
+      pardon, Crimpette. C'est un ami.... You know Crimpette, don't you?&rdquo; He
+      pointed to a youngish woman who had just appeared from behind the bed. She
+      had a flabby rosy face and violet circles under her eyes, dark as if
+      they'd been made by blows, and untidy hair. A dirty grey muslin dress with
+      half the hooks off held in badly her large breasts and flabby figure.
+      Chrisfield looked at her greedily, feeling his furious irritation flame
+      into one desire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the matter with you, Chris? You're crazy to break out of quarters
+      this way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Andy, git out o' here. Ah ain't your sort anyway.... Git out o'
+      here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're a wild man. I'll grant you that.... But I'd just as soon be your
+      sort as anyone else's.... Have a drink.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews sat down with his bottle and his papers, pushing away the broken
+      plates full of stale food to make a place on the greasy table. He took a
+      gulp out of the bottle, that made him cough, then put the end of his
+      pencil in his mouth and stared gravely at the paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I'm your sort, Chris,&rdquo; he said over his shoulder, &ldquo;only they've tamed
+      me. O God, how tame I am.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield did not listen to what he was saying. He stood in front of the
+      woman, staring in her face. She looked at him in a stupid frightened way.
+      He felt in his pockets for some money. As he had just been paid he had a
+      fifty-franc note. He spread it out carefully before her. Her eyes
+      glistened. The pupils seemed to grow smaller as they fastened on the bit
+      of daintily colored paper. He crumpled it up suddenly in his fist and
+      shoved it down between her breasts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some time later Chrisfield sat down in front of Andrews. He still had his
+      wet slicker on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah guess you think Ah'm a swine,&rdquo; he said in his normal voice. &ldquo;Ah guess
+      you're about right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I don't,&rdquo; said Andrews. Something made him put his hand on
+      Chrisfield's hand that lay on the table. It had a feeling of cool health.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, why were you trembling so when you came in here? You seem all right
+      now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Ah dunno,'&rdquo; said Chrisfield in a soft resonant voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were silent for a long while. They could hear the woman's footsteps
+      going and coming behind them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's go home,&rdquo; said Chrisfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right.... Bonsoir, Crimpette.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Outside the rain had stopped. A stormy wind had torn the clouds to rags.
+      Here and there clusters of stars showed through. They splashed merrily
+      through the puddles. But here and there reflected a patch of stars when
+      the wind was not ruffling them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Christ, Ah wish Ah was like you, Andy,&rdquo; said Chrisfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't want to be like me, Chris. I'm no sort of a person at all. I'm
+      tame. O you don't know how damn tame I am.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Learnin' sure do help a feller to git along in the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but what's the use of getting along if you haven't any world to get
+      along in? Chris, I belong to a crowd that just fakes learning. I guess the
+      best thing that can happen to us is to get killed in this butchery. We're
+      a tame generation.... It's you that it matters to kill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah ain't no good for anythin'.... Ah doan give a damn.... Lawsee, Ah feel
+      sleepy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As they slipped in the door of their quarters, the sergeant looked at
+      Chrisfield searchingly. Andrews spoke up at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's some rumors going on at the latrine, Sarge. The fellows from the
+      Thirty-second say we're going to march into hell's halfacre about
+      Thursday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A lot they know about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's the latest edition of the latrine news.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The hell it is! Well, d'you want to know something, Andrews.... It'll be
+      before Thursday, or I'm a Dutchman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sergeant Higgins put on a great air of mystery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield went to his bunk, undressed quietly and climbed into his
+      blankets. He stretched his arms languidly a couple of times, and while
+      Andrews was still talking to the sergeant, fell asleep.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                              IV
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The moon lay among clouds on the horizon, like a big red pumpkin among its
+      leaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield squinted at it through the boughs of the apple trees laden with
+      apples that gave a winey fragrance to the crisp air. He was sitting on the
+      ground, his legs stretched limply before him, leaning against the rough
+      trunk of an apple tree. Opposite him, leaning against another tree, was
+      the square form, surmounted by a large long-jawed face, of Judkins.
+      Between them lay two empty cognac bottles. All about them was the rustling
+      orchard, with its crooked twigs that made a crackling sound rubbing
+      together in the gusts of the autumn wind, that came heavy with a smell of
+      damp woods and of rotting fruits and of all the ferment of the overripe
+      fields. Chrisfield felt it stirring the moist hair on his forehead and
+      through the buzzing haze of the cognac heard the plunk, plunk, plunk of
+      apples dropping that followed each gust, and the twanging of night
+      insects, and, far in the distance, the endless rumble of guns, like
+      tomtoms beaten for a dance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye heard what the Colonel said, didn't ye?&rdquo; said Judkins in a voice
+      hoarse from too much drink.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield belched and nodded his head vaguely. He remembered Andrews's
+      white fury after the men had been dismissed, how he had sat down on the
+      end of a log by the field kitchen, staring at the patch of earth he beat
+      into mud with the toe of his boot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then,&rdquo; went on Judkins, trying to imitate the Colonel's solemn efficient
+      voice, &ldquo;'On the subject of prisoners'&rdquo;&mdash;he hiccoughed and made a limp
+      gesture with his hand&mdash;&ldquo;'On the subject of prisoners, well, I'll
+      leave that to you, but juss remember... juss remember what the Huns did to
+      Belgium, an' I might add that we have barely enough emergency rations as
+      it is, and the more prisoners you have the less you fellers'll git to
+      eat.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's what he said, Judkie; that's what he said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'An the more prisoners ye have, the less youse'll git to eat,'&rdquo; chanted
+      Judkins, making a triumphal flourish with his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield groped for the cognac bottle; it was empty; he waved it in the
+      air a minute and then threw it into the tree opposite him. A shower of
+      little apples fell about Judkins's head. He got unsteadily to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you, fellers,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;war ain't no picnic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield stood up and grabbed at an apple. His teeth crunched into it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sweet,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sweet, nauthin',&rdquo; mumbled Judkins, &ldquo;war ain't no picnic.... I tell you,
+      buddy, if you take any prisoners&rdquo;&mdash;he hiccoughed&mdash;&ldquo;after what
+      the Colonel said, I'll lick the spots out of you, by God I will.... Rip up
+      their guts that's all, like they was dummies. Rip up their guts.&rdquo; His
+      voice suddenly changed to one of childish dismay. &ldquo;Gee, Chris, I'm going
+      to be sick,&rdquo; he whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look out,&rdquo; said Chrisfield, pushing him away. Judkins leaned against a
+      tree and vomited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The full moon had risen above the clouds and filled the apple orchard with
+      chilly golden light that cast a fantastic shadow pattern of interlaced
+      twigs and branches upon the bare ground littered with apples. The sound of
+      the guns had grown nearer. There were loud eager rumbles as of bowls being
+      rolled very hard on a bowling alley, combined with a continuous roar like
+      sheets of iron being shaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah bet it's hell out there,&rdquo; said Chrisfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I feel better,&rdquo; said Judkins. &ldquo;Let's go get some more cognac.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah'm hungry,&rdquo; said Chrisfield. &ldquo;Let's go an' get that ole woman to cook
+      us some aigs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Too damn late,&rdquo; growled Judkins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How the hell late is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dunno, I sold my watch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were walking at random through the orchard. They came to a field full
+      of big pumpkins that gleamed in the moonlight and cast shadows black as
+      holes. In the distance they could see wooded hills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield picked up a medium-sized pumpkin and threw it as hard as he
+      could into the air. It split into three when it landed with a thud on the
+      ground, and the moist yellow seeds spilled out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some strong man, you are,&rdquo; said Judkins, tossing up a bigger one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, there's a farmhouse, maybe we could get some aigs from the
+      hen-roost.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell of a lot of hens....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment the crowing of a rooster came across the silent fields.
+      They ran towards the dark farm buildings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look out, there may be officers quartered there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They walked cautiously round the square, silent group of buildings. There
+      were no lights. The big wooden door of the court pushed open easily,
+      without creaking. On the roof of the barn the pigeon-cot was etched dark
+      against the disc of the moon. A warm smell of stables blew in their faces
+      as the two men tiptoed into the manure-littered farmyard. Under one of the
+      sheds they found a table on which a great many pears were set to ripen.
+      Chrisfield put his teeth into one. The rich sweet juice ran down his chin.
+      He ate the pear quickly and greedily, and then bit into another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fill yer pockets with 'em,&rdquo; whispered Judkins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They might ketch us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ketch us, hell. We'll be goin' into the offensive in a day or two.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah sure would like to git some aigs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield pushed open the door of one of the barns. A smell of creamy
+      milk and cheeses filled his nostrils.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come here,&rdquo; he whispered. &ldquo;Want some cheese?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A lot of cheeses ranged on a board shone silver in the moonlight that came
+      in through the open door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell, no, ain't fit te eat,&rdquo; said Judkins, pushing his heavy fist into
+      one of the new soft cheeses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doan do that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, ain't we saved 'em from the Huns?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, hell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;War ain't no picnic, that's all,&rdquo; said Judkins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the next door they found chickens roosting in a small room with straw
+      on the floor. The chickens ruffled their feathers and made a muffled
+      squeaking as they slept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly there was a loud squawking and all the chickens were cackling
+      with terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beat it,&rdquo; muttered Judkins, running for the gate of the farmyard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were shrill cries of women in the house. A voice shrieking, &ldquo;C'est
+      les Boches, C'est les Boches,&rdquo; rose above the cackling of chickens and the
+      clamor of guinea-hens. As they ran, they heard the rasping cries of a
+      woman in hysterics, rending the rustling autumn night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God damn,&rdquo; said Judkins breathless, &ldquo;they ain't got no right, those frogs
+      ain't, to carry on like that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They ducked into the orchard again. Above the squawking of the chicken
+      Judkins still held, swinging it by its legs, Chrisfield could hear the
+      woman's voice shrieking. Judkins dexterously wrung the chicken's neck.
+      Crushing the apples underfoot they strode fast through the orchard. The
+      voice faded into the distance until it could not be heard above the sound
+      of the guns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee, Ah'm kind o' cut up 'bout that lady,&rdquo; said Chrisfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, ain't we saved her from the Huns?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Andy don't think so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, if you want to know what I think about that guy Andy I don't think
+      much of him. I think he's yaller, that's all,&rdquo; said Judkins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, he ain't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I heard the lootenant say so. He's a goddam yeller dawg.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield swore sullenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you juss wait 'n see. I tell you, buddy, war ain't no picnic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the hell are we goin' to do with that chicken?&rdquo; said Judkins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You remember what happened to Eddie White?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell, we'd better leave it here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Judkins swung the chicken by its neck round his head and threw it as hard
+      as he could into the bushes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were walking along the road between chestnut trees that led to their
+      village. It was dark except for irregular patches of bright moonlight in
+      the centre that lay white as milk among the indentated shadows of the
+      leaves. All about them rose a cool scent of woods, of ripe fruits and of
+      decaying leaves, of the ferment of the autumn countryside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lieutenant sat at a table in the sun, in the village street outside
+      the company office. In front of him sparkled piles of money and daintily
+      tinted banknotes. Beside him stood Sergeant Higgins with an air of
+      solemnity and the second sergeant and the corporal. The men stood in line
+      and as each came before the table he saluted with deference, received his
+      money and walked away with a self-conscious air. A few villagers looked on
+      from the small windows with grey frames of their rambling whitewashed
+      houses. In the ruddy sunshine the line of men cast an irregular
+      blue-violet shadow, like a gigantic centipede, on the yellow gravel road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the table by the window of the cafe of &ldquo;Nos Braves Poilus&rdquo; where
+      Small and Judkins and Chrisfield had established themselves with their pay
+      crisp in their pockets, they could see the little front garden of the
+      house across the road, where, behind a hedge of orange marigolds, Andrews
+      sat on the doorstep talking to an old woman hunched on a low chair in the
+      sun just inside the door, who leant her small white head over towards his
+      yellow one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There ye are,&rdquo; said Judkins in a solemn tone. &ldquo;He don't even go after his
+      pay. That guy thinks he's the whole show, he does.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield flushed, but said nothing. &ldquo;He don't do nothing all day long
+      but talk to that ole lady,&rdquo; said Small with a grin. &ldquo;Guess she reminds him
+      of his mother, or somethin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He always does go round with the frogs all he can. Looks to me like he'd
+      rather have a drink with a frog than with an American.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Reckon he wants to learn their language,&rdquo; said Small. &ldquo;He won't never
+      come to much in this army, that's what I'm telling yer,&rdquo; said Judkins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little houses across the way had flushed red with the sunset. Andrews
+      got to his feet slowly and languidly and held out his hand to the old
+      woman. She stood up, a small tottering figure in a black silk shawl. He
+      leaned over towards her and she kissed both his cheeks vigorously several
+      times. He walked down the road towards the billets, with his fatigue cap
+      in his hand, looking at the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's got a flower behind his ear, like a cigarette,&rdquo; said Judkins, with a
+      disgusted snort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I guess we'd better go,&rdquo; said Small. &ldquo;We got to be in quarters at
+      six.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were silent a moment. In the distance the guns kept up a continual
+      tomtom sound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Guess we'll be in that soon,&rdquo; said Small.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield felt a chill go down his spine. He moistened his lips with his
+      tongue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Guess it's hell out there,&rdquo; said Judkins. &ldquo;War ain't no picnic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah doan give a hoot in hell,&rdquo; said Chrisfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men were lined up in the village street with their packs on, waiting
+      for the order to move. Thin wreaths of white mist still lingered in the
+      trees and over the little garden plots. The sun had not yet risen, but
+      ranks of clouds in the pale blue sky overhead were brilliant with crimson
+      and gold. The men stood in an irregular line, bent over a little by the
+      weight of their equipment, moving back and forth, stamping their feet and
+      beating their arms together, their noses and ears red from the chill of
+      the morning. The haze of their breath rose above their heads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Down the misty road a drab-colored limousine appeared, running slowly. It
+      stopped in front of the line of men. The lieutenant came hurriedly out of
+      the house opposite, drawing on a pair of gloves. The men standing in line
+      looked curiously at the limousine. They could see that two of the tires
+      were flat and that the glass was broken. There were scratches on the drab
+      paint and in the door three long jagged holes that obliterated the number.
+      A little murmur went down the line of men. The door opened with
+      difficulty, and a major in a light buff-colored coat stumbled out. One
+      arm, wrapped in bloody bandages, was held in a sling made of a
+      handkerchief. His face was white and drawn into a stiff mask with pain.
+      The lieutenant saluted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For God's sake where's a repair station?&rdquo; he asked in a loud shaky voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's none in this village, Major.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where the hell is there one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; said the lieutenant in a humble tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why the hell don't you know? This organization's rotten, no good....
+      Major Stanley's just been killed. What the hell's the name of this
+      village?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thiocourt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where the hell's that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The chauffeur had leaned out. He had no cap and his hair was full of dust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, Lootenant, we wants to get to Chalons&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, that's it. Chalons sur...Chalons-sur-Marne,&rdquo; said the Major.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The billeting officer has a map,&rdquo; said the lieutenant, &ldquo;last house to the
+      left.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O let's go there quick,&rdquo; said the major. He fumbled with the fastening of
+      the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lieutenant opened it for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he opened the door, the men nearest had a glimpse of the interior of
+      the car. On the far side was a long object huddled in blankets, propped up
+      on the seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before he got in the major leaned over and pulled a woollen rug out,
+      holding it away from him with his one good arm. The car moved off slowly,
+      and all down the village street the men, lined up waiting for orders,
+      stared curiously at the three jagged holes in the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lieutenant looked at the rug that lay in the middle of the road. He
+      touched it with his foot. It was soaked with blood that in places had
+      dried into clots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lieutenant and the men of his company looked at it in silence. The sun
+      had risen and shone on the roofs of the little whitewashed houses behind
+      them. Far down the road a regiment had begun to move.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                               V
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      At the brow of the hill they rested. Chrisfield sat on the red clay bank
+      and looked about him, his rifle between his knees. In front of him on the
+      side of the road was a French burying ground, where the little wooden
+      crosses, tilting in every direction, stood up against the sky, and the
+      bead wreaths glistened in the warm sunlight. All down the road as far as
+      he could see was a long drab worm, broken in places by strings of motor
+      trucks, a drab worm that wriggled down the slope, through the roofless
+      shell of the village and up into the shattered woods on the crest of the
+      next hills. Chrisfield strained his eyes to see the hills beyond. They lay
+      blue and very peaceful in the moon mist. The river glittered about the
+      piers of the wrecked stone bridge, and disappeared between rows of yellow
+      poplars. Somewhere in the valley a big gun fired. The shell shrieked into
+      the distance, towards the blue, peaceful hills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield's regiment was moving again. The men, their feet slipping in
+      the clayey mud, went downhill with long strides, the straps of their packs
+      tugging at their shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn't this great country?&rdquo; said Andrews, who marched beside him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah'd liever be at an O. T. C. like that bastard Anderson.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, to hell with that,&rdquo; said Andrews. He still had a big faded orange
+      marigold in one of the buttonholes of his soiled tunic. He walked with his
+      nose in the air and his nostrils dilated, enjoying the tang of the
+      autumnal sunlight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield took the cigarette, that had gone out half-smoked, from his
+      mouth and spat savagely at the heels of the man in front of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This ain't no life for a white man,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd rather be this than... than that,&rdquo; said Andrews bitterly. He tossed
+      his head in the direction of a staff car full of officers that was stalled
+      at the side of the road. They were drinking something out of a thermos
+      bottle that they passed round with the air of Sunday excursionists. They
+      waved, with a conscious relaxation of discipline, at the men as they
+      passed. One, a little lieutenant with a black mustache with pointed ends,
+      kept crying: &ldquo;They're running like rabbits, fellers; they're running like
+      rabbits.&rdquo; A wavering half-cheer would come from the column now and then
+      where it was passing the staff car.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The big gun fired again. Chrisfield was near it this time and felt the
+      concussion like a blow in the head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some baby,&rdquo; said the man behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Someone was singing:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Good morning, mister Zip Zip Zip,
+      With your hair cut just as short as,
+      With your hair cut just as short as,
+      With your hair cut just as short as mi-ine.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Everybody took it up. Their steps rang in rhythm in the paved street that
+      zigzagged among the smashed houses of the village. Ambulances passed them,
+      big trucks full of huddled men with grey faces, from which came a smell of
+      sweat and blood and carbolic. Somebody went on:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;O ashes to ashes
+      An' dust to dust...&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can that,&rdquo; cried Judkins, &ldquo;it ain't lucky.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But everybody had taken up the song. Chrisfield noticed that Andrews's
+      eyes were sparkling. &ldquo;If he ain't the damnedest,&rdquo; he thought to himself.
+      But he shouted at the top of his lungs with the rest:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;O ashes to ashes
+      An' dust to dust;
+      If the gasbombs don't get yer
+                  The eighty-eights must.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      They were climbing the hill again. The road was worn into deep ruts and
+      there were many shell holes, full of muddy water, into which their feet
+      slipped. The woods began, a shattered skeleton of woods, full of old
+      artillery emplacements and dugouts, where torn camouflage fluttered from
+      splintered trees. The ground and the road were littered with tin cans and
+      brass shell-cases. Along both sides of the road the trees were festooned,
+      as with creepers, with strand upon strand of telephone wire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When next they stopped Chrisfield was on the crest of the hill beside a
+      battery of French seventy-fives. He looked curiously at the Frenchmen, who
+      sat about on logs in their pink and blue shirtsleeves playing cards and
+      smoking. Their gestures irritated him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, tell 'em we're advancin',&rdquo; he said to Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are we?&rdquo; said Andrews. &ldquo;All right.... Dites-donc, les Boches courent-ils
+      comme des lapins?&rdquo; he shouted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the men turned his head and laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He says they've been running that way for four years,&rdquo; said Andrews. He
+      slipped his pack off, sat down on it, and fished for a cigarette.
+      Chrisfield took off his helmet and rubbed a muddy hand through his hair.
+      He took a bite of chewing tobacco and sat with his hands clasped over his
+      knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How the hell long are we going to wait this time?&rdquo; he muttered. The
+      shadows of the tangled and splintered trees crept slowly across the road.
+      The French artillerymen were eating their supper. A long train of motor
+      trucks growled past, splashing mud over the men crowded along the sides of
+      the road. The sun set, and a lot of batteries down in the valley began
+      firing, making it impossible to talk. The air was full of a shrieking and
+      droning of shells overhead. The Frenchmen stretched and yawned and went
+      down into their dugout. Chrisfield watched them enviously. The stars were
+      beginning to come out in the green sky behind the tall lacerated trees.
+      Chrisfield's legs ached with cold. He began to get crazily anxious for
+      something to happen, for something to happen, but the column waited,
+      without moving, through the gathering darkness. Chrisfield chewed
+      steadily, trying to think of nothing but the taste of the tobacco in his
+      mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The column was moving again; as they reached the brow of another hill
+      Chrisfield felt a curious sweetish smell that made his nostrils smart.
+      &ldquo;Gas,&rdquo; he thought, full of panic, and put his hand to the mask that hung
+      round his neck. But he did not want to be the first to put it on. No order
+      came. He marched on, cursing the sergeant and the lieutenant. But maybe
+      they'd been killed by it. He had a vision of the whole regiment sinking
+      down in the road suddenly, overcome by the gas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Smell anythin', Andy?&rdquo; he whispered cautiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can smell a combination of dead horses and tube roses and banana oil
+      and the ice cream we used to have at college and dead rats in the garret,
+      but what the hell do we care now?&rdquo; said Andrews, giggling. &ldquo;This is the
+      damnedest fool business ever....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's crazy,&rdquo; muttered Chrisfield to himself. He looked at the stars in
+      the black sky that seemed to be going along with the column on its march.
+      Or was it that they and the stars were standing still while the trees
+      moved away from them, waving their skinny shattered arms? He could hardly
+      hear the tramp of feet on the road, so loud was the pandemonium of the
+      guns ahead and behind. Every now and then a rocket would burst in front of
+      them and its red and green lights would mingle for a moment with the
+      stars. But it was only overhead he could see the stars. Everywhere else
+      white and red glows rose and fell as if the horizon were on fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they started down the slope, the trees suddenly broke away and they saw
+      the valley between them full of the glare of guns and the white light of
+      star shells. It was like looking into a stove full of glowing embers. The
+      hillside that sloped away from them was full of crashing detonations and
+      yellow tongues of flame. In a battery near the road, that seemed to crush
+      their skulls each time a gun fired, they could see the dark forms of the
+      artillerymen silhouetted in fantastic attitudes against the intermittent
+      red glare. Stunned and blinded, they kept on marching down the road. It
+      seemed to Chrisfield that they were going to step any minute into the
+      flaring muzzle of a gun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the foot of the hill, beside a little grove of uninjured trees, they
+      stopped again. A new train of trucks was crawling past them, huge blots in
+      the darkness. There were no batteries near, so they could hear the
+      grinding roar of the gears as the trucks went along the uneven road,
+      plunging in and out of shellholes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield lay down in the dry ditch, full of bracken, and dozed with his
+      head on his pack. All about him were stretched other men. Someone was
+      resting his head on Chrisfield's thigh. The noise had subsided a little.
+      Through his doze he could hear men's voices talking in low crushed tones,
+      as if they were afraid of speaking aloud. On the road the truck-drivers
+      kept calling out to each other shrilly, raspingly. The motors stopped
+      running one after another, making almost a silence, during which
+      Chrisfield fell asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Something woke him. He was stiff with cold and terrified. For a moment he
+      thought he had been left alone, that the company had gone on, for there
+      was no one touching him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Overhead was a droning as of gigantic mosquitoes, growing fast to a loud
+      throbbing. He heard the lieutenant's voice calling shrilly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sergeant Higgins, Sergeant Higgins!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The lieutenant stood out suddenly black against a sheet of flame.
+      Chrisfield could see his fatigue cap a little on one side and his trench
+      coat, drawn in tight at the waist and sticking out stiffly at the knees.
+      He was shaken by the explosion. Everything was black again. Chrisfield got
+      to his feet, his ears ringing. The column was moving on. He heard moaning
+      near him in the darkness. The tramp of feet and jingle of equipment
+      drowned all other sound. He could feel his shoulders becoming raw under
+      the tugging of the pack. Now and then the flare from aeroplane bombs
+      behind him showed up wrecked trucks on the side of the road. Somewhere a
+      machine gun spluttered. But the column tramped on, weighed down by the
+      packs, by the deadening exhaustion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The turbulent flaring darkness was calming to the grey of dawn when
+      Chrisfield stopped marching. His eyelids stung as if his eyeballs were
+      flaming hot. He could not feel his feet and legs. The guns continued
+      incessantly like a hammer beating on his head. He was walking very slowly
+      in a single file, now and then stumbling against the man ahead of him.
+      There was earth on both sides of him, clay walls that dripped moisture.
+      All at once he stumbled down some steps into a dugout, where it was
+      pitch-black. An unfamiliar smell struck him, made him uneasy; but his
+      thoughts seemed to reach him from out of a great distance. He groped to
+      the wall. His knees struck against a bunk with blankets in it. In another
+      second he was sunk fathoms deep in sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he woke up his mind was very clear. The roof of the dugout was of
+      logs. A bright spot far away was the door. He hoped desperately that he
+      wasn't on duty. He wondered where Andy was; then he remembered that Andy
+      was crazy,&mdash;&ldquo;a yeller dawg,&rdquo; Judkins had called him. Sitting up with
+      difficulty he undid his shoes and puttees, wrapped himself in his blanket.
+      All round him were snores and the deep breathing of exhausted sleep. He
+      closed his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was being court-martialled. He stood with his hands at his sides before
+      three officers at a table. All three had the same white faces with heavy
+      blue jaws and eyebrows that met above the nose. They were reading things
+      out of papers aloud, but, although he strained his ears, he couldn't make
+      out what they were saying. All he could hear was a faint moaning.
+      Something had a curious unfamiliar smell that troubled him. He could not
+      stand still at attention, although the angry eyes of officers stared at
+      him from all round. &ldquo;Anderson, Sergeant Anderson, what's that smell?&rdquo; he
+      kept asking in a small whining voice. &ldquo;Please tell a feller what that
+      smell is.&rdquo; But the three officers at the table kept reading from their
+      papers, and the moaning grew louder and louder in his ears until he
+      shrieked aloud. There was a grenade in his hand. He pulled the string out
+      and threw it, and he saw the lieutenant's trench coat stand out against a
+      sheet of flame. Someone sprang at him. He was wrestling for his life with
+      Anderson, who turned into a woman with huge flabby breasts. He crushed her
+      to him and turned to defend himself against three officers who came at
+      him, their trench coats drawn in tightly at the waist until they looked
+      like wasps. Everything faded, he woke up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His nostrils were still full of the strange troubling smell. He sat on the
+      edge of the bunk, wriggling in his clothes, for his body crawled with
+      lice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee, it's funny to be in where the Fritzies were not long ago,&rdquo; he heard
+      a voice say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kiddo! we're advancin',&rdquo; came another voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, hell, this ain't no kind of an advance. I ain't seen a German yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah kin smell 'em though,&rdquo; said Chrisfield, getting suddenly to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sergeant Higgins' head appeared in the door. &ldquo;Fall in,&rdquo; he shouted. Then
+      he added in his normal voice, &ldquo;It's up and at 'em, fellers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield caught his puttee on a clump of briars at the edge of the
+      clearing and stood kicking his leg back and forth to get it free. At last
+      he broke away, the torn puttee dragging behind him. Out in the sunlight in
+      the middle of the clearing he saw a man in olive-drab kneeling beside
+      something on the ground. A German lay face down with a red hole in his
+      back. The man was going through his pockets. He looked up into
+      Chrisfield's face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Souvenirs,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What outfit are you in, buddy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;143rd,&rdquo; said the man, getting to his feet slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where the hell are we?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damned if I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The clearing was empty, except for the two Americans and the German with
+      the hole in his back. In the distance they heard a sound of artillery and
+      nearer the &ldquo;put, put, put&rdquo; of isolated machine guns. The leaves of the
+      trees about them, all shades of brown and crimson and yellow, danced in
+      the sunlight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, that damn money ain't no good, is it?&rdquo; asked Chrisfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;German money? Hell, no.... I got a watch that's a peach though.&rdquo; The man
+      held out a gold watch, looking suspiciously at Chrisfield all the while
+      through half-closed eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah saw a feller had a gold-handled sword,&rdquo; said Chrisfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Back there in the wood&rdquo;; he waved his hand vaguely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah've got to find ma outfit; comin' along?&rdquo; Chrisfield started towards
+      the other edge of the clearing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Looks to me all right here,&rdquo; said the other man, lying down on the grass
+      in the sun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The leaves rustled underfoot as Chrisfield strode through the wood. He was
+      frightened by being alone. He walked ahead as fast as he could, his puttee
+      still dragging behind him. He came to a barbed-wire entanglement half
+      embedded in fallen beech leaves. It had been partly cut in one place, but
+      in crossing he tore his thigh on a barb. Taking off the torn puttee, he
+      wrapped it round the outside of his trousers and kept on walking, feeling
+      a little blood trickle down his leg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Later he came to a lane that cut straight through the wood where there
+      were many ruts through the putty-coloured mud puddles; Down the lane in a
+      patch of sunlight he saw a figure, towards which he hurried. It was a
+      young man with red hair and a pink-and-white face. By a gold bar on the
+      collar of his shirt Chrisfield saw that he was a lieutenant. He had no
+      coat or hat and there was greenish slime all over the front of his clothes
+      as if he had lain on his belly in a mud puddle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where you going?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dunno, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, come along.&rdquo; The lieutenant started walking as fast as he
+      could up the lane, swinging his arms wildly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seen any machine-gun nests?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hum.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He followed the lieutenant, who walked so fast he had difficulty keeping
+      up, splashing recklessly through the puddles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's the artillery? That's what I want to know,&rdquo; cried the lieutenant,
+      suddenly stopping in his tracks and running a hand through his red hair.
+      &ldquo;Where the hell's the artillery?&rdquo; He looked at Chrisfield savagely out of
+      green eyes. &ldquo;No use advancing without artillery.&rdquo; He started walking
+      faster than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All at once they saw sunlight ahead of them and olive-drab uniforms.
+      Machine guns started firing all around them in a sudden gust. Chrisfield
+      found himself running forward across a field full of stubble and sprouting
+      clover among a group of men he did not know. The whip-like sound of rifles
+      had chimed in with the stuttering of the machine guns. Little white clouds
+      sailed above him in a blue sky, and in front of him was a group of houses
+      that had the same color, white with lavender-grey shadows, as the clouds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was in a house, with a grenade like a tin pineapple in each hand. The
+      sudden loneliness frightened him again. Outside the house was a sound of
+      machine-gun firing, broken by the occasional bursting; of a shell. He
+      looked at the red-tiled roof and at a chromo of a woman nursing a child
+      that hung on the whitewashed wall opposite him. He was in a small kitchen.
+      There was a fire in the hearth where something boiled in a black pot.
+      Chrisfield tiptoed over and looked in. At the bottom of the bubbling water
+      he saw five potatoes. At the other end of the kitchen, beyond two broken
+      chairs, was a door. Chrisfield crept over to it, the tiles seeming to sway
+      under foot. He put his finger to the latch and took it off again suddenly.
+      Holding in his breath he stood a long time looking at the door. Then he
+      pulled it open recklessly. A young man with fair hair was sitting at a
+      table, his head resting on his hands. Chrisfield felt a spurt of joy when
+      he saw that the man's uniform was green. Very coolly he pressed the
+      spring, held the grenade a second and then threw it, throwing himself
+      backwards into the middle of the kitchen. The light-haired man had not
+      moved; his blue eyes still stared straight before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the street Chrisfield ran into a tall man who was running. The man
+      clutched him by the arm and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The barrage is moving up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What barrage?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our barrage; we've got to run, we're ahead of it.&rdquo; His voice came in
+      wheezy pants. There were red splotches on his face. They ran together down
+      the empty village street. As they ran they passed the little red-haired
+      lieutenant, who leaned against a whitewashed wall, his legs a mass of
+      blood and torn cloth. He was shouting in a shrill delirious voice that
+      followed them out along the open road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's the artillery? That's what I want to know; where's the
+      artillery?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The woods were grey and dripping with dawn. Chrisfield got stiffly to his
+      feet from the pile of leaves where he had slept. He felt numb with cold
+      and hunger, lonely and lost away from his outfit. All about him were men
+      of another division. A captain with a sandy mustache was striding up and
+      down with a blanket about him, on the road just behind a clump of beech
+      trees. Chrisfield had watched him passing back and forth, back and forth,
+      behind the wet clustered trunks of the trees, ever since it had been
+      light. Stamping his feet among the damp leaves, Chrisfield strolled away
+      from the group of men. No one seemed to notice him. The trees closed about
+      him. He could see nothing but moist trees, grey-green and black, and the
+      yellow leaves of saplings that cut off the view in every direction. He was
+      wondering dully why he was walking off that way. Somewhere in the back of
+      his mind there was a vague idea of finding his outfit. Sergeant Higgins
+      and Andy and Judkins and Small&mdash;he wondered what had become of them.
+      He thought of the company lined up for mess, and the smell of greasy food
+      that came from the field-kitchen. He was desperately hungry. He stopped
+      and leaned against the moss-covered trunk of a tree. The deep scratch in
+      his leg was throbbing as if all the blood in his body beat through it. Now
+      that his rustling footsteps had ceased, the woods were absolutely silent,
+      except for the dripping of dew from the leaves and branches. He strained
+      his ears to hear some other sound. Then he noticed that he was staring at
+      a tree full of small red crab apples. He picked a handful greedily, but
+      they were hard and sour and seemed to make him hungrier. The sour flavour
+      in his mouth made him furiously angry. He kicked at the thin trunk of the
+      tree while tears smarted in his eyes. Swearing aloud in a whining singsong
+      voice, he strode off through the woods with his eyes on the ground. Twigs
+      snapped viciously in his face, crooked branches caught at him, but he
+      plunged on. All at once he stumbled against something hard that bounced
+      among the leaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stopped still, looking about him, terrified. Two grenades lay just
+      under his foot, a little further on a man was propped against a tree with
+      his mouth open. Chrisfield thought at first he was asleep, as his eyes
+      were closed. He looked at the grenades carefully. The fuses had not been
+      sprung. He put one in each pocket, gave a glance at the man who seemed to
+      be asleep, and strode off again, striking another alley in the woods, at
+      the end of which he could see sunlight. The sky overhead was full of heavy
+      purple clouds, tinged here and there with yellow. As he walked towards the
+      patch of sunlight, the thought came to him that he ought to have looked in
+      the pockets of the man he had just passed to see if he had any hard bread.
+      He stood still a moment in hesitation, but started walking again doggedly
+      towards the patch of sunlight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Something glittered in the irregular fringe of sun and shadow. A man was
+      sitting hunched up on the ground with his fatigue cap pulled over his eyes
+      so that the little gold bar just caught the horizontal sunlight.
+      Chrisfield's first thought was that he might have food on him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Lootenant,&rdquo; he shouted, &ldquo;d'you know where a fellow can get somethin'
+      to eat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man lifted his head slowly. Chrisfield turned cold all over when he
+      saw the white heavy face of Anderson; an unshaven beard was very black on
+      his square chin; there was a long scratch clotted with dried blood from
+      the heavy eyebrow across the left cheek to the corner of the mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me some water, buddy,&rdquo; said Anderson in a weak voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield handed him his canteen roughly in silence. He noticed that
+      Anderson's arm was in a sling, and that he drank greedily, spilling the
+      water over his chin and his wounded arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's Colonel Evans?&rdquo; asked Anderson in a thin petulant voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield did not reply but stared at him sullenly. The canteen had
+      dropped from his hand and lay on the ground in front of him. The water
+      gleamed in the sunlight as it ran out among the russet leaves. A wind had
+      come up, making the woods resound. A shower of yellow leaves dropped about
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;First you was a corporal, then you was a sergeant, and now you're a
+      lootenant,&rdquo; said Chrisfield slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'ld better tell me where Colonel Evans is.... You must know.... He's
+      up that road somewhere,&rdquo; said Anderson, struggling to get to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield walked away without answering. A cold hand was round the
+      grenade in his pocket. He walked away slowly, looking at his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly he found he had pressed the spring of the grenade. He struggled
+      to pull it out of his pocket. It stuck in the narrow pocket. His arm and
+      his cold fingers that clutched the grenade seemed paralyzed. Then a warm
+      joy went through him. He had thrown it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anderson was standing up, swaying backwards and forwards. The explosion
+      made the woods quake. A thick rain of yellow leaves came down. Anderson
+      was flat on the ground. He was so flat he seemed to have sunk into the
+      ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield pressed the spring of the other grenade and threw it with his
+      eyes closed. It burst among the thick new-fallen leaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few drops of rain were falling. Chrisfield kept on along the lane,
+      walking fast, feeling full of warmth and strength. The rain beat hard and
+      cold against his back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked with his eyes to the ground. A voice in a strange language
+      stopped him. A ragged man in green with a beard that was clotted with mud
+      stood in front of him with his hands up. Chrisfield burst out laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come along,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;quick!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man shambled in front of him; he was trembling so hard he nearly fell
+      with each step.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield kicked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man shambled on without turning round. Chrisfield kicked him again,
+      feeling the point of the man's spine and the soft flesh of his rump
+      against his toes with each kick, laughing so hard all the while that he
+      could hardly see where he was going.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Halt!&rdquo; came a voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah've got a prisoner,&rdquo; shouted Chrisfield still laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He ain't much of a prisoner,&rdquo; said the man, pointing his bayonet at the
+      German. &ldquo;He's gone crazy, I guess. I'll take keer o' him... ain't no use
+      sendin' him back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said Chrisfield still laughing. &ldquo;Say, buddy, where can Ah'
+      git something to eat? Ah ain't had nothin' fur a day an a half.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's a reconnoitrin' squad up the line; they'll give you somethin'....
+      How's things goin' up that way?&rdquo; The man pointed up the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gawd, Ah doan know. Ah ain't had nothin' to eat fur a day and a half.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The warm smell of a stew rose to his nostrils from the mess-kit.
+      Chrisfield stood, feeling warm and important, filling his mouth with soft
+      greasy potatoes and gravy, while men about him asked him questions.
+      Gradually he began to feel full and content, and a desire to sleep came
+      over him. But he was given a gun, and had to start advancing again with
+      the reconnoitering squad. The squad went cautiously up the same lane
+      through the woods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here's an officer done for,&rdquo; said the captain, who walked ahead. He made
+      a little clucking noise of distress with his tongue. &ldquo;Two of you fellows
+      go back and git a blanket and take him back to the cross-roads. Poor
+      fellow.&rdquo; The captain walked on again, still making little clucking noises
+      with his tongue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield looked straight ahead of him. He did not feel lonely any more
+      now that he was marching in ranks again. His feet beat the ground in time
+      with the other feet. He would not have to think whether to go to the right
+      or to the left. He would do as the others did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PART4" id="link2H_PART4">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PART FOUR: RUST
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      There were tiny green frogs in one of the putty-colored puddles by the
+      roadside. John Andrews fell out of the slowly advancing column a moment to
+      look at them. The frogs' triangular heads stuck out of the water in the
+      middle of the puddle. He leaned over, his hands on his knees, easing the
+      weight of the equipment on his back. That way he could see their tiny
+      jewelled eyes, topaz-colored. His eyes felt as if tears were coming to
+      them with tenderness towards the minute lithe bodies of the frogs.
+      Something was telling him that he must run forward and fall into line
+      again, that he must shamble on through the mud, but he remained staring at
+      the puddle, watching the frogs. Then he noticed his reflection in the
+      puddle. He looked at it curiously. He could barely see the outlines of a
+      stained grimacing mask, and the silhouette of the gun barrel slanting
+      behind it. So this was what they had made of him. He fixed his eyes again
+      on the frogs that swam with elastic, leisurely leg strokes in the
+      putty-colored water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Absently, as if he had no connection with all that went on about him, he
+      heard the twang of bursting shrapnel down the road. He had straightened
+      himself wearily and taken a step forward, when he found himself sinking
+      into the puddle. A feeling of relief came over him. His legs sunk in the
+      puddle; he lay without moving against the muddy bank. The frogs had gone,
+      but from somewhere a little stream of red was creeping out slowly into the
+      putty-colored water. He watched the irregular files of men in olive-drab
+      shambling by. Their footsteps drummed in his ears. He felt triumphantly
+      separated from them, as if he were in a window somewhere watching soldiers
+      pass, or in a box of a theater watching some dreary monotonous play. He
+      drew farther and farther away from them until they had become very small,
+      like toy soldiers forgotten among the dust in a garret. The light was so
+      dim he couldn't see, he could only hear their feet tramping interminably
+      through the mud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John Andrews was on a ladder that shook horribly. A gritty sponge in his
+      hand, he was washing the windows of a barracks. He began in the left hand
+      corner and soaped the small oblong panes one after the other. His arms
+      were like lead and he felt that he would fall from the shaking ladder, but
+      each time he turned to look towards the ground before climbing down he saw
+      the top of the general's cap and the general's chin protruding from under
+      the visor, and a voice snarled: &ldquo;Attention,&rdquo; terrifying him so that the
+      ladder shook more than ever; and he went on smearing soap over the oblong
+      panes with the gritty sponge through interminable hours, though every
+      joint in his body was racked by the shaking of the ladder. Bright light
+      flared from inside the windows which he soaped, pane after pane,
+      methodically. The windows were mirrors. In each pane he saw his thin face,
+      in shadow, with the shadow of a gun barrel slanting beside it. The jolting
+      stopped suddenly. He sank into a deep pit of blackness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A shrill broken voice was singing in his ear:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;There's a girl in the heart of Maryland
+     With a heart that belongs to me-e.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      John Andrews opened his eyes. It was pitch black, except for a series of
+      bright yellow oblongs that seemed to go up into the sky, where he could
+      see the stars. His mind became suddenly acutely conscious. He began taking
+      account of himself in a hurried frightened way. He craned his neck a
+      little. In the darkness he could make out the form of a man stretched out
+      flat beside him who kept moving his head strangely from side to side,
+      singing at the top of his lungs in a shrill broken voice. At that moment
+      Andrews noticed that the smell of carbolic was overpoweringly strong, that
+      it dominated all the familiar smells of blood and sweaty clothes. He
+      wriggled his shoulders so that he could feel the two poles of the
+      stretcher. Then he fixed his eyes again in the three bright yellow
+      oblongs, one above the other, that rose into the darkness. Of course, they
+      were windows; he was near a house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He moved his arms a little. They felt like lead, but unhurt. Then he
+      realized that his legs were on fire. He tried to move them; everything
+      went black again in a sudden agony of pain. The voice was still shrieking
+      in his ears:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;There's a girl in the heart of Maryland
+      With a heart that belongs to me-e.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      But another voice could be heard, softer, talking endlessly in tender
+      clear tones:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' he said they were goin' to take me way down south where there was a
+      little house on the beach, all so warm an' quiet...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The song of the man beside him rose to a tuneless shriek, like a
+      phonograph running down:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;An' Mary-land was fairy-land
+      When she said that mine she'd be...&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Another voice broke in suddenly in short spurts of whining groans that
+      formed themselves into fragments of drawn-out intricate swearing. And all
+      the while the soft voice went on. Andrews strained his ears to hear it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It soothed his pain as if some cool fragrant oil were being poured over
+      his body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' there'll be a garden full of flowers, roses an' hollyhocks, way down
+      there in the south, an' it'll be so warm an' quiet, an' the sun'll shine
+      all day, and the sky'll be so blue...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews felt his lips repeating the words like lips following a prayer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;An' it'll be so warm an' quiet, without any noise at all. An' the
+      garden'll be full of roses an'...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the other voices kept breaking in, drowning out the soft voice with
+      groans, and strings of whining oaths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' he said I could sit on the porch, an' the sun'll be so warm an'
+      quiet, an' the garden'll smell so good, an' the beach'll be all white, an'
+      the sea...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews felt his head suddenly rise in the air and then his feet. He swung
+      out of the darkness into a brilliant white corridor. His legs throbbed
+      with flaming agony. The face of a man with a cigarette in his mouth peered
+      close to his. A hand fumbled at his throat, where the tag was, and someone
+      read:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Andrews, 1.432.286.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But he was listening to the voice out in the dark, behind him, that
+      shrieked in rasping tones of delirium:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;There's a girl in the heart of Mary-land
+      With a heart that belongs to me-e.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Then he discovered that he was groaning. His mind became entirely taken up
+      in the curious rhythm of his groans. The only parts of his body that
+      existed were his legs and something in his throat that groaned and
+      groaned. It was absorbing. White figures hovered about him, he saw the
+      hairy forearms of a man in shirt sleeves, lights glared and went out,
+      strange smells entered at his nose and circulated through his whole body,
+      but nothing could distract his attention from the singsong of his groans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rain fell in his face. He moved his head from side to side, suddenly
+      feeling conscious of himself. His mouth was dry, like leather; he put out
+      his tongue to try to catch raindrops in it. He was swung roughly about in
+      the stretcher. He lifted his head cautiously, feeling a great throb of
+      delight that he still could lift his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Keep yer head down, can't yer?&rdquo; snarled a voice beside him. He had seen
+      the back of a man in a gleaming wet slicker at the end of the stretcher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be careful of my leg, can't yer?&rdquo; he found himself whining over and over
+      again. Then suddenly there was a lurch that rapped his head against the
+      crosspiece of the stretcher, and he found himself looking up at a wooden
+      ceiling from which the white paint had peeled in places. He smelt gasoline
+      and could hear the throb of an engine. He began to think back; how long
+      was it since he had looked at the little frogs in the puddle? A vivid
+      picture came to his mind of the puddle with its putty-colored water and
+      the little triangular heads of the frogs. But it seemed as long ago as a
+      memory of childhood; all of his life before that was not so long as the
+      time that had gone by since the car had started. And he was jolting and
+      swinging about in the stretcher, clutching hard with his hands at the
+      poles of the stretcher. The pain in his legs grew worse; the rest of his
+      body seemed to shrivel under it. From below him came a rasping voice that
+      cried out at every lurch of the ambulance. He fought against the desire to
+      groan, but at last he gave in and lay lost in the monotonous singsong of
+      his groans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rain was in his face again for a moment, then his body was tilted. A
+      row of houses and russet trees and chimney pots against a leaden sky swung
+      suddenly up into sight and were instantly replaced by a ceiling and the
+      coffred vault of a staircase. Andrews was still groaning softly, but his
+      eyes fastened with sudden interest on the sculptured rosettes of the
+      coffres and the coats of arms that made the center of each section of
+      ceiling. Then he found himself staring in the face of the man who was
+      carrying the lower end of the stretcher. It was a white face with pimples
+      round the mouth and good-natured, watery blue eyes. Andrews looked at the
+      eyes and tried to smile, but the man carrying the stretcher was not
+      looking at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then after more endless hours of tossing about on the stretcher, lost in a
+      groaning agony of pain, hands laid hold of him roughly and pulled his
+      clothes off and lifted him on a cot where he lay gasping, breathing in the
+      cool smell of disinfectant that hung about the bedclothes. He heard voices
+      over his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn't bad at all... this leg wound.... I thought you said we'd have to
+      amputate?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what's the matter with him, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maybe shell-shock....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A cold sweat of terror took hold of Andrews. He lay perfectly still with
+      his eyes closed. Spasm after spasm of revolt went through him. No, they
+      hadn't broken him yet; he still had hold of his nerves, he kept saying to
+      himself. Still, he felt that his hands, clasped across his belly, were
+      trembling. The pain in his legs disappeared in the fright in which he lay,
+      trying desperately to concentrate his mind on something outside himself.
+      He tried to think of a tune to hum to himself, but he only heard again
+      shrieking in his ears the voice which, it seemed to him months and years
+      ago, had sung:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;There's a girl in the heart of Maryland
+      With a heart that belo-ongs to me-e.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The voice shrieking the blurred tune and the pain in his legs mingled
+      themselves strangely, until they seemed one and the pain seemed merely a
+      throbbing of the maddening tune.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He opened his eyes. Darkness fading into a faint yellow glow. Hastily he
+      took stock of himself, moved his head and his arms. He felt cool and very
+      weak and quiet; he must have slept a long time. He passed his rough dirty,
+      hand over his face. The skin felt soft and cool. He pressed his cheek on
+      the pillow and felt himself smiling contentedly, he did not know why.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Queen of Sheba carried a parasol with little vermilion bells all round
+      it that gave out a cool tinkle as she walked towards him. She wore her
+      hair in a high headdress thickly powdered with blue iris powder, and on
+      her long train, that a monkey held up at the end, were embroidered in
+      gaudy colors the signs of the zodiac. She was not the Queen of Sheba, she
+      was a nurse whose face he could not see in the obscurity, and, sticking an
+      arm behind his head in a deft professional manner, she gave him something
+      to drink from a glass without looking at him. He said &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; in his
+      natural voice, which surprised him in the silence; but she went off
+      without replying and he saw that it was a trayful of glasses that had
+      tinkled as she had come towards him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dark as it was he noticed the self-conscious tilt of the nurse's body as
+      she walked silently to the next cot, holding the tray of glasses in front
+      of her. He twisted his head round on the pillow to watch how gingerly she
+      put her arm under the next man's head to give him a drink.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A virgin,&rdquo; he said to himself, &ldquo;very much a virgin,&rdquo; and he found himself
+      giggling softly, notwithstanding the twinges of pain from his legs. He
+      felt suddenly as if his spirit had awakened from a long torpor. The spell
+      of dejection that had deadened him for months had slipped off. He was
+      free. The thought came to him gleefully, that as long as he stayed in that
+      cot in the hospital no one would shout orders at him. No one would tell
+      him to clean his rifle. There would be no one to salute. He would not have
+      to worry about making himself pleasant to the sergeant. He would lie there
+      all day long, thinking his own thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps he was badly enough wounded to be discharged from the army. The
+      thought set his heart beating like mad. That meant that he, who had given
+      himself up for lost, who had let himself be trampled down unresistingly
+      into the mud of slavery, who had looked for no escape from the treadmill
+      but death, would live. He, John Andrews, would live.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And it seemed inconceivable that he had ever given himself up, that he had
+      ever let the grinding discipline have its way with him. He saw himself
+      vividly once more as he had seen himself before his life had suddenly
+      blotted itself out, before he had become a slave among slaves. He
+      renumbered the garden where, in his boyhood, he had sat dreaming through
+      the droning summer afternoons under the crepe myrtle bushes, while the
+      cornfields beyond rustled and shimmered in the heat. He remembered the day
+      he had stood naked in the middle of a base room while the recruiting
+      sergeant prodded him and measured him. He wondered suddenly what the date
+      was. Could it be that it was only a year ago? Yet in that year all the
+      other years of his life had been blotted out. But now he would begin
+      living again. He would give up this cowardly cringing before external
+      things. He would be recklessly himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pain in his legs was gradually localizing itself into the wounds. For
+      a while he struggled against it to go on thinking, but its constant throb
+      kept impinging in his mind until, although he wanted desperately to comb
+      through his pale memories to remember, if ever so faintly, all that had
+      been vivid and lusty in his life, to build himself a new foundation of
+      resistance against the world from which he could start afresh to live, he
+      became again the querulous piece of hurt flesh, the slave broken on the
+      treadmill; he began to groan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cold steel-gray light filtered into the ward, drowning the yellow glow
+      which first turned ruddy and then disappeared. Andrews began to make out
+      the row of cots opposite him, and the dark beams of the ceiling above his
+      head. &ldquo;This house must be very old,&rdquo; he said to himself, and the thought
+      vaguely excited him. Funny that the Queen of Sheba had come to his head,
+      it was ages since he'd thought of all that. From the girl at the
+      cross-roads singing under her street-lamp to the patrician pulling roses
+      to pieces from the height of her litter, all the aspects' half-guessed,
+      all the imaginings of your desire... that was the Queen of Sheba. He
+      whispered the words aloud, &ldquo;la reine de Saba, la reine de Saba&rdquo;; and, with
+      a tremor of anticipation of the sort he used to feel when he was a small
+      boy the night before Christmas, with a sense of new; things in store for
+      him, he pillowed his head on his arm and went quietly to sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't it juss like them frawgs te make a place like this' into a
+      hauspital?&rdquo; said the orderly, standing with his feet wide apart and his
+      hands on his hips, facing a row of cots and talking to anyone who felt
+      well enough to listen. &ldquo;Honest, I doan see why you fellers doan all cash
+      in yer! checks in this hole.... There warn't even electric light till we
+      put it in.... What d'you think o' that? That shows how much the goddam
+      frawgs care....&rdquo; The orderly was a short man with a sallow, lined face and
+      large yellow teeth. When he smiled the horizontal lines in his forehead
+      and the lines that ran from the sides of his nose to the ends of his mouth
+      deepened so that his face looked as if it were made up to play a comic
+      part in the movies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's kind of artistic, though, ain't it?&rdquo; said Applebaum, whose cot was
+      next Andrews's,&mdash;a skinny man with large, frightened eyes and an
+      inordinately red face that looked as if the skin had been peeled off.
+      &ldquo;Look at the work there is on that ceiling. Must have cost some dough when
+      it was noo.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wouldn't be bad as a dance hall with a little fixin' up, but a hauspital;
+      hell!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews lay, comfortable in his cot, looking into the ward out of another
+      world. He felt no connection with the talk about him, with the men who lay
+      silent or tossed about groaning in the rows of narrow cots that filled the
+      Renaissance hall. In the yellow glow of the electric lights, looking
+      beyond the orderly's twisted face and narrow head, he could see very
+      faintly, where the beams of the ceiling sprung from the wall, a row of
+      half-obliterated shields supported by figures carved out of the grey stone
+      of the wall, handed satyrs with horns and goats' beards and deep-set eyes,
+      little squat figures of warriors and townsmen in square hats with swords
+      between their bent knees, naked limbs twined in scrolls of spiked acanthus
+      leaves, all seen very faintly, so that when the electric lights swung back
+      and forth in the wind made by the orderly's hurried passing, they all
+      seemed to wink and wriggle in shadowy mockery of the rows of prostrate
+      bodies in the room beneath them. Yet they were familiar, friendly to
+      Andrews. He kept feeling a half-formulated desire to be up there too,
+      crowded under a beam, grimacing through heavy wreaths of pomegranates and
+      acanthus leaves, the incarnation of old rich lusts, of clear fires that
+      had sunk to dust ages since. He felt at home in that spacious hall, built
+      for wide gestures and stately steps, in which all the little routine of
+      the army seemed unreal, and the wounded men discarded automatons, broken
+      toys laid away in rows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews was snatched out of his thoughts. Applebaum was speaking to him;
+      he turned his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How d'you loike it bein' wounded, buddy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Foine, I should think it was.... Better than doin' squads right all day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where did you get yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't got only one arm now.... I don't give a damn.... I've driven my
+      last fare, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How d'you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I used to drive a taxi.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's a pretty good job, isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You bet, big money in it, if yer in right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you used to be a taxi-driver, did you?&rdquo; broke in the orderly. &ldquo;That's
+      a fine job.... When I was in the Providence Hospital half the fractures
+      was caused by taxis. We had a little girl of six in the children's ward
+      had her feet cut clean off at the ankles by a taxi. Pretty yellow hair she
+      had, too. Gangrene.... Only lasted a day.... Well, I'm going off, I guess
+      you guys wish you was going to be where I'm goin' to be tonight.... That's
+      one thing you guys are lucky in, don't have to worry about propho.&rdquo; The
+      orderly wrinkled his face up and winked elaborately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, will you do something for me?&rdquo; asked Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure, if it ain't no trouble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you buy me a book?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't ye got enough with all the books at the 'Y'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.... This is a special book,&rdquo; said Andrews smiling, &ldquo;a French book.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A French book, is it? Well, I'll see what I can do. What's it called?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By Flaubert.... Look, if you've got a piece of paper and a pencil, I'll
+      write it down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews scrawled the title on the back of an order slip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the hell? Who's Antoine? Gee whiz, I bet that's hot stuff. I wish I
+      could read French. We'll have you breakin' loose out o' here an' going
+      down to number four, roo Villiay, if you read that kind o' book.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has it got pictures?&rdquo; asked Applebaum. &ldquo;One feller did break out o' here
+      a month ago,... Couldn't stand it any longer, I guess. Well, his wound
+      opened an' he had a hemorrhage, an' now he's planted out in the back
+      lot.... But I'm goin'. Goodnight.&rdquo; The orderly bustled to the end of the
+      ward and disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lights went out, except for the bulb over the nurse's desk at the end,
+      beside the ornate doorway, with its wreathed pinnacles carved out of the
+      grey stone, which could be seen above the white canvas screen that hid the
+      door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's that book about, buddy?&rdquo; asked Applebaum, twisting his head at the
+      end of his lean neck so as to look Andrews full in the face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it's about a man who wants everything so badly that he decides
+      there's nothing worth wanting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess youse had a college edication,&rdquo; said Applebaum sarcastically.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ Andrews laughed.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I was goin' to tell youse about when I used to drive a taxi. I was
+      makin' big money when I enlisted. Was you drafted?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, so was I. I doan think nauthin o' them guys that are so stuck up
+      'cause they enlisted, d'you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a hell of a lot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't yer?&rdquo; came a voice from the other side of Andrews, a thin voice
+      that stuttered. &ldquo;W-w-well, all I can say is, it'ld have sss-spoiled my
+      business if I hadn't enlisted. No, sir, nobody can say I didn't enlist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that's your look-out,&rdquo; said Applebaum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're goddam right, it was.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, ain't your business spoiled anyway?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir. I can pick it right up where I left off. I've got an established
+      reputation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What at?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm an undertaker by profession; my dad was before me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee, you were right at home!&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You haven't any right to say that, young feller,&rdquo; said the undertaker
+      angrily. &ldquo;I'm a humane man. I won't never be at home in this dirty
+      butchery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The nurse was walking by their cots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can you say such dreadful things?&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;But lights are out. You
+      boys have got to keep quiet.... And you,&rdquo; she plucked at the undertaker's
+      bedclothes, &ldquo;just remember what the Huns did in Belgium.... Poor Miss
+      Cavell, a nurse just like I am.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews closed his eyes. The ward was quiet except for the rasping sound
+      of the snores and heavy breathing of the shattered men all about him. &ldquo;And
+      I thought she was the Queen of Sheba,&rdquo; he said to himself, making a
+      grimace in the dark. Then he began to think of the music he had intended
+      to write about the Queen of Sheba before he had stripped his life off in
+      the bare room where they had measured him and made a soldier of him.
+      Standing in the dark in the desert of his despair, he would hear the sound
+      of a caravan in the distance, tinkle of bridles, rasping of horns, braying
+      of donkeys, and the throaty voices of men singing the songs of desolate
+      roads. He would look up, and before him he would see, astride their
+      foaming wild asses, the three green horsemen motionless, pointing at him
+      with their long forefingers. Then the music would burst in a sudden hot
+      whirlwind about him, full of flutes and kettledrums and braying horns and
+      whining bagpipes, and torches would flare red and yellow, making a tent of
+      light about him, on the edges of which would crowd the sumpter mules and
+      the brown mule drivers, and the gaudily caparisoned camels, and the
+      elephants glistening with jewelled harness. Naked slaves would bend their
+      gleaming backs before him as they laid out a carpet at his feet; and,
+      through the flare of torchlight, the Queen, of Sheba would advance towards
+      him, covered with emeralds and dull-gold ornaments, with a monkey hopping
+      behind holding up the end of her long train. She would put her hand with
+      its slim fantastic nails on his shoulder; and, looking into her eyes, he
+      would suddenly feel within reach all the fiery imaginings of his desire.
+      Oh, if he could only be free to work. All the months he had wasted in his
+      life seemed to be marching like a procession of ghosts before his eyes.
+      And he lay in his cot, staring with wide open eyes at the ceiling, hoping
+      desperately that his wounds would be long in healing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Applebaum sat on the edge of his cot, dressed in a clean new uniform, of
+      which the left sleeve hung empty, still showing the creases in which it
+      had been folded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you really are going,&rdquo; said Andrews, rolling his head over on his
+      pillow to look at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You bet your pants I am, Andy.... An' so could you, poifectly well, if
+      you'ld talk it up to 'em a little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I wish to God I could. Not that I want to go home, now, but ... if I
+      could get out of uniform.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't blame ye a bit, kid; well, next time, we'll know better.... Local
+      Board Chairman's going to be my job.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I wasn't a sucker....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You weren't the only wewe-one,&rdquo; came the undertaker's stuttering voice
+      from behind Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell, I thought you enlisted, undertaker.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I did, by God! but I didn't think it was going to be like this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did ye think it was goin' to be, a picnic?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell, I doan care about that, or gettin' gassed, and smashed up, or
+      anythin', but I thought we was goin' to put things to rights by comin'
+      over here.... Look here, I had a lively business in the undertaking way,
+      like my father had had before me.... We did all the swellest work in
+      Tilletsville....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where?&rdquo; interrupted Applebaum, laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tilletsville; don't you know any geography?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go ahead, tell us about Tilletsville,&rdquo; said Andrews soothingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, when Senator Wallace d-d-deceased there, who d'you think had charge
+      of embalming the body and taking it to the station an' seeing everything
+      was done fitting? We did.... And I was going to be married to a dandy
+      girl, and I knowed I had enough pull to get fixed up, somehow, or to get a
+      commission even, but there I went like a sucker an' enlisted in the
+      infantry, too.... But, hell, everybody was saying that we was going to
+      fight to make the world safe for democracy, and that, if a feller didn't
+      go, no one'ld trade with him any more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He started coughing suddenly and seemed unable to stop. At last he said
+      weakly, in a thin little voice between coughs:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, here I am. There ain't nothing to do about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Democracy.... That's democracy, ain't it: we eat stinkin' goolash an'
+      that there fat 'Y' woman goes out with Colonels eatin' chawklate
+      soufflay.... Poifect democracy!... But I tell you what: it don't do to be
+      the goat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But there's so damn many more goats than anything else,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's a sucker born every minute, as Barnum said. You learn that
+      drivin' a taxicab, if ye don't larn nothin' else.... No, sir, I'm goin'
+      into politics. I've got good connections up Hundred and Twenty-fif' street
+      way.... You see, I've got an aunt, Mrs. Sallie Schultz, owns a hotel on a
+      Hundred and Tirty-tird street. Heard of Jim O'Ryan, ain't yer? Well, he's
+      a good friend o' hers; see? Bein' as they're both Catholics... But I'm
+      goin' out this afternoon, see what the town's like... an ole Ford says the
+      skirts are just peaches an' cream.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He juss s-s-says that to torment a feller,&rdquo; stuttered the undertaker.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish I were going with you,&rdquo; said Andrews. &ldquo;You'll get well plenty soon
+      enough, Andy, and get yourself marked Class A, and get given a gun, an&mdash;'Over
+      the top, boys!'... to see if the Fritzies won't make a better shot next
+      time.... Talk about suckers! You're the most poifect sucker I ever met....
+      What did you want to tell the loot your legs didn't hurt bad for? They'll
+      have you out o' here before you know it.... Well, I'm goin' out to see
+      what the mamzelles look like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Applebaum, the uniform hanging in folds about his skinny body, swaggered
+      to the door, followed by the envious glances of the whole ward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee, guess he thinks he's goin' to get to be president,&rdquo; said the
+      undertaker bitterly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He probably will,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He settled himself in his bed again, sinking back into the dull
+      contemplation of the teasing, smarting pain where the torn ligaments of
+      his thighs were slowly knitting themselves together. He tried desperately
+      to forget the pain; there was so much he wanted to think out. If he could
+      only lie perfectly quiet, and piece together the frayed ends of thoughts
+      that kept flickering to the surface of his mind. He counted up the days he
+      had been in the hospital; fifteen! Could it be that long? And he had not
+      thought of anything yet. Soon, as Applebaum said, they'd be putting him in
+      Class A and sending him back to the treadmill, and he would not have
+      reconquered his courage, his dominion over himself. What a coward he had
+      been anyway, to submit. The man beside him kept coughing. Andrews stared
+      for a moment at the silhouette of the yellow face on the pillow, with its
+      pointed nose and small greedy eyes. He thought of the swell undertaking
+      establishment, of the black gloves and long faces and soft tactful voices.
+      That man and his father before him lived by pretending things they didn't
+      feel, by swathing reality with all manner of crepe and trumpery. For those
+      people, no one ever died, they passed away, they deceased. Still, there
+      had to be undertakers. There was no more stain about that than about any
+      other trade. And it was so as not to spoil his trade that the undertaker
+      had enlisted, and to make the world safe for democracy, too. The phrase
+      came to Andrews's mind amid an avalanche of popular tunes; of visions of
+      patriotic numbers on the vaudeville stage. He remembered the great flags
+      waving triumphantly over Fifth Avenue, and the crowds dutifully cheering.
+      But those were valid reasons for the undertaker; but for him, John
+      Andrews, were they valid reasons? No. He had no trade, he had not been
+      driven into the army by the force of public opinion, he had not been
+      carried away by any wave of blind confidence in the phrases of bought
+      propagandists. He had not had the strength to live. The thought came to
+      him of all those who, down the long tragedy of history, had given
+      themselves smilingly for the integrity of their thoughts. He had not had
+      the courage to move a muscle for his freedom, but he had been fairly
+      cheerful about risking his life as a soldier, in a cause he believed
+      useless. What right had a man to exist who was too cowardly to stand up
+      for what he thought and felt, for his whole makeup, for everything that
+      made him an individual apart from his fellows, and not a slave to stand
+      cap in hand waiting for someone of stronger will to tell him to act?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like a sudden nausea, disgust surged up in him. His mind ceased
+      formulating phrases and thoughts. He gave himself over to disgust as a man
+      who has drunk a great deal, holding on tight to the reins of his will,
+      suddenly gives himself over pellmell to drunkenness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He lay very still, with his eyes closed, listening to the stir of the
+      ward, the voices of men talking and the fits of coughing that shook the
+      man next him. The smarting pain throbbed monotonously. He felt hungry and
+      wondered vaguely if it were supper time. How little they gave you to eat
+      in the hospital!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He called over to the man in the opposite cot:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hay, Stalky, what time is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's after messtime now. Got a good appetite for the steak and onions and
+      French fried potatoes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shut up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A rattling of tin dishes at the other end of the ward made Andrews wriggle
+      up further on his pillow. Verses from the &ldquo;Shropshire Lad&rdquo; jingled
+      mockingly through his head:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;The world, it was the old world yet,
+      I was I, my things were wet,
+      And nothing now remained to do
+      But begin the game anew.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      After he had eaten, he picked up the &ldquo;Tentation de Saint Antoine,&rdquo; that
+      lay on the cot beside his immovable legs, and buried himself in it,
+      reading the gorgeously modulated sentences voraciously, as if the book
+      were a drug in which he could drink deep forgetfulness of himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He put the book down and closed his eyes. His mind was full of intangible
+      floating glow, like the ocean on a warm night, when every wave breaks into
+      pale flame, and mysterious milky lights keep rising to the surface out of
+      the dark waters and gleaming and vanishing. He became absorbed in the
+      strange fluid harmonies that permeated his whole body, as a grey sky at
+      nightfall suddenly becomes filled with endlessly changing patterns of
+      light and color and shadow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he tried to seize hold of his thoughts, to give them definite musical
+      expression in his mind, he found himself suddenly empty, the way a sandy
+      inlet on the beach that has been full of shoals of silver fishes, becomes
+      suddenly empty when a shadow crosses the water, and the man who is
+      watching sees wanly his own reflection instead of the flickering of
+      thousands of tiny silver bodies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John Andrews awoke to feel a cold hand on his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Feeling all right?&rdquo; said a voice in his ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He found himself looking in a puffy, middle-aged face, with a lean nose
+      and grey eyes, with dark rings under them. Andrews felt the eyes looking
+      him over inquisitively. He saw the red triangle on the man's khaki sleeve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you don't mind, I'd like to talk to you a little while, buddy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a bit; have you got a chair?&rdquo; said Andrews smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't suppose it was just right of me to wake you up, but you see it
+      was this way.... You were the next in line, an' I was afraid I'd forget
+      you, if I skipped you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand,&rdquo; said Andrews, with a sudden determination to take the
+      initiative away from the &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long have you been in France? D'you like the war?&rdquo; he asked
+      hurriedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man smiled sadly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem pretty spry,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I guess you're in a hurry to get back at
+      the front and get some more Huns.&rdquo; He smiled again, with an air of
+      indulgence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews did not answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sonny, I don't like it here,&rdquo; the &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man said, after a pause. &ldquo;I
+      wish I was home&mdash;but it's great to feel you're doing your duty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must be,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you heard about the great air raids our boys have pulled off?
+      They've bombarded Frankfort; now if they could only wipe Berlin off the
+      map.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, d'you hate 'em awful hard?&rdquo; said Andrews in a low voice. &ldquo;Because,
+      if you do, I can tell you something will tickle you most to death.... Lean
+      over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man leant over curiously. &ldquo;Some German prisoners come to this
+      hospital at six every night to get the garbage; now all you need to do if
+      you really hate 'em so bad is borrow a revolver from one of your officer
+      friends, and just shoot up the convoy....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say... where were you raised, boy?&rdquo; The &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man sat up suddenly with a
+      look of alarm on his face. &ldquo;Don't you know that prisoners are sacred?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D'you know what our colonel told us before going into the Argonne
+      offensive? The more prisoners we took, the less grub there'ld be; and do
+      you know what happened to the prisoners that were taken? Why do you hate
+      the Huns?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because they are barbarians, enemies of civilization. You must have
+      enough education to know that,&rdquo; said the &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man, raising his voice
+      angrily. &ldquo;What church do you belong to?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you must have been connected with some church, boy. You can't have
+      been raised a heathen in America. Every Christian belongs or has belonged
+      to some church or other from baptism.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I make no pretensions to Christianity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews closed his eyes and turned his head away. He could feel the &ldquo;Y&rdquo;
+       man hovering over him irresolutely. After a while he opened his eyes. The
+      &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man was leaning over the next bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through the window at the opposite side of the ward he could see a bit of
+      blue sky among white scroll-like clouds, with mauve shadows. He stared at
+      it until the clouds, beginning to grow golden into evening, covered it.
+      Furious, hopeless irritation consumed him. How these people enjoyed
+      hating! At that rate it was better to be at the front. Men were more
+      humane when they were killing each other than when they were talking about
+      it. So was civilization nothing but a vast edifice of sham, and the war,
+      instead of its crumbling, was its fullest and most ultimate expression.
+      Oh, but there must be something more in the world than greed and hatred
+      and cruelty. Were they all shams, too, these gigantic phrases that floated
+      like gaudy kites high above mankind? Kites, that was it, contraptions of
+      tissue paper held at the end of a string, ornaments not to be taken
+      seriously. He thought of all the long procession of men who had been
+      touched by the unutterable futility of the lives of men, who had tried by
+      phrases to make things otherwise, who had taught unworldliness. Dim
+      enigmatic figures they were&mdash;Democritus, Socrates, Epicurus, Christ;
+      so many of them, and so vague in the silvery mist of history that he
+      hardly knew that they were not his own imagining; Lucretius, St. Francis,
+      Voltaire, Rousseau, and how many others, known and unknown, through the
+      tragic centuries; they had wept, some of them, and some of them had
+      laughed, and their phrases had risen glittering, soap bubbles to dazzle
+      men for a moment, and had shattered. And he felt a crazy desire to join
+      the forlorn ones, to throw himself into inevitable defeat, to live his
+      life as he saw it in spite of everything, to proclaim once more the
+      falseness of the gospels under the cover of which greed and fear filled
+      with more and yet more pain the already unbearable agony of human life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as he got out of the hospital he would desert; the determination
+      formed suddenly in his mind, making the excited blood surge gloriously
+      through his body. There was nothing else to do; he would desert. He
+      pictured himself hobbling away in the dark on his lame legs, stripping his
+      uniform off, losing himself in some out of the way corner of France, or
+      slipping by the sentries to Spain and freedom. He was ready to endure
+      anything, to face any sort of death, for the sake of a few months of
+      liberty in which to forget the degradation of this last year. This was his
+      last run with the pack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An enormous exhilaration took hold of him. It seemed the first time in his
+      life he had ever determined to act. All the rest had been aimless
+      drifting. The blood sang m his ears. He fixed his eyes on the
+      half-obliterated figures that supported the shields under the beams in the
+      wall opposite. They seemed to be wriggling out of their contorted
+      positions and smiling encouragement to him. He imagined them, warriors out
+      of old tales, on their way to clay dragons in enchanted woods,
+      clever-fingered guildsmen and artisans, cupids and satyrs and fauns,
+      jumping from their niches and carrying him off with them in a headlong
+      rout, to a sound of flutes, on a last forlorn assault on the citadels of
+      pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lights went out, and an orderly came round with chocolate that poured
+      with a pleasant soothing sound into the tin cups. With a greasiness of
+      chocolate in his mouth and the warmth of it in his stomach, John Andrews
+      went to sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a stir in the ward when he woke up. Reddish sunlight filtered in
+      through the window opposite, and from outside came a confused noise, a
+      sound of bells ringing and whistles blowing. Andrews looked past his feet
+      towards Stalky's cot opposite. Stalky was sitting bolt upright in bed,
+      with his eyes round as quarters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fellers, the war's over!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Put him out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cut that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pull the chain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tie that bull outside,&rdquo; came from every side of the ward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fellers,&rdquo; shouted Stalky louder than ever, &ldquo;it's straight dope, the war's
+      over. I just dreamt the Kaiser came up to me on Fourteenth Street and
+      bummed a nickel for a glass of beer. The war's over. Don't you hear the
+      whistles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right; let's go home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shut up, can't you let a feller sleep?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The ward quieted down again, but all eyes were wide open, men lay
+      strangely still in their cots, waiting, wondering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All I can say,&rdquo; shouted Stalky again, &ldquo;is that she was some war while she
+      lasted.... What did I tell yer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke the canvas screen in front of the door collapsed and the major
+      appeared with his cap askew over his red face and a brass bell in his
+      hand, which he rang frantically as he advanced into the ward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Men,&rdquo; he shouted in the deep roar of one announcing baseball scores, &ldquo;the
+      war ended at 4:03 A.M. this morning.... The Armistice is signed. To hell
+      with the Kaiser!&rdquo; Then he rang the dinner bell madly and danced along the
+      aisle between the rows of cots, holding the head nurse by one hand, who
+      held a little yellow-headed lieutenant by the other hand, who, in turn,
+      held another nurse, and so on. The line advanced jerkily into the ward;
+      the front part was singing &ldquo;The Star Spangled Banner,&rdquo; and the rear the
+      &ldquo;Yanks are Coming,&rdquo; and through it all the major rang his brass bell. The
+      men who were well enough sat up in bed and yelled. The others rolled
+      restlessly about, sickened by the din.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They made the circuit of the ward and filed out, leaving confusion behind
+      them. The dinner bell could be heard faintly in the other parts of the
+      building.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what d'you think of it, undertaker?&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The undertaker turned his small black eyes on Andrews and looked him
+      straight in the face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know what's the matter with me, don't yer, outside o' this wound?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Coughing like I am, I'd think you'd be more observant. I got t.b., young
+      feller.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They're going to move me out o' here to a t.b. ward tomorrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The hell they are!&rdquo; Andrews's words were lost in the paroxysm of coughing
+      that seized the man next to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Home, boys, home; it's home we want to be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Those well enough were singing, Stalky conducting, standing on the end of
+      his cot in his pink Red Cross pajamas, that were too short and showed a
+      long expanse of skinny leg, fuzzy with red hairs. He banged together two
+      bed pans to beat time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Home.... I won't never go home,&rdquo; said the undertaker when the noise had
+      subsided a little. &ldquo;D'you know what I wish? I wish the war'd gone on and
+      on until everyone of them bastards had been killed in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which bastards?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The men who got us fellers over here.&rdquo; He began coughing again weakly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But they'll be safe if every other human being....&rdquo; began Andrews. He was
+      interrupted by a thundering voice from the end of the ward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Attention!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Home, boys, home; it's home we want to be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      went on the song. Stalky glanced towards the end of the ward, and seeing
+      it was the major, dropped the bed pans that smashed at the foot of his
+      cot, and got as far as possible under his blankets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Attention!&rdquo; thundered the major again. A sudden uncomfortable silence
+      fell upon the ward; broken only by the coughing of the man next to
+      Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I hear any more noise from this ward, I'll chuck everyone of you men
+      out of this hospital; if you can't walk you'll have to crawl.... The war
+      may be over, but you men are in the Army, and don't you forget it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The major glared up and down the lines of cots. He turned on his heel and
+      went out of the door, glancing angrily as he went at the overturned
+      screen. The ward was still. Outside whistles blew and churchbells rang
+      madly, and now and then there was a sound of singing.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                               II
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The snow beat against the windows and pattered on the tin roof of the
+      lean-to, built against the side of the hospital, that went by the name of
+      sun parlor. It was a dingy place, decorated by strings of dusty little
+      paper flags that one of the &ldquo;Y&rdquo; men had festooned about the slanting beams
+      of the ceiling to celebrate Christmas. There were tables with torn
+      magazines piled on them, and a counter where cracked white cups were
+      ranged waiting for one of the rare occasions when cocoa could be bought.
+      In the middle of the room, against the wall of the main building, a stove
+      was burning, about which sat several men in hospital denims talking in
+      drowsy voices. Andrews watched them from his seat by the window, looking
+      at their broad backs bent over towards the stove and at the hands that
+      hung over their knees, limp from boredom. The air was heavy with a smell
+      of coal gas mixed with carbolic from men's clothes, and stale cigarette
+      smoke. Behind the cups at the counter a &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man, a short, red-haired man
+      with freckles, read the Paris edition of the New York Herald. Andrews, in
+      his seat by the window, felt permeated by the stagnation about him: He had
+      a sheaf of pencilled music-papers on his knees, that he rolled and
+      unrolled nervously, staring at the stove and the motionless backs of the
+      men about it. The stove roared a little, the &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man's paper rustled,
+      men's voices came now and then in a drowsy whisper, and outside the snow
+      beat evenly and monotonously against the window panes. Andrews pictured
+      himself vaguely walking fast through the streets, with the snow stinging
+      his face and the life of a city swirling about him, faces flushed by the
+      cold, bright eyes under hatbrims, looking for a second into his and
+      passing on; slim forms of women bundled in shawls that showed vaguely the
+      outline of their breasts and hips. He wondered if he would ever be free
+      again to walk at random through city streets. He stretched his legs out
+      across the floor in front of him; strange, stiff, tremulous legs they
+      were, but it was not the wounds that gave them their leaden weight. It was
+      the stagnation of the life about him that he felt sinking into every
+      crevice of his spirit, so that he could never shake it off, the stagnation
+      of dusty ruined automatons that had lost all life of their own, whose
+      limbs had practised the drill manual so long that they had no movements of
+      their own left, who sat limply, sunk in boredom, waiting for orders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews was roused suddenly from his thoughts; he had been watching the
+      snowflakes in their glittering dance just outside the window pane, when
+      the sound of someone rubbing his hands very close to him made him look up.
+      A little man with chubby cheeks and steel-grey hair very neatly flattened
+      against his skull, stood at the window rubbing his fat little white hands
+      together and making a faint unctuous puffing with each breath. Andrews
+      noticed that a white clerical collar enclosed the little man's pink neck,
+      that starched cuffs peeped from under the well-tailored sleeves of his
+      officer's uniform. Sam Brown belt and puttees, too, were highly polished.
+      On his shoulder was a demure little silver cross. Andrews' glance had
+      reached the pink cheeks again, when he suddenly found a pair of steely
+      eyes looking sharply into his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You look quite restored, my friend,&rdquo; said a chanting clerical voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose I am.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Splendid, splendid.... But do you mind moving into the end of the
+      room.... That's it.&rdquo; He followed Andrews, saying in a deprecatory tone:
+      &ldquo;We're going to have just a little bit of a prayer and then I have some
+      interesting things to tell you boys.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The red-headed &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man had left his seat and stood in the center of the
+      room, his paper still dangling from his hand, saying in a bored voice:
+      &ldquo;Please fellows, move down to the end.... Quiet, please.... Quiet,
+      please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldiers shambled meekly to the folding chairs at the end of the room
+      and after some chattering were quiet. A couple of men left, and several
+      tiptoed in and sat in the front row. Andrews sank into a chair with a
+      despairing sort of resignation, and burying his face in his hands stared
+      at the floor between his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fellers,&rdquo; went on the bored voice of the &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man, &ldquo;let me introduce the
+      Reverend Dr. Skinner, who&mdash;&rdquo; the &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man's voice suddenly took on
+      deep patriotic emotion&mdash;&ldquo;who has just come back from the Army of
+      Occupation in Germany.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the words &ldquo;Army of Occupation,&rdquo; as if a spring had been touched,
+      everybody clapped and cheered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Reverend Dr. Skinner looked about his audience with smiling confidence
+      and raised his hands for silence, so that the men could see the chubby
+      pink palms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;First, boys, my dear friends, let us indulge in a few moments of silent
+      prayer to our Great Creator,&rdquo; his voice rose and fell in the suave chant
+      of one accustomed to going through the episcopal liturgy for the
+      edification of well-dressed and well-fed congregations. &ldquo;Inasmuch as He
+      has vouchsafed us safety and a mitigation of our afflictions, and let us
+      pray that in His good time He may see fit to return us whole in limb and
+      pure in heart to our families, to the wives, mothers, and to those whom we
+      will some day honor with the name of wife, who eagerly await our return;
+      and that we may spend the remainder of our lives in useful service of the
+      great country for whose safety and glory we have offered up our youth a
+      willing sacrifice.... Let us pray!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Silence fell dully on the room. Andrews could hear the selfconscious
+      breathing of the men about him, and the rustling of the snow against the
+      tin roof. A few feet scraped. The voice began again after a long pause,
+      chanting:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our Father which art in Heaven...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the &ldquo;Amen&rdquo; everyone lifted his head cheerfully. Throats were cleared,
+      chairs scraped. Men settled themselves to listen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, my friends, I am going to give you in a few brief words a little
+      glimpse into Germany, so that you may be able to picture to yourselves the
+      way your comrades of the Army of Occupation manage to make themselves
+      comfortable among the Huns.... I ate my Christmas dinner in Coblenz. What
+      do you think of that? Never had I thought that a Christmas would find me
+      away from my home and loved ones. But what unexpected things happen to us
+      in this world! Christmas in Coblenz under the American flag!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused a moment to allow a little scattered clapping to subside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The turkey was fine, too, I can tell you.... Yes, our boys in Germany are
+      very, very comfortable, and just waiting for the word, if necessary, to
+      continue their glorious advance to Berlin. For I am sorry to say, boys,
+      that the Germans have not undergone the change of heart for which we had
+      hoped. They have, indeed, changed the name of their institutions, but
+      their spirit they have not changed.... How grave a disappointment it must
+      be to our great President, who has exerted himself so to bring the German
+      people to reason, to make them understand the horror that they alone have
+      brought deliberately upon the world! Alas! Far from it. Indeed, they have
+      attempted with insidious propaganda to undermine the morale of our
+      troops....&rdquo; A little storm of muttered epithets went through the room. The
+      Reverend Dr. Skinner elevated his chubby pink palms and smiled
+      benignantly..."to undermine the morale of our troops; so that the most
+      stringent regulations have had to be made by the commanding general to
+      prevent it. Indeed, my friends, I very much fear that we stopped too soon
+      in our victorious advance; that Germany should have been utterly crushed.
+      But all we can do is watch and wait, and abide by the decision of those
+      great men who in a short time will be gathered together at the Conference
+      at Paris.... Let me, boys, my dear friends, express the hope that you may
+      speedily be cured of your wounds, ready again to do willing service in the
+      ranks of the glorious army that must be vigilant for some time yet, I
+      fear, to defend, as Americans and Christians, the civilization you have so
+      nobly saved from a ruthless foe.... Let us all join together in singing
+      the hymn, 'Stand up, stand up for Jesus,' which I am sure you all know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The men got to their feet, except for a few who had lost their legs, and
+      sang the first verse of the hymn unsteadily. The second verse petered out
+      altogether, leaving only the &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man and the Reverend Dr. Skinner singing
+      away at the top of their lungs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Reverend Dr. Skinner pulled out his gold watch and looked at it
+      frowning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, my, I shall miss the train,&rdquo; he muttered. The &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man helped him into
+      his voluminous trench coat and they both hurried out of the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Those are some puttees he had on, I'll tell you,&rdquo; said the legless man
+      who was propped in a chair near the stove.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews sat down beside him, laughing. He was a man with high cheekbones
+      and powerful jaws to whose face the pale brown eyes and delicately
+      pencilled lips gave a look of great gentleness. Andrews did not look at
+      his body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Somebody said he was a Red Cross man giving out cigarettes.... Fooled us
+      that time,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have a butt? I've got one,&rdquo; said the legless man. With a large shrunken
+      hand that was the transparent color of alabaster he held out a box of
+      cigarettes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks.&rdquo; When Andrews struck a match he had to lean over the legless man
+      to light his cigarette for him. He could not help glancing down the man's
+      tunic at the drab trousers that hung limply from the chair. A cold shudder
+      went through him; he was thinking of the zigzag scars on his own thighs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you get it in the legs, too, Buddy?&rdquo; asked the legless man, quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but I had luck.... How long have you been here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since Christ was a corporal. Oh, I doan know. I've been here since two
+      weeks after my outfit first went into the lines.... That was on November
+      16th, 1917.... Didn't see much of the war, did I?... Still, I guess I
+      didn't miss much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.... But you've seen enough of the army.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's true.... I guess I wouldn't mind the war if it wasn't for the
+      army.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They'll be sending you home soon, won't they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Guess so.... Where are you from?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;New York,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm from Cranston, Wisconsin. D'you know that country? It's a great
+      country for lakes. You can canoe for days an' days without a portage. We
+      have a camp on Big Loon Lake. We used to have some wonderful times
+      there... lived like wild men. I went for a trip for three weeks once
+      without seeing a house. Ever done much canoeing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so much as I'd like to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's the thing to make you feel fit. First thing you do when you shake
+      out of your blankets is jump in an' have a swim. Gee, it's great to swim
+      when the morning mist is still on the water an' the sun just strikes the
+      tops of the birch trees. Ever smelt bacon cooking? I mean out in the
+      woods, in a frying pan over some sticks of pine and beech wood.... Some
+      great old smell, isn't it?... And after you've paddled all day, an' feel
+      tired and sunburned right to the palms of your feet, to sit around the
+      fire with some trout roastin' in the ashes and hear the sizzlin' the bacon
+      makes in the pan.... O boy!&rdquo; He stretched his arms wide.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God, I'd like to have wrung that damn little parson's neck,&rdquo; said Andrews
+      suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you?&rdquo; The legless man turned brown eyes on Andrews with a smile. &ldquo;I
+      guess he's about as much to blame as anybody is... guys like him.... I
+      guess they have that kind in Germany, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't think we've made the world quite as safe for Democracy as it
+      might be?&rdquo; said Andrews in a low voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell, how should I know? I bet you never drove an ice wagon.... I did,
+      all one summer down home.... It was some life. Get up at three o'clock in
+      the morning an' carry a hundred or two hundred pounds of ice into
+      everybody's ice box. That was the life to make a feller feel fit. I was
+      goin' around with a big Norwegian named Olaf, who was the strongest man I
+      ever knew. An' drink! He was the boy could drink. I once saw him put away
+      twenty-five dry Martini cocktails an' swim across the lake on top of
+      it.... I used to weigh a hundred and eighty pounds, and he could pick me
+      up with one hand and put me across his shoulder.... That was the life to
+      make a feller feel fit. Why, after bein' out late the night before, we'd
+      jump up out of bed at three o'clock feeling springy as a cat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's he doing now?&rdquo; asked Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He died on the transport coming 'cross here. Died of the flu.... I met a
+      feller came over in his regiment. They dropped him overboard when they
+      were in sight of the Azores.... Well, I didn't die of the flu. Have
+      another butt?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, thanks,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were silent. The fire roared in the stove. No one was talking. The
+      men lolled in chairs somnolently. Now and then someone spat. Outside of
+      the window Andrews could see the soft white dancing of the snowflakes. His
+      limbs felt very heavy; his mind was permeated with dusty stagnation like
+      the stagnation of old garrets and lumber rooms, where, among superannuated
+      bits of machinery and cracked grimy crockery, lie heaps of broken toys.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John Andrews sat on a bench in a square full of linden trees, with the
+      pale winter sunshine full on his face and hands. He had been looking up
+      through his eyelashes at the sun, that was the color of honey, and he let
+      his dazzled glance sink slowly through the black lacework of twigs, down
+      the green trunks of the trees to the bench opposite where sat two
+      nursemaids and, between them, a tiny girl with a face daintily colored and
+      lifeless like a doll's face, and a frilled dress under which showed small
+      ivory knees and legs encased in white socks and yellow sandals. Above the
+      yellow halo of her hair floated, with the sun shining through it, as
+      through a glass of claret, a bright carmine balloon which the child held
+      by a string. Andrews looked at her for a long time, enraptured by the
+      absurd daintiness of the figure between the big bundles of flesh of the
+      nursemaids. The thought came to him suddenly that months had gone by,&mdash;was
+      it only months?&mdash;since his hands had touched anything soft, since he
+      had seen any flowers. The last was a flower an old woman had given him in
+      a village in the Argonne, an orange marigold, and he remembered how soft
+      the old woman's withered lips had been against his cheek when she had
+      leaned over and kissed him. His mind suddenly lit up, as with a strain of
+      music, with a sense of the sweetness of quiet lives worn away monotonously
+      in the fields, in the grey little provincial towns, in old kitchens full
+      of fragrance of herbs and tang of smoke from the hearth, where there are
+      pots on the window-sill full of basil in flower.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Something made him go up to the little girl and take her hand. The child,
+      looking up suddenly and seeing a lanky soldier with pale lean face and
+      light, straw-colored hair escaping from under a cap too small for him,
+      shrieked and let go the string of the balloon, which soared slowly into
+      the air trembling a little in the faint cool wind that blew. The child
+      wailed dismally, and Andrews, quailing under the furious glances of the
+      nursemaids, stood before her, flushed crimson, stammering apologies, not
+      knowing what to do. The white caps of the nursemaids bent over and ribbons
+      fluttered about the child's head as they tried to console her. Andrews
+      walked away dejectedly, now and then looking up at the balloon, which
+      soared, a black speck against the grey and topaz-colored clouds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sale Americain!&rdquo; he heard one nursemaid exclaim to the other. But this
+      was the first hour in months he had had free, the first moment of
+      solitude; he must live; soon he would be sent back to his division. A wave
+      of desire for furious fleshly enjoyments went through him, making him want
+      steaming dishes of food drenched in rich, spice-flavored sauces; making
+      him want to get drunk on strong wine; to roll on thick carpets in the arms
+      of naked, libidinous women. He was walking down the quiet grey street of
+      the provincial town, with its low houses with red chimney pots, and blue
+      slate roofs and its irregular yellowish cobbles. A clock somewhere was
+      striking four with deep booming strokes, Andrews laughed. He had to be in
+      hospital at six. Already he was tired; his legs ached.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The window of a pastry shop appeared invitingly before him, denuded as it
+      was by wartime. A sign in English said: &ldquo;Tea.&rdquo; Walking in, he sat down in
+      a fussy little parlor where the tables had red cloths, and a print, in
+      pinkish and greenish colors, hung in the middle of the imitation brocade
+      paper of each wall. Under a print of a poster bed with curtains in front
+      of which eighteen to twenty people bowed, with the title of &ldquo;Secret
+      d'Amour,&rdquo; sat three young officers, who cast cold, irritated glances at
+      this private with a hospital badge on who invaded their tea shop. Andrews
+      stared back at them, flaming with dull anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sipping the hot, fragrant tea, he sat with a blank sheet of music paper
+      before him, listening in spite of himself to what the officers were
+      saying. They were talking about Ronsard. It was with irritated surprise
+      that Andrews heard the name. What right had they to be talking about
+      Ronsard? He knew more about Ronsard than they did. Furious, conceited
+      phrases kept surging up in his mind. He was as sensitive, as humane, as
+      intelligent, as well-read as they were; what right had they to the cold
+      suspicious glance with which they had put him in his place when he had
+      come into the room? Yet that had probably been as unconscious, as
+      unavoidable as was his own biting envy. The thought that if one of those
+      men should come over to him, he would have to stand up and salute and
+      answer humbly, not from civility, but from the fear of being punished, was
+      bitter as wormwood, filled him with a childish desire&mdash;to prove his
+      worth to them, as when older boys had illtreated him at school and he had
+      prayed to have the house burn down so that he might heroically save them
+      all. There was a piano in an inner room, where in the dark the chairs,
+      upside down, perched dismally on the table tops. He almost obeyed an
+      impulse to go in there and start playing, by the brilliance of his playing
+      to force these men, who thought of him as a coarse automaton, something
+      between a man and a dog, to recognize him as an equal, a superior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the war's over. I want to start living. Red wine, streets of the
+      nightingale cries to the rose,&rdquo; said one of the officers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you say we go A.W.O.L. to Paris?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dangerous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what can they do? We are not enlisted men; they can only send us
+      home. That's just what I want.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll tell you what; we'll go to the Cochon Bleu and have a cocktail and
+      think about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The lion and the lizard keep their courts where... what the devil was his
+      name? Anyway, we'll glory and drink deep, while Major Peabody keeps his
+      court in Dijon to his heart's content.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Spurs jingled as the three officers went out. A fierce disgust took
+      possession of John Andrews. He was ashamed of his spiteful irritation. If,
+      when he had been playing the piano to a roomful of friends in New York, a
+      man dressed as a laborer had shambled in, wouldn't he have felt a moment
+      of involuntary scorn? It was inevitable that the fortunate should hate the
+      unfortunate because they feared them. But he was so tired of all those
+      thoughts. Drinking down the last of his tea at a gulp, he went into the
+      shop to ask the old woman, with little black whiskers over her bloodless
+      lips, who sat behind the white desk at the end of the counter, if she
+      minded his playing the piano.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the deserted tea room, among the dismal upturned chairs, his crassened
+      fingers moved stiffly over the keys. He forgot everything else. Locked
+      doors in his mind were swinging wide, revealing forgotten sumptuous halls
+      of his imagination. The Queen of Sheba, grotesque as a satyr, white and
+      flaming with worlds of desire, as the great implacable Aphrodite, stood
+      with her hand on his shoulder sending shivers of warm sweetness rippling
+      through his body, while her voice intoned in his ears all the
+      inexhaustible voluptuousness of life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An asthmatic clock struck somewhere in the obscurity of the room. &ldquo;Seven!&rdquo;
+       John Andrews paid, said good-bye to the old woman with the mustache, and
+      hurried out into the street. &ldquo;Like Cinderella at the ball,&rdquo; he thought. As
+      he went towards the hospital, down faintly lighted streets, his steps got
+      slower and slower. &ldquo;Why go back?&rdquo; a voice kept saying inside him.
+      &ldquo;Anything is better than that.&rdquo; Better throw himself in the river, even,
+      than go back. He could see the olive-drab clothes in a heap among the dry
+      bullrushes on the river bank.... He thought of himself crashing naked
+      through the film of ice into water black as Chinese lacquer. And when he
+      climbed out numb and panting on the other side, wouldn't he be able to
+      take up life again as if he had just been born? How strong he would be if
+      he could begin life a second time! How madly, how joyously he would live
+      now that there was no more war.... He had reached the door of the
+      hospital. Furious shudders of disgust went through him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was standing dumbly humble while a sergeant bawled him out for being
+      late.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews stared for a long while at the line of shields that supported the
+      dark ceiling beams on the wall opposite his cot. The emblems had been
+      erased and the grey stone figures that crowded under the shields,&mdash;the
+      satyr with his shaggy goat's legs, the townsman with his square hat, the
+      warrior with the sword between his legs,&mdash;had been clipped and
+      scratched long ago in other wars. In the strong afternoon light they were
+      so dilapidated he could hardly make them out. He wondered how they had
+      seemed so vivid to him when he had lain in his cot, comforted by their
+      comradeship, while his healing wounds itched and tingled. Still he glanced
+      tenderly at the grey stone figures as he left the ward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Downstairs in the office where the atmosphere was stuffy with a smell of
+      varnish and dusty papers and cigarette smoke, he waited a long time,
+      shifting his weight restlessly from one foot to the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you want?&rdquo; said a red-haired sergeant, without looking up from
+      the pile of papers on his desk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Waiting for travel orders.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aren't you the guy I told to come back at three?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is three.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;H'm!&rdquo; The sergeant kept his eyes fixed on the papers, which rustled as he
+      moved them from one pile to another. In the end of the room a typewriter
+      clicked slowly and jerkily. Andrews could see the dark back of a head
+      between bored shoulders in a woolen shirt leaning over the machine. Beside
+      the cylindrical black stove against the wall a man with large mustaches
+      and the complicated stripes of a hospital sergeant was reading a novel in
+      a red cover. After a long silence the red-headed sergeant looked up from
+      his papers and said suddenly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ted.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man at the typewriter turned slowly round, showing a large red face
+      and blue eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We-ell,&rdquo; he drawled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go in an' see if the loot has signed them papers yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man got up, stretched himself deliberately, and slouched out through a
+      door beside the stove. The red-haired sergeant leaned back in his swivel
+      chair and lit a cigarette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell,&rdquo; he said, yawning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man with the mustache beside the stove let the book slip from his
+      knees to the floor, and yawned too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This goddam armistice sure does take the ambition out of a feller,&rdquo; he
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell of a note,&rdquo; said the red-haired sergeant. &ldquo;D'you know that they had
+      my name in for an O.T.C.? Hell of a note goin' home without a Sam Browne.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The other man came back and sank down into his chair in front of the
+      typewriter again. The slow, jerky clicking recommenced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews made a scraping noise with his foot on the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what about that travel order?&rdquo; said the red-haired sergeant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Loot's out,&rdquo; said the other man, still typewriting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, didn't he leave it on his desk?&rdquo; shouted the red-haired sergeant
+      angrily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Couldn't find it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose I've got to go look for it.... God!&rdquo; The red-haired sergeant
+      stamped out of the room. A moment later he came back with a bunch of
+      papers in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your name Jones?&rdquo; he snapped to Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Snivisky?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.... Andrews, John.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why the hell couldn't you say so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man with the mustaches beside the stove got to his feet suddenly. An
+      alert, smiling expression came over his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good afternoon, Captain Higginsworth,&rdquo; he said cheerfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An oval man with a cigar slanting out of his broad mouth came into the
+      room. When he talked the cigar wobbled in his mouth. He wore greenish kid
+      gloves, very tight for his large hands, and his puttees shone with a dark
+      lustre like mahogany.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The red-haired sergeant turned round and half-saluted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goin' to another swell party, Captain?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Captain grinned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, have you boys got any Red Cross cigarettes? I ain't only got cigars,
+      an' you can't hand a cigar to a lady, can you?&rdquo; The Captain grinned again.
+      An appreciative giggle went round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will a couple of packages do you? Because I've got some here,&rdquo; said the
+      red-haired sergeant reaching in the drawer of his desk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fine.&rdquo; The captain slipped them into his pocket and swaggered out doing
+      up the buttons of his buff-colored coat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant settled himself at his desk again with an important smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you find the travel order?&rdquo; asked Andrews timidly. &ldquo;I'm supposed to
+      take the train at four-two.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can't make it.... Did you say your name was Anderson?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Andrews.... John Andrews.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here it is.... Why didn't you come earlier?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sharp air of the ruddy winter evening, sparkling in John Andrews's
+      nostrils, vastly refreshing after the stale odors of the hospital, gave
+      him a sense of liberation. Walking with rapid steps through the grey
+      streets of the town, where in windows lamps already glowed orange, he kept
+      telling himself that another epoch was closed. It was with relief that he
+      felt that he would never see the hospital again or any of the people in
+      it. He thought of Chrisfield. It was weeks and weeks since Chrisfield had
+      come to his mind at all. Now it was with a sudden clench of affection that
+      the Indiana boy's face rose up before him. An oval, heavily-tanned face
+      with a little of childish roundness about it yet, with black eyebrows and
+      long black eyelashes. But he did not even know if Chrisfield were still
+      alive. Furious joy took possession of him. He, John Andrews, was alive;
+      what did it matter if everyone he knew died? There were jollier companions
+      than ever he had known, to be found in the world, cleverer people to talk
+      to, more vigorous people to learn from. The cold air circulated through
+      his nose and lungs; his arms felt strong and supple; he could feel the
+      muscles of his legs stretch and contract as he walked, while his feet beat
+      jauntily on the irregular cobblestones of the street. The waiting room at
+      the station was cold and stuffy, full of a smell of breathed air and
+      unclean uniforms. French soldiers wrapped in their long blue coats, slept
+      on the benches or stood about in groups, eating bread and drinking from
+      their canteens. A gas lamp in the center gave dingy light. Andrews settled
+      himself in a corner with despairing resignation. He had five hours to wait
+      for a train, and already his legs ached and he had a side feeling of
+      exhaustion. The exhilaration of leaving the hospital and walking free
+      through wine-tinted streets in the sparkling evening air gave way
+      gradually to despair. His life would continue to be this slavery of
+      unclean bodies packed together in places where the air had been breathed
+      over and over, cogs in the great slow-moving Juggernaut of armies. What
+      did it matter if the fighting had stopped? The armies would go on grinding
+      out lives with lives, crushing flesh with flesh. Would he ever again stand
+      free and solitary to live out joyous hours which would make up for all the
+      boredom of the treadmill? He had no hope. His life would continue like
+      this dingy, ill-smelling waiting room where men in uniform slept in the
+      fetid air until they should be ordered-out to march or to stand in
+      motionless rows, endlessly, futilely, like toy soldiers a child has
+      forgotten in an attic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews got up suddenly and went out on the empty platform. A cold wind
+      blew. Somewhere out in the freight yards an engine puffed loudly, and
+      clouds of white steam drifted through the faintly lighted station. He was
+      walking up and down with his chin sunk into his coat and his hands in his
+      pockets, when somebody ran into him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn,&rdquo; said a voice, and the figure darted through a grimy glass door
+      that bore the sign: &ldquo;Buvette.&rdquo; Andrews followed absent-mindedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sorry I ran into you.... I thought you were an M.P., that's why I
+      beat it.&rdquo; When he spoke, the man, an American private, turned and looked
+      searchingly in Andrews's face. He had very red cheeks and an impudent
+      little brown mustache. He spoke slowly with a faint Bostonian drawl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's nothing,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's have a drink,&rdquo; said the other man. &ldquo;I'm A.W.O.L. Where are you
+      going?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To some place near Bar-le-Duc, back to my Division. Been in hospital.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Long?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since October.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee.... Have some Curacoa. It'll do you good. You look pale.... My name's
+      Henslowe. Ambulance with the French Army.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They sat down at an unwashed marble table where the soot from the trains
+      made a pattern sticking to the rings left by wine and liqueur glasses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going to Paris,&rdquo; said Henslowe. &ldquo;My leave expired three days ago. I'm
+      going to Paris and get taken ill with peritonitis or double pneumonia, or
+      maybe I'll have a cardiac lesion.... The army's a bore.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hospital isn't any better,&rdquo; said Andrews with a sigh. &ldquo;Though I shall
+      never forget the night with which I realized I was wounded and out of it.
+      I thought I was bad enough to be sent home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I wouldn't have missed a minute of the war.... But now that it's
+      over...Hell! Travel is the password now. I've just had two weeks in the
+      Pyrenees. Nimes, Arles, Les Baux, Carcassonne, Perpignan, Lourdes,
+      Gavarnie, Toulouse! What do you think of that for a trip?... What were you
+      in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Infantry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Must have been hell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Been! It is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't you come to Paris with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't want to be picked up,&rdquo; stammered Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a chance.... I know the ropes.... All you have to do is keep away
+      from the Olympia and the railway stations, walk fast and keep your shoes
+      shined... and you've got wits, haven't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not many.... Let's drink a bottle of wine. Isn't there anything to eat to
+      be got here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a damn thing, and I daren't go out of the station on account of the
+      M.P. at the gate.... There'll be a diner on the Marseilles express.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I can't go to Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure.... Look, how do you call yourself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;John Andrews.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, John Andrews, all I can say is that you've let 'em get your goat.
+      Don't give in. Have a good time, in spite of 'em. To hell with 'em.&rdquo; He
+      brought the bottle down so hard on the table that it broke and the purple
+      wine flowed over the dirty marble and dripped gleaming on the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some French soldiers who stood in a group round the bar turned round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;V'la un gars qui gaspille le bon vin,&rdquo; said a tall red-faced man, with
+      long sloping whiskers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pour vingt sous j'mangerai la bouteille,&rdquo; cried a little man lurching
+      forward and leaning drunkenly over the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Done,&rdquo; said Henslowe. &ldquo;Say, Andrews, he says he'll eat the bottle for a
+      franc.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He placed a shining silver franc on the table beside the remnants of the
+      broken bottle. The man seized the neck of the bottle in a black, claw-like
+      hand and gave it a preparatory flourish. He was a cadaverous little man,
+      incredibly dirty, with mustaches and beard of a moth-eaten tow-color, and
+      a purple flush on his cheeks. His uniform was clotted with mud. When the
+      others crowded round him and tried to dissuade him, he said: &ldquo;M'en fous,
+      c'est mon metier,&rdquo; and rolled his eyes so that the whites flashed in the
+      dim light like the eyes of dead codfish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, he's really going to do it,&rdquo; cried Henslowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man's teeth flashed and crunched down on the jagged edge of the glass.
+      There was a terrific crackling noise. He flourished the bottle-end again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My God, he's eating it,&rdquo; cried Henslowe, roaring with laughter, &ldquo;and
+      you're afraid to go to Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An engine rumbled into the station, with a great hiss of escaping steam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee, that's the Paris train! Tiens!&rdquo; He pressed the franc into the man's
+      dirt-crusted hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come along, Andrews.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As they left the buvette they heard again the crunching crackling noise as
+      the man bit another piece off the bottle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews followed Henslowe across the steam-filled platform to the door of
+      a first-class carriage. They climbed in. Henslowe immediately pulled down
+      the black cloth over the half globe of the light. The compartment was
+      empty. He threw himself down with a sigh of comfort on the soft
+      buff-colored cushions of the seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what on earth?&rdquo; stammered Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;M'en fous, c'est mon metier,&rdquo; interrupted Henslowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The train pulled out of the station.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                               III
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Henslowe poured wine from a brown earthen crock into the glasses, where it
+      shimmered a bright thin red, the color of currants. Andrews leaned back in
+      his chair and looked through half-closed eyes at the table with its white
+      cloth and little burnt umber loaves of bread, and out of the window at the
+      square dimly lit by lemon-yellow gas lamps and at the dark gables of the
+      little houses that huddled round it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At a table against the wall opposite a lame boy, with white beardless face
+      and gentle violet-colored eyes, sat very close to the bareheaded girl who
+      was with him and who never took her eyes off his face, leaning on his
+      crutch all the while. A stove hummed faintly in the middle of the room,
+      and from the half-open kitchen door came ruddy light and the sound of
+      something frying. On the wall, in brownish colors that seemed to have
+      taken warmth from all the rich scents of food they had absorbed since the
+      day of their painting, were scenes of the Butte as it was fancied to have
+      once been, with windmills and wide fields.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to travel,&rdquo; Henslowe was saying, dragging out his words drowsily.
+      &ldquo;Abyssinia, Patagonia, Turkestan, the Caucasus, anywhere and everywhere.
+      What do you say you and I go out to New Zealand and raise sheep?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why not stay here? There can't be anywhere as wonderful as this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I'll put off starting for New Guinea for a week. But hell, I'd go
+      crazy staying anywhere after this. It's got into my blood... all this
+      murder. It's made a wanderer of me, that's what it's done. I'm an
+      adventurer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God, I wish it had made me into anything so interesting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tie a rock on to your scruples and throw 'em off the Pont Neuf and set
+      out.... O boy, this is the golden age for living by your wits.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're not out of the army yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should worry.... I'll join the Red Cross.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've got a tip about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A girl with oval face and faint black down on her upper lip brought them
+      soup, a thick greenish colored soup, that steamed richly into their faces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you tell me how I can get out of the army you'll probably save my
+      life,&rdquo; said Andrews seriously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are two ways...Oh, but let me tell you later. Let's talk about
+      something worth while...So you write music do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An omelet lay between them, pale golden-yellow with flecks of green; a few
+      amber bubbles of burnt butter still clustered round the edges.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Talk about tone-poems,&rdquo; said Henslowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, if you are an adventurer and have no scruples, how is it you are
+      still a private?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henslowe took a gulp of wine and laughed uproariously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's the joke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They ate in silence for a little while. They could hear the couple
+      opposite them talking in low soft voices. The stove purred, and from the
+      kitchen came a sound of something being beaten in a bowl. Andrews leaned
+      back in his chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is so wonderfully quiet and mellow,&rdquo; he said.... &ldquo;It is so easy to
+      forget that there's any joy at all in life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rot...It's a circus parade.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you ever seen anything drearier than a circus parade? One of those
+      jokes that aren't funny.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Justine, encore du vin,&rdquo; called Henslowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you know her name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I live here.... The Butte is the boss on the middle of the shield. It's
+      the axle of the wheel. That's why it's so quiet, like the centre of a
+      cyclone, of a vast whirling rotary circus parade!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Justine, with her red hands that had washed so many dishes off which other
+      people had dined well, put down between them a scarlet langouste, of which
+      claws and feelers sprawled over the tablecloth that already had a few
+      purplish stains of wine. The sauce was yellow and fluffy like the breast
+      of a canary bird.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D'you know,&rdquo; said Andrews suddenly talking fast and excitedly while he
+      brushed the straggling yellow hair off his forehead, &ldquo;I'd almost be
+      willing to be shot at the end of a year if I could live up here all that
+      time with a piano and a million sheets of music paper...It would be worth
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But this is a place to come back to. Imagine coming back here after the
+      highlands of Thibet, where you'd nearly got drowned and scalped and had
+      made love to the daughter of an Afghan chief... who had red lips smeared
+      with loukoumi so that the sweet taste stayed in your mouth.&rdquo; Henslowe
+      stroked softly his little brown mustache.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what's the use of just seeing and feeling things if you can't express
+      them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the use of living at all? For the fun of it, man; damn ends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the only profound fun I ever have is that...&rdquo; Andrews's voice broke.
+      &ldquo;O God, I would give up every joy in the world if I could turn out one
+      page that I felt was adequate.... D'you know it's years since I've talked
+      to anybody?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They both stared silently out of the window at the fog that was packed
+      tightly against it like cotton wool, only softer, and a greenish-gold
+      color.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The M.P.'s sure won't get us tonight,&rdquo; said Henslowe, banging his fist
+      jauntily on the table. &ldquo;I've a great mind to go to Rue St. Anne and leave
+      my card on the Provost Marshal.... God damn! D'you remember that man who
+      took the bite out of our wine-bottle...He didn't give a hoot in hell, did
+      he? Talk about expression. Why don't you express that? I think that's the
+      turning point of your career. That's what made you come to Paris; you
+      can't deny it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They both laughed loudly rolling about on their chairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews caught glints of contagion in the pale violet eyes of the lame boy
+      and in the dark eyes of the girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's tell them about it,&rdquo; he said still laughing, with his face,
+      bloodless after the months in hospital, suddenly flushed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Salut,&rdquo; said Henslowe turning round and elevating his glass. &ldquo;Nous rions
+      parceque nous sommes gris de vin gris.&rdquo; Then he told them about the man
+      who ate glass. He got to his feet and recounted slowly in his drawling
+      voice, with gestures. Justine stood by with a dish full of stuffed
+      tomatoes of which the red skins showed vaguely through a mantle of dark
+      brown sauce. When she smiled her cheeks puffed out and gave her face a
+      little of the look of a white cat's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you live here?&rdquo; asked Andrews after they had all laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Always. It is not often that I go down to town.... It's so difficult....
+      I have a withered leg.&rdquo; He smiled brilliantly like a child telling about a
+      new toy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How could I be anywhere else?&rdquo; answered the girl. &ldquo;It's a misfortune, but
+      there it is.&rdquo; She tapped with the crutch on the floor, making a sound like
+      someone walking with it. The boy laughed and tightened his arm round her
+      shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to live here,&rdquo; said Andrews simply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But don't you see he's a soldier,&rdquo; whispered the girl hurriedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A frown wrinkled the boy's forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it wasn't by choice, I suppose,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews was silent. Unaccountable shame took possession of him before
+      these people who had never been soldiers, who would never be soldiers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Greeks used to say,&rdquo; he said bitterly, using as phrase that had been
+      a long time on his mind, &ldquo;that when a man became a slave, on the first day
+      he lost one-half of his virtue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When a man becomes a slave,&rdquo; repeated the lame boy softly, &ldquo;on the first
+      day he loses one-half of his virtue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the use of virtue? It is love you need,&rdquo; said the girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've eaten your tomato, friend Andrews,&rdquo; said Henslowe. &ldquo;Justine will get
+      us some more.&rdquo; He poured out the last of the wine that half filled each of
+      the glasses with its thin sparkle, the color of red currants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Outside the fog had blotted everything out in even darkness which grew
+      vaguely yellow and red near the sparsely scattered street lamps. Andrews
+      and Henslowe felt their way blindly down the long gleaming flights of
+      steps that led from the quiet darkness of the Butte towards the confused
+      lights and noises of more crowded streets. The fog caught in their throats
+      and tingled in their noses and brushed against their cheeks like moist
+      hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did we go away from that restaurant? I'd like to have talked to those
+      people some more,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We haven't had any coffee either.... But, man, we're in Paris. We're not
+      going to be here long. We can't afford to stay all the time in one
+      place.... It's nearly closing time already....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The boy was a painter. He said he lived by making toys; he whittles out
+      wooden elephants and camels for Noah's Arks.... Did you hear that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were walking fast down a straight, sloping street. Below them already
+      appeared the golden glare of a boulevard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews went on talking, almost to himself. &ldquo;What a wonderful life that
+      would be to live up here in a small room that would overlook the great
+      rosy grey expanse of the city, to have some absurd work like that to live
+      on, and to spend all your spare time working and going to concerts.... A
+      quiet mellow existence.... Think of my life beside it. Slaving in that
+      iron, metallic, brazen New York to write ineptitudes about music in the
+      Sunday paper. God! And this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were sitting down at a table in a noisy cafe, full of yellow light
+      flashing in eyes and on glasses and bottles, of red lips crushed against
+      the thin hard rims of glasses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wouldn't you like to just rip it off?&rdquo; Andrews jerked at his tunic with
+      both hands where it bulged out over his chest. &ldquo;Oh, I'd like to make the
+      buttons fly all over the cafe, smashing the liqueur glasses, snapping in
+      the faces of all those dandified French officers who look so proud of
+      themselves that they survived long enough to be victorious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The coffee's famous here,&rdquo; said Henslowe. &ldquo;The only place I ever had it
+      better was at a bistro in Nice on this last permission.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Somewhere else again!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's it.... For ever and ever, somewhere else! Let's have some
+      prunelle. Before the war prunelle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The waiter was a solemn man, with a beard cut like a prime minister's. He
+      came with the bottle held out before him, religiously lifted. His lips
+      pursed with an air of intense application, while he poured the white
+      glinting liquid into the glasses. When he had finished he held the bottle
+      upside down with a tragic gesture; not a drop came out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the end of the good old times,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damnation to the good old times,&rdquo; said Henslowe. &ldquo;Here's to the good old
+      new roughhousy circus parades.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder how many people they are good for, those circus parades of
+      yours,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going to spend the night?&rdquo; said Henslowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know.... I suppose I can find a hotel or something.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't you come with me and see Berthe; she probably has friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to wander about alone, not that I scorn Berthe's friends,&rdquo; said
+      Andrews...."But I am so greedy for solitude.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      John Andrews was walking alone down streets full of drifting fog. Now and
+      then a taxi dashed past him and clattered off into the obscurity.
+      Scattered groups of people, their footsteps hollow in the muffling fog,
+      floated about him. He did not care which way he walked, but went on and
+      on, crossing large crowded avenues where the lights embroidered patterns
+      of gold and orange on the fog, rolling in wide deserted squares, diving
+      into narrow streets where other steps sounded sharply for a second now and
+      then and faded leaving nothing in his ears when he stopped still to listen
+      but the city's distant muffled breathing. At last he came out along the
+      river, where the fog was densest and coldest and where he could hear
+      faintly the sound of water gurgling past the piers of bridges. The glow of
+      the lights glared and dimmed, glared and dimmed, as he walked along, and
+      sometimes he could make out the bare branches of trees blurred across the
+      halos of the lamps. The fog caressed him soothingly and shadows kept
+      flicking past him, giving him glimpses of smooth curves of cheeks and
+      glints of eyes bright from the mist and darkness. Friendly, familiar
+      people seemed to fill the fog just out of his sight. The muffled murmur of
+      the city stirred him like the sound of the voices of friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From the girl at the cross-roads singing under her street-lamp to the
+      patrician pulling roses to pieces from the height of her litter... all the
+      imagining of your desire....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The murmur of life about him kept forming itself into long modulated
+      sentences in his ears,&mdash;sentences that gave him by their form a sense
+      of quiet well-being as if he were looking at a low relief of people
+      dancing, carved out of Parian in some workshop in Attica.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once he stopped and leaned for a long while against the moisture-beaded
+      stern of a street-lamp. Two shadows defined, as they strolled towards him,
+      into the forms of a pale boy and a bareheaded girl, walking tightly laced
+      in each other's arms. The boy limped a little and his violet eyes were
+      contracted to wistfulness. John Andrews was suddenly filled with throbbing
+      expectation, as if those two would come up to him and put their hands on
+      his arms and make some revelation of vast import to his life. But when
+      they reached the full glow of the lamp, Andrews saw that he was mistaken.
+      They were not the boy and girl he had talked to on the Butte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked off hurriedly and plunged again into tortuous streets, where he
+      strode over the cobblestone pavements, stopping now and then to peer
+      through the window of a shop at the light in the rear where a group of
+      people sat quietly about a table under a light, or into a bar where a
+      tired little boy with heavy eyelids and sleeves rolled up from thin grey
+      arms was washing glasses, or an old woman, a shapeless bundle of black
+      clothes, was swabbing the floor. From doorways he heard talking and soft
+      laughs. Upper windows sent yellow rays of light across the fog.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In one doorway the vague light from a lamp bracketed in the wall showed
+      two figures, pressed into one by their close embrace. As Andrews walked
+      past, his heavy army boots clattering loud on the wet pavement, they
+      lifted their heads slowly. The boy had violet eyes and pale beardless
+      cheeks; the girl was bareheaded and kept her brown eyes fixed on the boy's
+      face. Andrews's heart thumped within him. At last he had found them. He
+      made a step towards them, and then strode on losing himself fast in the
+      cool effacing fog. Again he had been mistaken. The fog swirled about him,
+      hiding wistful friendly faces, hands ready to meet his hands, eyes ready
+      to take fire with his glance, lips cold with the mist, to be crushed under
+      his lips. &ldquo;From the girl at the singing under her street-lamp...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he walked on alone through the drifting fog.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                              IV
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Andrews left the station reluctantly, shivering in the raw grey mist under
+      which the houses of the village street and the rows of motor trucks and
+      the few figures of French soldiers swathed in long formless coats, showed
+      as vague dark blurs in the confused dawnlight. His body felt flushed and
+      sticky from a night spent huddled in the warm fetid air of an overcrowded
+      compartment. He yawned and stretched himself and stood irresolutely in the
+      middle of the street with his pack biting into his shoulders. Out of
+      sight, behind the dark mass, in which a few ruddy lights glowed, of the
+      station buildings, the engine whistled and the train clanked off into the
+      distance. Andrews listened to its faint reverberation through the mist
+      with a sick feeling of despair. It was the train that had brought him from
+      Paris back to his division.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he stood shivering in the grey mist he remembered the curious
+      despairing reluctance he used to suffer when he went back to boarding
+      school after a holiday. How he used to go from the station to the school
+      by the longest road possible, taking frantic account of every moment of
+      liberty left him. Today his feet had the same leaden reluctance as when
+      they used to all but refuse to take him up the long sandy hill to the
+      school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wandered aimlessly for a while about the silent village hoping to find
+      a cafe where he could sit for a few minutes to take a last look at himself
+      before plunging again into the grovelling promiscuity of the army. Not a
+      light showed. All the shutters of the shabby little brick and plaster
+      houses were closed. With dull springless steps he walked down the road
+      they had pointed out to him from the R. T. O.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Overhead the sky was brightening giving the mist that clung to the earth
+      in every direction ruddy billowing outlines. The frozen road gave out a
+      faint hard resonance under his footsteps. Occasionally the silhouette of a
+      tree by the roadside loomed up in the mist ahead, its uppermost branches
+      clear and ruddy with sunlight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews was telling himself that the war was over, and that in a few
+      months he would be free in any case. What did a few months more or less
+      matter? But the same thoughts were swept recklessly away in the blind
+      panic that was like a stampede of wild steers within him. There was no
+      arguing. His spirit was contorted with revolt so that his flesh twitched
+      and dark splotches danced before his eyes. He wondered vaguely whether he
+      had gone mad. Enormous plans kept rising up out of the tumult of his mind
+      and dissolving suddenly like smoke in a high wind. He would run away and
+      if they caught him, kill himself. He would start a mutiny in his company,
+      he would lash all these men to frenzy by his words, so that they too
+      should refuse to form into Guns, so that they should laugh when the
+      officers got red in the face shouting orders at them, so that the whole
+      division should march off over the frosty hills, without arms, without
+      flags, calling all the men of all the armies to join them, to march on
+      singing, to laugh the nightmare out of their blood. Would not some
+      lightning flash of vision sear people's consciousness into life again?
+      What was the good of stopping the war if the armies continued?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But that was just rhetoric. His mind was flooding itself with rhetoric
+      that it might keep its sanity. His mind was squeezing out rhetoric like a
+      sponge that he might not see dry madness face to face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And all the while his hard footsteps along the frozen road beat in his
+      ears bringing him nearer to the village where the division was quartered.
+      He was climbing a long hill. The mist thinned about him and became
+      brilliant with sunlight. Then he was walking in the full sun over the
+      crest of a hill with pale blue sky above his head. Behind him and before
+      him were mist-filled valleys and beyond other ranges of long hills, with
+      reddish-violet patches of woodland, glowing faintly in the sunlight. In
+      the valley at his feet he could see, in the shadow of the hill he stood
+      on, a church tower and a few roofs rising out of the mist, as out of
+      water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the houses bugles were blowing mess-call.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The jauntiness of the brassy notes ringing up through the silence was
+      agony to him. How long the day would be. He looked at his watch. It was
+      seven thirty. How did they come to be having mess so late?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mist seemed doubly cold and dark when he was buried in it again after
+      his moment of sunlight. The sweat was chilled on his face and streaks of
+      cold went through his clothes, soaked from the effort of carrying the
+      pack. In the village street Andrews met a man he did not know and asked
+      him where the office was. The man, who was chewing something, pointed
+      silently to a house with green shutters on the opposite side of the
+      street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At a desk sat Chrisfield smoking a cigarette. When he jumped up Andrews
+      noticed that he had a corporal's two stripes on his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, Andy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They shook hands warmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A' you all right now, ole boy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure, I'm fine,&rdquo; said Andrews. A sudden constraint fell upon them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's good,&rdquo; said Chrisfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're a corporal now. Congratulations.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Um hum. Made me more'n a month ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were silent. Chrisfield sat down in his chair again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What sort of a town is this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a hell-hole, this dump is, a hell-hole.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's nice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goin' to move soon, tell me.... Army o' Occupation. But Ah hadn't ought
+      to have told you that.... Don't tell any of the fellers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's the outfit quartered?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye won't know it; we've got fifteen new men. No account all of 'em.
+      Second draft men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Civilians in the town?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You bet.... Come with me, Andy, an Ah'll tell 'em to give you some grub
+      at the cookshack. No... wait a minute an' you'll miss the hike.... Hikes
+      every day since the goddam armistice. They sent out a general order
+      telling 'em to double up on the drill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They heard a voice shouting orders outside and the narrow street filled up
+      suddenly with a sound of boots beating the ground in unison. Andrews kept
+      his back to the window. Something in his legs seemed to be tramping in
+      time with the other legs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There they go,&rdquo; said Chrisfield. &ldquo;Loot's with 'em today.... Want some
+      grub? If it ain't been punk since the armistice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;Y&rdquo; hut was empty and dark; through the grimy windowpanes could be
+      seen fields and a leaden sky full of heavy ocherous light, in which the
+      leafless trees and the fields full of stubble were different shades of
+      dead, greyish brown. Andrews sat at the piano without playing. He was
+      thinking how once he had thought to express all the cramped boredom of
+      this life; the thwarted limbs regimented together, lashed into straight
+      lines, the monotony of servitude. Unconsciously as he thought of it, the
+      fingers of one hand sought a chord, which jangled in the badly-tuned
+      piano. &ldquo;God, how silly!&rdquo; he muttered aloud, pulling his hands away.
+      Suddenly he began to play snatches of things he knew, distorting them,
+      willfully mutilating the rhythm, mixing into them snatches of ragtime. The
+      piano jangled under his hands, filling the empty hut with clamor. He
+      stopped suddenly, letting his fingers slide from bass to treble, and began
+      to play in earnest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a cough behind him that had an artificial, discreet ring to it.
+      He went on playing without turning round. Then a voice said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beautiful, beautiful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews turned to find himself staring into a face of vaguely triangular
+      shape with a wide forehead and prominent eyelids over protruding brown
+      eyes. The man wore a Y. M. C. A. uniform which was very tight for him, so
+      that there were creases running from each button across the front of his
+      tunic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, do go on playing. It's years since I heard any Debussy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It wasn't Debussy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, wasn't it? Anyway it was just lovely. Do go on. I'll just stand here
+      and listen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews went on playing for a moment, made a mistake, started over, made
+      the same mistake, banged on the keys with his fist and turned round again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't play,&rdquo; he said peevishly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you can, my boy, you can.... Where did you learn? I would give a
+      million dollars to play like that, if I had it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews glared at him silently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are one of the men just back from hospital, I presume.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, worse luck.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I don't blame you. These French towns are the dullest places; though
+      I just love France, don't you?&rdquo; The &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man had a faintly whining voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anywhere's dull in the army.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look, we must get to know each other real well. My name's Spencer
+      Sheffield...Spencer B. Sheffield.... And between you and me there's not a
+      soul in the division you can talk to. It's dreadful not to have
+      intellectual people about one. I suppose you're from New York.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Um hum, so am I. You're probably read some of my things in Vain
+      Endeavor.... What, you've never read Vain Endeavor? I guess you didn't go
+      round with the intellectual set.... Musical people often don't.... Of
+      course I don't mean the Village. All anarchists and society women
+      there....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've never gone round with any set, and I never...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind, we'll fix that when we all get back to New York. And now you
+      just sit down at that piano and play me Debussy's 'Arabesque.'... I know
+      you love it just as much as I do. But first what's your name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Andrews.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Folks come from Virginia?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo; Andrews got to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you're related to the Penneltons.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I may be related to the Kaiser for all I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Penneltons... that's it. You see my mother was a Miss Spencer from
+      Spencer Falls, Virginia, and her mother was a Miss Pennelton, so you and I
+      are cousins. Now isn't that a coincidence?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Distant cousins. But I must go back to the barracks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come in and see me any time,&rdquo; Spencer B. Sheffield shouted after him.
+      &ldquo;You know where; back of the shack; And knock twice so I'll know it's
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Outside the house where he was quartered Andrews met the new top sergeant,
+      a lean man with spectacles and a little mustache of the color and texture
+      of a scrubbing brush.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here's a letter for you,&rdquo; the top sergeant said. &ldquo;Better look at the new
+      K. P. list I've just posted.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter was from Henslowe. Andrews read it with a smile of pleasure in
+      the faint afternoon light, remembering Henslowe's constant drawling talk
+      about distant places he had never been to, and the man who had eaten
+      glass, and the day and a half in Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Andy,&rdquo; the letter began, &ldquo;I've got the dope at last. Courses begin in
+      Paris February fifteenth. Apply at once to your C. O. to study somethin'
+      at University of Paris. Any amount of lies will go. Apply all pull
+      possible via sergeants, lieutenants and their mistresses and laundresses.
+      Yours, Henslowe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His heart thumping, Andrews ran after the sergeant, passing, in his
+      excitement, a lieutenant without saluting him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; snarled the lieutenant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews saluted, and stood stiffly at attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why didn't you salute me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was in a hurry, sir, and didn't see you. I was going on very urgent
+      company business, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Remember that just because the armistice is signed you needn't think
+      you're out of the army; at ease.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews saluted. The lieutenant saluted, turned swiftly on his heel and
+      walked away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews caught up to the sergeant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sergeant Coffin. Can I speak to you a minute?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm in a hell of a hurry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you heard anything about this army students' corps to send men to
+      universities here in France? Something the Y. M. C. A.'s getting up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can't be for enlisted men. No I ain't heard a word about it. D'you want
+      to go to school again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I get a chance. To finish my course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;College man, are ye? So am I. Well, I'll let you know if I get any
+      general order about it. Can't do anything without getting a general order
+      about it. Looks to me like it's all bushwa.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess you're right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The street was grey dark. Stung by a sense of impotence, surging with
+      despairing rebelliousness, Andrews hurried back towards the buildings
+      where the company was quartered. He would be late for mess. The grey
+      street was deserted. From a window here and there ruddy light streamed out
+      to make a glowing oblong on the wall of a house opposite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goddam it, if ye don't believe me, you go ask the lootenant.... Look
+      here, Toby, didn't our outfit see hotter work than any goddam engineers?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Toby had just stepped into the cafe, a tall man with a brown bulldog face
+      and a scar on his left cheek. He spoke rarely and solemnly with a Maine
+      coast Yankee twang.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I reckon so,&rdquo; was all he said. He sat down on the bench beside the other
+      man who went on bitterly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess you would reckon so.... Hell, man, you ditch diggers ain't in
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ditch diggers!&rdquo; The engineer banged his fist down on the table. His lean
+      pickled face was a furious red. &ldquo;I guess we don't dig half so many ditches
+      as the infantry does... an' when we've dug 'em we don't crawl into 'em an'
+      stay there like goddam cottontailed jackrabbits.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You guys don't git near enough to the front....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Like goddam cottontailed jackrabbits,&rdquo; shouted the pickle-faced engineer
+      again, roaring with laughter. &ldquo;Ain't that so?&rdquo; He looked round the room
+      for approval. The benches at the two long tables were filled with infantry
+      men who looked at him angrily. Noticing suddenly that he had no support,
+      he moderated his voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The infantry's damn necessary, I'll admit that; but where'd you fellers
+      be without us guys to string the barbed wire for you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There warn't no barbed wire strung in the Oregon forest where we was,
+      boy. What d'ye want barbed wire when you're advancin' for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here...I'll bet you a bottle of cognac my company had more losses
+      than yourn did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tek him up, Joe,&rdquo; said Toby, suddenly showing an interest in the
+      conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, it's a go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We had fifteen killed and twenty wounded,&rdquo; announced the engineer
+      triumphantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How badly wounded?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's that to you? Hand over the cognac?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Like hell. We had fifteen killed and twenty wounded too, didn't we,
+      Toby?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I reckon you're right,&rdquo; said Toby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't I right?&rdquo; asked the other man, addressing the company generally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure, goddam right,&rdquo; muttered voices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I guess it's all off, then,&rdquo; said the engineer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it ain't,&rdquo; said Toby, &ldquo;reckon up yer wounded. The feller who's got
+      the worst wounded gets the cognac. Ain't that fair?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We've had seven fellers sent home already,&rdquo; said the engineer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We've had eight. Ain't we?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; growled everybody in the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How bad was they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two of 'em was blind,&rdquo; said Toby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell,&rdquo; said the engineer, jumping to his feet as if taking a trick at
+      poker. &ldquo;We had a guy who was sent home without arms nor legs, and three
+      fellers got t.b. from bein' gassed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      John Andrews had been sitting in a corner of the room. He got up.
+      Something had made him think of the man he had known in the hospital who
+      had said that was the life to make a feller feel fit. Getting up at three
+      o'clock in the morning, you jumped out of bed just like a cat.... He
+      remembered how the olive-drab trousers had dangled, empty from the man's
+      chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's nothing; one of our sergeants had to have a new nose grafted
+      on....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The village street was dark and deeply rutted with mud. Andrews wandered
+      up and down aimlessly. There was only one other cafe. That would be just
+      like this one. He couldn't go back to the desolate barn where he slept. It
+      would be too early to go to sleep. A cold wind blew down the street and
+      the sky was full of vague movement of dark clouds. The partly-frozen mud
+      clotted about his feet as he walked along; he could feel the water
+      penetrating his shoes. Opposite the Y. M. C. A. hut at the end of the
+      street he stopped. After a moment's indecision he gave a little laugh, and
+      walked round to the back where the door of the &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man's room was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He knocked twice, half hoping there would be no reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sheffield's whining high-pitched voice said: &ldquo;Who is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Andrews.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come right in.... You're just the man I wanted to see.&rdquo; Andrews stood
+      with his hand on the knob.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do sit down and make yourself right at home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Spencer Sheffield was sitting at a little desk in a room with walls of
+      unplaned boards and one small window. Behind the desk were piles of
+      cracker boxes and cardboard cases of cigarettes and in the midst of them a
+      little opening, like that of a railway ticket office, in the wall through
+      which the &ldquo;Y&rdquo; man sold his commodities to the long lines of men who would
+      stand for hours waiting meekly in the room beyond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews was looking round for a chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I just forgot. I'm sitting in the only chair,&rdquo; said Spencer
+      Sheffield, laughing, twisting his small mouth into a shape like a camel's
+      mouth and rolling about his large protruding eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, that's all right. What I wanted to ask you was: do you know anything
+      about...?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look, do come with me to my room,&rdquo; interrupted Sheffield. &ldquo;I've got such
+      a nice sitting-room with an open fire, just next to Lieutenant Bleezer....
+      An' there we'll talk... about everything. I'm just dying to talk to
+      somebody about the things of the spirit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know anything about a scheme for sending enlisted men to French
+      universities? Men who have not finished their courses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, wouldn't that be just fine. I tell you, boy, there's nothing like the
+      U. S. government to think of things like that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But have you heard anything about it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; but I surely shall.... D'you mind switching the light off?... That's
+      it. Now just follow me. Oh, I do need a rest. I've been working dreadfully
+      hard since that Knights of Columbus man came down here. Isn't it hateful
+      the way they try to run down the 'Y'?... Now we can have a nice long talk.
+      You must tell me all about yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But don't you really know anything about that university scheme? They say
+      it begins February fifteenth,&rdquo; Andrews said in a low voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll ask Lieutenant Bleezer if he knows anything about it,&rdquo; said
+      Sheffield soothingly, throwing an arm around Andrews's shoulder and
+      pushing him in the door ahead of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They went through a dark hall to a little room where a fire burned
+      brilliantly in the hearth, lighting up with tongues of red and yellow a
+      square black walnut table and two heavy armchairs with leather backs and
+      bottoms that shone like lacquer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is wonderful,&rdquo; said Andrews involuntarily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Romantic I call it. Makes you think of Dickens, doesn't it, and Locksley
+      Hall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Andrews vaguely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you been in France long?&rdquo; asked Andrews settling himself in one of
+      the chairs and looking into the dancing flames of the log fire. &ldquo;Will you
+      smoke?&rdquo; He handed Sheffield a crumpled cigarette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, thanks, I only smoke special kinds. I have a weak heart. That's why I
+      was rejected from the army.... Oh, but I think it was superb of you to
+      join as a private; It was my dream to do that, to be one of the nameless
+      marching throng.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think it was damn foolish, not to say criminal,&rdquo; said Andrews sullenly,
+      still staring into the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can't mean that. Or do you mean that you think you had abilities
+      which would have been worth more to your country in another position?... I
+      have many friends who felt that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.... I don't think it's right of a man to go back on himself.... I
+      don't think butchering people ever does any good ...I have acted as if I
+      did think it did good... out of carelessness or cowardice, one or the
+      other; that I think bad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mustn't talk that way&rdquo; said Sheffield hurriedly. &ldquo;So you are a
+      musician, are you?&rdquo; He asked the question with a jaunty confidential air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I used to play the piano a little, if that's what you mean,&rdquo; said
+      Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Music has never been the art I had most interest in. But many things have
+      moved me intensely.... Debussy and those beautiful little things of
+      Nevin's. You must know them.... Poetry has been more my field. When I was
+      young, younger than you are, quite a lad...Oh, if we could only stay
+      young; I am thirty-two.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't see that youth by itself is worth much. It's the most superb
+      medium there is, though, for other things,&rdquo; said Andrews. &ldquo;Well, I must
+      go,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If you do hear anything about that university scheme, you
+      will let me know, won't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed I shall, dear boy, indeed I shall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They shook hands in jerky dramatic fashion and Andrews stumbled down the
+      dark hall to the door. When he stood out in the raw night air again he
+      drew a deep breath. By the light that streamed out from a window he looked
+      at his watch. There was time to go to the regimental sergeant-major's
+      office before tattoo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the opposite end of the village street from the Y. M. C. A. hut was a
+      cube-shaped house set a little apart from the rest in the middle of a
+      broad lawn which the constant crossing and recrossing of a staff of cars
+      and trains of motor trucks had turned into a muddy morass in which the
+      wheel tracks crisscrossed in every direction. A narrow board walk led from
+      the main road to the door. In the middle of this walk Andrews met a
+      captain and automatically got off into the mud and saluted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The regimental office was a large room that had once been decorated by wan
+      and ill-drawn mural paintings in the manner of Puvis de Chavannes, but the
+      walls had been so chipped and soiled by five years of military occupation
+      that they were barely recognisable. Only a few bits of bare flesh and
+      floating drapery showed here and there above the maps and notices that
+      were tacked on the walls. At the end of the room a group of nymphs in Nile
+      green and pastel blue could be seen emerging from under a French War Loan
+      poster. The ceiling was adorned with an oval of flowers and little plaster
+      cupids in low relief which had also suffered and in places showed the
+      laths. The office was nearly empty. The littered desks and silent
+      typewriters gave a strange air of desolation to the gutted drawing-room.
+      Andrews walked boldly to the furthest desk, where a little red card
+      leaning against the typewriter said &ldquo;Regimental Sergeant-Major.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind the desk, crouched over a heap of typewritten reports, sat a little
+      man with scanty sandy hair, who screwed up his eyes and smiled when
+      Andrews approached the desk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, did you fix it up for me?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fix what?&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I thought you were someone else.&rdquo; The smile left the regimental
+      sergeant-major's thin lips. &ldquo;What do you want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Regimental Sergeant-Major, can you tell me anything about a scheme
+      to send enlisted men to colleges over here? Can you tell me who to apply
+      to?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;According to what general orders? And who told you to come and see me
+      about it, anyway?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you heard anything about it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, nothing definite. I'm busy now anyway. Ask one of your own non-coms
+      to find out about it.&rdquo; He crouched once more over the papers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews was walking towards the door, flushing with annoyance, when he saw
+      that the man at the desk by the window was jerking his head in a peculiar
+      manner, just in the direction of the regimental sergeant-major and then
+      towards the door. Andrews smiled at him and nodded. Outside the door,
+      where an orderly sat on a short bench reading a torn Saturday Evening
+      Post, Andrews waited. The hall was part of what must have been a ballroom,
+      for it had a much-scarred hardwood floor and big spaces of bare plaster
+      framed by gilt-and lavender-colored mouldings, which had probably held
+      tapestries. The partition of unplaned boards that formed other offices cut
+      off the major part of a highly decorated ceiling where cupids with
+      crimson-daubed bottoms swam in all attitudes in a sea of pink-and blue-and
+      lavender-colored clouds, wreathing themselves coyly in heavy garlands of
+      waxy hothouse flowers, while cornucopias spilling out squashy fruits gave
+      Andrews a feeling of distinct insecurity as he looked up from below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say are you a Kappa Mu?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews looked down suddenly and saw in front of him the man who had
+      signalled to him in the regimental sergeant-major's office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you a Kappa Mu?&rdquo; he asked again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not that I know of,&rdquo; stammered Andrews puzzled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What school did you go to?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Harvard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Harvard.... Guess we haven't got a chapter there.... I'm from North
+      Western. Anyway you want to go to school in France here if you can. So do
+      I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you want to come and have a drink?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man frowned, pulled his overseas cap down over his forehead, where the
+      hair grew very low, and looked about him mysteriously. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They splashed together down the muddy village street. &ldquo;We've got thirteen
+      minutes before tattoo.... My name's Walters, what's yours?&rdquo; He spoke in a
+      low voice in short staccato phrases.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Andrews.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Andrews, you've got to keep this dark. If everybody finds out about it
+      we're through. It's a shame you're not a Kappa Mu, but college men have
+      got to stick together, that's the way I look at it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I'll keep it dark enough,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's too good to be true. The general order isn't out yet, but I've seen
+      a preliminary circular. What school d'you want to go to?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sorbonne, Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's the stuff. D'you know the back room at Baboon's?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Walters turned suddenly to the left up an alley, and broke through a hole
+      in a hawthorn hedge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A guy's got to keep his eyes and ears open if he wants to get anywhere in
+      this army,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they ducked in the back door of a cottage, Andrews caught a glimpse of
+      the billowy line of a tile roof against the lighter darkness of the sky.
+      They sat down on a bench built into a chimney where a few sticks made a
+      splutter of flames.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur desire?&rdquo; A red-faced girl with a baby in her arms came up to
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's Babette; Baboon I call her,&rdquo; said Walters with a laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Chocolat,&rdquo; said Walters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That'll suit me all right. It's my treat, remember.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not forgetting it. Now let's get to business. What you do is this.
+      You write an application. I'll make that out for you on the typewriter
+      tomorrow and you meet me here at eight tomorrow night and I'll give it to
+      you.... You sign it at once and hand it in to your sergeant. See?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This'll just be a preliminary application; when the order's out you'll
+      have to make another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman, this time without the baby, appeared out of the darkness of the
+      room with a candle and two cracked bowls from which steam rose, faint
+      primrose-color in the candle light. Walters drank his bowl down at a gulp,
+      grunted and went on talking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me a cigarette, will you?... You'll have to make it out darn soon
+      too, because once the order's out every son of a gun in the division'll be
+      making out to be a college man. How did you get your tip?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From a fellow in Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've been to Paris, have you?&rdquo; said Walters admiringly. &ldquo;Is it the way
+      they say it is? Gee, these French are immoral. Look at this woman here.
+      She'll sleep with a feller soon as not. Got a baby too!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But who do the applications go in to?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To the colonel, or whoever he appoints to handle it. You a Catholic?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neither am I. That's the hell of it. The regimental sergeant-major is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess you haven't noticed the way things run up at divisional
+      headquarters. It's a regular cathedral. Isn't a mason in it.... But I must
+      beat it.... Better pretend you don't know me if you meet me on the street;
+      see?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Walters hurried out of the door. Andrews sat alone looking at the flutter
+      of little flames about the pile of sticks on the hearth, while he sipped
+      chocolate from the warm bowl held between the palms of both hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He remembered a speech out of some very bad romantic play he had heard
+      when he was very small.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About your head I fling... the curse of Rome.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He started to laugh, sliding back and forth on the smooth bench which had
+      been polished by the breeches of generations warming their feet at the
+      fire. The red-faced woman stood with her hands on her hips looking at him
+      in astonishment, while he laughed and laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mais quelle gaite, quelle gaite,&rdquo; she kept saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The straw under him rustled faintly with every sleepy movement Andrews
+      made in his blankets. In a minute the bugle was going to blow and he was
+      going to jump out of his blankets, throw on his clothes and fall into line
+      for roll call in the black mud of the village street. It couldn't be that
+      only a month had gone by since he had got back from hospital. No, he had
+      spent a lifetime in this village being dragged out of his warm blankets
+      every morning by the bugle, shivering as he stood in line for roll call,
+      shuffling in a line that moved slowly past the cookshack, shuffling along
+      in another line to throw what was left of his food into garbage cans, to
+      wash his mess kit in the greasy water a hundred other men had washed their
+      mess kits in; lining up to drill, to march on along muddy roads,
+      splattered by the endless trains of motor trucks; lining up twice more for
+      mess, and at last being forced by another bugle into his blankets again to
+      sleep heavily while a smell hung in his nostrils of sweating woolen
+      clothing and breathed-out air and dusty blankets. In a minute the bugle
+      was going to blow, to snatch him out of even these miserable thoughts, and
+      throw him into an automaton under other men's orders. Childish spiteful
+      desires surged into his mind. If the bugler would only die. He could
+      picture him, a little man with a broad face and putty-colored cheeks, a
+      small rusty mustache and bow-legs lying like a calf on a marble slab in a
+      butcher's shop on top of his blankets. What nonsense! There were other
+      buglers. He wondered how many buglers there were in the army. He could
+      picture them all, in dirty little villages, in stone barracks, in towns,
+      in great camps that served the country for miles with rows of black
+      warehouses and narrow barrack buildings standing with their feet a little
+      apart; giving their little brass bugles a preliminary tap before putting
+      out their cheeks and blowing in them and stealing a million and a half (or
+      was it two million or three million) lives, and throwing the warm sentient
+      bodies into coarse automatons who must be kept busy, lest they grow
+      restive, till killing time began again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bugle blew with the last jaunty notes, a stir went through the barn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Corporal Chrisfield stood on the ladder that led up from the yard, his
+      head on a level with the floor shouting:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shake it up, fellers! If a guy's late to roll call, it's K. P. for a
+      week.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As Andrews, while buttoning his tunic, passed him on the ladder, he
+      whispered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me we're going to see service again, Andy... Army o' Occupation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While he stood stiffly at attention waiting to answer when the sergeant
+      called his name, Andrews's mind was whirling in crazy circles of anxiety.
+      What if they should leave before the General Order came on the University
+      plan? The application would certainly be lost in the confusion of moving
+      the Division, and he would be condemned to keep up this life for more
+      dreary weeks and months. Would any years of work and happiness in some
+      future existence make up for the humiliating agony of this servitude?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dismissed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He ran up the ladder to fetch his mess kit and in a few minutes was in
+      line again in the rutted village street where the grey houses were just
+      forming outlines as light crept slowly into the leaden sky, while a faint
+      odor of bacon and coffee came to him, making him eager for food, eager to
+      drown his thoughts in the heaviness of swiftly-eaten greasy food and in
+      the warmth of watery coffee gulped down out of a tin-curved cup. He was
+      telling himself desperately that he must do something&mdash;that he must
+      make an effort to save himself, that he must fight against the deadening
+      routine that numbed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Later, while he was sweeping the rough board floor of the company's
+      quarters, the theme came to him which had come to him long ago, in a
+      former incarnation it seemed, when he was smearing windows with soap from
+      a gritty sponge along the endless side of the barracks in the training
+      camp. Time and time again in the past year he had thought of it, and
+      dreamed of weaving it into a fabric of sound which would express the
+      trudging monotony of days bowed under the yoke. &ldquo;Under the Yoke&rdquo;; that
+      would be a title for it. He imagined the sharp tap of the conductor's
+      baton, the silence of a crowded hall, the first notes rasping bitterly
+      upon the tense ears of men and women. But as he tried to concentrate his
+      mind on the music, other things intruded upon it, blurred it. He kept
+      feeling the rhythm of the Queen of Sheba slipping from the shoulders of
+      her gaudily caparisoned elephant, advancing towards him through the
+      torchlight, putting her hand, fantastic with rings and long gilded
+      fingernails, upon his shoulders so that ripples of delight, at all the
+      voluptuous images of his desire, went through his whole body, making it
+      quiver like a flame with yearning for unimaginable things. It all muddled
+      into fantastic gibberish&mdash;into sounds of horns and trombones and
+      double basses blown off key while a piccolo shrilled the first bars of
+      &ldquo;The Star Spangled Banner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had stopped sweeping and looked about him dazedly. He was alone.
+      Outside, he heard a sharp voice call &ldquo;Atten-shun!&rdquo; He ran down the ladder
+      and fell in at the end of the line under the angry glare of the
+      lieutenant's small eyes, which were placed very close together on either
+      side of a lean nose, black and hard, like the eyes of a crab.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The company marched off through the mud to the drill field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After retreat Andrews knocked at the door at the back of the Y. M. C. A.,
+      but as there was no reply, he strode off with a long, determined stride to
+      Sheffield's room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the moment that elapsed between his knock and an answer, he could feel
+      his heart thumping. A little sweat broke out on his temples.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, what's the matter, boy? You look all wrought up,&rdquo; said Sheffield,
+      holding the door half open, and blocking, with his lean form, entrance to
+      the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I come in? I want to talk to you,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I suppose it'll be all right.... You see I have an officer with
+      me...&rdquo; then there was a flutter in Sheffield's voice. &ldquo;Oh, do come in&rdquo;; he
+      went on, with sudden enthusiasm. &ldquo;Lieutenant Bleezer is fond of music
+      too.... Lieutenant, this is the boy I was telling you about. We must get
+      him to play for us. If he had the opportunities, I am sure he'd be a
+      famous musician.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lieutenant Bleezer was a dark youth with a hooked nose and pincenez. His
+      tunic was unbuttoned and he held a cigar in his hand. He smiled in an
+      evident attempt to put this enlisted man at his ease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I am very fond of music, modern music,&rdquo; he said, leaning against the
+      mantelpiece. &ldquo;Are you a musician by profession?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not exactly... nearly.&rdquo; Andrews thrust his hands into the bottoms of his
+      trouser pockets and looked from one to the other with a certain defiance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose you've played in some orchestra? How is it you are not in the
+      regimental band?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, except the Pierian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Pierian? Were you at Harvard?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So was I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn't that a coincidence?&rdquo; said Sheffield. &ldquo;I'm so glad I just insisted
+      on your coming in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What year were you?&rdquo; asked Lieutenant Bleezer, with a faint change of
+      tone, drawing a finger along his scant black moustache.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fifteen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven't graduated yet,&rdquo; said the lieutenant with a laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I wanted to ask you, Mr. Sheffield....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, my boy; my boy, you know you've known me long enough to call me
+      Spence,&rdquo; broke in Sheffield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to know,&rdquo; went on Andrews speaking slowly, &ldquo;can you help me to get
+      put on the list to be sent to the University of Paris?... I know that a
+      list has been made out, although the General Order has not come yet. I am
+      disliked by most of the noncoms and I don't see how I can get on without
+      somebody's help...I simply can't go this life any longer.&rdquo; Andrews closed
+      his lips firmly and looked at the ground, his face flushing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, a man of your attainments certainly ought to go,&rdquo; said Lieutenant
+      Bleezer, with a faint tremor of hesitation in his voice. &ldquo;I'm going to
+      Oxford myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Trust me, my boy,&rdquo; said Sheffield. &ldquo;I'll fix it up for you, I promise.
+      Let's shake hands on it.&rdquo; He seized Andrews's hand and pressed it warmly
+      in a moist palm. &ldquo;If it's within human power, within human power,&rdquo; he
+      added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I must go,&rdquo; said Lieutenant Bleezer, suddenly striding to the door.
+      &ldquo;I promised the Marquise I'd drop in. Good-bye.... Take a cigar, won't
+      you?&rdquo; He held out three cigars in the direction of Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don't you think the old aristocracy of France is just too wonderful?
+      Lieutenant Bleezer goes almost every evening to call on the Marquise de
+      Rompemouville. He says she is just too spirituelle for words.... He often
+      meets the Commanding Officer there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews had dropped into a chair and sat with his face buried in his
+      hands, looking through his fingers at the fire, where a few white fingers
+      of flame were clutching intermittently at a grey beech log. His mind was
+      searching desperately for expedients.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He got to his feet and shouted shrilly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't go this life any more, do you hear that? No possible future is
+      worth all this. If I can get to Paris, all right. If not, I'll desert and
+      damn the consequences.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I've already promised I'll do all I can....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, do it now,&rdquo; interrupted Andrews brutally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, I'll go and see the colonel and tell him what a great musician
+      you are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's go together, now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But that'll look queer, dear boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't give a damn, come along.... You can talk to him. You seem to be
+      thick with all the officers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must wait till I tidy up,&rdquo; said Sheffield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews strode up and down in the mud in front of the house, snapping his
+      fingers with impatience, until Sheffield came out, then they walked off in
+      silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now wait outside a minute,&rdquo; whispered Sheffield when they came to the
+      white house with bare grapevines over the front, where the colonel lived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a wait, Andrews found himself at the door of a brilliantly-lighted
+      drawing room. There was a dense smell of cigar smoke. The colonel, an
+      elderly man with a benevolent beard, stood before him with a coffee cup in
+      his hand. Andrews saluted punctiliously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They tell me you are quite a pianist.... Sorry I didn't know it before,&rdquo;
+       said the colonel in a kindly tone. &ldquo;You want to go to Paris to study under
+      this new scheme?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a shame I didn't know before. The list of the men going is all made
+      out.... Of course perhaps at the last minute... if somebody else doesn't
+      go... your name can go in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The colonel smiled graciously and turned back into the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, Colonel,&rdquo; said Andrews, saluting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without a word to Sheffield, he strode off down the dark village street
+      towards his quarters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews stood on the broad village street, where the mud was nearly dry,
+      and a wind streaked with warmth ruffled the few puddles; he was looking
+      into the window of the cafe to see if there was anyone he knew inside from
+      whom he could borrow money for a drink. It was two months since he had had
+      any pay, and his pockets were empty. The sun had just set on a premature
+      spring afternoon, flooding the sky and the grey houses and the tumultuous
+      tiled roofs with warm violet light. The faint premonition of the stirring
+      of life in the cold earth, that came to Andrews with every breath he drew
+      of the sparkling wind, stung his dull boredom to fury. It was the first of
+      March, he was telling himself over and over again. The fifteenth of
+      February, he had expected to be in Paris, free, or half-free; at least
+      able to work. It was the first of March and here he was still helpless,
+      still tied to the monotonous wheel of routine, incapable of any real
+      effort, spending his spare time wandering like a lost dog up and down this
+      muddy street, from the Y. M. C. A. hut at one end of the village to the
+      church and the fountain in the middle, and to the Divisional Headquarters
+      at the other end, then back again, looking listlessly into windows,
+      staring in people's faces without seeing them. He had given up all hope of
+      being sent to Paris. He had given up thinking about it or about anything;
+      the same dull irritation of despair droned constantly in his head,
+      grinding round and round like a broken phonograph record.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After looking a long while in the window of the cafe of the Braves Allies,
+      he walked a little down the street and stood in the same position staring
+      into the Repos du Poilu, where a large sign &ldquo;American spoken&rdquo; blocked up
+      half the window. Two officers passed. His hand snapped up to the salute
+      automatically, like a mechanical signal. It was nearly dark. After a while
+      he began to feel serious coolness in the wind, shivered and started to
+      wander aimlessly down the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He recognised Walters coming towards him and was going to pass him without
+      speaking when Walters bumped into him, muttered in his ear &ldquo;Come to
+      Baboon's,&rdquo; and hurried off with his swift business-like stride. Andrews,
+      stood irresolutely for a while with his head bent, then went with
+      unresilient steps up the alley, through the hole in the hedge and into
+      Babette's kitchen. There was no fire. He stared morosely at the grey ashes
+      until he heard Walters's voice beside him:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've got you all fixed up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mean... are you asleep, Andrews? They've cut a name off the school list,
+      that's all. Now if you shake a leg and somebody doesn't get in ahead of
+      you, you'll be in Paris before you know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's damn decent of you to come and tell me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here's your application,&rdquo; said Walters, drawing a paper out of his
+      pocket. &ldquo;Take it to the colonel; get him to O. K. it and then rush it up
+      to the sergeant-major's office yourself. They are making out travel orders
+      now. So long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Walters had vanished. Andrews was alone again, staring at the grey ashes.
+      Suddenly he jumped to his feet and hurried off towards headquarters. In
+      the anteroom to the colonel's office he waited a long while, looking at
+      his boots that were thickly coated with mud. &ldquo;Those boots will make a bad
+      impression; those boots will make a bad impression,&rdquo; a voice was saying
+      over and over again inside of him. A lieutenant was also waiting to see
+      the colonel, a young man with pink cheeks and a milky-white forehead, who
+      held his hat in one hand with a pair of khaki-colored kid gloves, and kept
+      passing a hand over his light well-brushed hair. Andrews felt dirty and
+      ill-smelling in his badly-fitting uniform. The sight of this perfect young
+      man in his whipcord breeches, with his manicured nails and immaculately
+      polished puttees exasperated him. He would have liked to fight him, to
+      prove that he was the better man, to outwit him, to make him forget his
+      rank and his important air.... The lieutenant had gone in to see the
+      colonel. Andrews found himself reading a chart of some sort tacked up on
+      the wall. There were names and dates and figures, but he could not make
+      out what it was about.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right! Go ahead,&rdquo; whispered the orderly to him; and he was standing
+      with his cap in his hand before the colonel who was looking at him
+      severely, fingering the papers he had on the desk with a heavily veined
+      hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews saluted. The colonel made an impatient gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I speak to you, Colonel, about the school scheme?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose you've got permission from somebody to come to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir.&rdquo; Andrews's mind was struggling to find something to say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you'd better go and get it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Colonel, there isn't time; the travel orders are being made out at
+      this minute. I've heard that there's been a name crossed out on the list.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Too late.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Colonel, you don't know how important it is. I am a musician by
+      trade; if I can't get into practice again before being demobilized, I
+      shan't be able to get a job.... I have a mother and an old aunt dependent
+      on me. My family has seen better days, you see, sir. It's only by being
+      high up in my profession that I can earn enough to give them what they are
+      accustomed to. And a man in your position in the world, Colonel, must know
+      what even a few months of study in Paris mean to a pianist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The colonel smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's see your application,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews handed it to him with a trembling hand. The colonel made a few
+      marks on one corner with a pencil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now if you can get that to the sergeant-major in time to have your name
+      included in the orders, well and good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews saluted, and hurried out. A sudden feeling of nausea had come over
+      him. He was hardly able to control a mad desire to tear the paper up. &ldquo;The
+      sons of bitches... the sons of bitches,&rdquo; he muttered to himself. Still he
+      ran all the way to the square, isolated building where the regimental
+      office was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stopped panting in front of the desk that bore the little red card,
+      Regimental Sergeant-Major. The regimental sergeant-major looked up at him
+      enquiringly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here's an application for School at the Sorbonne, Sergeant. Colonel
+      Wilkins told me to run up to you with it, said he was very anxious to have
+      it go in at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Too late,&rdquo; said the regimental sergeant-major.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the colonel said it had to go in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can't help it.... Too late,&rdquo; said the regimental sergeant-major.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews felt the room and the men in their olive-drab shirt sleeves at the
+      typewriters and the three nymphs creeping from behind the French War Loan
+      poster whirl round his head. Suddenly he heard a voice behind him:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is the name Andrews, John, Sarge?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How the hell should I know?&rdquo; said the regimental sergeant-major.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I've got it in the orders already.... I don't know how it got
+      in.&rdquo; The voice was Walters's voice, staccatto and businesslike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, why d'you want to bother me about it? Give me that paper.&rdquo;
+       The regimental sergeant-major jerked the paper out of Andrews's hand and
+      looked at it savagely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, you leave tomorrow. A copy of the orders'll go to your company
+      in the morning,&rdquo; growled the regimental sergeant-major.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews looked hard at Walters as he went out, but got no glance in
+      return. When he stood in the air again, disgust surged up within him,
+      bitterer than before. The fury of his humiliation made tears start in his
+      eyes. He walked away from the village down the main road, splashing
+      carelessly through the puddles, slipping in the wet clay of the ditches.
+      Something within him, like the voice of a wounded man swearing, was
+      whining in his head long strings of filthy names. After walking a long
+      while he stopped suddenly with his fists clenched. It was completely dark,
+      the sky was faintly marbled by a moon behind the clouds. On both sides of
+      the road rose the tall grey skeletons of poplars. When the sound of his
+      footsteps stopped, he heard a faint lisp of running water. Standing still
+      in the middle of the road, he felt his feelings gradually relax. He said
+      aloud in a low voice several times: &ldquo;You are a damn fool, John Andrews,&rdquo;
+       and started walking slowly and thoughtfully back to the village.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                              V
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Andrews felt an arm put round his shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah've been to hell an' gone lookin' for you, Andy,&rdquo; said Chrisfield's
+      voice in his ear, jerking him out of the reverie he walked in. He could
+      feel in his face Chrisfield's breath, heavy with cognac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going to Paris tomorrow, Chris,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah know it, boy. Ah know it. That's why I was that right smart to talk to
+      you.... You doan want to go to Paris.... Why doan ye come up to Germany
+      with us? Tell me they live like kings up there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said Andrews, &ldquo;let's go to the back room at Babette's.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield hung on his shoulder, walking unsteadily beside him. At the
+      hole in the hedge Chrisfield stumbled and nearly pulled them both down.
+      They laughed, and still laughing staggered into the dark kitchen, where
+      they found the red-faced woman with her baby sitting beside the fire with
+      no other light than the flicker of the rare flames that shot up from a
+      little mass of wood embers. The baby started crying shrilly when the two
+      soldiers stamped in. The woman got up and, talking automatically to the
+      baby all the while, went off to get a light and wine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews looked at Chrisfield's face by the firelight. His cheeks had lost
+      the faint childish roundness they had had when Andrews had first talked to
+      him, sweeping up cigarette butts off the walk in front of the barracks at
+      the training camp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah tell you, boy, you ought to come with us to Germany... nauthin' but
+      whores in Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The trouble is, Chris, that I don't want to live like a king, or a
+      sergeant or a major-general.... I want to live like John Andrews.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What yer goin' to do in Paris, Andy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Study music.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah guess some day Ah'll go into a movie show an' when they turn on the
+      lights, who'll Ah see but ma ole frien' Andy raggin' the scales on the
+      pyaner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Something like that.... How d'you like being a corporal, Chris?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, Ah doan know.&rdquo; Chrisfield spat on the floor between his feet. &ldquo;It's
+      funny, ain't it? You an' me was right smart friends onct.... Guess it's
+      bein' a non-com.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews did not answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield sat silent with his eyes on the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Ah got him.... Gawd, it was easy,&rdquo; he said suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah got him, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean...?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Um-hum, in the Oregon forest,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews said nothing. He felt suddenly very tired. He thought of men he
+      had seen in attitudes of death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah wouldn't ha' thought it had been so easy,&rdquo; said Chrisfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman came through the door at the end of the kitchen with a candle in
+      her hand. Chrisfield stopped speaking suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tomorrow I'm going to Paris,&rdquo; cried Andrews boisterously. &ldquo;It's the end
+      of soldiering for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah bet it'll be some sport in Germany, Andy.... Sarge says we'll be goin'
+      up to Coab... what's its name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Coblenz.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield poured a glass of wine out and drank it off, smacking his lips
+      after it and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D'ye remember, Andy, we was both of us brushin' cigarette butts at that
+      bloody trainin' camp when we first met up with each other?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Considerable water has run under the bridge since then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah reckon we won't meet up again, mos' likely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell, why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were silent again, staring at the fading embers of the fire. In the
+      dim edge of the candlelight the woman stood with her hands on her hips,
+      looking at them fixedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Reckon a feller wouldn't know what to do with himself if he did get out
+      of the army... now, would he, Andy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So long, Chris. I'm beating it,&rdquo; said Andrews in a harsh voice, jumping
+      to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So long, Andy, ole man.... Ah'll pay for the drinks.&rdquo; Chrisfield was
+      beckoning with his hand to the red-faced woman, who advanced slowly
+      through the candlelight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks, Chris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews strode away from the door. A cold, needle-like rain was falling.
+      He pulled up his coat collar and ran down the muddy village street towards
+      his quarters.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                              VI
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In the opposite corner of the compartment Andrews could see Walters
+      hunched up in an attitude of sleep, with his cap pulled down far over his
+      eyes. His mouth was open, and his head wagged with the jolting of the
+      train. The shade over the light plunged the compartment in dark-blue
+      obscurity, which made the night sky outside the window and the shapes of
+      trees and houses, evolving and pirouetting as they glided by, seem very
+      near. Andrews felt no desire to sleep; he had sat a long time leaning his
+      head against the frame of the window, looking out at the fleeing shadows
+      and the occasional little red-green lights that darted by and the glow of
+      the stations that flared for a moment and were lost in dark silhouettes of
+      unlighted houses and skeleton trees and black hillsides. He was thinking
+      how all the epochs in his life seemed to have been marked out by railway
+      rides at night. The jolting rumble of the wheels made the blood go faster
+      through his veins; made him feel acutely the clattering of the train along
+      the gleaming rails, spurning fields and trees and houses, piling up miles
+      and miles between the past and future. The gusts of cold night air when he
+      opened the window and the faint whiffs of steam and coal gas that tingled
+      in his nostrils excited him like a smile on a strange face seen for a
+      moment in a crowded street. He did not think of what he had left behind.
+      He was straining his eyes eagerly through the darkness towards the vivid
+      life he was going to live. Boredom and abasement were over. He was free to
+      work and hear music and make friends. He drew deep breaths; warm waves of
+      vigor seemed flowing constantly from his lungs and throat to his finger
+      tips and down through his body and the muscles of his legs. He looked at
+      his watch: &ldquo;One.&rdquo; In six hours he would be in Paris. For six hours he
+      would sit there looking out at the fleeting shadows of the countryside,
+      feeling in his blood the eager throb of the train, rejoicing in every mile
+      the train carried him away from things past.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Walters still slept, half slipping off the seat, with his mouth open and
+      his overcoat bundled round his head. Andrews looked out of the window,
+      feeling in his nostrils the tingle of steam and coal gas. A phrase out of
+      some translation of the Iliad came to his head: &ldquo;Ambrosial night, Night
+      ambrosial unending.&rdquo; But better than sitting round a camp fire drinking
+      wine and water and listening to the boastful yarns of long-haired
+      Achaeans, was this hustling through the countryside away from the
+      monotonous whine of past unhappiness, towards joyousness and life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews began to think of the men he had left behind. They were asleep at
+      this time of night, in barns and barracks, or else standing on guard with
+      cold damp feet, and cold hands which the icy rifle barrel burned when they
+      tended it. He might go far away out of sound of the tramp of marching,
+      away from the smell of overcrowded barracks where men slept in rows like
+      cattle, but he would still be one of them. He would not see an officer
+      pass him without an unconscious movement of servility, he would not hear a
+      bugle without feeling sick with hatred. If he could only express these
+      thwarted lives, the miserable dullness of industrialized slaughter, it
+      might have been almost worth while&mdash;for him; for the others, it would
+      never be worth while. &ldquo;But you're talking as if you were out of the woods;
+      you're a soldier still, John Andrews.&rdquo; The words formed themselves in his
+      mind as vividly as if he had spoken them. He smiled bitterly and settled
+      himself again to watch silhouettes of trees and hedges and houses and
+      hillsides fleeing against the dark sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he awoke the sky was grey. The train was moving slowly, clattering
+      loudly over switches, through a town of wet slate roofs that rose in
+      fantastic patterns of shadow above the blue mist. Walters was smoking a
+      cigarette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God! These French trains are rotten,&rdquo; he said when he noticed that
+      Andrews was awake. &ldquo;The most inefficient country I ever was in anyway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Inefficiency be damned,&rdquo; broke in Andrews, jumping up and stretching
+      himself. He opened the window. &ldquo;The heating's too damned efficient.... I
+      think we're near Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The cold air, with a flavor of mist in it, poured into the stuffy
+      compartment. Every breath was joy. Andrews felt a crazy buoyancy bubbling
+      up in him. The rumbling clatter of the train wheels sang in his ears. He
+      threw himself on his back on the dusty blue seat and kicked his heels in
+      the air like a colt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Liven up, for God's sake, man,&rdquo; he shouted. &ldquo;We're getting near Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are lucky bastards,&rdquo; said Walters, grinning, with the cigarette
+      hanging out of the corner of his mouth. &ldquo;I'm going to see if I can find
+      the rest of the gang.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews, alone in the compartment, found himself singing at the top of his
+      lungs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the day brightened the mist lifted off the flat linden-green fields
+      intersected by rows of leafless poplars. Salmon-colored houses with blue
+      roofs wore already a faintly citified air. They passed brick-kilns and
+      clay-quarries, with reddish puddles of water in the bottom of them;
+      crossed a jade-green river where a long file of canal boats with bright
+      paint on their prows moved slowly. The engine whistled shrilly. They
+      clattered through a small freight yard, and rows of suburban houses began
+      to form, at first chaotically in broad patches of garden-land, and then in
+      orderly ranks with streets between and shops at the corners. A dark-grey
+      dripping wall rose up suddenly and blotted out the view. The train slowed
+      down and went through several stations crowded with people on their way to
+      work,&mdash;ordinary people in varied clothes with only here and there a
+      blue or khaki uniform. Then there was more dark-grey wall, and the
+      obscurity of wide bridges under which dusty oil lamps burned orange and
+      red, making a gleam on the wet wall above them, and where the wheels
+      clanged loudly. More freight yards and the train pulled slowly past other
+      trains full of faces and silhouettes of people, to stop with a jerk in a
+      station. And Andrews was standing on the grey cement platform, sniffing
+      smells of lumber and merchandise and steam. His ungainly pack and
+      blanket-roll he carried on his shoulder like a cross. He had left his
+      rifle and cartridge belt carefully tucked out of sight under the seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Walters and five other men straggled along the platform towards him,
+      carrying or dragging their packs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a look of apprehension on Walters's face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what do we do now?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do!&rdquo; cried Andrews, and he burst out laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Prostrate bodies in olive drab hid the patch of tender green grass by the
+      roadside. The company was resting. Chrisfield sat on a stump morosely
+      whittling at a stick with a pocket knife. Judkins was stretched out beside
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the hell do they make us do this damn hikin' for, Corp?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Guess they're askeered we'll forgit how to walk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, ain't it better than loafin' around yer billets all day, thinkin'
+      an' cursin' an' wishin' ye was home?&rdquo; spoke up the man who sat the other
+      side, pounding down the tobacco in his pipe with a thick forefinger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It makes me sick, trampin' round this way in ranks all day with the
+      goddam frawgs starin' at us an'...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They're laughin' at us, I bet,&rdquo; broke in another voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll be movin' soon to the Army o' Occupation,&rdquo; said Chrisfield
+      cheerfully. &ldquo;In Germany it'll be a reglar picnic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' d'you know what that means?&rdquo; burst out Judkins, sitting bolt upright.
+      &ldquo;D'you know how long the troops is goin' to stay in Germany? Fifteen
+      years.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gawd, they couldn't keep us there that long, man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They can do anythin' they goddam please with us. We're the guys as is
+      gettin' the raw end of this deal. It ain't the same with an' edicated guy
+      like Andrews or Sergeant Coffin or them. They can suck around after 'Y'
+      men, an' officers an' get on the inside track, an' all we can do is stand
+      up an' salute an' say 'Yes, lootenant' an' 'No, lootenant' an' let 'em
+      ride us all they goddam please. Ain't that gospel truth, corporal?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah guess you're right, Judkie; we gits the raw end of the stick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That damn yellar dawg Andrews goes to Paris an' gets schoolin' free an'
+      all that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell, Andy waren't yellar, Judkins.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, why did he go bellyachin' around all the time like he knew more'n
+      the lootenant did?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah reckon he did,&rdquo; said Chrisfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anyway, you can't say that those guys who went to Paris did a goddam
+      thing more'n any the rest of us did.... Gawd, I ain't even had a leave
+      yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it ain't no use crabbin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, onct we git home an' folks know the way we've been treated, there'll
+      be a great ole investigation. I can tell you that,&rdquo; said one of the new
+      men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It makes you mad, though, to have something like that put over on ye....
+      Think of them guys in Paris, havin' a hell of a time with wine an' women,
+      an' we stay out here an' clean our guns an' drill.... God, I'd like to get
+      even with some of them guys.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The whistle blew. The patch of grass became unbroken green again as the
+      men lined up along the side of the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fall in!&rdquo; called the Sergeant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Atten-shun!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right dress!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Front! God, you guys haven't got no snap in yer.... Stick yer belly in,
+      you. You know better than to stand like that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Squads, right! March! Hep, hep, hep!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Company tramped off along the muddy road. Their steps were all the
+      same length. Their arms swung in the same rhythm. Their faces were cowed
+      into the same expression, their thoughts were the same. The tramp, tramp
+      of their steps died away along the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Birds were singing among the budding trees. The young grass by the
+      roadside kept the marks of the soldiers' bodies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PART5" id="link2H_PART5">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PART FIVE: THE WORLD OUTSIDE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Andrews, and six other men from his division, sat at a table outside the
+      cafe opposite the Gare de l'Est. He leaned back in his chair with a cup of
+      coffee lifted, looking across it at the stone houses with many balconies.
+      Steam, scented of milk and coffee, rose from the cup as he sipped from it.
+      His ears were full of a rumble of traffic and a clacking of heels as
+      people walked briskly by along the damp pavements. For a while he did not
+      hear what the men he was sitting with were saying. They talked and
+      laughed, but he looked beyond their khaki uniforms and their boat-shaped
+      caps unconsciously. He was taken up with the smell of the coffee and of
+      the mist. A little rusty sunshine shone on the table of the cafe and on
+      the thin varnish of wet mud that covered the asphalt pavement. Looking
+      down the Avenue, away from the station, the houses, dark grey tending to
+      greenish in the shadow and to violet in the sun, faded into a soft haze of
+      distance. Dull gilt lettering glittered along black balconies. In the
+      foreground were men and women walking briskly, their cheeks whipped a
+      little into color by the rawness of the morning. The sky was a faintly
+      roseate grey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Walters was speaking:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The first thing I want to see is the Eiffel Tower.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why d'you want to see that?&rdquo; said the small sergeant with a black
+      mustache and rings round his eyes like a monkey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, man, don't you know that everything begins from the Eiffel Tower? If
+      it weren't for the Eiffel Tower, there wouldn't be any sky-scrapers....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How about the Flatiron Building and Brooklyn Bridge? They were built
+      before the Eiffel Tower, weren't they?&rdquo; interrupted the man from New York.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Eiffel Tower's the first piece of complete girder construction in the
+      whole world,&rdquo; reiterated Walters dogmatically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;First thing I'm going to do's go to the Folies Berd-jairs; me for the
+      w.w.'s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better lay off the wild women, Bill,&rdquo; said Walters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ain't goin' to look at a woman,&rdquo; said the sergeant with the black
+      mustache. &ldquo;I guess I seen enough women in my time, anyway.... The war's
+      over, anyway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You just wait, kid, till you fasten your lamps on a real Parizianne,&rdquo;
+       said a burly, unshaven man with a corporal's stripes on his arm, roaring
+      with laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews lost track of the talk again, staring dreamily through half-closed
+      eyes down the long straight street, where greens and violets and browns
+      merged into a bluish grey monochrome at a little distance. He wanted to be
+      alone, to wander at random through the city, to stare dreamily at people
+      and things, to talk by chance to men and women, to sink his life into the
+      misty sparkling life of the streets. The smell of the mist brought a
+      memory to his mind. For a long while he groped for it, until suddenly he
+      remembered his dinner with Henslowe and the faces of the boy and girl he
+      had talked to on the Butte. He must find Henslowe at once. A second's
+      fierce resentment went through him against all these people about him.
+      Christ! He must get away from them all; his freedom had been hard enough
+      won; he must enjoy it to the uttermost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, I'm going to stick to you, Andy.&rdquo; Walters's voice broke into his
+      reverie. &ldquo;I'm going to appoint you the corps of interpreters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D'you know the way to the School Headquarters?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The R. T. O. said take the subway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going to walk,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll get lost, won't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No danger, worse luck,&rdquo; said Andrews, getting to his feet. &ldquo;I'll see you
+      fellows at the School Headquarters, whatever those are.... So long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Andy, I'll wait for you there,&rdquo; Walters called after him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews darted down a side street. He could hardly keep from shouting
+      aloud when he found himself alone, free, with days and days ahead of him
+      to work and think, gradually to rid his limbs of the stiff attitudes of
+      the automaton. The smell of the streets, and the mist, indefinably
+      poignant, rose like incense smoke in fantastic spirals through his brain,
+      making him hungry and dazzled, making his arms and legs feel lithe and as
+      ready for delight as a crouching cat for a spring. His heavy shoes beat
+      out a dance as they clattered on the wet pavements under his springy
+      steps. He was walking very fast, stopping suddenly now and then to look at
+      the greens and oranges and crimsons of vegetables in a push cart, to catch
+      a vista down intricate streets, to look into the rich brown obscurity of a
+      small wine shop where workmen stood at the counter sipping white wine.
+      Oval, delicate faces, bearded faces of men, slightly gaunt faces of young
+      women, red cheeks of boys, wrinkled faces of old women, whose ugliness
+      seemed to have hidden in it, stirringly, all the beauty of youth and the
+      tragedy of lives that had been lived; the faces of the people he passed
+      moved him like rhythms of an orchestra. After much walking, turning always
+      down the street which looked pleasantest, he came to an oval with a statue
+      of a pompous personage on a ramping horse. &ldquo;Place des Victoires,&rdquo; he read
+      the name, which gave him a faint tinge of amusement. He looked quizzically
+      at the heroic features of the sun king and walked off laughing. &ldquo;I suppose
+      they did it better in those days, the grand manner,&rdquo; he muttered. And his
+      delight redoubled in rubbing shoulders with the people whose effigies
+      would never appear astride ramping-eared horses in squares built to
+      commemorate victories. He came out on a broad straight avenue, where there
+      were many American officers he had to salute, and M. P.'s and shops with
+      wide plate-glass windows, full of objects that had a shiny, expensive
+      look. &ldquo;Another case of victories,&rdquo; he thought, as he went off into a side
+      street, taking with him a glimpse of the bluish-grey pile of the Opera,
+      with its pompous windows and its naked bronze ladies holding lamps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was in a narrow street full of hotels and fashionable barber shops,
+      from which came an odor of cosmopolitan perfumery, of casinos and
+      ballrooms and diplomatic receptions, when he noticed an American officer
+      coming towards him, reeling a little,&mdash;a tall, elderly man with a red
+      face and a bottle nose. He saluted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The officer stopped still, swaying from side to side, and said in a
+      whining voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shonny, d'you know where Henry'sh Bar is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I don't, Major,&rdquo; said Andrews, who felt himself enveloped in an odor
+      of cocktails.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll help me to find it, shonny, won't you?... It's dreadful not to be
+      able to find it.... I've got to meet Lootenant Trevors in Henry'sh Bar.&rdquo;
+       The major steadied himself by putting a hand on Andrews' shoulder. A
+      civilian passed them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dee-donc,&rdquo; shouted the major after him, &ldquo;Dee-donc, Monshier, ou ay
+      Henry'sh Bar?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man walked on without answering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now isn't that like a frog, not to understand his own language?&rdquo; said the
+      major.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But there's Henry's Bar, right across the street,&rdquo; said Andrews suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bon, bon,&rdquo; said the major.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They crossed the street and went in. At the bar the major, still clinging
+      to Andrews' shoulder, whispered in his ear: &ldquo;I'm A. W. O. L., shee?...
+      Shee?.... Whole damn Air Service is A. W. O. L. Have a drink with me....
+      You enlisted man? Nobody cares here.... Warsh over, Sonny.... Democracy is
+      shafe for the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews was just raising a champagne cocktail to his lips, looking with
+      amusement at the crowd of American officers and civilians who crowded into
+      the small mahogany barroom, when a voice behind him drawled out:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll be damned!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews turned and saw Henslowe's brown face and small silky mustache. He
+      abandoned his major to his fate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God, I'm glad to see you.... I was afraid you hadn't been able to work
+      it.&rdquo;...Said Henslowe slowly, stuttering a little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm about crazy, Henny, with delight. I just got in a couple of hours
+      ago....&rdquo; Laughing, interrupting each other, they chattered in broken
+      sentences.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how in the name of everything did you get here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With the major?&rdquo; said Andrews, laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the devil?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; that major,&rdquo; whispered Andrews in his friend's ear, &ldquo;rather the
+      worse for wear, asked me to lead him to Henry's Bar and just fed me a
+      cocktail in the memory of Democracy, late defunct.... But what are you
+      doing here? It's not exactly... exotic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came to see a man who was going to tell me how I could get to Rumania
+      with the Red Cross.... But that can wait.... Let's get out of here. God, I
+      was afraid you hadn't made it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had to crawl on my belly and lick people's boots to do it.... God, it
+      was low!... But here I am.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were out in the street again, walking and gesticulating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But 'Libertad, Libertad, allons, ma femme!' as Walt Whitman would have
+      said,&rdquo; shouted Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's one grand and glorious feeling.... I've been here three days. My
+      section's gone home; God bless them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what do you have to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do? Nothing,&rdquo; cried Henslowe. &ldquo;Not a blooming bloody goddam thing! In
+      fact, it's no use trying... the whole thing is such a mess you couldn't do
+      anything if you wanted to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to go and talk to people at the Schola Cantorum.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There'll be time for that. You'll never make anything out of music if you
+      get serious-minded about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, last but not least, I've got to get some money from somewhere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now you're talking!&rdquo; Henslowe pulled a burnt leather pocket book out of
+      the inside of his tunic. &ldquo;Monaco,&rdquo; he said, tapping the pocket book, which
+      was engraved with a pattern of dull red flowers. He pursed up his lips and
+      pulled out some hundred franc notes, which he pushed into Andrews's hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me one of them,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All or none.... They last about five minutes each.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it's so damn much to pay back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pay it back&mdash;heavens!... Here take it and stop your talking. I
+      probably won't have it again, so you'd better make hay this time. I warn
+      you it'll be spent by the end of the week.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right. I'm dead with hunger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's sit down on the Boulevard and think about where we'll have lunch to
+      celebrate Miss Libertad.... But let's not call her that, sounds like
+      Liverpool, Andy, a horrid place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How about Freiheit?&rdquo; said Andrews, as they sat down in basket chairs in
+      the reddish yellow sunlight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Treasonable... off with your head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But think of it, man,&rdquo; said Andrews, &ldquo;the butchery's over, and you and I
+      and everybody else will soon be human beings again. Human; all too human!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No more than eighteen wars going,&rdquo; muttered Henslowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven't seen any papers for an age.... How do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;People are fighting to beat the cats everywhere except on the' western
+      front,&rdquo; said Henslowe. &ldquo;But that's where I come in. The Red Cross sends
+      supply trains to keep them at it.... I'm going to Russia if I can work
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what about the Sorbonne?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Sorbonne can go to Ballyhack.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Henny, I'm going to croak on your hands if you don't take me
+      somewhere to get some food.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you want a solemn place with red plush or with salmon pink brocade?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why have a solemn place at all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because solemnity and good food go together. It's only a religious
+      restaurant that has a proper devotion to the belly. O, I know, we'll go
+      over to Brooklyn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To the Rive Gauche. I know a man who insists on calling it Brooklyn.
+      Awfully funny man... never been sober in his life. You must meet him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I want to.... It's a dog's age since I met anyone new, except you. I
+      can't live without having a variegated crowd about, can you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've got that right on this boulevard. Serbs, French, English,
+      Americans, Australians, Rumanians, Tcheco-Slovaks; God, is there any
+      uniform that isn't here?... I tell you, Andy, the war's been a great thing
+      for the people who knew how to take advantage of it. Just look at their
+      puttees.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess they'll know how to make a good thing of the Peace too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, that's going to be the best yet.... Come along. Let's be little
+      devils and take a taxi.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This certainly is the main street of Cosmopolis.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They threaded their way through the crowd, full of uniforms and glitter
+      and bright colors, that moved in two streams up and down the wide sidewalk
+      between the cafes and the boles of the bare trees. They climbed into a
+      taxi, and lurched fast through streets where, in the misty sunlight,
+      grey-green and grey-violet mingled with blues and pale lights as the
+      colors mingle in a pigeon's breast feathers. They passed the leafless
+      gardens of the Tuileries on one side, and the great inner Courts of the
+      Louvre, with their purple mansard roofs and their high chimneys on the
+      other, and saw for a second the river, dull jade green, and the plane
+      trees splotched with brown and cream color along the quais, before they
+      were lost in the narrow brownish-grey streets of the old quarters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is Paris; that was Cosmopolis,&rdquo; said Henslowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not particular, just at present,&rdquo; cried Andrews gaily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The square in front of the Odeon was a splash of white and the collonade a
+      blur of darkness as the cab swerved round the corner and along the edge of
+      the Luxembourg, where, through the black iron fence, many brown and
+      reddish colors in the intricate patterns of leafless twigs opened here and
+      there on statues and balustrades and vistas of misty distances. The cab
+      stopped with a jerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is the Place des Medicis,&rdquo; said Henslowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of a slanting street looking very flat, through the haze, was
+      the dome of the Pantheon. In the middle of the square between the yellow
+      trams and the green low busses, was a quiet pool, where the shadow of
+      horizontals of the house fronts was reflected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They sat beside the window looking out at the square.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henslowe ordered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Remember how sentimental history books used to talk about prisoners who
+      were let out after years in dungeons, not being able to stand it, and
+      going back to their cells?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D'you like sole meuniere?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anything, or rather everything! But take it from me, that's all rubbish.
+      Honestly I don't think I've ever been happier in my life.... D'you know,
+      Henslowe, there's something in you that is afraid to be happy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be morbid.... There's only one real evil in the world: being
+      somewhere without being able to get away;... I ordered beer. This is the
+      only place in Paris where it's fit to drink.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I'm going to every blooming concert...Colonne-Lamoureux on Sunday, I
+      know that.... The only evil in the world is not to be able to hear music
+      or to make it.... These oysters are fit for Lucullus.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not say fit for John Andrews and Bob Henslowe, damn it?... Why the
+      ghosts of poor old dead Romans should be dragged in every time a man eats
+      an oyster, I don't see. We're as fine specimens as they were. I swear I
+      shan't let any old turned-toclay Lucullus outlive me, even if I've never
+      eaten a lamprey.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why should you eat a lamp&mdash;chimney, Bob?&rdquo; came a hoarse voice
+      beside them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews looked up into a round, white face with large grey eyes hidden
+      behind thick steel-rimmed spectacles. Except for the eyes, the face had a
+      vaguely Chinese air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, Heinz! Mr. Andrews, Mr. Heineman,&rdquo; said Henslowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Glad to meet you,&rdquo; said Heineman in a jovially hoarse voice. &ldquo;You guys
+      seem to be overeating, to reckon by the way things are piled up on the
+      table.&rdquo; Through the hoarseness Andrews could detect a faint Yankee tang in
+      Heineman's voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'd better sit down and help us,&rdquo; said Henslowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure....D'you know my name for this guy?&rdquo; He turned to Andrews....
+      &ldquo;Sinbad!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+&ldquo;Sinbad was in bad in Tokio and Rome, In bad in Trinidad
+ And twice as bad at home.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      He sang the words loudly, waving a bread stick to keep time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shut up, Heinz, or you'll get us run out of here the way you got us run
+      out of the Olympia that night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They both laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' d'you remember Monsieur Le Guy with his coat?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do I? God!&rdquo; They laughed till the tears ran down their cheeks. Heineman
+      took off his glasses and wiped them. He turned to Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Paris is the best yet. First absurdity: the Peace Conference and its
+      nine hundred and ninety-nine branches. Second absurdity: spies. Third:
+      American officers A.W.O.L. Fourth: The seven sisters sworn to slay.&rdquo; He
+      broke out laughing again, his chunky body rolling about on the chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Three of them have sworn to slay Sinbad, and four of them have sworn to
+      slay me.... But that's too complicated to tell at lunch time.... Eighth:
+      there are the lady relievers, Sinbad's specialty. Ninth: there's
+      Sinbad....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shut up, Heinz, you're getting me maudlin,&rdquo; spluttered Henslowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O Sinbad was in bad all around,&rdquo; chanted Heineman. &ldquo;But no one's given me
+      anything to drink,&rdquo; he said suddenly in a petulant voice. &ldquo;Garcon, une
+      bouteille de Macon, pour un Cadet de Gascogne.... What's the next? It ends
+      with vergogne. You've seen the play, haven't you? Greatest play going....
+      Seen it twice sober and seven other times.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cyrano de Bergerac?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's it. Nous sommes les Cadets de Gasgogne, rhymes with ivrogne and
+      sans vergogne.... You see I work in the Red Cross.... You know Sinbad, old
+      Peterson's a brick.... I'm supposed to be taking photographs of tubercular
+      children at this minute.... The noblest of my professions is that of
+      artistic photographer.... Borrowed the photographs from the rickets man.
+      So I have nothing to do for three months and five hundred francs
+      travelling expenses. Oh, children, my only prayer is 'give us this day our
+      red worker's permit' and the Red Cross does the rest.&rdquo; Heineman laughed
+      till the glasses rang on the table. He took off his glasses and wiped them
+      with a rueful air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So now I call the Red Cross the Cadets!&rdquo; cried Heineman, his voice a thin
+      shriek from laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews was drinking his coffee in little sips, looking out of the window
+      at the people that passed. An old woman with a stand of flowers sat on a
+      small cane chair at the corner. The pink and yellow and blue-violet shades
+      of the flowers seemed to intensify the misty straw color and azured grey
+      of the wintry sun and shadow of the streets. A girl in a tight-fitting
+      black dress and black hat stopped at the stand to buy a bunch of pale
+      yellow daisies, and then walked slowly past the window of the restaurant
+      in the direction of the gardens. Her ivory face and slender body and her
+      very dark eyes sent a sudden flush through Andrews's whole frame as he
+      looked at her. The black erect figure disappeared in the gate of the
+      gardens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews got to his feet suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've got to go,&rdquo; he said in a strange voice.... &ldquo;I just remember a man
+      was waiting for me at the School Headquarters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let him wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, you haven't had a liqueur yet,&rdquo; cried Heineman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No... but where can I meet you people later?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cafe de Rohan at five... opposite the Palais Royal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll never find it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes I will,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Palais Royal metro station,&rdquo; they shouted after him as he dashed out of
+      the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He hurried into the gardens. Many people sat on benches in the frail
+      sunlight. Children in bright-colored clothes ran about chasing hoops. A
+      woman paraded a bunch of toy balloons in carmine and green and purple,
+      like a huge bunch of parti-colored grapes inverted above her head. Andrews
+      walked up and down the alleys, scanning faces. The girl had disappeared.
+      He leaned against a grey balustrade and looked down into the empty pond
+      where traces of the explosion of a Bertha still subsisted. He was telling
+      himself that he was a fool. That even if he had found her he could not
+      have spoken to her; just because he was free for a day or two from the
+      army he needn't think the age of gold had come back to earth. Smiling at
+      the thought, he walked across the gardens, wandered through some streets
+      of old houses in grey and white stucco with slate mansard roofs and
+      fantastic complications of chimney-pots till he came out in front of a
+      church with a new classic facade of huge columns that seemed toppling by
+      their own weight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He asked a woman selling newspapers what the church's name was. &ldquo;Mais,
+      Monsieur, c'est Saint Sulpice,&rdquo; said the woman in a surprised tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Saint Sulpice. Manon's songs came to his head, and the sentimental
+      melancholy of eighteenth century Paris with its gambling houses in the
+      Palais Royal where people dishonored themselves in the presence of their
+      stern Catonian fathers, and its billets doux written at little gilt
+      tables, and its coaches lumbering in covered with mud from the provinces
+      through the Porte d'Orleans and the Porte de Versailles; the Paris of
+      Diderot and Voltaire and Jean-Jacques, with its muddy streets and its
+      ordinaries where one ate bisques and larded pullets and souffles; a Paris
+      full of mouldy gilt magnificence, full of pompous ennui of the past and
+      insane hope of the future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked down a narrow, smoky street full of antique shops and old
+      bookshops and came out unexpectedly on the river opposite the statue of
+      Voltaire. The name on the corner was quai Malaquais. Andrews crossed and
+      looked down for a long time at the river. Opposite, behind a lace-work of
+      leafless trees, were the purplish roofs of the Louvre with their high
+      peaks and their ranks and ranks of chimneys; behind him the old houses of
+      the quai and the wing, topped by a balustrade with great grey stone urns
+      of a domed building of which he did not know the name. Barges were coming
+      upstream, the dense green water spuming under their blunt bows, towed by a
+      little black tugboat with its chimney bent back to pass under the bridges.
+      The tug gave a thin shrill whistle. Andrews started walking downstream. He
+      crossed by the bridge at the corner of the Louvre, turned his back on the
+      arch Napoleon built to receive the famous horses from St. Marc's,&mdash;a
+      pinkish pastry-like affair&mdash;and walked through the Tuileries which
+      were full of people strolling about or sitting in the sun, of doll-like
+      children and nursemaids with elaborate white caps, of fluffy little dogs
+      straining at the ends of leashes. Suddenly a peaceful sleepiness came over
+      him. He sat down in the sun on a bench, watching, hardly seeing them, the
+      people who passed to and fro casting long shadows. Voices and laughter
+      came very softly to his ears above the distant stridency of traffic. From
+      far away he heard for a few moments notes of a military band playing a
+      march. The shadows of the trees were faint blue-grey in the ruddy yellow
+      gravel. Shadows of people kept passing and repassing across them. He felt
+      very languid and happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly he started up; he had been dozing. He asked an old man with a
+      beautifully pointed white beard the way to rue du Faubourg St. Honore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After losing his way a couple of times, he walked listlessly up some
+      marble steps where a great many men in khaki were talking. Leaning against
+      the doorpost was Walters. As he drew near Andrews heard him saying to the
+      man next to him:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, the Eiffel tower was the first piece of complete girder construction
+      ever built.... That's the first thing a feller who's wide awake ought to
+      see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me the Opery's the grandest thing to look at,&rdquo; said the man next it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If there's wine an' women there, me for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' don't forget the song.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But that isn't interesting like the Eiffel tower is,&rdquo; persisted Walters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Walters, I hope you haven't been waiting for me,&rdquo; stammered Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I've been waiting in line to see the guy about courses.... I want to
+      start this thing right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess I'll see them tomorrow,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say have you done anything about a room, Andy? Let's you and me be
+      bunkies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right.... But maybe you won't want to room where I do, Walters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's that? In the Latin Quarter?... You bet. I want to see some French
+      life while I am about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it's too late to get a room to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going to the 'Y' tonight anyway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll get a fellow I know to put me up.... Then tomorrow, we'll see. Well,
+      so long,&rdquo; said Andrews, moving away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait. I'm coming with you.... We'll walk around town together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rabbit was rather formless, very fluffy and had a glance of madness in
+      its pink eye with a black center. It hopped like a sparrow along the
+      pavement, emitting a rubber tube from its back, which went up to a bulb in
+      a man's hand which the man pressed to make the rabbit hop. Yet the rabbit
+      had an air of organic completeness. Andrews laughed inordinately when he
+      first saw it. The vendor, who had a basket full of other such rabbits on
+      his arm, saw Andrews laughing and drew timidly near to the table; he had a
+      pink face with little, sensitive lips rather like a real rabbit's, and
+      large frightened eyes of a wan brown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you make them yourself?&rdquo; asked Andrews, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man dropped his rabbit on the table with a negligent air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, oui, Monsieur, d'apres la nature.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He made the rabbit turn a somersault by suddenly pressing the bulb hard.
+      Andrews laughed and the rabbit man laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Think of a big strong man making his living that way,&rdquo; said Walters,
+      disgusted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do it all... de matiere premiere au profit de l'accapareur,&rdquo; said the
+      rabbit man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, Andy... late as hell.... I'm sorry,&rdquo; said Henslowe, dropping down
+      into a chair beside them. Andrews introduced Walters, the rabbit man took
+      off his hat, bowed to the company and went off, making the rabbit hop
+      before him along the edge of the curbstone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's happened to Heineman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here he comes now,&rdquo; said Henslowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An open cab had driven up to the curb in front of the cafe. In it sat
+      Heineman with a broad grin on his face and beside him a woman in a
+      salmon-colored dress, ermine furs and an emerald-green hat. The cab drove
+      off and Heineman, still grinning, walked up to the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's the lion cub?&rdquo; asked Henslowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They say it's got pneumonia.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Heineman. Mr. Walters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The grin left Heineman's face; he said: &ldquo;How do you do?&rdquo; curtly, cast a
+      furious glance at Andrews and settled himself in a chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sun had set. The sky was full of lilac and bright purple and carmine.
+      Among the deep blue shadows lights were coming on, primrose-colored street
+      lamps, violet arc lights, ruddy sheets of light poured out of shop
+      windows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's go inside. I'm cold as hell,&rdquo; said Heineman crossly, and they filed
+      in through the revolving door, followed by a waiter with their drinks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've been in the Red Cross all afternoon, Andy.... I think I am going to
+      work that Roumania business.... Want to come?&rdquo; said Henslowe in Andrews'
+      ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I can get hold of a piano and some lessons and the concerts keep up
+      you won't be able to get me away from Paris with wild horses. No, sir, I
+      want to see what Paris is like.... It's going to my head so it'll be weeks
+      before I know what I think about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't think about it.... Drink,&rdquo; growled Heineman, scowling savagely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's two things I'm going to keep away from in Paris; drink and
+      women.... And you can't have one without the other,&rdquo; said Walters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True enough.... You sure do need them both,&rdquo; said Heineman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews was not listening to their talk; twirling the stem of his glass of
+      vermouth in his fingers, he was thinking of the Queen of Sheba slipping
+      down from off the shoulders of her elephant, glistening fantastically with
+      jewels in the light of crackling, resinous torches. Music was seeping up
+      through his mind as the water seeps into a hole dug in the sand of the
+      seashore. He could feel all through his body the tension of rhythms and
+      phrases taking form, not quite to be seized as yet, still hovering on the
+      borderland of consciousness. &ldquo;From the girl at the cross-roads singing
+      under her street-lamp to the patrician pulling roses to pieces from the
+      height of her litter....All the imaginings of your desire....&rdquo; He thought
+      of the girl with skin like old ivory he had seen in the Place de Medicis.
+      The Queen of Sheba's face was like that now in his imaginings, quiet and
+      inscrutable. A sudden cymbal-clanging of joy made his heart thump hard. He
+      was free now of the imaginings of his desire, to loll all day at cafe
+      tables watching the tables move in changing patterns before him, to fill
+      his mind and body with a reverberation of all the rhythms of men and women
+      moving in the frieze of life before his eyes; no more like wooden
+      automatons knowing only the motions of the drill manual, but supple and
+      varied, full of force and tragedy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For Heaven's sake let's beat it from here.... Gives me a pain this place
+      does.&rdquo; Heineman beat his fist on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said Andrews, getting up with a yawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henslowe and Andrews walked off, leaving Walters to follow them with
+      Heineman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We're going to dine at Le Rat qui Danse,&rdquo; said Henslowe, &ldquo;an awfully
+      funny place.... We just have time to walk there comfortably with an
+      appetite.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They followed the long dimly-lighted Rue de Richelieu to the Boulevards,
+      where they drifted a little while with the crowd. The glaring lights
+      seemed to powder the air with gold. Cafes and the tables outside were
+      crowded. There was an odor of vermouth and coffee and perfume and
+      cigarette smoke mixed with the fumes of burnt gasoline from taxicabs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn't this mad?&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's always carnival at seven on the Grands Boulevards.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They started climbing the steep streets to Montmartre. At a corner they
+      passed a hard-faced girl with rouge-smeared lips and overpowdered cheeks,
+      laughing on the arm of an American soldier, who had a sallow face and
+      dull-green eyes that glittered in the slanting light of a street-lamp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, Stein,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who's that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A fellow from our division, got here with me this morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's got curious lips for a Jew,&rdquo; said Henslowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the fork of two slanting streets, they went into a restaurant that had
+      small windows pasted over with red paper, through which the light came
+      dimly. Inside were crowded oak tables and oak wainscoting with a shelf
+      round the top, on which were shell-cans, a couple of skulls, several
+      cracked majolica plates and a number of stuffed rats. The only people
+      there were a fat woman and a man with long grey hair and beard who sat
+      talking earnestly over two small glasses in the center of the room. A
+      husky-looking waitress with a Dutch cap and apron hovered near the inner
+      door from which came a great smell of fish frying in olive oil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The cook here's from Marseilles,&rdquo; said Henslowe, as they settled
+      themselves at a table for four.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder if the rest of them lost the way,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;More likely old Heinz stopped to have a drink,&rdquo; said Henslowe. &ldquo;Let's
+      have some hors d'oeuvre while we are waiting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The waitress brought a collection of boat-shaped plates of red salads and
+      yellow salads and green salads and two little wooden tubs with herrings
+      and anchovies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henslowe stopped her as she was going, saying: &ldquo;Rien de plus?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The waitress contemplated the array with a tragic air, her arms folded
+      over her ample bosom. &ldquo;Que voulez-vous, Monsieur, c'est l'armistice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The greatest fake about all this war business is the peace. I tell you,
+      not till the hors d'oeuvre has been restored to its proper abundance and
+      variety will I admit that the war's over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The waitress tittered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Things aren't what they used to be,&rdquo; she said, going back to the kitchen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heineman burst into the restaurant at that moment, slamming the door
+      behind him so that the glass rang, and the fat woman and the hairy man
+      started violently in their chairs. He tumbled into a place, grinning
+      broadly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what have you done to Walters?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Heineman wiped his glasses meticulously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, he died of drinking raspberry shrub,&rdquo; he said.... &ldquo;Dee-dong peteet du
+      ving de Bourgogne,&rdquo; he shouted towards the waitress in his nasal French.
+      Then he added: &ldquo;Le Guy is coming in a minute, I just met him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The restaurant was gradually filling up with men and women of very various
+      costumes, with a good sprinkling of Americans in uniform and out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God I hate people who don't drink,&rdquo; cried Heineman, pouring out wine. &ldquo;A
+      man who don't drink just cumbers the earth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How are you going to take it in America when they have prohibition?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't talk about it; here's le Guy. I wouldn't have him know I belong to
+      a nation that prohibits good liquor.... Monsieur le Guy, Monsieur Henslowe
+      et Monsieur Andrews,&rdquo; he continued getting up ceremoniously. A little man
+      with twirled mustaches and a small vandyke beard sat down at the fourth
+      place. He had a faintly red nose and little twinkling eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How glad I am,&rdquo; he said, exposing his starched cuffs with a curious
+      gesture, &ldquo;to have some one to dine with! When one begins to get old
+      loneliness is impossible. It is only youth that dares think.... Afterwards
+      one has only one thing to think about: old age.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's always work,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Slavery. Any work is slavery. What is the use of freeing your intellect
+      if you sell yourself again to the first bidder?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rot!&rdquo; said Heineman, pouring out from a new bottle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews had begun to notice the girl who sat at the next table, in front
+      of a pale young soldier in French-blue who resembled her extraordinarily.
+      She had high cheek bones and a forehead in which the modelling of the
+      skull showed through the transparent, faintly-olive skin. Her heavy
+      chestnut hair was coiled carelessly at the back of her head. She spoke
+      very quietly, and pressed her lips together when she smiled. She ate
+      quickly and neatly, like a cat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The restaurant had gradually filled up with people. The waitress and the
+      patron, a fat man with a wide red sash coiled tightly round his waist,
+      moved with difficulty among the crowded tables. A woman at a table in the
+      corner, with dead white skin and drugged staring eyes, kept laughing
+      hoarsely, leaning her head, in a hat with bedraggled white plumes, against
+      the wall. There was a constant jingle of plates and glasses, and an oily
+      fume of food and women's clothes and wine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D'you want to know what I really did with your friend?&rdquo; said Heineman,
+      leaning towards Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you didn't push him into the Seine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was damn impolite.... But hell, it was damn impolite of him not to
+      drink.... No use wasting time with a man who don't drink. I took him into
+      a cafe and asked him to wait while I telephoned. I guess he's still
+      waiting. One of the whoreiest cafes on the whole Boulevard Clichy.&rdquo;
+       Heineman laughed uproariously and started explaining it in nasal French to
+      M. le Guy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews flushed with annoyance for a moment, but soon started laughing.
+      Heineman had started singing again.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;O, Sinbad was in bad in Tokio and Rome,
+      In bad in Trinidad
+      And twice as bad at home,
+      O, Sinbad was in bad all around!&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Everybody clapped. The white-faced woman in the corner cried &ldquo;Bravo,
+      Bravo,&rdquo; in a shrill nightmare voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heineman bowed, his big grinning face bobbing up and down like the face of
+      a Chinese figure in porcelain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lui est Sinbad,&rdquo; he cried, pointing with a wide gesture towards Henslowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give 'em some more, Heinz. Give them some more,&rdquo; said Henslowe, laughing.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Big brunettes with long stelets
+      On the shores of Italee,
+      Dutch girls with golden curls
+      Beside the Zuyder Zee...&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Everybody cheered again; Andrews kept looking at the girl at the next
+      table, whose face was red from laughter. She had a handkerchief pressed to
+      her mouth, and kept saying in a low voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O qu'il est drole, celui-la.... O qu'il est drole.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Heineman picked up a glass and waved it in the air before drinking it off.
+      Several people got up and filled it up from their bottles with white wine
+      and red. The French soldier at the next table pulled an army canteen from
+      under his chair and hung it round Heineman's neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heineman, his face crimson, bowed to all sides, more like a Chinese
+      porcelain figure than ever, and started singing in all solemnity this
+      time.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Hulas and hulas would pucker up their lips,
+      He fell for their ball-bearing hips
+      For they were pips...&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      His chunky body swayed to the ragtime. The woman in the corner kept time
+      with long white arms raised above her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bet she's a snake charmer,&rdquo; said Henslowe.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;O, wild woman loved that child
+      He would drive ten women wild!
+      O, Sinbad was in bad all around!&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Heineman waved his arms, pointed again to Henslowe, and sank into his
+      chair saying in the tones of a Shakespearean actor:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;C'est lui Sinbad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl hid her face on the tablecloth, shaken with laughter. Andrews
+      could hear a convulsed little voice saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O qu'il est rigolo....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Heineman took off the canteen and handed it back to the French soldier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Merci, Camarade,&rdquo; he said solemnly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh bien, Jeanne, c'est temps de ficher le camp,&rdquo; said the French soldier
+      to the girl. They got up. He shook hands with the Americans. Andrews
+      caught the girl's eye and they both started laughing convulsively again.
+      Andrews noticed how erect and supple she walked as his eyes followed her
+      to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews's party followed soon after.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We've got to hurry if we want to get to the Lapin Agile before closing...
+      and I've got to have a drink,&rdquo; said Heineman, still talking in his stagey
+      Shakespearean voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you ever been on the stage?&rdquo; asked Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What stage, sir? I'm in the last stages now, sir.... I am an artistic
+      photographer and none other.... Moki and I are going into the movies
+      together when they decide to have peace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who's Moki?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Moki Hadj is the lady in the salmon-colored dress,&rdquo; said Henslowe, in a
+      loud stage whisper in Andrews's ear. &ldquo;They have a lion cub named Bubu.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our first born,&rdquo; said Heineman with a wave of the hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The streets were deserted. A thin ray of moonlight, bursting now and then
+      through the heavy clouds, lit up low houses and roughly-cobbled streets
+      and the flights of steps with rare dim lamps bracketed in house walls that
+      led up to the Butte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a gendarme in front of the door of the Lapin Agile. The street
+      was still full of groups that had just come out, American officers and
+      Y.M.C.A, women with a sprinkling of the inhabitants of the region.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now look, we're late,&rdquo; groaned Heineman in a tearful voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind, Heinz,&rdquo; said Henslowe, &ldquo;le Guy'll take us to see de
+      Clocheville like he did last time, n'est pas, le Guy?&rdquo; Then Andrews heard
+      him add, talking to a man he had not seen before, &ldquo;Come along Aubrey, I'll
+      introduce you later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They climbed further up the hill. There was a scent of wet gardens in the
+      air, entirely silent except for the clatter of their feet on the cobbles.
+      Heineman was dancing a sort of a jig at the head of the procession. They
+      stopped before a tall cadaverous house and started climbing a rickety
+      wooden stairway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Talk about inside dope.... I got this from a man who's actually in the
+      room when the Peace Conference meets.&rdquo; Andrews heard Aubrey's voice with a
+      Chicago burr in the r's behind him in the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fine, let's hear it,&rdquo; said Henslowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you say the Peace Conference took dope?&rdquo; shouted Heineman, whose
+      puffing could be heard as he climbed the dark stairs ahead of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shut up, Heinz.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They stumbled over a raised doorstep into a large garret room with a tile
+      floor, where a tall lean man in a monastic-looking dressing gown of some
+      brown material received them. The only candle made all their shadows dance
+      fantastically on the slanting white walls as they moved about. One side of
+      the room had three big windows, with an occasional cracked pane mended
+      with newspaper, stretching from floor to ceiling. In front of them were
+      two couches with rugs piled on them. On the opposite wall was a confused
+      mass of canvases piled one against the other, leaning helter skelter
+      against the slanting wall of the room.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;C'est le bon vin, le bon vin,
+      C'est la chanson du vin.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      chanted Heineman. Everybody settled themselves on couches. The lanky man
+      in the brown dressing gown brought a table out of the shadow, put some
+      black bottles and heavy glasses on it, and drew up a camp stool for
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He lives that way.... They say he never goes out. Stays here and paints,
+      and when friends come in, he feeds them wine and charges them double,&rdquo;
+       said Henslowe. &ldquo;That's how he lives.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The lanky man began taking bits of candle out of a drawer of the table and
+      lighting them. Andrews saw that his feet and legs were bare below the
+      frayed edge of the dressing gown. The candle light lit up the men's
+      flushed faces and the crude banana yellows and arsenic greens of the
+      canvases along the walls, against which jars full of paint brushes cast
+      blurred shadows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was going to tell you, Henny,&rdquo; said Aubrey, &ldquo;the dope is that the
+      President's going to leave the conference, going to call them all damn
+      blackguards to their faces and walk out, with the band playing the
+      'Internationale.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God, that's news,&rdquo; cried Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he does that he'll recognize the Soviets,&rdquo; said Henslowe. &ldquo;Me for the
+      first Red Cross Mission that goes to save starving Russia.... Gee, that's
+      great. I'll write you a postal from Moscow, Andy, if they haven't been
+      abolished as delusions of the bourgeoisie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell, no.... I've got five hundred dollars' worth of Russian bonds that
+      girl Vera gave me.... But worth five million, ten million, fifty million
+      if the Czar gets back.... I'm backing the little white father,&rdquo; cried
+      Heineman. &ldquo;Anyway Moki says he's alive; that Savaroffs got him locked up
+      in a suite in the Ritz.... And Moki knows.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Moki knows a damn lot, I'll admit that,&rdquo; said Henslowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But just think of it,&rdquo; said Aubrey, &ldquo;that means world revolution with the
+      United States at the head of it. What do you think of that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Moki doesn't think so,&rdquo; said Heineman. &ldquo;And Moki knows.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She just knows what a lot of reactionary warlords tell her,&rdquo; said Aubrey.
+      &ldquo;This man I was talking with at the Crillon&mdash;I wish I could tell you
+      his name&mdash;heard it directly from...Well, you know who.&rdquo; He turned to
+      Henslowe, who smiled knowingly. &ldquo;There's a mission in Russia at this
+      minute making peace with Lenin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A goddam outrage!&rdquo; cried Heineman, knocking a bottle off the table. The
+      lanky man picked up the pieces patiently, without comment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The new era is opening, men, I swear it is...&rdquo; began Aubrey. &ldquo;The old
+      order is dissolving. It is going down under a weight of misery and
+      crime.... This will be the first great gesture towards a newer and better
+      world. There is no alternative. The chance will never come back. It is
+      either for us to step courageously forward, or sink into unbelievable
+      horrors of anarchy and civil war.... Peace or the dark ages again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews had felt for some time an uncontrollable sleepiness coming over
+      him. He rolled himself on a rug and stretched out on the empty couch. The
+      voices arguing, wrangling, enunciating emphatic phrases, dinned for a
+      minute in his ears. He went to sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Andrews woke up he found himself staring at the cracked plaster of an
+      unfamiliar ceiling. For some moments he could not guess where he was.
+      Henslowe was sleeping, wrapped in another rug, on the couch beside him.
+      Except for Henslowe's breathing, there was complete silence. Floods of
+      silvery-grey light poured in through the wide windows, behind which
+      Andrews could see a sky full of bright dove-colored clouds. He sat up
+      carefully. Some time in the night he must have taken off his tunic and
+      boots and puttees, which were on the floor beside the couch. The tables
+      with the bottles had gone and the lanky man was nowhere to be seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews went to the window in his stockinged feet. Paris way a slate-grey
+      and dove-color lay spread out like a Turkish carpet, with a silvery band
+      of mist where the river was, out of which the Eiffel Tower stood up like a
+      man wading. Here and there blue smoke and brown spiralled up to lose
+      itself in the faint canopy of brown fog that hung high above the houses.
+      Andrews stood a long while leaning against the window frame, until he
+      heard Henslowe's voice behind him:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Depuis le jour ou je me suis donnee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You look like 'Louise.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews turned round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henslowe was sitting on the edge of the bed with his hair in disorder,
+      combing his little silky mustache with a pocket comb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee, I have a head,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;My tongue feels like a nutmeg grater....
+      Doesn't yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. I feel like a fighting cock.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you say we go down to the Seine and have a bath in Benny
+      Franklin's bathtub?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's that? It sounds grand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then we'll have the biggest breakfast ever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's the right spirit.... Where's everybody gone to?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Old Heinz has gone to his Moki, I guess, and Aubrey's gone to collect
+      more dope at the Crillon. He says four in the morning when the drunks come
+      home is the prime time for a newspaper man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the Monkish man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Search me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The streets were full of men and girls hurrying to work. Everything
+      sparkled, had an air of being just scrubbed. They passed bakeries from
+      which came a rich smell of fresh-baked bread. From cafes came whiffs of
+      roasting coffee. They crossed through the markets that were full of heavy
+      carts lumbering to and fro, and women with net bags full of vegetables.
+      There was a pungent scent of crushed cabbage leaves and carrots and wet
+      clay. The mist was raw and biting along the quais, and made the blood come
+      into their cheeks and their hands stiff with cold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bathhouse was a huge barge with a house built on it in a lozenge
+      shape. They crossed to it by a little gangplank on which were a few
+      geraniums in pots. The attendant gave them two rooms side by side on the
+      lower deck, painted grey, with steamed over windows, through which Andrews
+      caught glimpses of hurrying green water. He stripped his clothes off
+      quickly. The tub was of copper varnished with some white metal inside. The
+      water flowed in through two copper swans' necks. When Andrews stepped into
+      the hot green water, a little window in the partition flew open and
+      Henslowe shouted in to him:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Talk about modern conveniences. You can converse while you bathe!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews scrubbed himself jauntily with a square piece of pink soap,
+      splashing the water about like a small boy. He stood up and lathered
+      himself all over and then let himself slide into the water, which splashed
+      out over the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think you're a performing seal?&rdquo; shouted Henslowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's all so preposterous,&rdquo; cried Andrews, going off into convulsions of
+      laughter. &ldquo;She has a lion cub named Bubu and Nicolas Romanoff lives in the
+      Ritz, and the Revolution is scheduled for day after tomorrow at twelve
+      noon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd put it about the first of May,&rdquo; answered Henslowe, amid a sound of
+      splashing. &ldquo;Gee, it'd be great to be a people's Commissary.... You could
+      go and revolute the grand Llama of Thibet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, it's too deliciously preposterous,&rdquo; cried Andrews, letting himself
+      slide a second time into the bathtub.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                              II
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Two M.P.'s passed outside the window. Andrews watched the yellow pigskin
+      revolver cases until they were out of sight. He felt joyfully secure from
+      them. The waiter, standing by the door with a napkin on his arm, gave him
+      a sense of security so intense it made him laugh. On the marble table
+      before him were a small glass of beer, a notebook full of ruled sheets of
+      paper and a couple of yellow pencils. The beer, the color of topaz in the
+      clear grey light that streamed in through the window, threw a pale yellow
+      glow with a bright center on the table. Outside was the boulevard with a
+      few people walking hurriedly. An empty market wagon passed now and then,
+      rumbling loud. On a bench a woman in a black knitted shawl, with a bundle
+      of newspapers in her knees, was counting sous with loving concentration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews looked at his watch. He had an hour before going to the Schola
+      Cantorum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He got to his feet, paid the waiter and strolled down the center of the
+      boulevard, thinking smilingly of pages he had written, of pages he was
+      going to write, filled with a sense of leisurely well-being. It was a grey
+      morning with a little yellowish fog in the air. The pavements were damp,
+      reflected women's dresses and men's legs and the angular outlines of
+      taxicabs. From a flower stand with violets and red and pink carnations
+      irregular blotches of color ran down into the brownish grey of the
+      pavement. Andrews caught a faint smell of violets in the smell of the fog
+      as he passed the flower stand and remembered suddenly that spring was
+      coming. He would not miss a moment of this spring, he told himself; he
+      would follow it step by step, from the first violets. Oh, how fully he
+      must live now to make up for all the years he had wasted in his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He kept on walking along the boulevard. He was remembering how he and the
+      girl the soldier had called Jeanne had both kindled with uncontrollable
+      laughter when their eyes had met that night in the restaurant. He wished
+      he could go down the boulevard with a girl like that, laughing through the
+      foggy morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wondered vaguely what part of Paris he was getting to, but was too
+      happy to care. How beautifully long the hours were in the early morning!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At a concert at the Salle Gaveau the day before he had heard Debussy's
+      Nocturnes and Les Sirenes. Rhythms from them were the warp of all his
+      thoughts. Against the background of the grey street and the brownish fog
+      that hung a veil at the end of every vista he began to imagine rhythms of
+      his own, modulations and phrases that grew brilliant and faded, that
+      flapped for a while like gaudy banners above his head through the clatter
+      of the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He noticed that he was passing a long building with blank rows of windows,
+      at the central door of which stood groups of American soldiers smoking.
+      Unconsciously he hastened his steps, for fear of meeting an officer he
+      would have to salute. He passed the men without looking at them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A voice detained him. &ldquo;Say, Andrews.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When he turned he saw that a short man with curly hair, whose face, though
+      familiar, he could not place, had left the group at the door and was
+      coming towards him. &ldquo;Hello, Andrews.... Your name's Andrews, ain't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo; Andrews shook his hand, trying to remember.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm Fuselli.... Remember? Last time I saw you you was goin' up to the
+      lines on a train with Chrisfield.... Chris we used to call him.... At
+      Cosne, don't you remember?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what's happened to Chris?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's a corporal now,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee he is.... I'll be goddamned.... They was goin' to make me a corporal
+      once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli wore stained olive-drab breeches and badly rolled puttees; his
+      shirt was open at the neck. From his blue denim jacket came a smell of
+      stale grease that Andrews recognised; the smell of army kitchens. He had a
+      momentary recollection of standing in line cold dark mornings and of the
+      sound the food made slopping into mess kits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why didn't they make you a corporal, Fuselli?&rdquo; Andrcws said, after a
+      pause, in a constrained voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell, I got in wrong, I suppose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were leaning against the dusty house wall. Andrews looked at his
+      feet. The mud of the pavement, splashing up on the wall, made an even dado
+      along the bottom, on which Andrews scraped the toe of his shoe up and
+      down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, how's everything?&rdquo; Andrews asked looking up suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've been in a labor battalion. That's how everything is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God, that's tough luck!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews wanted to go on. He had a sudden fear that he would be late. But
+      he did not know how to break away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I got sick,&rdquo; said Fuselli grinning. &ldquo;I guess I am yet, G. O. 42. It's a
+      hell of a note the way they treat a feller... like he was lower than the
+      dirt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were you at Cosne all the time? That's damned rough luck, Fuselli.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cosne sure is a hell of a hole.... I guess you saw a lot of fighting.
+      God! you must have been glad not to be in the goddam medics.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know that I'm glad I saw fighting.... Oh, yes, I suppose I am.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, I had it a hell of a time before they found out. Courtmartial
+      was damn stiff... after the armistice too.... Oh, God! why can't they let
+      a feller go home?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A woman in a bright blue hat passed them. Andrews caught a glimpse of a
+      white over-powdered face; her hips trembled like jelly under the blue
+      skirt with each hard clack of her high heels on the pavement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee, that looks like Jenny.... I'm glad she didn't see me....&rdquo; Fuselli
+      laughed. &ldquo;Ought to 'a seen her one night last week. We were so dead drunk
+      we just couldn't move.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn't that bad for what's the matter with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't give a damn now; what's the use?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But God; man!&rdquo; Andrews stopped himself suddenly. Then he said in a
+      different voice, &ldquo;What outfit are you in now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm on the permanent K.P. here,&rdquo; Fuselli jerked his thumb towards the
+      door of the building. &ldquo;Not a bad job, off two days a week; no drill, good
+      eats.... At least you get all you want.... But it surely has been hell
+      emptying ash cans and shovelling coal an' now all they've done is dry me
+      up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you'll be goin' home soon now, won't you? They can't discharge you
+      till they cure you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damned if I know.... Some guys say a guy never can be cured....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you find K.P. work pretty damn dull?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No worse than anything else. What are you doin' in Paris?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;School detachment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Men who wanted to study in the university, who managed to work it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee, I'm glad I ain't goin' to school again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, so long, Fuselli.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So long, Andrews.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fuselli turned and slouched back to the group of men at the door. Andrews
+      hurried away. As he turned the corner he had a glimpse of Fuselli with his
+      hands in his pockets and his legs crossed leaning against the wall behind
+      the door of the barracks.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                              III
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The darkness, where the rain fell through the vague halos of light round
+      the street lamps, glittered with streaks of pale gold. Andrews's ears were
+      full of the sound of racing gutters and spattering waterspouts, and of the
+      hard unceasing beat of the rain on the pavements. It was after closing
+      time. The corrugated shutters were drawn down, in front of cafe windows.
+      Andrews's cap was wet; water trickled down his forehead and the sides of
+      his nose, running into his eyes. His feet were soaked and he could feel
+      the wet patches growing on his knees where they received the water running
+      off his overcoat. The street stretched wide and dark ahead of him, with an
+      occasional glimmer of greenish reflection from a lamp. As he walked,
+      splashing with long strides through the rain, he noticed that he was
+      keeping pace with a woman under an umbrella, a slender person who was
+      hurrying with small resolute steps up the boulevard. When he saw her, a
+      mad hope flamed suddenly through him. He remembered a vulgar little
+      theatre and the crude light of a spot light. Through the paint and powder
+      a girl's golden-brown skin had shone with a firm brilliance that made him
+      think of wide sun-scorched uplands, and dancing figures on Greek vases.
+      Since he had seen her two nights ago, he had thought of nothing else. He
+      had feverishly found out her name. &ldquo;Naya Selikoff!&rdquo; A mad hope flared
+      through him that this girl he was walking beside was the girl whose
+      slender limbs moved in an endless frieze through his thoughts. He peered
+      at her with eyes blurred with rain. What an ass he was! Of course it
+      couldn't be; it was too early. She was on the stage at this minute. Other
+      hungry eyes were staring at her slenderness, other hands were twitching to
+      stroke her golden-brown skin. Walking under the steady downpour that stung
+      his face and ears and sent a tiny cold trickle down his back, he felt a
+      sudden dizziness of desire come over him. His hands, thrust to the bottom
+      of his coat pockets, clutched convulsively. He felt that he would die,
+      that his pounding blood vessels would burst. The bead curtains of rain
+      rustled and tinkled about him, awakening his nerves, making his skin flash
+      and tingle. In the gurgle of water in gutters and water spouts he could
+      imagine he heard orchestras droning libidinous music. The feverish
+      excitement of his senses began to create frenzied rhythms in his ears:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O ce pauvre poilu! Qu'il doit etre mouille&rdquo; said a small tremulous voice
+      beside him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl was offering him part of her umbrella.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O c'est un Americain!&rdquo; she said again, still speaking as if to herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mais ca ne vaut pas la peine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mais oui, mais oui.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stepped under the umbrella beside her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you must let me hold it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bien.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he took the umbrella he caught her eye. He stopped still in his tracks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you're the girl at the Rat qui Danse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you were at the next table with the man who sang?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How amusing!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Et celui-la! O il etait rigolo....&rdquo; She burst out laughing; her head,
+      encased in a little round black hat, bobbed up and down under the
+      umbrella. Andrews laughed too. Crossing the Boulevard St. Germain, a taxi
+      nearly ran them down and splashed a great wave of mud over them. She
+      clutched his arm and then stood roaring with laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O quelle horreur! Quelle horreur!&rdquo; she kept exclaiming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews laughed and laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But hold the umbrella over us.... You're letting the rain in on my best
+      hat,&rdquo; she said again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your name is Jeanne,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Impertinent! You heard my brother call me that.... He went back to the
+      front that night, poor little chap.... He's only nineteen ... he's very
+      clever.... O, how happy I am now that the war's over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are older than he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two years.... I am the head of the family.... It is a dignified
+      position.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you always lived in Paris?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, we are from Laon.... It's the war.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Refugees?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't call us that.... We work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you going far?&rdquo; she asked peering in his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I live up here.... My name is the same as yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jean? How funny!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rue Descartes.... Behind St. Etienne.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I live near you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you mustn't come. The concierge is a tigress.... Etienne calls her
+      Mme. Clemenceau.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who? The saint?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, you silly&mdash;my brother. He is a socialist. He's a typesetter at
+      l'Humanite.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really? I often read l'Humanite.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor boy, he used to swear he'd never go in the army. He thought of going
+      to America.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That wouldn't do him any good now,&rdquo; said Andrews bitterly. &ldquo;What do you
+      do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I?&rdquo; a gruff bitterness came into her voice. &ldquo;Why should I tell you? I
+      work at a dressmaker's.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Like Louise?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've heard Louise? Oh, how I cried.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did it make you sad?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I don't know.... But I'm learning stenography.... But here we are!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The great bulk of the Pantheon stood up dimly through the rain beside
+      them. In front the tower of St. Etienne-du-Mont was just visible. The rain
+      roared about them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, how wet I am!&rdquo; said Jeanne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look, they are giving Louise day after tomorrow at the Opera Comique....
+      Won't you come; with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I should cry too much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll cry too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it's not...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cest l'armistice,&rdquo; interrupted Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They both laughed!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right! Meet me at the cafe at the end of the Boul' Mich' at a quarter
+      past seven.... But you probably won't come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I swear I will,&rdquo; cried Andrews eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll see!&rdquo; She darted away down the street beside St. Etienne-du-Mont.
+      Andrews was left alone amid the seethe of the rain and the tumultuous
+      gurgle of water-spouts. He felt calm and tired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he got to his room, he found he had no matches in his pocket. No
+      light came from the window through which he could hear the hissing clamor
+      of the rain in the court. He stumbled over a chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you drunk?&rdquo; came Walters's voice swathed in bedclothes. &ldquo;There are
+      matches on the table.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But where the hell's the table?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At last his hand, groping over the table, closed on the matchbox.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The match's red and white flicker dazzled him. He blinked his eyes; the
+      lashes were still full of raindrops. When he had lit a candle and set it
+      amongst the music papers upon the table, he tore off his dripping clothes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I just met the most charming girl, Walters,&rdquo; Andrews stood naked beside
+      the pile of his clothes, rubbing himself with a towel. &ldquo;Gee! I was wet....
+      But she was the most charming person I've met since I've been in Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought you said you let the girls alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whores, I must have said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well! Any girl you could pick up on the street....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess they are all that way in this damned country.... God, it will do
+      me good to see a nice sweet wholesome American girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews did not answer. He blew out the light and got into bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I've got a new job,&rdquo; Walters went on. &ldquo;I'm working in the school
+      detachment office.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why the hell do that? You came here to take courses in the Sorbonne,
+      didn't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure. I go to most of them now. But in this army I like to be in the
+      middle of things, see? Just so they can't put anything over on me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's something in that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's a damn lot in it, boy. The only way is to keep in right and not
+      let the man higher up forget you.... Why, we may start fighting again.
+      These damn Germans ain't showin' the right spirit at all... after all the
+      President's done for them. I expect to get my sergeantcy out of it
+      anyway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'm going to sleep,&rdquo; said Andrews sulkily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John Andrews sat at a table outside the cafe de Rohan. The sun had just
+      set on a ruddy afternoon, flooding everything with violet-blue light and
+      cold greenish shadow. The sky was bright lilac color, streaked with a few
+      amber clouds. The lights were on in all the windows of the Magazin du
+      Louvre opposite, so that the windows seemed bits of polished glass in the
+      afterglow. In the colonnade of the Palais Royal the shadows were deepening
+      and growing colder. A steady stream of people poured in and out of the
+      Metro. Green buses stuffed with people kept passing. The roar of the
+      traffic and the clatter of footsteps and the grumble of voices swirled
+      like dance music about Andrews's head. He noticed all at once that the
+      rabbit man stood in front of him, a rabbit dangling forgotten at the end
+      of its rubber tube.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Et ca va bien? le commerce,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quietly, quietly,&rdquo; said the rabbit man, distractedly making the rabbit
+      turn a somersault at his feet. Andrews watched the people going into the
+      Metro.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The gentleman amuses himself in Paris?&rdquo; asked the rabbit man timidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes; and you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quietly,&rdquo; the rabbit man smiled. &ldquo;Women are very beautiful at this hour
+      of the evening,&rdquo; he said again in his very timid tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is nothing more beautiful than this moment of the evening... in
+      Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or Parisian women.&rdquo; The eyes of the rabbit man glittered. &ldquo;Excuse me,
+      sir,&rdquo; he went on. &ldquo;I must try and sell some rabbits.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Au revoir,&rdquo; said Andrews holding out his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rabbit man shook it with sudden vigor and went off, making a rabbit
+      hop before him along the curbstone. He was hidden by the swiftly moving
+      crowds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the square, flaring violet arclights were flickering on, lighting up
+      their net-covered globes that hung like harsh moons above the pavement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henslowe sat down on a chair beside Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How's Sinbad?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sinbad, old boy, is functioning.... Aren't you frozen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you mean, Henslowe?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Overheated, you chump, sitting out here in polar weather.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, but I mean.... How are you functioning?&rdquo; said Andrews laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going to Poland tomorrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As guard on a Red Cross supply train. I think you might make it if you
+      want to come, if we beat it right over to the Red Cross before Major
+      Smithers goes. Or we might take him out to dinner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Henny, I'm staying.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why the hell stay in this hole?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I like it. I'm getting a better course in orchestration than I imagined
+      existed, and I met a girl the other day, and I'm crazy over Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you go and get entangled, I swear I'll beat your head in with a Polish
+      shillaughly.... Of course you've met a girl&mdash;so have I&mdash;lots. We
+      can meet some more in Poland and dance polonaises with them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, but this girl's charming.... You've seen her. She's the girl who was
+      with the poilu at the Rat qui Danse the first night I was in Paris. We
+      went to Louise together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Must have been a grand sentimental party.... I swear.... I may run after
+      a Jane now and again but I never let them interfere with the business of
+      existence,&rdquo; muttered Henslowe crossly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were both silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll be as bad as Heinz with his Moki and the lion cub named Bubu....
+      By the way, it's dead.... Well, where shall we have dinner?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm dining with Jeanne.... I'm going to meet her in half an hour.... I'm
+      awfully sorry, Henny. We might all dine together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A fat chance! No, I'll have to go and find that ass Aubrey, and hear all
+      about the Peace Conference.... Heinz can't leave Moki because she's having
+      hysterics on account of Bubu. I'll probably be driven to going to see
+      Berthe in the end.... You're a nice one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll have a grand seeing-off party for you tomorrow, Henny.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look! I forgot! You're to meet Aubrey at the Crillon at five tomorrow,
+      and he's going to take you to see Genevieve Rod?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who the hell's Genevieve Rod?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Darned if I know. But Aubrey said you'd got to come. She is an
+      intellectual, so Aubrey says.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's the last thing I want to meet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you can't help yourself. So long!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews sat a while more at the table outside the cafe. A cold wind was
+      blowing. The sky was blue-black and the ashen white arc lamps cast a
+      mortuary light over everything. In the Colonnade of the Palais Royal the
+      shadows were harsh and inky. In the square the people were gradually
+      thinning. The lights in the Magazin du Louvre had gone out. From the cafe
+      behind him, a faint smell of fresh-cooked food began to saturate the cold
+      air of the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he saw Jeanne advancing across the ash-grey pavement of the square,
+      slim and black under the arc lights. He ran to meet her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cylindrical stove in the middle of the floor roared softly. In front
+      of it the white cat was rolled into a fluffy ball in which ears and nose
+      made tiny splashes of pink like those at the tips of the petals of certain
+      white roses. One side of the stove at the table against the window, sat an
+      old brown man with a bright red stain on each cheek bone, who wore
+      formless corduroy clothes, the color of his skin. Holding the small spoon
+      in a knotted hand he was stirring slowly and continuously a liquid that
+      was yellow and steamed in a glass. Behind him was the window with sleet
+      beating against it in the leaden light of a wintry afternoon. The other
+      side of the stove was a zinc bar with yellow bottles and green bottles and
+      a water spigot with a neck like a giraffe's that rose out of the bar
+      beside a varnished wood pillar that made the decoration of the corner,
+      with a terra cotta pot of ferns on top of it. From where Andrews sat on
+      the padded bench at the back of the room the fern fronds made a black
+      lacework against the lefthand side of the window, while against the other
+      was the brown silhouette of the old man's head, and the slant of his cap.
+      The stove hid the door and the white cat, round and symmetrical, formed
+      the center of the visible universe. On the marble table beside Andrews
+      were some pieces of crisp bread with butter on them, a saucer of damson
+      jam and a bowl with coffee and hot milk from which the steam rose in a
+      faint spiral. His tunic was unbuttoned and he rested his head on his two
+      hands, staring through his fingers at a thick pile of ruled paper full of
+      hastily drawn signs, some in ink and some in pencil, where now and then he
+      made a mark with a pencil. At the other edge of the pile of papers were
+      two books, one yellow and one white with coffee stains on it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fire roared and the cat slept and the old brown man stirred and
+      stirred, rarely stopping for a moment to lift the glass to his lips.
+      Occasionally the scratching of sleet upon the windows became audible, or
+      there was a distant sound of dish pans through the door in the back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sallow-faced clock that hung above the mirror that backed the bar,
+      jerked out one jingly strike, a half hour. Andrews did not look up. The
+      cat still slept in front of the stove which roared with a gentle singsong.
+      The old brown man still stirred the yellow liquid in his glass. The clock
+      was ticking uphill towards the hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews's hands were cold. There was a nervous flutter in his wrists and
+      in his chest. Inside of him was a great rift of light, infinitely vast and
+      infinitely distant. Through it sounds poured from somewhere, so that he
+      trembled with them to his finger tips, sounds modulated into rhythms that
+      washed back and forth and crossed each other like sea waves in a cove,
+      sounds clotted into harmonies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind everything the Queen of Sheba, out of Flaubert, held her fantastic
+      hand with its long, gilded finger nails on his shoulder; and he was
+      leaning forward over the brink of life. But the image was vague, like a
+      shadow cast on the brilliance of his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The clock struck four.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The white fluffy ball of the cat unrolled very slowly. Its eyes were very
+      round and yellow. It put first one leg and then the other out before it on
+      the tiled floor, spreading wide the pinkey-grey claws. Its tail rose up
+      behind it straight as the mast of a ship. With slow processional steps the
+      cat walked towards the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old brown man drank down the yellow liquid and smacked his lips twice,
+      loudly, meditatively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews raised his head, his blue eyes looking straight before him without
+      seeing anything. Dropping the pencil, he leaned back against the wall and
+      stretched his arms out. Taking the coffee bowl between his two hands, he
+      drank s little. It was cold. He piled some jam on a piece of bread and ate
+      it, licking a little off his fingers afterwards. Then he looked towards
+      the old brown man and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On est bien ici, n'est ce pas, Monsieur Morue?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oui, on est bien ici,&rdquo; said the old brown man in a voice so gruff it
+      seemed to rattle. Very slowly he got to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good. I am going to the barge,&rdquo; he said. Then he called, &ldquo;Chipette!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oui, m'sieu.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A little girl in a black apron with her hair in two tight pigtails that
+      stood out behind her tiny bullet head as she ran, came through the door
+      from the back part of the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, give that to your mother,&rdquo; said the old brown man, putting some
+      coppers in her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oui, m'sieu.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'd better stay here where it's warm,&rdquo; said Andrews yawning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have to work. It's only soldiers don't have to work,&rdquo; rattled the old
+      brown man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the door opened a gust of raw air circled about the wine shop, and a
+      roar of wind and hiss of sleet came from the slush-covered quai outside.
+      The cat took refuge beside the stove, with its back up and its tail
+      waving. The door closed and the old brown man's silhouette, slanted
+      against the wind, crossed the grey oblong of the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews settled down to work again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you work a lot a lot, don't you; M'sieu Jean?&rdquo; said Chipette, putting
+      her chin on the table beside the books and looking up into his eyes with
+      little eyes like black beads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder if I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I'm grown up I shan't work a bit. I'll drive round in a carriage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews laughed. Chipette looked at him for a minute and then went into
+      the other room carrying away the empty coffee bowl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In front of the stove the cat sat on its haunches, licking a paw
+      rhythmically with a pink curling tongue like a rose petal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews whistled a few bars, staring at the cat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What d'you think of that, Minet? That's la reine de Saba... la reine de
+      Saba.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The cat curled into a ball again with great deliberation and went to
+      sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews began thinking of Jeanne and the thought gave him a sense of quiet
+      well-being. Strolling with her in the evening through the streets full of
+      men and women walking significantly together sent a languid calm through
+      his jangling nerves which he had never known in his life before. It
+      excited him to be with her, but very suavely, so that he forgot that his
+      limbs were swathed stiffly in an uncomfortable uniform, so that his
+      feverish desire seemed to fly out of him until with her body beside him,
+      he seemed to drift effortlessly in the stream of the lives of all the
+      people he passed, so languid, from the quiet loves that streamed up about
+      him that the hard walls of his personality seemed to have melted entirely
+      into the mistiness of twilight streets. And for a moment as he thought of
+      it a scent of flowers, heavy with pollen, and sprouting grass and damp
+      moss and swelling sap, seemed to tingle in his nostrils. Sometimes,
+      swimming in the ocean on a rough day, he had felt that same reckless
+      exhilaration when, towards the shore, a huge seething wave had caught him
+      up and sped him forward on its crest. Sitting quietly in the empty wine
+      shop that grey afternoon, he felt his blood grumble and swell in his veins
+      as the new life was grumbling and swelling in the sticky buds of the
+      trees, in the tender green quick under their rough bark, in the little
+      furry animals of the woods and in the sweet-smelling cattle that tramped
+      into mud the lush meadows. In the premonition of spring was a resistless
+      wave of force that carried him and all of them with it tumultuously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The clock struck five.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews jumped to his feet and still struggling into his overcoat darted
+      out of the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A raw wind blew on the square. The river was a muddy grey-green, swollen
+      and rapid. A hoarse triumphant roaring came from it. The sleet had
+      stopped; but the pavements were covered with slush and in the gutters were
+      large puddles which the wind ruffled. Everything,&mdash;houses, bridges,
+      river and sky,&mdash;was in shades of cold grey-green, broken by one
+      jagged ochre-colored rift across the sky against which the bulk of Notre
+      Dame and the slender spire of the crossing rose dark and purplish. Andrews
+      walked with long strides, splashing through the puddles, until, opposite
+      the low building of the Morgue, he caught a crowded green bus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Outside the Hotel Crillon were many limousines, painted olive-drab, with
+      numbers in white letters on the doors; the drivers, men with their
+      olive-drab coat collars turned up round their red faces, stood in groups
+      under the portico. Andrews passed the sentry and went through the
+      revolving doors into the lobby, which was vividly familiar. It had the
+      smell he remembered having smelt in the lobbies of New York hotels,&mdash;a
+      smell of cigar smoke and furniture polish. On one side a door led to a big
+      dining room where many men and women were having tea, from which came a
+      smell of pastry and rich food. On the expanse of red carpet in front of
+      him officers and civilians stood in groups talking in low voices. There
+      was a sound of jingling spurs and jingling dishes from the restaurant, and
+      near where Andrews stood shifting his weight from one foot to the other,
+      sprawled in a leather chair a fat man with a black felt hat over his eyes
+      and a large watch chain dangling limply over his bulbous paunch. He
+      cleared his throat occasionally with a rasping noise and spat loudly into
+      the spittoon beside him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last Andrews caught sight of Aubrey, who was dapper with white cheeks
+      and tortoise shell glasses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come along,&rdquo; he said, seizing Andrews by the arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are late.&rdquo; Then, he went on, whispering in Andrews's ear as they went
+      out through the revolving doors: &ldquo;Great things happened in the Conference
+      today.... I can tell you that, old man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They crossed the bridge towards the portico of the Chamber of Deputies
+      with its high pediment and its grey columns. Down the river they could see
+      faintly the Eiffel Tower with a drift of mist athwart it, like a section
+      of spider web spun between the city and the clouds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do we have to go to see these people, Aubrey?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, you can't back out now. Genevieve Rod wants to know about American
+      music.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what on earth can I tell her about American music?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wasn't there a man named MacDowell who went mad or something?&rdquo; Andrews
+      laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you know I haven't any social graces.... I suppose I'll have to say I
+      think Foch is a little tin god.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn't say anything if you don't want to.... They're very advanced,
+      anyway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, rats!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were going up a brown-carpeted stair that had engravings on the
+      landings, where there was a faint smell of stale food and dustpans. At the
+      top landing Aubrey rang the bell at a varnished door. In a moment a girl
+      opened it. She had a cigarette in her hand, her face was pale under a mass
+      of reddish-chestnut hair, her eyes very large, a pale brown, as large as
+      the eyes of women in those paintings of Artemisias and Berenikes found in
+      tombs in the Fayum. She wore a plain black dress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Enfin!&rdquo; she said, and held out her hand to Aubrey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's my friend Andrews.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She held out her hand to him absently, still looking at Aubrey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does he speak French?... Good.... This way.&rdquo; They went into a large room
+      with a piano where an elderly woman, with grey hair and yellow teeth and
+      the same large eyes as her daughter, stood before the fireplace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maman... enfin ils arrivent, ces messieurs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Genevieve was afraid you weren't coming,&rdquo; Mme. Rod said to Andrews,
+      smiling. &ldquo;Monsieur Aubrey gave us such a picture of your playing that we
+      have been excited all day.... We adore music.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish I could do something more to the point with it than adore it,&rdquo;
+       said Genevieve Rod hastily, then she went on with a laugh: &ldquo;But I
+      forget..... Monsieur Andreffs.... Monsieur Ronsard.&rdquo; She made a gesture
+      with her hand from Andrews to a young Frenchman in a cut-away coat, with
+      small mustaches and a very tight vest, who bowed towards Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now we'll have tea,&rdquo; said Genevieve Rod. &ldquo;Everybody talks sense until
+      they've had tea.... It's only after tea that anyone is ever amusing.&rdquo; She
+      pulled open some curtains that covered the door into the adjoining room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand why Sarah Bernhardt is so fond of curtains,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;They
+      give an air of drama to existence.... There is nothing more heroic than
+      curtains.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat at the head of an oak table where were china platters with
+      vari-colored pastries, an old pewter kettle under which an alcohol lamp
+      burned, a Dresden china teapot in pale yellows and greens, and cups and
+      saucers and plates with a double-headed eagle design in dull vermilion.
+      &ldquo;Tout ca,&rdquo; said Genevieve, waving her hand across the table, &ldquo;c'est
+      Boche.... But we haven't any others, so they'll have to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The older woman, who sat beside her, whispered something in her ear and
+      laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Genevieve put on a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles and starting pouring
+      out tea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Debussy once drank out of that cup..... It's cracked,&rdquo; she said, handing
+      a cup to John Andrews. &ldquo;Do you know anything of Moussorgski's you can play
+      to us after tea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't play anything any more.... Ask me three months from now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes; but nobody expects you to do any tricks with it. You can
+      certainly make it intelligible. That's all I want.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have my doubts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews sipped his tea slowly, looking now and then at Genevieve Rod who
+      had suddenly begun talking very fast to Ronsard. She held a cigarette
+      between the fingers of a long thin hand. Her large pale-brown eyes kept
+      their startled look of having just opened on the world; a little smile
+      appeared and disappeared maliciously in the curve of her cheek away from
+      her small firm lips. The older woman beside her kept looking round the
+      table with a jolly air of hospitality, and showing her yellow teeth in a
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Afterwards they went back to the sitting room and Andrews sat down at the
+      piano. The girl sat very straight on a little chair beside the piano.
+      Andrews ran his fingers up and down the keys.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you say you knew Debussy?&rdquo; he said suddenly. &ldquo;I? No; but he used to
+      come to see my father when I was a little girl.... I have been brought up
+      in the middle of music.... That shows how silly it is to be a woman. There
+      is no music in my head. Of course I am sensitive to it, but so are the
+      tables and chairs in this apartment, after all they've heard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ Andrews started playing Schumann. He stopped suddenly.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you sing?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd like to do the Proses Lyriques.... I've never heard them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I once tried to sing Le Soir,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wonderful. Do bring it out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, good Lord, it's too difficult.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the use of being fond of music if you aren't willing to mangle it
+      for the sake of producing it?... I swear I'd rather hear a man picking out
+      Aupres de ma Blonde on a trombone that Kreisler playing Paganini
+      impeccably enough to make you ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But there is a middle ground.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He interrupted her by starting to play again. As he played without looking
+      at her, he felt that her eyes were fixed on him, that she was standing
+      tensely behind him. Her hand touched his shoulder. He stopped playing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I am dreadfully sorry,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing. I am finished.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were playing something of your own?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you ever read La Tentation de Saint Antoine?&rdquo; he asked in a low
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Flaubert's?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's not his best work. A very interesting failure though,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews got up from the piano with difficulty, controlling a sudden
+      growing irritation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They seem to teach everybody to say that,&rdquo; he muttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly he realized that other people were in the room. He went up to
+      Mme. Rod.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must excuse me,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I have an engagement.... Aubrey, don't let
+      me drag you away. I am late, I've got to run.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must come to see us again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; mumbled Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Genevieve Rod went with him to the door. &ldquo;We must know each other better,&rdquo;
+       she said. &ldquo;I like you for going off in a huff.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews flushed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was badly brought up,&rdquo; he said, pressing her thin cold hand. &ldquo;And you
+      French must always remember that we are barbarians.... Some are repentant
+      barbarians.... I am not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She laughed, and John Andrews ran down the stairs and out into the
+      grey-blue streets, where the lamps were blooming into primrose color. He
+      had a confused feeling that he had made a fool of himself, which made him
+      writhe with helpless anger. He walked with long strides through the
+      streets of the Rive Gauche full of people going home from work, towards
+      the little wine shop on the Quai de la Tournelle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a Paris Sunday morning. Old women in black shawls were going into
+      the church of St. Etienne-du-Mont. Each time the leather doors opened it
+      let a little whiff of incense out into the smoky morning air. Three
+      pigeons walked about the cobblestones, putting their coral feet one before
+      the other with an air of importance. The pointed facade of the church and
+      its slender tower and cupola cast a bluish shadow on the square in front
+      of it, into which the shadows the old women trailed behind them vanished
+      as they hobbled towards the church. The opposite side of the square and
+      the railing of the Pantheon and its tall brownish-gray flank were flooded
+      with dull orange-colored sunlight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews walked back and forth in front of the church, looking at the sky
+      and the pigeons and the facade of the Library of Ste. Genevieve, and at
+      the rare people who passed across the end of the square, noting forms and
+      colors and small comical aspects of things with calm delight, savoring
+      everything almost with complacency. His music, he felt, was progressing
+      now that, undisturbed, he lived all day long in the rhythm of it; his mind
+      and his fingers were growing supple. The hard moulds that had grown up
+      about his spirit were softening. As he walked back and forth in front of
+      the church waiting for Jeanne, he took an inventory of his state of mind;
+      he was very happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh bien?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jeanne had come up behind him. They ran like children hand in hand across
+      the sunny square.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not had any coffee yet,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How late you must get up!... But you can't have any till we get to the
+      Porte Maillot, Jean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I say you can't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But that's cruelty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It won't be long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I am dying with hunger. I will die in your hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can't you understand? Once we get to the Porte Maillot we'll be far from
+      your life and my life. The day will be ours. One must not tempt fate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You funny girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Metro was not crowded, Andrews and Jeanne sat opposite each other
+      without talking. Andrews was looking at the girl's hands, limp on her lap,
+      small overworked hands with places at the tips of the fingers where the
+      skin was broken and scarred, with chipped uneven nails. Suddenly she
+      caught his glance. He flushed, and she said jauntily:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, we'll all be rich some day, like princes and princesses in fairy
+      tales.&rdquo; They both laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they were leaving the train at the terminus, he put his arm timidly
+      round her waist. She wore no corsets. His fingers trembled at the
+      litheness of the flesh under her clothes. Feeling a sort of terror go
+      through him he took away his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; she said quietly as they emerged into the sunlight and the bare
+      trees of the broad avenue, &ldquo;you can have all the cafe-au-lait you want.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll have some too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why be extravagant? I've had my petit dejeuner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I'm going to be extravagant all day.... We might as well start now. I
+      don't know exactly why, but I am very happy. We'll eat brioches.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my dear, it's only profiteers who can eat brioches now-a-days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You just watch us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They went into a patisserie. An elderly woman with a lean yellow face and
+      thin hair waited on them, casting envious glances up through her eyelashes
+      as she piled the rich brown brioches on a piece of tissue paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll pass the day in the country?&rdquo; she asked in a little wistful voice
+      as she handed Andrews the change.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;how well you guessed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As they went out of the door they heard her muttering, &ldquo;O la jeunesse, la
+      jeunesse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They found a table in the sun at a cafe opposite the gate from which they
+      could watch people and automobiles and carriages coming in and out.
+      Beyond, a grass-grown bit of fortifications gave an 1870 look to things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How jolly it is at the Porte Maillot!&rdquo; cried Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him and laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how gay he is to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. I always like it here. It's the spot in Paris where you always feel
+      well.... When you go out you have all the fun of leaving town, when you go
+      in you have all the fun of coming back to town.... But you aren't eating
+      any brioches?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've eaten one. You eat them. You are hungry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jeanne, I don't think I have ever been so happy in my life.... It's
+      almost worth having been in the army for the joy your freedom gives you.
+      That frightful life.... How is Etienne?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is in Mayence. He's bored.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jeanne, we must live very much, we who are free to make up for all the
+      people who are still... bored.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A lot of good it'll do them,&rdquo; she cried laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's funny, Jeanne, I threw myself into the army. I was so sick of being
+      free and not getting anywhere. Now I have learnt that life is to be used,
+      not just held in the hand like a box of bonbons that nobody eats.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him blankly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean, I don't think I get enough out of life,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Let's go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They got to their feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; she said slowly. &ldquo;One takes what life gives, that is
+      all, there's no choice.... But look, there's the Malmaison train.... We
+      must run.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Giggling and breathless they climbed on the trailer, squeezing themselves
+      on the back platform where everyone was pushing and exclaiming. The car
+      began to joggle its way through Neuilly. Their bodies were pressed
+      together by the men and women about them. Andrews put his arm firmly round
+      Jeanne's waist and looked down at her pale cheek that was pressed against
+      his chest. Her little round black straw hat with a bit of a red flower on
+      it was just under his chin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't see a thing,&rdquo; she gasped, still giggling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll describe the landscape,&rdquo; said Andrews. &ldquo;Why, we are crossing the
+      Seine already.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, how pretty it must be!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An old gentleman with a pointed white beard who stood beside them laughed
+      benevolently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But don't you think the Seine's pretty?&rdquo; Jeanne looked up at him
+      impudently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Without a doubt, without a doubt.... It was the way you said it,&rdquo; said
+      the old gentleman.... &ldquo;You are going to St. Germain?&rdquo; he asked Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, to Malmaison.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you should go to St. Germain. M. Reinach's prehistoric museum is
+      there. It is very beautiful. You should not go home to your country
+      without seeing it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are there monkeys in it?&rdquo; asked Jeanne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said the old gentleman turning away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I adore monkeys,&rdquo; said Jeanne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The car was going along a broad empty boulevard with trees and grass plots
+      and rows of low store-houses and little dilapidated rooming houses along
+      either side. Many people had got out and there was plenty of room, but
+      Andrews kept his arm round the girl's waist. The constant contact with her
+      body made him feel very languid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How good it smells!&rdquo; said Jeanne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's the spring.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to lie on the grass and eat violets.... Oh, how good you were to
+      bring me out like this, Jean. You must know lots of fine ladies you could
+      have brought out, because you are so well educated. How is it you are only
+      an ordinary soldier?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good God! I wouldn't be an officer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why? It must be rather nice to be an officer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does Etienne want to be an officer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he's a socialist, that's different.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I suppose I must be a socialist too, but let's talk of something
+      else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews moved over to the other side of the platform. They were passing
+      little villas with gardens on the road where yellow and pale-purple
+      crocuses bloomed. Now and then there was a scent of violets in the moist
+      air. The sun had disappeared under soft purplish-grey clouds. There was
+      occasionally a rainy chill in the wind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews suddenly thought of Genevieve Rod. Curious how vividly he
+      remembered her face, her wide, open eyes and her way of smiling without
+      moving her firm lips. A feeling of annoyance went through him. How silly
+      of him to go off rudely like that! And he became very anxious to talk to
+      her again; things he wanted to say to her came to his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, are you asleep?&rdquo; said Jeanne tugging at his arm. &ldquo;Here we are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews flushed furiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, how nice it is here, how nice it is here!&rdquo; Jeanne was saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, it is eleven o'clock,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must see the palace before lunch,&rdquo; cried Jeanne, and she started
+      running up a lane of linden trees, where the fat buds were just bursting
+      into little crinkling fans of green. New grass was sprouting in the wet
+      ditches on either side. Andrews ran after her, his feet pounding hard in
+      the moist gravel road. When he caught up to her he threw his arms round
+      her recklessly and kissed her panting mouth. She broke away from him and
+      strode demurely arranging her hat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monster,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I trimmed this hat specially to come out with you
+      and you do your best to wreck it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor little hat,&rdquo; said Andrews, &ldquo;but it is so beautiful today, and you
+      are very lovely, Jeanne.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The great Napoleon must have said that to the Empress Josephine and you
+      know what he did to her,&rdquo; said Jeanne almost solemnly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But she must have been awfully bored with him long before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Jeanne, &ldquo;that's how women are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They went through big iron gates into the palace grounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Later they sat at a table in the garden of a little restaurant. The sun,
+      very pale, had just showed itself, making the knives and forks and the
+      white wine in their glasses gleam faintly. Lunch had not come yet. They
+      sat looking at each other silently. Andrews felt weary and melancholy. He
+      could think of nothing to say. Jeanne was playing with some tiny white
+      daisies with pink tips to their petals, arranging them in circles and
+      crosses on the tablecloth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aren't they slow?&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it's nice here, isn't it?&rdquo; Jeanne smiled brilliantly. &ldquo;But how glum
+      he looks now.&rdquo; She threw some daisies at him. Then, after a pause, she
+      added mockingly: &ldquo;It's hunger, my dear. Good Lord, how dependent men are
+      on food!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews drank down his wine at a gulp. He felt that if he could only make
+      an effort he could lift off the stifling melancholy that was settling down
+      on him like a weight that kept growing heavier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A man in khaki, with his face and neck scarlet, staggered into the garden
+      dragging beside him a mud-encrusted bicycle. He sank into an iron chair,
+      letting the bicycle fall with a clatter at his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hi, hi,&rdquo; he called in a hoarse voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A waiter appeared and contemplated him suspiciously. The man in khaki had
+      hair as red as his face, which was glistening with sweat. His shirt was
+      torn, and he had no coat. His breeches and puttees were invisible for mud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gimme a beer,&rdquo; croaked the man in khaki.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The waiter shrugged his shoulders and walked away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Il demande une biere,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mais Monsieur....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll pay. Get it for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The waiter disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thankee, Yank,&rdquo; roared the man in khaki.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The waiter brought a tall narrow yellow glass. The man in khaki took it
+      from his hand, drank it down at a draught and handed back the empty glass.
+      Then he spat, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, got with difficulty
+      to his feet and shambled towards Andrews's table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oi presoom the loidy and you don't mind, Yank, if Oi parley wi' yez a
+      bit. Do yez?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, come along; where did you come from?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man in khaki dragged an iron chair behind him to a spot near the
+      table. Before sitting down he bobbed his head in the direction of Jeanne
+      with an air of solemnity tugging at the same time at a lock of his red
+      hair. After some fumbling he got a red-bordered handkerchief out of his
+      pocket and wiped his face with it, leaving a long black smudge of machine
+      oil on his forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oi'm a bearer of important secret messages, Yank,&rdquo; he said, leaning back
+      in the little iron chair. &ldquo;Oi'm a despatch-rider.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You look all in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a bit of it. Oi just had a little hold up, that's all, in a woodland
+      lane. Some buggers tried to do me in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What d'you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oi guess they had a little information... that's all. Oi'm carryin'
+      important messages from our headquarters in Rouen to your president. Oi
+      was goin' through a bloody thicket past this side. Oi don't know how you
+      pronounce the bloody town.... Oi was on my bike making about thoity for
+      the road was all a-murk when Oi saw four buggers standing acrost the
+      road... lookter me suspiciouslike, so Oi jus' jammed the juice into the
+      boike and made for the middle 'un. He dodged all right. Then they started
+      shootin' and a bloody bullet buggered the boike.... It was bein' born with
+      a caul that saved me.... Oi picked myself up outer the ditch an lost 'em
+      in the woods. Then Oi got to another bloody town and commandeered this old
+      sweatin' machine.... How many kills is there to Paris, Yank?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fifteen or sixteen, I think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's he saying, Jean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some men tried to stop him on the road. He's a despatch-rider.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn't he ugly? Is he English?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Irish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You bet you, miss; Hirlanday; that's me.... You picked a good looker this
+      toime, Yank. But wait till Oi git to Paree. Oi clane up a good hundre'
+      pound on this job in bonuses. What part d'ye come from, Yank?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Virginia. I live in New York.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oi been in Detroit; goin' back there to git in the automoebile business
+      soon as Oi clane up a few more bonuses. Europe's dead an stinkin', Yank.
+      Ain't no place for a young fellow. It's dead an stinkin', that's what it
+      is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's pleasanter to live here than in America.... Say, d'you often get
+      held up that way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't happened to me before, but it has to pals o' moine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who d'you think it was?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oi dunno; 'Unns or some of these bloody secret agents round the Peace
+      Conference.... But Oi got to go; that despatch won't keep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right. The beer's on me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank ye, Yank.&rdquo; The man got to his feet, shook hands with Andrews and
+      Jeanne, jumped on the bicycle and rode out of the garden to the road,
+      threading his way through the iron chairs and tables.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wasn't he a funny customer?&rdquo; cried Andrews, laughing. &ldquo;What a wonderful
+      joke things are!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The waiter arrived with the omelette that began their lunch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gives you an idea of how the old lava's bubbling in the volcano. There's
+      nowhere on earth a man can dance so well as on a volcano.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But don't talk that way,&rdquo; said Jeanne laying down her knife and fork.
+      &ldquo;It's terrible. We will waste our youth to no purpose. Our fathers enjoyed
+      themselves when they were young.... And if there had been no war we should
+      have been so happy, Etienne and I. My father was a small manufacturer of
+      soap and perfumery. Etienne would have had a splendid situation. I should
+      never have had to work. We had a nice house. I should have been
+      married....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But this way, Jeanne, haven't you more freedom?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shrugged her shoulders. Later she burst out: &ldquo;But what's the good of
+      freedom? What can you do with it? What one wants is to live well and have
+      a beautiful house and be respected by people. Oh, life was so sweet in
+      France before the war.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In that case it's not worth living,&rdquo; said Andrews in a savage voice,
+      holding himself in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They went on eating silently. The sky became overcast. A few drops
+      splashed on the table-cloth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll have to take coffee inside,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you think it is funny that people shoot at a man on a motorcycle
+      going through a wood. All that seems to me terrible, terrible,&rdquo; said
+      Jeanne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look out. Here comes the rain!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They ran into the restaurant through the first hissing sheet of the shower
+      and sat at a table near a window watching the rain drops dance and flicker
+      on the green iron tables. A scent of wet earth and the mushroom-like odor
+      of sodden leaves came in borne on damp gusts through the open door. A
+      waiter closed the glass doors and bolted them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He wants to keep out the spring. He can't,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They smiled at each other over their coffee cups. They were in sympathy
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the rain stopped they walked across wet fields by a foot path full of
+      little clear puddles that reflected the blue sky and the white-and
+      amber-tinged clouds where the shadows were light purplish-grey. They
+      walked slowly arm in arm, pressing their bodies together. They were very
+      tired, they did not know why and stopped often to rest leaning against the
+      damp boles of trees. Beside a pond pale blue and amber and silver from the
+      reflected sky, they found under a big beech tree a patch of wild violets,
+      which Jeanne picked greedily, mixing them with the little crimson-tipped
+      daisies in the tight bouquet. At the suburban railway station, they sat
+      silent, side by side on a bench, sniffing the flowers now and then, so
+      sunk in languid weariness that they could hardly summon strength to climb
+      into a seat on top of a third class coach, which was crowded with people
+      coming home from a day in the country. Everybody had violets and crocuses
+      and twigs with buds on them. In people's stiff, citified clothes lingered
+      a smell of wet fields and sprouting woods. All the girls shrieked and
+      threw their arms round the men when the train went through a tunnel or
+      under a bridge. Whatever happened, everybody laughed. When the train
+      arrived in the station, it was almost with reluctance that they left it,
+      as if they felt that from that moment their work-a-day lives began again.
+      Andrews and Jeanne walked down the platform without touching each other.
+      Their fingers were stained and sticky from touching buds and crushing
+      young sappy leaves and grass stalks. The air of the city seemed dense and
+      unbreathable after the scented moisture of the fields.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They dined at a little restaurant on the Quai Voltaire and afterwards
+      walked slowly towards the Place St. Michel, feeling the wine and the
+      warmth of the food sending new vigor into their tired bodies. Andrews had
+      his arm round her shoulder and they talked in low intimate voices, hardly
+      moving their lips, looking long at the men and women they saw sitting
+      twined in each other's arms on benches, at the couples of boys and girls
+      that kept passing them, talking slowly and quietly, as they were, bodies
+      pressed together as theirs were.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How many lovers there are,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are we lovers?&rdquo; asked Jeanne with a curious little laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder.... Have you ever been crazily in love, Jeanne?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. There was a boy in Laon named Marcelin. But I was a little
+      fool then. The last news of him was from Verdun.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you had many... like I am?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How sentimental we are,&rdquo; she cried laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. I wanted to know. I know so little of life,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have amused myself, as best I could,&rdquo; said Jeanne in a serious tone.
+      &ldquo;But I am not frivolous.... There have been very few men I have liked....
+      So I have had few friends... do you want to call them lovers? But lovers
+      are what married women have on the stage.... All that sort of thing is
+      very silly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so very long ago,&rdquo; said Andrews, &ldquo;I used to dream of being
+      romantically in love, with people climbing up the ivy on castle walls, and
+      fiery kisses on balconies in the moonlight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Like at the Opera Comique,&rdquo; cried Jeanne laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was all very silly. But even now, I want so much more of life than
+      life can give.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They leaned over the parapet and listened to the hurrying swish of the
+      river, now soft and now loud, where the reflections of the lights on the
+      opposite bank writhed like golden snakes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews noticed that there was someone beside them. The faint, greenish
+      glow from the lamp on the quai enabled him to recognize the lame boy he
+      had talked to months ago on the Butte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder if you'll remember me,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are the American who was in the Restaurant, Place du Terte, I don't
+      remember when, but it was long ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They shook hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you are alone,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I am always alone,&rdquo; said the lame boy firmly. He held out his hand
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Au revoir,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good luck!&rdquo; said the lame boy. Andrews heard his crutch tapping on the
+      pavement as he went away along the quai.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jeanne,&rdquo; said Andrews, suddenly, &ldquo;you'll come home with me, won't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you have a friend living with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's gone to Brussels. He won't be back till tomorrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose one must pay for one's dinner,&rdquo; said Jeanne maliciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good God, no.&rdquo; Andrews buried his face in his hands. The singsong of the
+      river pouring through the bridges, filled his ears. He wanted desperately
+      to cry. Bitter desire that was like hatred made his flesh tingle, made his
+      hands ache to crush her hands in them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come along,&rdquo; he said gruffly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't mean to say that,&rdquo; she said in a gentle, tired voice. &ldquo;You know,
+      I'm not a very nice person.&rdquo; The greenish glow of the lamp lit up the
+      contour of one of her cheeks as she tilted her head up, and glimmered in
+      her eyes. A soft sentimental sadness suddenly took hold of Andrews; he
+      felt as he used to feel when, as a very small child, his mother used to
+      tell him Br' Rabbit stories, and he would feel himself drifting helplessly
+      on the stream of her soft voice, narrating, drifting towards something
+      unknown and very sad, which he could not help.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They started walking again, past the Pont Neuf, towards the glare of the
+      Place St. Michel. Three names had come into Andrews's head, &ldquo;Arsinoe,
+      Berenike, Artemisia.&rdquo; For a little while he puzzled over them, and then he
+      remembered that Genevieve Rod had the large eyes and the wide, smooth
+      forehead and the firm little lips the women had in the portraits that were
+      sewn on the mummy cases in the Fayum. But those patrician women of
+      Alexandria had not had chestnut hair with a glimpse of burnished copper in
+      it; they might have dyed it, though!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why are you laughing?&rdquo; asked Jeanne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because things are so silly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you mean people are silly,&rdquo; she said, looking up at him out of
+      the corners of her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They walked in silence till they reached Andrews's door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You go up first and see that there's no one there,&rdquo; said Jeanne in a
+      business-like tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews's hands were cold. He felt his heart thumping while he climbed the
+      stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The room was empty. A fire was ready to light in the small fireplace.
+      Andrews hastily tidied up the table and kicked under the bed some soiled
+      clothes that lay in a heap in a corner. A thought came to him: how like
+      his performances in his room at college when he had heard that a relative
+      was coming to see him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He tiptoed downstairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bien. Tu peux venir, Jeanne,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat down rather stiffly in the straight-backed armchair beside the
+      fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How pretty the fire is,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jeanne, I think I'm crazily in love with you,&rdquo; said Andrews in an excited
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Like at the Opera Comique.&rdquo; She shrugged her shoulders. &ldquo;The room's
+      nice,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Oh, but, what a big bed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're the first woman who's been up here in my time, Jeanne.... Oh, but
+      this uniform is frightful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews thought suddenly of all the tingling bodies constrained into the
+      rigid attitudes of automatons in uniforms like this one; of all the
+      hideous farce of making men into machines. Oh, if some gesture of his
+      could only free them all for life and freedom and joy. The thought drowned
+      everything else for the moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you pulled a button off,&rdquo; cried Jeanne laughing hysterically. &ldquo;I'll
+      just have to sew it on again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind. If you knew how I hated them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What white skin you have, like a woman's. I suppose that's because you
+      are blond,&rdquo; said Jeanne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sound of the door being shaken vigorously woke Andrews. He got up and
+      stood in the middle of the floor for a moment without being able to
+      collect his wits. The shaking of the door continued, and he heard
+      Walters's voice crying &ldquo;Andy, Andy.&rdquo; Andrews felt shame creeping up
+      through him like nausea. He felt a passionate disgust towards himself and
+      Jeanne and Walters. He had an impulse to move furtively as if he had
+      stolen something. He went to the door and opened it a little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Walters, old man,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I can't let you in.... I've got a girl
+      with me. I'm sorry.... I thought you wouldn't get back till tomorrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're kidding, aren't you?&rdquo; came Walters's voice out of the dark hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo; Andrews shut the door decisively and bolted it again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jeanne was still asleep. Her black hair had come undone and spread over
+      the pillow. Andrews pulled the covers up about her carefully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he got into the other bed, where he lay awake a long time, staring at
+      the ceiling.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                                                IV
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      People walking along the boulevard looked curiously through the railing at
+      the line of men in olive-drab that straggled round the edge of the
+      courtyard. The line moved slowly, past a table where an officer and two
+      enlisted men sat poring over big lists of names and piles of palely tinted
+      banknotes and silver francs that glittered white. Above the men's heads a
+      thin haze of cigarette smoke rose into the sunlight. There was a sound of
+      voices and of feet shuffling on the gravel. The men who had been paid went
+      off jauntily, the money jingling in their pockets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men at the table had red faces and tense, serious expressions. They
+      pushed the money into the soldiers' hands with a rough jerk and pronounced
+      the names as if they were machines clicking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews saw that one of the men at the table was Walters; he smiled and
+      whispered &ldquo;Hello&rdquo; as he came up to him. Walters kept his eyes fixed on the
+      list.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Andrews was waiting for the man ahead of him to be paid, he heard
+      two men in the line talking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wasn't that a hell of a place? D'you remember the lad that died in the
+      barracks one day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure, I was in the medicks there too. There was a hell of a sergeant in
+      that company tried to make the kid get up, and the loot came and said he'd
+      court-martial him, an' then they found out that he'd cashed in his
+      checks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What'd 'ee die of?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heart failure, I guess. I dunno, though, he never did take to the life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. That place Cosne was enough to make any guy cash in his checks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews got his money. As he was walking away, he strolled up to the two
+      men he had heard talking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were you fellows in Cosne?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you know a fellow named Fuselli?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dunno....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure, you do,&rdquo; said the other man. &ldquo;You remember Dan Fuselli, the little
+      wop thought he was goin' to be corporal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He had another think comin'.&rdquo; They both laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews walked off, vaguely angry. There were many soldiers on the
+      Boulevard Montparnasse. He turned into a side street, feeling suddenly
+      furtive and humble, as if he would hear any minute the harsh voice of a
+      sergeant shouting orders at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The silver in his breeches pocket jingled with every step.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews leaned on the balustrade of the balcony, looking down into the
+      square in front of the Opera Comique. He was dizzy with the beauty of the
+      music he had been hearing. He had a sense somewhere in the distances of
+      his mind of the great rhythm of the sea. People chattered all about him on
+      the wide, crowded balcony, but he was only conscious of the blue-grey
+      mistiness of the night where the lights made patterns in green-gold and
+      red-gold. And compelling his attention from everything else, the rhythm
+      swept through him like sea waves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought you'd be here,&rdquo; said Genevieve Rod in a quiet voice beside him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews felt strangely tongue-tied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's nice to see you,&rdquo; he blurted out, after looking at her silently for
+      a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course you love Pelleas.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the first time I've heard it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why haven't you been to see us? It's two weeks.... We've been expecting
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't know...Oh, I'll certainly come. I don't know anyone at present I
+      can talk music to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anyone else, I should have said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you working?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.... But this hinders frightfully.&rdquo; Andrews yanked at the front of his
+      tunic. &ldquo;Still, I expect to be free very soon. I'm putting in an
+      application for discharge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose you will feel you can do so much better.... You will be much
+      stronger now that you have done your duty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No... by no means.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me, what was that you played at our house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'The Three Green Riders on Wild Asses,'&rdquo; said Andrews smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a prelude to the 'Queen of Sheba,'&rdquo; said Andrews. &ldquo;If you didn't
+      think the same as M. Emile Faguet and everyone else about St. Antoine, I'd
+      tell you what I mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was very silly of me.... But if you pick up all the silly things
+      people say accidentally... well, you must be angry most of the time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the dim light he could not see her eyes. There was a little glow on the
+      curve of her cheek coming from under the dark of her hat to her rather
+      pointed chin. Behind it he could see other faces of men and women crowded
+      on the balcony talking, lit up crudely by the gold glare that came out
+      through the French windows from the lobby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have always been tremendously fascinated by the place in La Tentation
+      where the Queen of Sheba visited Antoine, that's all,&rdquo; said Andrews
+      gruffly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that the first thing you've done? It made me think a little of
+      Borodine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The first that's at all pretentious. It's probably just a steal from
+      everything I've ever heard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it's good. I suppose you had it in your head all through those
+      dreadful and glorious days at the front.... Is it for piano or orchestra?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All that's finished is for piano. I hope to orchestrate it eventually....
+      Oh, but it's really silly to talk this way. I don't know enough.... I need
+      years of hard work before I can do anything.... And I have wasted so much
+      time.... That is the most frightful thing. One has so few years of youth!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's the bell, we must scuttle back to our seats. Till the next
+      intermission.&rdquo; She slipped through the glass doors and disappeared.
+      Andrews went back to his seat very excited, full of unquiet exultation.
+      The first strains of the orchestra were pain, he felt them so acutely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the last act they walked in silence down a dark street, hurrying to
+      get away from the crowds of the Boulevards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they reached the Avenue de l'Opera, she said: &ldquo;Did you say you were
+      going to stay in France?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, indeed, if I can. I am going tomorrow to put in an application for
+      discharge in France.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What will you do then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall have to find a job of some sort that will let me study at the
+      Schola Cantorum. But I have enough money to last a little while.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are courageous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I forgot to ask you if you would rather take the Metro.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; let's walk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They went under the arch of the Louvre. The air was full of a fine wet
+      mist, so that every street lamp was surrounded by a blur of light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My blood is full of the music of Debussy,&rdquo; said Genevieve Rod, spreading
+      out her arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's no use trying to say what one feels about it. Words aren't much
+      good, anyway, are they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That depends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They walked silently along the quais. The mist was so thick they could not
+      see the Seine, but whenever they came near a bridge they could hear the
+      water rustling through the arches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;France is stifling,&rdquo; said Andrews, all of a sudden. &ldquo;It stifles you very
+      slowly, with beautiful silk bands.... America beats your brains out with a
+      policeman's billy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; she asked, letting pique chill her voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know so much in France. You have made the world so neat....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you seem to want to stay here,&rdquo; she said with a laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's that there's nowhere else. There is nowhere except Paris where one
+      can find out things about music, particularly.... But I am one of those
+      people who was not made to be contented.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only sheep are contented.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I have been happier this month in Paris than ever before in my
+      life. It seems six, so much has happened in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poissac is where I am happiest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have a country house there, very old and very tumbledown. They say
+      that Rabelais used to come to the village. But our house is from later,
+      from the time of Henri Quatre. Poissac is not far from Tours. An ugly
+      name, isn't it? But to me it is very beautiful. The house has orchards all
+      round it, and yellow roses with flushed centers poke themselves in my
+      window, and there is a little tower like Montaigne's.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I get out of the army, I shall go somewhere in the country and work
+      and work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Music should be made in the country, when the sap is rising in the
+      trees.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'D'apres nature,' as the rabbit man said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who's the rabbit man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A very pleasant person,&rdquo; said Andrews, bubbling with laughter. &ldquo;You shall
+      meet him some day. He sells little stuffed rabbits that jump, outside the
+      Cafe de Rohan.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here we are.... Thank you for coming home with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how soon. Are you sure it is the house? We can't have got there as
+      soon as this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, it's my house,&rdquo; said Genevieve Rod laughing. She held out her hand
+      to him and he shook it eagerly. The latchkey clicked in the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't you have a cup of tea with us here tomorrow?&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With pleasure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The big varnished door with its knocker in the shape of a ring closed
+      behind her. Andrews walked away with a light step, feeling jolly and
+      exhilarated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he walked down the mist-filled quai towards the Place St. Michel, his
+      ears were filled with the lisping gurgle of the river past the piers of
+      the bridges.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Walters was asleep. On the table in his room was a card from Jeanne.
+      Andrews read the card holding it close to the candle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long it is since I saw you!&rdquo; it read. &ldquo;I shall pass the Cafe de Rohan
+      Wednesday at seven, along the pavement opposite the Magazin du Louvre.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a card of Malmaison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews flushed. Bitter melancholy throbbed through him. He walked
+      languidly to the window and looked out into the dark court. A window below
+      his spilled a warm golden haze into the misty night, through which he
+      could make out vaguely some pots of ferns standing on the wet flagstones.
+      From somewhere came a dense smell of hyacinths. Fragments of thought
+      slipped one after another through his mind. He thought of himself washing
+      windows long ago at training camp, and remembered the way the gritty
+      sponge scraped his hands. He could not help feeling shame when he thought
+      of those days. &ldquo;Well, that's all over now,&rdquo; he told himself. He wondered,
+      in a half-irritated way, about Genevieve Rod. What sort of a person was
+      she? Her face, with its wide eyes and pointed chin and the
+      reddish-chestnut hair, unpretentiously coiled above the white forehead,
+      was very vivid in his mind, though when he tried to remember what it was
+      like in profile, he could not. She had thin hands, with long fingers that
+      ought to play the piano well. When she grew old would she be
+      yellow-toothed and jolly, like her mother? He could not think of her old;
+      she was too vigorous; there was too much malice in her
+      passionately-restrained gestures. The memory of her faded, and there came
+      to his mind Jeanne's overworked little hands, with callous places, and the
+      tips of the fingers grimy and scarred from needlework. But the smell of
+      hyacinths that came up from the mist-filled courtyard was like a sponge
+      wiping all impressions from his brain. The dense sweet smell in the damp
+      air made him feel languid and melancholy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took off his clothes slowly and got into bed. The smell of the
+      hyacinths came to him very faintly, so that he did not know whether or not
+      he was imagining it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The major's office was a large white-painted room, with elaborate
+      mouldings and mirrors in all four walls, so that while Andrews waited, cap
+      in hand, to go up to the desk, he could see the small round major with his
+      pink face and bald head repeated to infinity in two directions in the grey
+      brilliance of the mirrors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you want?&rdquo; said the major, looking up from some papers he was
+      signing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews stepped up to the desk. On both sides of the room a skinny figure
+      in olive-drab, repeated endlessly, stepped up to endless mahogany desks,
+      which faded into each other in an endless dusty perspective.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you mind O.K.-ing this application for discharge, Major?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How many dependents?&rdquo; muttered the major through his teeth, poring over
+      the application.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None. It's for discharge in France to study music.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Won't do. You need an affidavit that you can support yourself, that you
+      have enough money to continue your studies. You want to study music, eh?
+      D'you think you've got talent? Needs a very great deal of talent to study
+      music.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir.... But is there anything else I need except the affidavit?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.... It'll go through in short order. We're glad to release men....
+      We're glad to release any man with a good military record.... Williams!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A sergeant came over from a small table by the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Show this man what he needs to do to get discharged in France.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews saluted. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the figures in the
+      mirror, saluting down an endless corridor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he got out on the street in front of the great white building where
+      the major's office was, a morose feeling of helplessness came over him.
+      There were many automobiles of different sizes and shapes, limousines,
+      runabouts, touring cars, lined up along the curb, all painted olive-drab
+      and neatly stenciled with numbers in white. Now and then a personage came
+      out of the white marble building, puttees and Sam Browne belt gleaming,
+      and darted into an automobile, or a noisy motorcycle stopped with a jerk
+      in front of the wide door to let out an officer in goggles and
+      mud-splattered trench coat, who disappeared immediately through revolving
+      doors. Andrews could imagine him striding along halls, where from every
+      door came an imperious clicking of typewriters, where papers were piled
+      high on yellow varnished desks, where sallow-faced clerks in uniform
+      loafed in rooms, where the four walls were covered from floor to ceiling
+      with card catalogues. And every day they were adding to the paper, piling
+      up more little drawers with index cards. It seemed to Andrews that the
+      shiny white marble building would have to burst with all the paper stored
+      up within it, and would flood the broad avenue with avalanches of index
+      cards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Button yer coat,&rdquo; snarled a voice in his ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews looked up suddenly. An M. P. with a raw-looking face in which was
+      a long sharp nose, had come up to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews buttoned up his overcoat and said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye can't hang around here this way,&rdquo; the M. P. called after him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews flushed and walked away without turning his head. He was stinging
+      with humiliation; an angry voice inside him kept telling him that he was a
+      coward, that he should make some futile gesture of protest. Grotesque
+      pictures of revolt flamed through his mind, until he remembered that when
+      he was very small, the same tumultuous pride had seethed and ached in him
+      whenever he had been reproved by an older person. Helpless despair
+      fluttered about within him like a bird beating against the wires of a
+      cage. Was there no outlet, no gesture of expression, would he have to go
+      on this way day after day, swallowing the bitter gall of indignation, that
+      every new symbol of his slavery brought to his lips?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was walking in an agitated way across the Jardin des Tuileries, full of
+      little children and women with dogs on leashes and nursemaids with
+      starched white caps, when he met Genevieve Rod and her mother. Genevieve
+      was dressed in pearl grey, with an elegance a little too fashionable to
+      please Andrews. Mme. Rod wore black. In front of them a black and tan
+      terrier ran from one side to the other, on nervous little legs that
+      trembled like steel springs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn't it lovely this morning?&rdquo; cried Genevieve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't know you had a dog.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, we never go out without Santo, a protection to two lone women, you
+      know,&rdquo; said Mme. Rod, laughing. &ldquo;Viens, Santo, dis bonjour au Monsieur.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He usually lives at Poissac,&rdquo; said Genevieve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little dog barked furiously at Andrews, a shrill bark like a child
+      squalling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He knows he ought to be suspicious of soldiers.... I imagine most
+      soldiers would change with him if they had a chance.... Viens Santo, viens
+      Santo.... Will you change lives with me, Santo?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You look as if you'd been quarrelling with somebody,&rdquo; said Genevieve Rod
+      lightly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have, with myself.... I'm going to write a book on slave psychology. It
+      would be very amusing,&rdquo; said Andrews in a gruff, breathless voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But we must hurry, dear, or we'll be late to the tailor's,&rdquo; said Mme.
+      Rod. She held out her black-gloved hand to Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll be in at tea time this afternoon. You might play me some more of
+      the 'Queen of Sheba,'&rdquo; said Genevieve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm afraid I shan't be able to, but you never can tell.... Thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was relieved to have left them. He had been afraid he would burst out
+      into some childish tirade. What a shame old Henslowe hadn't come back yet.
+      He could have poured out all his despair to him; he had often enough
+      before; and Henslowe was out of the army now. Wearily Andrews decided that
+      he would have to start scheming and intriguing again as he had schemed and
+      intrigued to come to Paris in the first place. He thought of the white
+      marble building and the officers with shiny puttees going in and out, and
+      the typewriters clicking in every room, and the understanding of his
+      helplessness before all that complication made him shiver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An idea came to him. He ran down the steps of a metro station. Aubrey
+      would know someone at the Crillon who could help him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when the train reached the Concorde station, he could not summon the
+      will power to get out. He felt a harsh repugnance to any effort. What was
+      the use of humiliating himself and begging favors of people? It was
+      hopeless anyway. In a fierce burst of pride a voice inside of him was
+      shouting that he, John Andrews, should have no shame, that he should force
+      people to do things for him, that he, who lived more acutely than the
+      rest, suffering more pain and more joy, who had the power to express his
+      pain and his joy so that it would impose itself on others, should force
+      his will on those around him. &ldquo;More of the psychology of slavery,&rdquo; said
+      Andrews to himself, suddenly smashing the soap-bubble of his egoism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The train had reached the Porte Maillot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews stood in the sunny boulevard in front of the metro station, where
+      the plane trees were showing tiny gold-brown leaves, sniffing the smell of
+      a flower-stall in front of which a woman stood, with a deft abstracted
+      gesture tying up bunch after bunch of violets. He felt a desire to be out
+      in the country, to be away from houses and people. There was a line of men
+      and women buying tickets for St. Germain; still indecisive, he joined it,
+      and at last, almost without intending it, found himself jolting through
+      Neuilly in the green trailer of the electric car, that waggled like a
+      duck's tail when the car went fast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He remembered his last trip on that same car with Jeanne, and wished
+      mournfully that he might have fallen in love with her, that he might have
+      forgotten himself and the army and everything in crazy, romantic love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he got off the car at St. Germain, he had stopped formulating his
+      thoughts; soggy despair throbbed in him like an infected wound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat for a while at the cafe opposite the Chateau looking at the light
+      red walls and the strong stone-bordered windows and the jaunty turrets and
+      chimneys that rose above the classic balustrade with its big urns on the
+      edge of the roof. The park, through the tall iron railings, was full of
+      russet and pale lines, all mist of new leaves. Had they really lived more
+      vividly, the people of the Renaissance? Andrews could almost see men with
+      plumed hats and short cloaks and elaborate brocaded tunics swaggering with
+      a hand at the sword hilt, about the quiet square in front of the gate of
+      the Chateau. And he thought of the great, sudden wind of freedom that had
+      blown out of Italy, before which dogmas and slaveries had crumbled to
+      dust. In contrast, the world today seemed pitifully arid. Men seemed to
+      have shrunk in stature before the vastness of the mechanical contrivances
+      they had invented. Michael Angelo, da Vinci, Aretino, Cellini; would the
+      strong figures of men ever so dominate the world again? Today everything
+      was congestion, the scurrying of crowds; men had become ant-like. Perhaps
+      it was inevitable that the crowds should sink deeper and deeper in
+      slavery. Whichever won, tyranny from above, or spontaneous organization
+      from below, there could be no individuals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went through the gates into the park, laid out with a few flower beds
+      where pansies bloomed; through the dark ranks of elm trunks, was brilliant
+      sky, with here and there a moss-green statue standing out against it. At
+      the head of an alley he came out on a terrace. Beyond the strong curves of
+      the pattern of the iron balustrade was an expanse of country, pale green,
+      falling to blue towards the horizon, patched with pink and slate-colored
+      houses and carved with railway tracks. At his feet the Seine shone like a
+      curved sword blade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked with long strides along the terrace, and followed a road that
+      turned into the forest, forgetting the monotonous tread mill of his
+      thoughts, in the flush that the fast walking sent through his whole body,
+      in the rustling silence of the woods, where the moss on the north side of
+      the boles of the trees was emerald, and where the sky was soft grey
+      through a lavender lacework of branches. The green gnarled woods made him
+      think of the first act of Pelleas. With his tunic unbuttoned and his shirt
+      open at the neck and his hands stuck deep in his pockets, he went along
+      whistling like a school boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After an hour he came out of the woods on a highroad, where he found
+      himself walking beside a two-wheeled cart, that kept pace with him
+      exactly, try as he would to get ahead of it. After a while, a boy leaned
+      out:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey, l'Americain, vous voulez monter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Conflans-Ste.-Honorine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy flourished his whip vaguely towards the horse's head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These are potatoes,&rdquo; said the boy, &ldquo;make yourself comfortable.'' Andrews
+      offered him a cigarette, which he took with muddy fingers. He had a broad
+      face, red cheeks and chunky features. Reddish-brown hair escaped spikily
+      from under a mud-spattered beret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where did you say you were going?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Conflans-Ste.-Honorine. Silly all these saints, aren't they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo; the boy asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. I was taking a walk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy leaned over to Andrews and whispered in his car: &ldquo;Deserter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.... I had a day off and wanted to see the country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I just thought, if you were a deserter, I might be able to help you. Must
+      be silly to be a soldier. Dirty life.... But you like the country. So do
+      I. You can't call this country. I'm not from this part; I'm from Brittany.
+      There we have real country. It's stifling near Paris here, so many people,
+      so many houses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems mighty fine to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's because you're a soldier, better than barracks, hein? Dirty life
+      that. I'll never be a soldier. I'm going into the navy. Merchant marine,
+      and then if I have to do service I'll do it on the sea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose it is pleasanter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's more freedom. And the sea.... We Bretons, you know, we all die of
+      the sea or of liquor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you been long in this part of the country?&rdquo; asked Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Six months. It's very dull, this farming work. I'm head of a gang in a
+      fruit orchard, but not for long. I have a brother shipped on a sailing
+      vessel. When he comes back to Bordeaux, I'll ship on the same boat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where to?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;South America, Peru; how should I know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd like to ship on a sailing vessel,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You would? It seems very fine to me to travel, and see new countries. And
+      perhaps I shall stay over there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How should I know? If I like it, that is.... Life is very bad in Europe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is stifling, I suppose,&rdquo; said Andrews slowly, &ldquo;all these nations, all
+      these hatreds, but still... it is very beautiful. Life is very ugly in
+      America.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's have something to drink. There's a bistro!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy jumped down from the cart and tied the horse to a tree. They went
+      into a small wine shop with a counter and one square oak table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But won't you be late?&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't care. I like talking, don't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, indeed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They ordered wine of an old woman in a green apron, who had three yellow
+      teeth that protruded from her mouth when she spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven't had anything to eat,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait a minute.&rdquo; The boy ran out to the cart and came back with a canvas
+      bag, from which he took half a loaf of bread and some cheese.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name's Marcel,&rdquo; the boy said when they had sat for a while sipping
+      wine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mine is Jean...Jean Andre.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have a brother named Jean, and my father's name is Andre. That's
+      pleasant, isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it must be a splendid job, working in a fruit orchard,&rdquo; said Andrews,
+      munching bread and cheese.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's well paid; but you get tired of being in one place all the time.
+      It's not as it is in Brittany....&rdquo; Marcel paused. He sat, rocking a little
+      on the stool, holding on to the seat between his legs. A curious
+      brilliance came into his grey eyes. &ldquo;There,&rdquo; he went on in a soft voice,
+      &ldquo;it is so quiet in the fields, and from every hill you look at the sea....
+      I like that, don't you?&rdquo; he turned to Andrews, with a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are lucky to be free,&rdquo; said Andrews bitterly. He felt as if he would
+      burst into tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you will be demobilized soon; the butchery is over. You will go home
+      to your family. That will be good, hein?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder. It's not far enough away. Restless!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you expect?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A fine rain was falling. They climbed in on the potato sacks and the horse
+      started a jog trot; its lanky brown shanks glistened a little from the
+      rain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you come out this way often?&rdquo; asked Marcel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall. It's the nicest place near Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some Sunday you must come and I'll take you round. The Castle is very
+      fine. And then there is Malmaison, where the great Emperor lived with the
+      Empress Josephine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews suddenly remembered Jeanne's card. This was Wednesday. He pictured
+      her dark figure among the crowd of the pavement in front of the Cafe de
+      Rohan. Of course it had to be that way. Despair, so helpless as to be
+      almost sweet, came over him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And girls,&rdquo; he said suddenly to Marcel, &ldquo;are they pretty round here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Marcel shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's not women that we lack, if a fellow has money,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews felt a sense of shame, he did not exactly know why.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My brother writes that in South America the women are very brown and very
+      passionate,&rdquo; added Marcel with a wistful smile. &ldquo;But travelling and
+      reading books, that's what I like.... But look, if you want to take the
+      train back to Paris....&rdquo; Marcel pulled up the horse to a standstill. &ldquo;If
+      you want to take the train, cross that field by the foot path and keep
+      right along the road to the left till you come to the river. There's a
+      ferryman. The town's Herblay, and there's a station.... And any Sunday
+      before noon I'll be at 3 rue des Eveques, Reuil. You must come and we'll
+      take a walk together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They shook hands, and Andrews strode off across the wet fields. Something
+      strangely sweet and wistful that he could not analyse lingered in his mind
+      from Marcel's talk. Somewhere, beyond everything, he was conscious of the
+      great free rhythm of the sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he thought of the Major's office that morning, and of his own skinny
+      figure in the mirrors, repeated endlessly, standing helpless and humble
+      before the shining mahogany desk. Even out here in these fields where the
+      wet earth seemed to heave with the sprouting of new growth, he was not
+      free. In those office buildings, with white marble halls full of the clank
+      of officers' heels, in index cards and piles of typewritten papers, his
+      real self, which they had power to kill if they wanted to, was in his name
+      and his number, on lists with millions of other names and other numbers.
+      This sentient body of his, full of possibilities and hopes and desires,
+      was only a pale ghost that depended on the other self, that suffered for
+      it and cringed for it. He could not drive out of his head the picture of
+      himself, skinny, in an illfitting uniform, repeated endlessly in the two
+      mirrors of the Major's white-painted office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All of a sudden, through bare poplar trees, he saw the Seine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He hurried along the road, splashing now and then in a shining puddle,
+      until he came to a landing place. The river was very wide, silvery,
+      streaked with pale-green and violet, and straw-color from the evening sky.
+      Opposite were bare poplars and behind them clusters of buff-colored houses
+      climbing up a green hill to a church, all repeated upside down in the
+      color-streaked river. The river was very full, and welled up above its
+      banks, the way the water stands up above the rim of a glass filled too
+      full. From the water came an indefinable rustling, flowing sound that rose
+      and fell with quiet rhythm in Andrews's ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews forgot everything in the great wave of music that rose impetuously
+      through him, poured with the hot blood through his veins, with the
+      streaked colors of the river and the sky through his eyes, with the rhythm
+      of the flowing river through his ears.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                              V
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I came without,&rdquo; said Andrews, laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What fun!&rdquo; cried Genevieve. &ldquo;But anyway they couldn't do anything to you.
+      Chartres is so near. It's at the gates of Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were alone in the compartment. The train had pulled out of the
+      station and was going through suburbs where the trees were in leaf in the
+      gardens, and fruit trees foamed above the red brick walls, among the
+      box-like villas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anyway,&rdquo; said Andrews, &ldquo;it was an opportunity not to be missed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That must be one of the most amusing things about being a soldier,
+      avoiding regulations. I wonder whether Damocles didn't really enjoy his
+      sword, don't you think so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But mother was very doubtful about my coming with you this way. She's
+      such a dear, she wants to be very modern and liberal, but she always gets
+      frightened at the last minute. And my aunt will think the world's end has
+      come when we appear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They went through some tunnels, and when the train stopped at Sevres, had
+      a glimpse of the Seine valley, where the blue mist made a patina over the
+      soft pea-green of new leaves. Then the train came out on wide plains, full
+      of the glaucous shimmer of young oats and the golden-green of
+      fresh-sprinkled wheat fields, where the mist on the horizon was purplish.
+      The train's shadow, blue, sped along beside them over the grass and
+      fences.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How beautiful it is to go out of the city this way in the early
+      morning!... Has your aunt a piano?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, a very old and tinkly one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would be amusing to play you all I have done at the 'Queen of Sheba.'
+      You say the most helpful things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is that I am interested. I think you will do something some day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They sat silent, their ears filled up by the jerking rhythm of wheels over
+      rails, now and then looking at each other, almost furtively. Outside,
+      fields and hedges and patches of blossom, and poplar trees faintly
+      powdered with green, unrolled, like a scroll before them, behind the
+      nicker of telegraph poles and the festooned wires on which the sun gave
+      glints of red copper. Andrews discovered all at once that the coppery
+      glint on the telegraph wires was the same as the glint in Genevieve's
+      hair. &ldquo;Berenike, Artemisia, Arsinoe,&rdquo; the names lingered in his mind. So
+      that as he looked out of the window at the long curves of the telegraph
+      wires that seemed to rise and fall as they glided past, he could imagine
+      her face, with its large, pale brown eyes and its small mouth and broad
+      smooth forehead, suddenly stilled into the encaustic painting on the mummy
+      case of some Alexandrian girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;when did you begin to write music?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews brushed the light, disordered hair off his forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I think I forgot to brush my hair this morning,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You see,
+      I was so excited by the idea of coming to Chartres with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But my mother taught me to play the piano when I was very small,&rdquo; he went
+      on seriously. &ldquo;She and I lived alone in an old house belonging to her
+      family in Virginia. How different all that was from anything you have ever
+      lived. It would not be possible in Europe to be as isolated as we were in
+      Virginia.... Mother was very unhappy. She had led a dreadfully thwarted
+      life... that unrelieved hopeless misery that only a woman can suffer. She
+      used to tell me stories, and I used to make up little tunes about them,
+      and about anything. The great success,&rdquo; he laughed, &ldquo;was, I remember, to a
+      dandelion.... I can remember so well the way Mother pursed up her lips as
+      she leaned over the writing desk.... She was very tall, and as it was dark
+      in our old sitting room, had to lean far over to see.... She used to spend
+      hours making beautiful copies of tunes I made up. My mother is the only
+      person who has ever really had any importance in my life.... But I lack
+      technical training terribly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think it is so important?&rdquo; said Genevieve, leaning towards him to
+      make herself heard above the clatter of the train.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps it isn't. I don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think it always comes sooner or later, if you feel intensely enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it is so frightful to feel all you want to express getting away
+      beyond you. An idea comes into your head, and you feel it grow stronger
+      and stronger and you can't grasp it; you have no means to express it. It's
+      like standing on a street corner and seeing a gorgeous procession go by
+      without being able to join it, or like opening a bottle of beer and having
+      it foam all over you without having a glass to pour it into.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Genevieve burst out laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you can drink from the bottle, can't you?&rdquo; she said, her eyes
+      sparkling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm trying to,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here we are. There's the cathedral. No, it's hidden,&rdquo; cried Genevieve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They got to their feet. As they left the station, Andrews said: &ldquo;But after
+      all, it's only freedom that matters. When I'm out of the army!...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I suppose you are right... for you that is. The artist should be
+      free from any sort of entanglement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't see what difference there is between an artist and any other sort
+      of workman,&rdquo; said Andrews savagely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, but look.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      From the square where they stood, above the green blur of a little park,
+      they could see the cathedral, creamy yellow and rust color, with the sober
+      tower and the gaudy tower, and the great rose window between, the whole
+      pile standing nonchalantly, knee deep in the packed roofs of the town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They stood shoulder to shoulder, looking at it without speaking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the afternoon they walked down the hill towards the river, that flowed
+      through a quarter of tottering, peak-gabled houses and mills, from which
+      came a sound of grinding wheels. Above them, towering over gardens full of
+      pear trees in bloom, the apse of the cathedral bulged against the pale
+      sky. On a narrow and very ancient bridge they stopped and looked at the
+      water, full of a shimmer of blue and green and grey from the sky and from
+      the vivid new leaves of the willow trees along the bank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their senses glutted with the beauty of the day and the intricate
+      magnificence of the cathedral, languid with all they had seen and said,
+      they were talking of the future with quiet voices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's all in forming a habit of work,&rdquo; Andrews was saying. &ldquo;You have to be
+      a slave to get anything done. It's all a question of choosing your master,
+      don't you think so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. I suppose all the men who have left their imprint on people's lives
+      have been slaves in a sense,&rdquo; said Genevieve slowly. &ldquo;Everyone has to give
+      up a great deal of life to live anything deeply. But it's worth, it.&rdquo; She
+      looked Andrews full in the eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I think it's worth it,&rdquo; said Andrews. &ldquo;But you must help me. Now I
+      am like a man who has come up out of a dark cellar. I'm almost too dazzled
+      by the gorgeousness of everything. But at least I am out of the cellar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look, a fish jumped,&rdquo; cried Genevieve. &ldquo;I wonder if we could hire a boat
+      anywhere.... Don't you think it'd be fun to go out in a boat?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A voice broke in on Genevieve's answer: &ldquo;Let's see your pass, will you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews turned round. A soldier with a round brown face and red cheeks
+      stood beside him on the bridge. Andrews looked at him fixedly. A little
+      zigzag scar above his left eye showed white on his heavily tanned skin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's see your pass,&rdquo; the man said again; he had a high pitched, squeaky
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews felt the blood thumping in his ears. &ldquo;Are you an M. P.?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well I'm in the Sorbonne Detachment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the hell's that?&rdquo; said the M. P., laughing thinly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does he say?&rdquo; asked Genevieve, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing. I'll have to go see the officer and explain,&rdquo; said Andrews in a
+      breathless voice. &ldquo;You go back to your Aunt's and I'll come as soon as
+      I've arranged it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I'll come with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please go back. It may be serious. I'll come as soon as I can,&rdquo; said
+      Andrews harshly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She walked up the hill with swift decisive steps, without turning round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tough luck, buddy,&rdquo; said the M. P. &ldquo;She's a good-looker. I'd like to have
+      a half-hour with her myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here. I'm in the Sorbonne School Detachment in Paris, and I came
+      down here without a pass. Is there anything I can do about it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They'll fix you up, don't worry,&rdquo; cried the M. P. shrilly. &ldquo;You ain't a
+      member of the General Staff in disguise, are ye? School Detachment! Gee,
+      won't Bill Huggis laugh when he hears that? You pulled the best one yet,
+      buddy.... But come along,&rdquo; he added in a confidential tone. &ldquo;If you come
+      quiet I won't put the handcuffs on ye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do I know you're an M. P.?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll know soon enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They turned down a narrow street between grey stucco walls leprous with
+      moss and water stains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At a chair inside the window of a small wine shop a man with a red M. P.
+      badge sat smoking. He got up when he saw them pass and opened the door
+      with one hand on his pistol holster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I got one bird, Bill,&rdquo; said the man, shoving Andrews roughly in the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good for you, Handsome; is he quiet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Um.&rdquo; Handsome grunted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit down there. If you move you'll git a bullet in your guts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The M. P. stuck out a square jaw; he had a sallow skin, puffy under the
+      eyes that were grey and lustreless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He says he's in some goddam School Detachment. First time that's been
+      pulled, ain't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;School Detachment. D'you mean an O. T. C?&rdquo; Bill sank laughing into his
+      chair by the window, spreading his legs out over the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't that rich?&rdquo; said Handsome, laughing shrilly again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Got any papers on ye? Ye must have some sort of papers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews searched his pockets. He flushed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ought to have a school pass.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You sure ought. Gee, this guy's simple,&rdquo; said Bill, leaning far back in
+      the chair and blowing smoke through his nose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at his dawg-tag, Handsome.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man strode over to Andrews and jerked open the top of his tunic.
+      Andrews pulled his body away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven't got any on. I forgot to put any on this morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No tag, no insignia.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I have, infantry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No papers.... I bet he's been out a hell of a time,&rdquo; said Handsome
+      meditatively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better put the cuffs on him,&rdquo; said Bill in the middle of a yawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's wait a while. When's the loot coming?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not till night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Ain't no train.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How about a side car?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I know he ain't comin',&rdquo; snarled Bill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What d'you say we have a little liquor, Bill? Bet this bloke's got money.
+      You'll set us up to a glass o' cognac, won't you, School Detachment?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews sat very stiff in his chair, staring at them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;order up what you like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Keep an eye on him, Handsome. You never can tell what this quiet kind's
+      likely to pull off on you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bill Huggis strode out of the room with heavy steps. In a moment he came
+      back swinging a bottle of cognac in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tole the Madame you'd pay, Skinny,&rdquo; said the man as he passed Andrews's
+      chair. Andrews nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two M. P.'s drew up to the table beside which Andrews sat. Andrews
+      could not keep his eyes off them. Bill Huggis hummed as he pulled the cork
+      out of the bottle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's the smile that makes you happy, It's the smile that makes you sad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Handsome watched him, grinning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly they both burst out laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' the damn fool thinks he's in a school battalion,&rdquo; said Handsome in
+      his shrill voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It'll be another kind of a battalion you'll be in, Skinny,&rdquo; cried Bill
+      Huggis. He stifled his laughter with a long drink from the bottle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He smacked his lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so goddam bad,&rdquo; he said. Then he started humming again:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's the smile that makes you happy, It's the smile that makes you sad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have some, Skinny?&rdquo; said Handsome, pushing the bottle towards Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, thanks,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye won't be gettin' good cognac where yer goin', Skinny, not by a damn
+      sight,&rdquo; growled Bill Huggis in the middle of a laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, I'll take a swig.&rdquo; An idea had suddenly come into Andrews's
+      head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee, the bastard kin drink cognac,&rdquo; cried Handsome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Got enough money to buy us another bottle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews nodded. He wiped his mouth absently with his handkerchief; he had
+      drunk the raw cognac without tasting it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get another bottle, Handsome,&rdquo; said Bill Huggis carelessly. A purplish
+      flush had appeared in the lower part of his cheeks. When the other man
+      came back, he burst out laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The last cognac this Skinny guy from the school detachment'll get for
+      many a day. Better drink up strong, Skinny.... They don't have that stuff
+      down on the farm.... School Detachment; I'll be goddamned!&rdquo; He leaned back
+      in his chair, shaking with laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Handsome's face was crimson. Only the zigzag scar over his eye remained
+      white. He was swearing in a low voice as he worked the cork out of the
+      bottle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews could not keep his eyes off the men's faces. They went from one to
+      the other, in spite of him. Now and then, for an instant, he caught a
+      glimpse of the yellow and brown squares of the wall paper and the bar with
+      a few empty bottles behind it. He tried to count the bottles; &ldquo;one, two,
+      three...&rdquo; but he was staring in the lustreless grey eyes of Bill Huggis,
+      who lay back in his chair, blowing smoke out of his nose, now and then
+      reaching for the cognac bottle, all the while humming faintly, under his
+      breath:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's the smile that makes you happy, It's the smile that makes you sad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Handsome sat with his elbows on the table, and his chin in his beefy
+      hands. His face was flushed crimson, but the skin was softly moulded, like
+      a woman's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The light in the room was beginning to grow grey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Handsome and Bill Huggis stood up. A young officer, with clearly-marked
+      features and a campaign hat worn a little on one side, came in, stood with
+      his feet wide apart in the middle of the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews went up to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm in the Sorbonne Detachment, Lieutenant, stationed in Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you know enough to salute?&rdquo; said the officer, looking him up and
+      down. &ldquo;One of you men teach him to salute,&rdquo; he said slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Handsome made a step towards Andrews and hit him with his fist between the
+      eyes. There was a flash of light and the room swung round, and there was a
+      splitting crash as his head struck the floor. He got to his feet. The fist
+      hit him in the same place, blinding him, the three figures and the bright
+      oblong of the window swung round. A chair crashed down with him, and a
+      hard rap in the back of his skull brought momentary blackness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's enough, let him be,&rdquo; he heard a voice far away at the end of a
+      black tunnel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A great weight seemed to be holding him down as he struggled to get up,
+      blinded by tears and blood. Rending pains darted like arrows through his
+      head. There were handcuffs on his wrists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Git up,&rdquo; snarled a voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He got to his feet, faint light came through the streaming tears in his
+      eyes. His forehead flamed as if hot coals were being pressed against it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prisoner, attention!&rdquo; shouted the officer's voice. &ldquo;March!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Automatically, Andrews lifted one foot and then the other. He felt in his
+      face the cool air of the street. On either side of him were the hard steps
+      of the M. P.'s. Within him a nightmare voice was shrieking, shrieking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PART6" id="link2H_PART6">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PART SIX: UNDER THE WHEELS
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                              I
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The uncovered garbage cans clattered as they were thrown one by one into
+      the truck. Dust, and a smell of putrid things, hung in the air about the
+      men as they worked. A guard stood by with his legs wide apart, and his
+      rifle-butt on the pavement between them. The early mist hung low, hiding
+      the upper windows of the hospital. From the door beside which the garbage
+      cans were ranged came a thick odor of carbolic. The last garbage can
+      rattled into place on the truck, the four prisoners and the guard
+      clambered on, finding room as best they could among the cans, from which
+      dripped bloody bandages, ashes, and bits of decaying food, and the truck
+      rumbled off towards the incinerator, through the streets of Paris that
+      sparkled with the gaiety of early morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The prisoners wore no tunics; their shirts and breeches had dark stains of
+      grease and dirt; on their hands were torn canvas gloves. The guard was a
+      sheepish, pink-faced youth, who kept grinning apologetically, and had
+      trouble keeping his balance when the truck went round corners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How many days do they keep a guy on this job, Happy?&rdquo; asked a boy with
+      mild blue eyes and a creamy complexion, and reddish curly hair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damned if I know, kid; as long as they please, I guess,&rdquo; said the
+      bull-necked man next him, who had a lined prize fighter's face, with a
+      heavy protruding jaw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, after looking at the boy for a minute, with his face twisted into an
+      astonished sort of grin, he went on: &ldquo;Say, kid, how in hell did you git
+      here? Robbin' the cradle, Oi call it, to send you here, kid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I stole a Ford,&rdquo; the boy answered cheerfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Like hell you did!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sold it for five hundred francs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Happy laughed, and caught hold of an ash can to keep from being thrown out
+      of the jolting truck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kin ye beat that, guard?&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Ain't that somethin'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The guard sniggered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Didn't send me to Leavenworth 'cause I was so young,&rdquo; went on the kid
+      placidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How old are you, kid?&rdquo; asked Andrews, who was leaning against the
+      driver's seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seventeen,&rdquo; said the boy, blushing and casting his eyes down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He must have lied like hell to git in this goddam army,&rdquo; boomed the deep
+      voice of the truck driver, who had leaned over to spit s long squirt of
+      tobacco juice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The truck driver jammed the brakes on. The garbage cans banged against
+      each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Kid cried out in pain: &ldquo;Hold your horses, can't you? You nearly broke
+      my leg.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The truck driver was swearing in a long string of words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goddam these dreamin', skygazin' sons of French bastards. Why don't they
+      get out of your way? Git out an' crank her up, Happy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Guess a feller'd be lucky if he'd break his leg or somethin'; don't you
+      think so, Skinny?&rdquo; said the fourth prisoner in a low voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It'll take mor'n a broken leg to git you out o' this labor battalion,
+      Hoggenback. Won't it, guard?&rdquo; said Happy, as he climbed on again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The truck jolted away, trailing a haze of cinder dust and a sour stench of
+      garbage behind it. Andrews noticed all at once that they were going down
+      the quais along the river. Notre Dame was rosy in the misty sunlight, the
+      color of lilacs in full bloom. He looked at it fixedly a moment, and then
+      looked away. He felt very far from it, like a man looking at the stars
+      from the bottom of a pit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My mate, he's gone to Leavenworth for five years,&rdquo; said the Kid when they
+      had been silent some time listening to the rattle of the garbage cans as
+      the trucks jolted over the cobbles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helped yer steal the Ford, did he?&rdquo; asked Happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ford nothin'! He sold an ammunition train. He was a railroad man. He was
+      a mason, that's why he only got five years.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess five years in Leavenworth's enough for anybody,&rdquo; muttered
+      Hoggenback, scowling. He was a square-shouldered dark man, who always hung
+      his head when he worked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We didn't meet up till we got to Paris; we was on a hell of a party
+      together at the Olympia. That's where they picked us up. Took us to the
+      Bastille. Ever been in the Bastille?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have,&rdquo; said Hoggenback.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't no joke, is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Christ!&rdquo; said Hoggenback. His face flushed a furious red. He turned away
+      and looked at the civilians walking briskly along the early morning
+      streets, at the waiters in shirt sleeves swabbing off the cafe tables, at
+      the women pushing handcarts full of bright-colored vegetables over the
+      cobblestones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess they ain't nobody gone through what we guys go through with,&rdquo;
+       said Happy. &ldquo;It'd be better if the ole war was still a' goin', to my way
+      o' thinkin'. They'd chuck us into the trenches then. Ain't so low as
+      this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look lively,&rdquo; shouted the truck driver, as the truck stopped in a dirty
+      yard full of cinder piles. &ldquo;Ain't got all day. Five more loads to get
+      yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The guard stood by with angry face and stiff limbs; for he feared there
+      were officers about, and the prisoners started unloading the garbage cans;
+      their nostrils were full of the stench of putrescence; between their lips
+      was a gritty taste of cinders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The air in the dark mess shack was thick with steam from the kitchen at
+      one end. The men filed past the counter, holding out their mess kits, into
+      which the K. P.'s splashed the food. Occasionally someone stopped to ask
+      for a larger helping in an ingratiating voice. They ate packed together at
+      long tables of roughly planed boards, stained from the constant spilling
+      of grease and coffee and still wet from a perfunctory scrubbing. Andrews
+      sat at the end of a bench, near the door through which came the glimmer of
+      twilight, eating slowly, surprised at the relish with which he ate the
+      greasy food, and at the exhausted contentment that had come over him
+      almost in spite of himself. Hoggenback sat opposite him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Funny,&rdquo; he said to Hoggenback, &ldquo;it's not really as bad as I thought it
+      would be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What d'you mean, this labor battalion? Hell, a feller can put up with
+      anything; that's one thing you learn in the army.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess people would rather put up with things than make an effort to
+      change them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're goddam right. Got a butt?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews handed him a cigarette. They got to their feet and walked out into
+      the twilight, holding their mess kits in front of them. As they were
+      washing their mess kits in a tub of greasy water, where bits of food
+      floated in a thick scum, Hoggenback suddenly said in a low voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it all piles up, Buddy; some day there'll be an accountin'. D'you
+      believe in religion?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neither do I. I come of folks as done their own accountin'. My father an'
+      my gran'father before him. A feller can't eat his bile day after day, day
+      after day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm afraid he can, Hoggenback,&rdquo; broke in Andrews. They walked towards the
+      barracks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goddam it, no,&rdquo; cried Hoggenback aloud. &ldquo;There comes a point where you
+      can't eat yer bile any more, where it don't do no good to cuss. Then you
+      runs amuck.&rdquo; Hanging his head he went slowly into the barracks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews leaned against the outside of the building, staring up at the sky.
+      He was trying desperately to think, to pull together a few threads of his
+      life in this moment of respite from the nightmare. In five minutes the
+      bugle would din in his ears, and he would be driven into the barracks. A
+      tune came to his head that he played with eagerly for a moment, and then,
+      as memory came to him, tried to efface with a shudder of disgust.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;There's the smile that makes you happy,
+     There's the smile that makes you sad.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      It was almost dark. Two men walked slowly by in front of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sarge, may I speak to you?&rdquo; came a voice in a whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant grunted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think there's two guys trying to break loose out of here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who? If you're wrong it'll be the worse for you, remember that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surley an' Watson. I heard 'em talkin' about it behind the latrine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn fools.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They was sayin' they'd rather be dead than keep up this life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They did, did they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't talk so loud, Sarge. It wouldn't do for any of the fellers to know
+      I was talkin' to yer. Say, Sarge...&rdquo; the voice became whining, &ldquo;don't you
+      think I've nearly served my time down here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do I know about that? 'Tain't my job.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Sarge, I used to be company clerk with my old outfit. Don't ye need
+      a guy round the office?&rdquo; Andrews strode past them into the barracks. Dull
+      fury possessed him. He took off his clothes and got silently into his
+      blankets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hoggenback and Happy were talking beside his bunk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never you mind,&rdquo; said Hoggenback, &ldquo;somebody'll get that guy sooner or
+      later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Git him, nauthin'! The fellers in that camp was so damn skeered they
+      jumped if you snapped yer fingers at 'em. It's the discipline. I'm tellin'
+      yer, it gits a feller in the end,&rdquo; said Happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews lay without speaking, listening to their talk, aching in every
+      muscle from the crushing work of the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They court-martialled that guy, a feller told me,&rdquo; went on Hoggenback.
+      &ldquo;An' what d'ye think they did to him? Retired on half pay. He was a
+      major.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gawd, if I iver git out o' this army, I'll be so goddam glad,&rdquo; began
+      Happy. Hoggenback interrupted:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That you'll forgit all about the raw deal they gave you, an' tell
+      everybody how fine ye liked it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews felt the mocking notes of the bugle outside stabbing his ears. A
+      non-com's voice roared: &ldquo;Quiet,&rdquo; from the end of the building, and the
+      lights went out. Already Andrews could hear the deep breathing of men
+      asleep. He lay awake, staring into the darkness, his body throbbing with
+      the monotonous rhythms of the work of the day. He seemed still to hear the
+      sickening whine in the man's voice as he talked to the sergeant outside in
+      the twilight. &ldquo;And shall I be reduced to that?&rdquo; he was asking himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews was leaving the latrine when he heard a voice call softly,
+      &ldquo;Skinny.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come here, I want to talk to you.&rdquo; It was the Kid's voice. There was no
+      light in the ill-smelling shack that served for a latrine. Outside they
+      could hear the guard humming softly to himself as he went back and forth
+      before the barracks door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's you and me be buddies, Skinny.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, what d'you think the chance is o' cuttin' loose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pretty damn poor,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Couldn't you just make a noise like a hoop an' roll away?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They giggled softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews put his hand on the boy's arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Kid, it's too risky. I got in this fix by taking a risk. I don't
+      feel like beginning over again, and if they catch you, it's desertion.
+      Leavenworth for twenty years, or life. That'd be the end of everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what the hell's this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I don't know; they've got to let us out some day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sh... sh....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kid put his hand suddenly over Andrews's mouth. They stood rigid, so that
+      they could hear their hearts pounding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Outside there was a brisk step on the gravel. The sentry halted and
+      saluted. The steps faded into the distance, and the sentry's humming began
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They put two fellers in the jug for a month for talking like we are....
+      In solitary,&rdquo; whispered Kid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Kid, I haven't got the guts to try anything now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure you have, Skinny. You an' me's got more guts than all the rest of
+      'em put together. God, if people had guts, you couldn't treat 'em like
+      they were curs. Look, if I can ever get out o' this, I've got a hunch I
+      can make a good thing writing movie scenarios. I want to get on in the
+      world, Skinny.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Kid, you won't be able to go back to the States.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't care. New Rochelle's not the whole world. They got the movies in
+      Italy, ain't they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure. Let's go to bed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right. Look, you an' me are buddies from now on, Skinny.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews felt the Kid's hand press his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In his dark, airless bunk, in the lowest of three tiers, Andrews lay awake
+      a long time, listening to the snores and the heavy breathing about him.
+      Thoughts fluttered restlessly in his head, but in his blank hopelessness
+      he could only frown and bite his lips, and roll his head from side to side
+      on the rolled-up tunic he used for a pillow, listening with desperate
+      attention to the heavy breathing of the men who slept above him and beside
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he fell asleep he dreamed that he was alone with Genevieve Rod in the
+      concert hall of the Schola Cantorum, and that he was trying desperately
+      hard to play some tune for her on the violin, a tune he kept forgetting,
+      and in the agony of trying to remember, the tears streamed down his
+      cheeks. Then he had his arms round Genevieve's shoulders and was kissing
+      her, kissing her, until he found that it was a wooden board he was
+      kissing, a wooden board on which was painted a face with broad forehead
+      and great pale brown eyes, and small tight lips, and all the while a boy
+      who seemed to be both Chrisfield and the Kid kept telling him to run or
+      the M.P.'s would get him. Then he sat frozen in icy terror with a bottle
+      in his hand, while a frightful voice behind him sang very loud:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;There's the smile that makes you happy,
+     There's the smile that makes you sad.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The bugle woke him, and he sat up with such a start that he hit his head
+      hard against the bunk above him. He lay back cringing from the pain like a
+      child. But he had to hurry desperately to get his clothes on in time for
+      roll call. It was with a feeling of relief that he found that mess was not
+      ready, and that men were waiting in line outside the kitchen shack,
+      stamping their feet and clattering their mess kits as they moved about
+      through the chilly twilight of the spring morning. Andrews found he was
+      standing behind Hoggenback.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How's she comin', Skinny?&rdquo; whispered Hoggenback, in his low mysterious
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, we're all in the same boat,&rdquo; said Andrews with a laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wish it'd sink,&rdquo; muttered the other man. &ldquo;D'ye know,&rdquo; he went on after a
+      pause, &ldquo;I kinder thought an edicated guy like you'd be able to keep out of
+      a mess like this. I wasn't brought up without edication, but I guess I
+      didn't have enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess most of 'em can; I don't sec that it's much to the point. A man
+      suffers as much if he doesn't know how to read and write as if he had a
+      college education.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dunno, Skinny. A feller who's led a rough life can put up with an awful
+      lot. The thing is, Skinny, I might have had a commission if I hadn't been
+      so damned impatient.... I'm a lumberman by trade, and my dad's cleaned up
+      a pretty thing in war contracts jus' a short time ago. He could have got
+      me in the engineers if I hadn't gone off an' enlisted.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was restless-like. I guess I wanted to see the world. I didn't care
+      about the goddam war, but I wanted to see what things was like over here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you've seen,&rdquo; said Andrews, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the neck,&rdquo; said Hoggenback, as he pushed out his cup for coffee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the truck that was taking them to work, Andrews and the Kid sat side by
+      side on the jouncing backboard and tried to talk above the rumble of the
+      exhaust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Like Paris?&rdquo; asked the Kid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not this way,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, one of the guys said you could parlay French real well. I want you
+      to teach me. A guy's got to know languages to get along in this country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you must know some.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bedroom French,&rdquo; said the Kid, laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if I want to write a movie scenario for an Eytalian firm, I can't
+      just write 'voulay-vous couchezavecmoa' over and over again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you'll have to learn Italian, Kid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm goin' to. Say, ain't they taking us a hell of a ways today, Skinny?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We're goin' to Passy Wharf to unload rock,&rdquo; said somebody in a grumbling
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it's a cement... cement for the stadium we're presentin' the French
+      Nation. Ain't you read in the 'Stars and Stripes' about it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd present 'em with a swift kick, and a hell of a lot of other people,
+      too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So we have to sweat unloadin' cement all day,&rdquo; muttered Hoggenback, &ldquo;to
+      give these goddam frawgs a stadium.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it weren't that it'd be somethin' else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, ain't we got folks at home to work for?&rdquo; cried Hoggenback. &ldquo;Mightn't
+      all this sweat be doin' some good for us? Building a stadium! My gawd!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pile out there.... Quick!&rdquo; rasped a voice from the driver's seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through the haze of choking white dust, Andrews got now and then a glimpse
+      of the grey-green river, with its tugboats sporting their white cockades
+      of steam and their long trailing plumes of smoke, and its blunt-nosed
+      barges and its bridges, where people walked jauntily back and forth, going
+      about their business, going where they wanted to go. The bags of cement
+      were very heavy, and the unaccustomed work sent racking pains through his
+      back. The biting dust stung under his finger nails, and in his mouth and
+      eyes. All the morning a sort of refrain went through his head: &ldquo;People
+      have spent their lives... doing only this. People have spent their lives
+      doing only this.&rdquo; As he crossed and recrossed the narrow plank from the
+      barge to the shore, he looked at the black water speeding seawards and
+      took extraordinary care not to let his foot slip. He did not know why, for
+      one-half of him was thinking how wonderful it would be to drown, to forget
+      in eternal black silence the hopeless struggle. Once he saw the Kid
+      standing before the sergeant in charge in an attitude of complete
+      exhaustion, and caught a glint of his blue eyes as he looked up
+      appealingly, looking like a child begging out of a spanking. The sight
+      amused him, and he said to himself: &ldquo;If I had pink cheeks and cupid's bow
+      lips, I might be able to go through life on my blue eyes&rdquo;; and he pictured
+      the Kid, a fat, cherubic old man, stepping out of a white limousine, the
+      way people do in the movies, and looking about him with those same mild
+      blue eyes. But soon he forgot everything in the agony of the heavy cement
+      bags bearing down on his back and hips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the truck on the way back to the mess the Kid, looking fresh and
+      smiling among the sweating men, like ghosts from the white dust, talking
+      hoarsely above the clatter of the truck, sidled up very close to Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D'you like swimmin', Skinny?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. I'd give a lot to get some of this cement dust off me,&rdquo; said
+      Andrews, without interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I once won a boy's swimmin' race at Coney,&rdquo; said the Kid. Andrews did not
+      answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were you in the swimmin' team or anything like that, Skinny, when you
+      went to school?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.... It would be wonderful to be in the water, though. I used to swim
+      way out in Chesapeake Bay at night when the water was phosphorescent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews suddenly found the Kid's blue eyes, bright as flames from
+      excitement, staring into his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God, I'm an ass,&rdquo; he muttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He felt the Kid's fist punch him softly in the back. &ldquo;Sergeant said they
+      was goin' to work us late as hell tonight,&rdquo; the Kid was saying aloud to
+      the men round him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll be dead if they do,&rdquo; muttered Hoggenback.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' you a lumberjack!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It ain't that. I could carry their bloody bags two at a time if I wanted
+      ter. A feller gets so goddam mad, that's all; so goddam mad. Don't he,
+      Skinny?&rdquo; Hoggenback turned to Andrews and smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews nodded his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the first two or three bags Andrews carried in the afternoon, it
+      seemed as if every one would be the last he could possibly lift. His back
+      and thighs throbbed with exhaustion; his face and the tips of his fingers
+      felt raw from the biting cement dust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the river began to grow purple with evening, he noticed that two
+      civilians, young men with buff-colored coats and canes, were watching the
+      gang at work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They says they's newspaper reporters, writing up how fast the army's
+      being demobilized,&rdquo; said one man in an awed voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They come to the right place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell 'em we're leavin' for home now. Loadin' our barracks bags on the
+      steamer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The newspaper men were giving out cigarettes. Several men grouped round
+      them. One shouted out:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We're the guys does the light work. Blackjack Pershing's own pet labor
+      battalion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They like us so well they just can't let us go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn jackasses,&rdquo; muttered Hoggenback, as, with his eyes to the ground, he
+      passed Andrews. &ldquo;I could tell 'em some things'd make their goddam ears
+      buzz.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the hell's the use? I ain't got the edication to talk up to guys
+      like that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant, a short, red-faced man with a mustache clipped very short,
+      went up to the group round the newspaper men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come on, fellers, we've got a hell of a lot of this cement to get in
+      before it rains,&rdquo; he said in a kindly voice; &ldquo;the sooner we get it in, the
+      sooner we get off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen to that bastard, ain't he juss too sweet for pie when there's
+      company?&rdquo; muttered Hoggenback on his way from the barge with a bag of
+      cement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Kid brushed past Andrews without looking at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do what I do, Skinny,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews did not turn round, but his heart started thumping very fast. A
+      dull sort of terror took possession of him. He tried desperately to summon
+      his will power, to keep from cringing, but he kept remembering the way the
+      room had swung round when the M.P. had hit him, and heard again the cold
+      voice of the lieutenant saying: &ldquo;One of you men teach him how to salute.&rdquo;
+       Time dragged out interminably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, coming back to the edge of the wharf, Andrews saw that there were
+      no more bags in the barge. He sat down on the plank, too exhausted to
+      think. Blue-grey dusk was closing down on everything. The Passy bridge
+      stood out, purple against a great crimson afterglow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Kid sat down beside him, and threw an arm trembling with excitement
+      round his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The guard's lookin' the other way. They won't miss us till they get to
+      the truck.... Come on, Skinny,&rdquo; he said in a low, quiet voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Holding on to the plank, he let himself down into the speeding water.
+      Andrews slipped after him, hardly knowing what he was doing. The icy water
+      closing about his body made him suddenly feel awake and vigorous. As he
+      was swept by the big rudder of the barge, he caught hold of the Kid, who
+      was holding on to a rope. They worked their way without speaking round to
+      the outer side of the rudder. The swift river tugging savagely at them
+      made it hard to hold on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now they can't see us,&rdquo; said the Kid between clenched teeth. &ldquo;Can you
+      work your shoes an' pants off?&rdquo;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews started struggling with one boot, the Kid helping to hold him up
+      with his free hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mine are off,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I was all fixed.&rdquo; He laughed, though his teeth
+      were chattering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right. I've broken the laces,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you swim under water?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We want to make for that bunch of barges the other side of the bridge.
+      The barge people'll hide us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How d'ye know they will?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Kid had disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews hesitated a moment, then let go his hold and started swimming with
+      the current for all his might.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first he felt strong and exultant, but very soon he began to feel the
+      icy grip of the water bearing him down; his arms and legs seemed to
+      stiffen. More than against the water, he was struggling against paralysis
+      within him, so that he thought that every moment his limbs would go rigid.
+      He came to the surface and gasped for air. He had a second's glimpse of
+      figures, tiny like toy soldiers, gesticulating wildly on the deck of the
+      barge. The report of a rifle snapped through the air. He dove again,
+      without thinking, as if his body were working independently of his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next time he came up, his eyes were blurred from the cold. There was a
+      taste of blood in his mouth. The shadow of the bridge was just above him.
+      He turned on his back for a second. There were lights on the bridge. A
+      current swept him past one barge and then another. Certainty possessed him
+      that he was going to be drowned. A voice seemed to sob in his ears
+      grotesquely: &ldquo;And so John Andrews was drowned in the Seine, drowned in the
+      Seine, in the Seine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he was kicking and fighting in a furious rage against the coils about
+      him that wanted to drag him down and away. The black side of a barge was
+      slipping up stream beside him with lightning speed. How fast those barges
+      go, he thought. Then suddenly he found that he had hold of a rope, that
+      his shoulders were banging against the bow of a small boat, while in front
+      of him, against the dull purple sky, towered the rudder of the barge. A
+      strong warm hand grasped his shoulder from behind, and he was being drawn
+      up and up, over the bow of the boat that hurt his numbed body like blows,
+      out of the clutching coils of the water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hide me, I'm a deserter,&rdquo; he said over and over again in French. A brown
+      and red face with a bristly white beard, a bulbous, mullioned sort of
+      face, hovered over him in the middle of a pinkish mist.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                             II
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, qu'il est propre! Oh, qu'il a la peau blanche!&rdquo; Women's voices were
+      shrilling behind the mist. A coverlet that felt soft and fuzzy against his
+      skin was being put about him. He was very warm and torpid. But somewhere
+      in his thoughts a black crawling thing like a spider was trying to reach
+      him, trying to work its way through the pinkish veils of torpor. After a
+      long while he managed to roll over, and looked about him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mais reste tranquille,&rdquo; came the woman's shrill voice again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the other one? Did you see the other one?&rdquo; he asked in a choked
+      whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, it's all right. I'm drying it by the stove,&rdquo; came another woman's
+      voice, deep and growling, almost like a man's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maman's drying your money by the stove. It's all safe. How rich they are,
+      these Americans!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And to think that I nearly threw it overboard with the trousers,&rdquo; said
+      the other woman again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John Andrews began to look about him. He was in a dark low cabin. Behind
+      him, in the direction of the voices, a yellow light flickered. Great
+      dishevelled shadows of heads moved about on the ceiling. Through the close
+      smell of the cabin came a warmth of food cooking. He could hear the
+      soothing hiss of frying grease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But didn't you see the Kid?&rdquo; he asked in English, dazedly trying to pull
+      himself together, to think coherently. Then he went on in French in a more
+      natural voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was another one with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We saw no one. Rosaline, ask the old man,&rdquo; said the older woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, he didn't see anyone,&rdquo; came the girl's shrill voice. She walked over
+      to the bed and pulled the coverlet round Andrews with an awkward gesture.
+      Looking up at her, he had a glimpse of the bulge of her breasts and her
+      large teeth that glinted in the lamplight, and very vague in the shadow, a
+      mop of snaky, disordered hair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Qu'il parle bien francais,&rdquo; she said, beaming at him. Heavy steps
+      shuffled across the cabin as the older woman came up to the bed and peered
+      in his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Il va mieux,&rdquo; she said, with a knowing air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was a broad woman with a broad flat face and a swollen body swathed in
+      shawls. Her eyebrows were very bushy, and she had thick grey whiskers that
+      came down to a point on either side of her mouth, as well as a few
+      bristling hairs on her chin. Her voice was deep and growling, and seemed
+      to come from far down inside her huge body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Steps creaked somewhere, and the old man looked at him through spectacles
+      placed on the end of his nose. Andrews recognized the irregular face full
+      of red knobs and protrusions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks very much,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All three looked at him silently for some time. Then the old man pulled a
+      newspaper out of his pocket, unfolded it carefully, and fluttered it above
+      Andrews's eyes. In the scant light Andrews made out the name:
+      &ldquo;Libertaire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's why,&rdquo; said the old man, looking at Andrews fixedly, through his
+      spectacles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm a sort of a socialist,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Socialists are good-for-nothings,&rdquo; snarled the old man, every red
+      protrusion on his face seeming to get redder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I have great sympathy for anarchist comrades,&rdquo; went on Andrews,
+      feeling a certain liveliness of amusement go through him and fade again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lucky you caught hold of my rope, instead of getting on to the next
+      barge. He'd have given you up for sure. Sont des royalistes, ces
+      salauds-la.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must give him something to eat; hurry, Maman.... Don't worry, he'll
+      pay, won't you, my little American?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews nodded his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All you want,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, if he says he's a comrade, he shan't pay, not a sou,&rdquo; growled the old
+      man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll see about that,&rdquo; cried the old woman, drawing her breath in with an
+      angry whistling sound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's only that living's so dear nowadays,&rdquo; came the girl's voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I'll pay anything I've got,&rdquo; said Andrews peevishly, closing his eyes
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He lay a long while on his back without moving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A hand shoved in between his back and the pillow roused him. He sat up.
+      Rosaline was holding a bowl of broth in front of him that steamed in his
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mange ca,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked into her eyes, smiling. Her rusty hair was neatly combed. A
+      bright green parrot with a scarlet splash in its wings, balanced itself
+      unsteadily on her shoulder, looking at Andrews out of angry eyes, hard as
+      gems.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Il est jaloux, Coco,&rdquo; said Rosaline, with a shrill little giggle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews took the bowl in his two hands and drank some of the scalding
+      broth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's too hot,&rdquo; he said, leaning back against the girl's arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The parrot squawked out a sentence that Andrews did not understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews heard the old man's voice answer from somewhere behind him:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nom de Dieu!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The parrot squawked again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rosaline laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's the old man who taught him that,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Poor Coco, he doesn't
+      know what he's saying.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does he say?&rdquo; asked Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Les bourgeois a la lanterne, nom de dieu!' It's from a song,&rdquo; said
+      Rosaline. &ldquo;Oh, qu'il est malin, ce Coco!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rosaline was standing with her arms folded beside the bunk. The parrot
+      stretched out his neck and rubbed it against her cheek, closing and
+      unclosing his gem-like eyes. The girl formed her lips into a kiss, and
+      murmured in a drowsy voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tu m'aimes, Coco, n'est-ce pas, Coco? Bon Coco.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Could I have something more, I'm awfully hungry,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I was forgetting,&rdquo; cried Rosaline, running off with the empty bowl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a moment she came back without the parrot, with the bowl in her hand
+      full of a brown stew of potatoes and meat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews ate it mechanically, and handed back the bowl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I am going to sleep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He settled himself into the bunk. Rosaline drew the covers up about him
+      and tucked them in round his shoulders. Her hand seemed to linger a moment
+      as it brushed past his cheek. But Andrews had already sunk into a torpor
+      again, feeling nothing but the warmth of the food within him and a great
+      stiffness in his legs and arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he woke up the light was grey instead of yellow, and a swishing sound
+      puzzled him. He lay listening to it for a long time, wondering what it
+      was. At last the thought came with a sudden warm spurt of joy that the
+      barge must be moving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He lay very quietly on his back, looking up at the faint silvery light on
+      the ceiling of the bunk, thinking of nothing, with only a vague dread in
+      the back of his head that someone would come to speak to him, to question
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a long time he began to think of Genevieve Rod. He was having a long
+      conversation with her about his music, and in his imagination she kept
+      telling him that he must finish the &ldquo;Queen of Sheba,&rdquo; and that she would
+      show it to Monsieur Gibier, who was a great friend of a certain concert
+      director, who might get it played. How long ago it must be since they had
+      talked about that. A picture floated through his mind of himself and
+      Genevieve standing shoulder to shoulder looking at the Cathedral at
+      Chartres, which stood up nonchalantly, above the tumultuous roofs of the
+      town, with its sober tower and its gaudy towers and the great rose windows
+      between. Inexorably his memory carried him forward, moment by moment, over
+      that day, until he writhed with shame and revolt. Good god! Would he have
+      to go on all his life remembering that? &ldquo;Teach him how to salute,&rdquo; the
+      officer had said, and Handsome had stepped up to him and hit him. Would he
+      have to go on all his life remembering that?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We tied up the uniform with some stones, and threw it overboard,&rdquo; said
+      Rosaline, jabbing him in the shoulder to draw his attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was a good idea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you going to get up? It's nearly time to eat. How you have slept.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I haven't anything to put on,&rdquo; said Andrews, laughing, and waved a
+      bare arm above the bedclothes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait, I'll find something of the old man's. Say, do all Americans have
+      skin so white as that? Look.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She put her brown hand, with its grimed and broken nails, on Andrews's
+      arm, that was white with a few silky yellow hairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's because I'm blond,&rdquo; said Andrews. &ldquo;There are plenty of blond
+      Frenchmen, aren't there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rosaline ran off giggling, and came back in a moment with a pair of
+      corduroy trousers and a torn flannel shirt that smelt of pipe tobacco.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That'll do for now,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It's warm today for April. Tonight we'll
+      buy you some clothes and shoes. Where are you going?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By God, I don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We're going to Havre for cargo.&rdquo; She put both hands to her head and began
+      rearranging her straggling rusty-colored hair. &ldquo;Oh, my hair,&rdquo; she said,
+      &ldquo;it's the water, you know. You can't keep respectable-looking on these
+      filthy barges. Say, American, why don't you stay with us a while? You can
+      help the old man run the boat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He found suddenly that her eyes were looking into his with trembling
+      eagerness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know what to do,&rdquo; he said carelessly. &ldquo;I wonder if it's safe to
+      go on deck.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned away from him petulantly and led the way up the ladder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, v'la le camarade,&rdquo; cried the old man who was leaning with all his
+      might against the long tiller of the barge. &ldquo;Come and help me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The barge was the last of a string of four that were describing a wide
+      curve in the midst of a reach of silvery river full of glittering patches
+      of pale, pea-green lavender, hemmed in on either side by frail blue roots
+      of poplars. The sky was a mottled luminous grey with occasional patches,
+      the color of robins' eggs. Andrews breathed in the dank smell of the river
+      and leaned against the tiller when he was told to, answering the old man's
+      curt questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stayed with the tiller when the rest of them went down to the cabin to
+      eat. The pale colors and the swishing sound of the water and the
+      blue-green banks slipping by and unfolding on either hand, were as
+      soothing as his deep sleep had been. Yet they seemed only a veil covering
+      other realities, where men stood interminably in line and marched with
+      legs made all the same length on the drill field, and wore the same
+      clothes and cringed before the same hierarchy of polished belts and
+      polished puttees and stiff-visored caps, that had its homes in vast
+      offices crammed with index cards and card catalogues; a world full of the
+      tramp of marching, where cold voices kept saying:&mdash;&ldquo;Teach him how to
+      salute.&rdquo; Like a bird in a net, Andrews's mind struggled to free itself
+      from the obsession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he thought of his table in his room in Paris, with its piled sheets
+      of ruled paper, and he felt he wanted nothing in the world except to work.
+      It would not matter what happened to him if he could only have time to
+      weave into designs the tangled skein of music that seethed through him as
+      the blood seethed through his veins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There he stood, leaning against the long tiller, watching the blue-green
+      poplars glide by, here and there reflected in the etched silver mirror of
+      the river, feeling the moist river wind flutter his ragged shirt, thinking
+      of nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a while the old man came up out of the cabin, his face purplish,
+      puffing clouds of smoke out of his pipe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, young fellow, go down and eat,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews lay flat on his belly on the deck, with his chin resting on the
+      back of his two hands. The barge was tied up along the river bank among
+      many other barges. Beside him, a small fuzzy dog barked furiously at a
+      yellow mongrel on the shore. It was nearly dark, and through the pearly
+      mist of the river came red oblongs of light from the taverns along the
+      bank. A slip of a new moon, shrouded in haze, was setting behind the
+      poplar trees. Amid the round of despairing thoughts, the memory of the Kid
+      intruded itself. He had sold a Ford for five hundred francs, and gone on a
+      party with a man who'd stolen an ammunition train, and he wanted to write
+      for the Italian movies. No war could down people like that. Andrews
+      smiled, looking into the black water. Funny, the Kid was dead, probably,
+      and he, John Andrews, was alive and free. And he lay there moping, still
+      whimpering over old wrongs. &ldquo;For God's sake be a man!&rdquo; he said to himself.
+      He got to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the cabin door, Rosaline was playing with the parrot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me a kiss, Coco,&rdquo; she was saying in a drowsy voice, &ldquo;just a little
+      kiss. Just a little kiss for Rosaline, poor little Rosaline.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The parrot, which Andrews could hardly see in the dusk, leaned towards
+      her, fluttering his feathers, making little clucking noises.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rosaline caught sight of Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I thought you'd gone to have a drink with the old man,&rdquo; she cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. I stayed here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D'you like it, this life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rosaline put the parrot back on his perch, where he swayed from side to
+      side, squawking in protest: &ldquo;Les bourgeois a la lanterne, nom de dieu!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They both laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it must be a wonderful life. This barge seems like heaven after the
+      army.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But they pay you well, you Americans.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seven francs a day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's luxury, that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And be ordered around all day long!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you have no expenses.... It's clear gain.... You men are funny. The
+      old man's like that too.... It's nice here all by ourselves, isn't it,
+      Jean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews did not answer. He was wondering what Genevieve Rod would say when
+      she found out he was a deserter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hate it.... It's dirty and cold and miserable in winter,&rdquo; went on
+      Rosaline. &ldquo;I'd like to see them at the bottom of the river, all these
+      barges.... And Paris women, did you have a good time with them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I only knew one. I go very little with women.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All the same, love's nice, isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were sitting on the rail at the bow of the barge. Rosaline had sidled
+      up so that her leg touched Andrews's leg along its whole length.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The memory of Genevieve Rod became more and more vivid in his mind. He
+      kept thinking of things she had said, of the intonations of her voice, of
+      the blundering way she poured tea, and of her pale-brown eyes wide open on
+      the world, like the eyes of a woman in an encaustic painting from a tomb
+      in the Fayoum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother's talking to the old woman at the Creamery. They're great friends.
+      She won't be home for two hours yet,&rdquo; said Rosaline.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's bringing my clothes, isn't she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you're all right as you are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But they're your father's.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does that matter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must go back to Paris soon. There is somebody I must see in Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A woman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it's not so bad, this life on the barge. I'm just lonesome and sick
+      of the old people. That's why I talk nastily about it.... We could have
+      good times together if you stayed with us a little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She leaned her head on his shoulder and put a hand awkwardly on his bare
+      forearm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How cold these Americans are!&rdquo; she muttered, giggling drowsily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews felt her hair tickle his cheek.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it's not a bad life on the barge, honestly. The only thing is,
+      there's nothing but old people on the river. It isn't life to be always
+      with old people.... I want to have a good time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She pressed her cheek against his. He could feel her breath heavy in his
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After all, it's lovely in summer to drowse on the deck that's all warm
+      with the sun, and see the trees and the fields and the little houses
+      slipping by on either side.... If there weren't so many old people.... All
+      the boys go away to the cities.... I hate old people; they're so dirty and
+      slow. We mustn't waste our youth, must we?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews got to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the matter?&rdquo; she cried sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rosaline,&rdquo; Andrews said in a low, soft voice, &ldquo;I can only think of going
+      to Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, the Paris woman,&rdquo; said Rosaline scornfully. &ldquo;But what does that
+      matter? She isn't here now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know.... Perhaps I shall never see her again anyway,&rdquo; said
+      Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're a fool. You must amuse yourself when you can in this life. And you
+      a deserter.... Why, they may catch you and shoot you any time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I know, you're right. You're right. But I'm not made like that,
+      that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She must be very good to you, your little Paris girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've never touched her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rosaline threw her head back and laughed raspingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you aren't sick, are you?&rdquo; she cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Probably I remember too vividly, that's all.... Anyway, I'm a fool,
+      Rosaline, because you're a nice girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There were steps on the plank that led to the shore. A shawl over her head
+      and a big bundle under her arm, the old woman came up to them, panting
+      wheezily. She looked from one to the other, trying to make out their faces
+      in the dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a danger... like that... youth,&rdquo; she muttered between hard short
+      breaths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you find the clothes?&rdquo; asked Andrews in a casual voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. That leaves you forty-five francs out of your money, when I've taken
+      out for your food and all that. Does that suit you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you very much for your trouble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You paid for it. Don't worry about that,&rdquo; said the old woman. She gave
+      him the bundle. &ldquo;Here are your clothes and the forty-five francs. If you
+      want, I'll tell you exactly what each thing cost.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll put them on first,&rdquo; he said, with a laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He climbed down the ladder into the cabin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Putting on new, unfamiliar-shaped clothes made him suddenly feel strong
+      and joyous. The old woman had bought him corduroy trousers, cheap cloth
+      shoes, a blue cotton shirt, woollen socks, and a second-hand black serge
+      jacket. When he came on deck she held up a lantern to look at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doesn't he look fine, altogether French?&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rosaline turned away without answering. A little later she picked up the
+      perch and carried the parrot, that swayed sleepily on the crosspiece, down
+      the ladder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Les bourgeois a la lanterne, nom de dieu!&rdquo; came the old man's voice
+      singing on the shore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's drunk as a pig,&rdquo; muttered the old woman. &ldquo;If only he doesn't fall
+      off the gang plank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A swaying shadow appeared at the end of the plank, standing out against
+      the haze of light from the houses behind the poplar trees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews put out a hand to catch him, as he reached the side of the barge.
+      The old man sprawled against the cabin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't bawl me out, dearie,&rdquo; he said, dangling an arm round Andrews's
+      neck, and a hand beckoning vaguely towards his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've found a comrade for the little American.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's that?&rdquo; said Andrews sharply. His mouth suddenly went dry with
+      terror. He felt his nails pressing into the palms of his cold-hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've found another American for you,&rdquo; said the old man in an important
+      voice. &ldquo;Here he comes.&rdquo; Another shadow appeared at the end of the
+      gangplank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Les bourgeois a la lanterne, nom de dieu!&rdquo; shouted the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews backed away cautiously towards the other side of the barge. All
+      the little muscles of his thighs were trembling. A hard voice was saying
+      in his head: &ldquo;Drown yourself, drown yourself. Then they won't get you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man was standing on the end of the plank. Andrews could see the
+      contour of the uniform against the haze of light behind the poplar trees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God, if I only had a pistol,&rdquo; he thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Buddy, where are you?&rdquo; came an American voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man advanced towards him across the deck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews stood with every muscle taut.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee! You've taken off your uniform.... Say, I'm not an M.P. I'm A.W.O.L.
+      too. Shake.&rdquo; He held out his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews took the hand doubtfully, without moving from the edge of the
+      barge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Buddy, it's a damn fool thing to take off your uniform. Ain't you
+      got any? If they pick you up like that it's life, kid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't help it. It's done now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gawd, you still think I'm an M.P., don't yer?... I swear I ain't. Maybe
+      you are. Gawd, it's hell, this life. A feller can't put his trust in
+      nobody.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What division are you from?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell, I came to warn you this bastard frawg's got soused an' has been
+      blabbin' in the gin mill there how he was an anarchist an' all that, an'
+      how he had an American deserter who was an anarchist an' all that, an' I
+      said to myself: 'That guy'll git nabbed if he ain't careful,' so I
+      cottoned up to the old frawg an' said I'd go with him to see the camarade,
+      an' I think we'd better both of us make tracks out o' this burg.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's damn decent. I'm sorry I was so suspicious. I was scared green when
+      I first saw you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were goddam right to be. But why did yous take yer uniform off?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come along, let's beat it. I'll tell you about that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews shook hands with the old man and the old woman. Rosaline had
+      disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goodnight...Thank you,&rdquo; he said, and followed the other man across the
+      gangplank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they walked away along the road they heard the old man's voice roaring:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Les bourgeois a la lanterne, nom de dieu!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name's Eddy Chambers,&rdquo; said the American.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mine's John Andrews.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long've you been out?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Eddy let the air out through his teeth in a whistle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I got away from a labor battalion in Paris. They'd picked me up in
+      Chartres without a pass.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee, I've been out a month an' more. Was you infantry too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. I was in the School Detachment in Paris when I was picked up. But I
+      never could get word to them. They just put me to work without a trial.
+      Ever been in a labor battalion?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, thank Gawd, they ain't got my number yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were walking fast along a straight road across a plain under a clear
+      star-powdered sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I been out eight weeks yesterday. What'd you think o' that?&rdquo; said Eddy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Must have had plenty of money to go on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've been flat fifteen days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How d'you work it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dunno. I juss work it though.... Ye see, it was this way. The gang I
+      was with went home when I was in hauspital, and the damn skunks put me in
+      class A and was goin' to send me to the Army of Occupation. Gawd, it made
+      me sick, goin' out to a new outfit where I didn't know anybody, an' all
+      the rest of my bunch home walkin' down Water Street with brass bands an'
+      reception committees an' girls throwing kisses at 'em an' all that. Where
+      are yous goin'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee, I wouldn't. Risky.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I've got friends there. I can get hold of some money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Looks like I hadn't got a friend in the world. I wish I'd gone to that
+      goddam outfit now.... I ought to have been in the engineers all the time,
+      anyway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you do at home?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Carpenter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But gosh, man, with a trade like that you can always make a living
+      anywhere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're goddam right, I could, but a guy has to live underground, like a
+      rabbit, at this game. If I could git to a country where I could walk
+      around like a man, I wouldn't give a damn what happened. If the army ever
+      moves out of here an' the goddam M.P.'s, I'll set up in business in one of
+      these here little towns. I can parlee pretty well. I'd juss as soon marry
+      a French girl an' git to be a regular frawg myself. After the raw deal
+      they've given me in the army, I don't want to have nothin' more to do with
+      their damn country. Democracy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He cleared his throat and spat angrily on the road before him. They walked
+      on silently. Andrews was looking at the sky, picking out constellations he
+      knew among the glittering masses of stars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't you try Spain or Italy?&rdquo; he said after a while.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't know the lingo. No, I'm going to Scotland.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how can you get there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Crossing on the car ferries to England from Havre. I've talked to guys
+      has done it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what'll you do when you do get there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How should I know? Live around best I can. What can a feller do when he
+      don't dare show his face in the street?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anyway, it makes you feel as if you had some guts in you to be out on
+      your own this way,&rdquo; cried Andrews boisterously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait till you've been at it two months, boy, and you'll think what I'm
+      tellin' yer.... The army's hell when you're in it; but it's a hell of a
+      lot worse when you're out of it, at the wrong end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a great night, anyway,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Looks like we ought to be findin' a haystack to sleep in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It'd be different,&rdquo; burst out Andrews, suddenly, &ldquo;if I didn't have
+      friends here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, you've met up with a girl, have you?&rdquo; asked Eddy ironically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. The thing is we really get along together, besides all the rest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Eddy snorted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I bet you ain't ever even kissed her,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Gee, I've had buddies
+      has met up with that friendly kind. I know a guy married one, an' found
+      out after two weeks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's silly to talk about it. I can't explain it.... It gives you
+      confidence in anything to feel there's someone who'll always understand
+      anything you do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I s'pose you're goin' to git married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't see why. That would spoil everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Eddy whistled softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They walked along briskly without speaking for a long time, their steps
+      ringing on the hard road, while the dome of the sky shimmered above their
+      heads. And from the ditches came the singsong shrilling of toads. For the
+      first time in months Andrews felt himself bubbling with a spirit of joyous
+      adventure. The rhythm of the three green horsemen that was to have been
+      the prelude to the Queen of Sheba began rollicking through his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Eddy, this is wonderful. It's us against the universe,&rdquo; he said in a
+      boisterous voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You wait,&rdquo; said Eddy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Andrews walked by the M.P. at the Gare-St. Lazare, his hands were
+      cold with fear. The M.P. did not look at him. He stopped on the crowded
+      pavement a little way from the station and stared into a mirror in a shop
+      window. Unshaven, with a check cap on the side of his head and his
+      corduroy trousers, he looked like a young workman who had been out of work
+      for a month.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee, clothes do make a difference,&rdquo; he said to himself. He smiled when he
+      thought how shocked Walters would be when he turned up in that rig, and
+      started walking with leisurely stride across Paris, where everything
+      bustled and jingled with early morning, where from every cafe came a hot
+      smell of coffee, and fresh bread steamed in the windows of the bakeries.
+      He still had three francs in his pocket. On a side street the fumes of
+      coffee roasting attracted him into a small bar. Several men were arguing
+      boisterously at the end of the bar. One of them turned a ruddy,
+      tow-whiskered face to Andrews, and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Et toi, tu vas chomer le premier mai?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm on strike already,&rdquo; answered Andrews laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man noticed his accent, looked at him sharply a second, and turned
+      back to the conversation, lowering his voice as he did so. Andrews drank
+      down his coffee and left the bar, his heart pounding. He could not help
+      glancing back over his shoulder now and then to see if he was being
+      followed. At a corner he stopped with his fists clenched and leaned a
+      second against a house wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's your nerve. Where's your nerve?&rdquo; He was saying to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He strode off suddenly, full of bitter determination not to turn round
+      again. He tried to occupy his mind with plans. Let's see, what should he
+      do? First he'd go to his room and look up old Henslowe and Walters. Then
+      he would go to see Genevieve. Then he'd work, work, forget everything in
+      his work, until the army should go back to America and there should be no
+      more uniforms on the streets. And as for the future, what did he care
+      about the future?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he turned the corner into the familiar street where his room was, a
+      thought came to him. Suppose he should find M.P.'s waiting for him there?
+      He brushed it aside angrily and strode fast up the sidewalk, catching up
+      to a soldier who was slouching along in the same direction, with his hands
+      in his pockets and eyes on the ground. Andrews stopped suddenly as he was
+      about to pass the soldier and turned. The man looked up. It was
+      Chrisfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews held out his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield seized it eagerly and shook it for a long time. &ldquo;Jesus Christ!
+      Ah thought you was a Frenchman, Andy.... Ah guess you got yer dis-charge
+      then. God, Ah'm glad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm glad I look like a Frenchman, anyway.... Been on leave long, Chris?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Two buttons were off the front of Chrisfield's uniform; there were streaks
+      of dirt on his face, and his puttees were clothed with mud. He looked
+      Andrews seriously in the eyes, and shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. Ah done flew the coop, Andy,&rdquo; he said in a low voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since when?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah been out a couple o' weeks. Ah'll tell you about it, Andy. Ah was
+      comin' to see you now. Ah'm broke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well look, I'll be able to get hold of some money tomorrow.... I'm out
+      too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What d'ye mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven't got a discharge. I'm through with it all. I've deserted.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God damn! That's funny that you an' me should both do it, Andy. But why
+      the hell did you do it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it's too long to tell here. Come up to my room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There may be fellers there. Ever been at the Chink's?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm stayin' there. There're other fellers who's A.W. O.L. too. The
+      Chink's got a gin mill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eight, rew day Petee Jardings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Way back of that garden where the animals are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look, I can find you there tomorrow morning, and I'll bring some money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah'll wait for ye, Andy, at nine. It's a bar. Ye won't be able to git in
+      without me, the kids is pretty scared of plainclothes men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think it'll be perfectly safe to come up to my place now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Ah'm goin' to git the hell out of here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Chris, why did you go A.W.O.L.?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Ah doan know.... A guy who's in the Paris detachment got yer address
+      for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Chris, did they say anything to him about me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, nauthin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's funny.... Well, Chris, I'll be there tomorrow, if I can find the
+      place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Man, you've got to be there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I'll turn up,&rdquo; said Andrews with a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They shook hands nervously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Andy,&rdquo; said Chrisfield, still holding on to Andrews's hand, &ldquo;Ah went
+      A.W.O.L. 'cause a sergeant...God damn it; it's weighin' on ma mind awful
+      these days.... There's a sergeant that knows.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah told ye about Anderson...Ah know you ain't tole anybody, Andy.&rdquo;
+       Chrisfield dropped Andrews's hand and looked at him in the face with an
+      unexpected sideways glance. Then he went on through clenched teeth: &ldquo;Ah
+      swear to Gawd Ah ain't tole another livin' soul.... An' the sergeant in
+      Company D knows.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For God's sake, Chris, don't lose your nerve like that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah ain't lost ma nerve. Ah tell you that guy knows.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield's voice rose, suddenly shrill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look, Chris, we can't stand talking out here in the street like this. It
+      isn't safe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But mebbe you'll be able to tell me what to do. You think, Andy. Mebbe,
+      tomorrow, you'll have thought up somethin' we can do...So long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield walked away hurriedly. Andrews looked after him a moment, and
+      then went in through the court to the house where his room was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the foot of the stairs an old woman's voice startled him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mais, Monsieur Andre, que vous avez l'air etrange; how funny you look
+      dressed like that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The concierge was smiling at him from her cubbyhole beside the stairs. She
+      sat knitting with a black shawl round her head, a tiny old woman with a
+      hooked bird-like nose and eyes sunk in depressions full of little
+      wrinkles, like a monkey's eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, at the town where I was demobilized, I couldn't get anything else,&rdquo;
+       stammered Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you're demobilized, are you? That's why you've been away so long.
+      Monsieur Valters said he didn't know where you were.... It's better that
+      way, isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Andrews, starting up the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur Valters is in now,&rdquo; went on the old woman, talking after him.
+      &ldquo;And you've got in just in time for the first of May.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes, the strike,&rdquo; said Andrews, stopping half-way up the flight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It'll be dreadful,&rdquo; said the old woman. &ldquo;I hope you won't go out. Young
+      folks are so likely to get into trouble...Oh, but all your friends have
+      been worried about your being away so long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have they?'&rdquo; said Andrews. He continued up the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Au revoir, Monsieur.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Au revoir, Madame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                              III
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, nothing can make me go back now. It's no use talking about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you're crazy, man. You're crazy. One man alone can't buck the system
+      like that, can he, Henslowe?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Walters was talking earnestly, leaning across the table beside the lamp.
+      Henslowe, who sat very stiff on the edge of a chair, nodded with
+      compressed lips. Andrews lay at full length on the bed, out of the circle
+      of light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Honestly, Andy,&rdquo; said Henslowe with tears in his voice, &ldquo;I think you'd
+      better do what Walters says. It's no use being heroic about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not being heroic, Henny,&rdquo; cried Andrews, sitting up on the bed. He
+      drew his feet under him, tailor fashion, and went on talking very quietly.
+      &ldquo;Look.. It's a purely personal matter. I've got to a point where I don't
+      give a damn what happens to me. I don't care if I'm shot, or if I live to
+      be eighty...I'm sick of being ordered round. One more order shouted at my
+      head is not worth living to be eighty... to me. That's all. For God's sake
+      let's talk about something else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how many orders have you had shouted at your head since you got in
+      this School Detachment? Not one. You can put through your discharge
+      application probably....&rdquo; Walters got to his feet, letting the chair crash
+      to the floor behind him. He stopped to pick it up. &ldquo;Look here; here's my
+      proposition,&rdquo; he went on. &ldquo;I don't think you are marked A.W.O.L. in the
+      School office. Things are so damn badly run there. You can turn up and say
+      you've been sick and draw your back pay. And nobody'll say a thing. Or
+      else I'll put it right up to the guy who's top sergeant. He's a good
+      friend of mine. We can fix it up on the records some way. But for God's
+      sake don't ruin your whole life on account of a little stubbornness, and
+      some damn fool anarchistic ideas or other a feller like you ought to have
+      had more sense than to pick up....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's right, Andy,&rdquo; said Henslowe in a low voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please don't talk any more about it. You've told me all that before,&rdquo;
+       said Andrews sharply. He threw himself back on the bed and rolled over
+      towards the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were silent a long time. A sound of voices and footsteps drifted up
+      from the courtyard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, look here, Andy,&rdquo; said Henslowe nervously stroking his moustache.
+      &ldquo;You care much more about your work than any abstract idea of asserting
+      your right of individual liberty. Even if you don't get caught.... I think
+      the chances of getting caught are mighty slim if you use your head.... But
+      even if you don't, you haven't enough money to live for long over here,
+      you haven't....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you think I've thought of all that? I'm not crazy, you know. I've
+      figured up the balance perfectly sanely. The only thing is, you fellows
+      can't understand. Have you ever been in a labor battalion? Have you ever
+      had a man you'd been chatting with five minutes before deliberately knock
+      you down? Good God, you don't know what you are talking about, you two....
+      I've got to be free, now. I don't care at what cost. Being free's the only
+      thing that matters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews lay on his back talking towards the ceiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henslowe was on his feet, striding nervously about the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As if anyone was ever free,&rdquo; he muttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, quibble, quibble. You can argue anything away if you want to.
+      Of course, cowardice is the best policy, necessary for survival. The man
+      who's got most will to live is the most cowardly... go on.&rdquo; Andrews's
+      voice was shrill and excited, breaking occasionally like a half-grown
+      boy's voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Andy, what on earth's got hold of you?... God, I hate to go away this
+      way,&rdquo; added Henslowe after a pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll pull through all right, Henny. I'll probably come to see you in
+      Syria, disguised as an Arab sheik.&rdquo; Andrews laughed excitedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I thought I'd do any good, I'd stay.... But there's nothing I can do.
+      Everybody's got to settle their own affairs, in their own damn fool way.
+      So long, Walters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Walters and Henslowe shook hands absently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henslowe came over to the bed and held out his hand to Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look, old man, you will be as careful as you can, won't you? And write me
+      care American Red Cross, Jerusalem. I'll be damned anxious, honestly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you worry, we'll go travelling together yet,&rdquo; said Andrews, sitting
+      up and taking Henslowe's hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They heard Henslowe's steps fade down the stairs and then ring for a
+      moment on the pavings of the courtyard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Walters moved his chair over beside Andrews's bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, look, let's have a man-to-man talk, Andrews. Even if you want to
+      ruin your life, you haven't a right to. There's your family, and haven't
+      you any patriotism?... Remember, there is such a thing as duty in the
+      world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews sat up and said in a low, furious voice, pausing between each
+      word:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't explain it.... But I shall never put a uniform on again.... So
+      for Christ's sake shut up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, do what you goddam please; I'm through with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Walters suddenly flashed into a rage. He began undressing silently.
+      Andrews lay a long while flat on his back in the bed, staring at the
+      ceiling, then he too undressed, put the light out, and got into bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rue des Petits-Jardins was a short street in a district of warehouses.
+      A grey, windowless wall shut out the light along all of one side. Opposite
+      was a cluster of three old houses leaning together as if the outer ones
+      were trying to support the beetling mansard roof of the center house.
+      Behind them rose a huge building with rows and rows of black windows. When
+      Andrews stopped to look about him, he found the street completely
+      deserted. The ominous stillness that had brooded over the city during all
+      the walk from his room near the Pantheon seemed here to culminate in sheer
+      desolation. In the silence he could hear the light padding noise made by
+      the feet of a dog that trotted across the end of the street. The house
+      with the mansard roof was number eight. The front of the lower storey had
+      once been painted in chocolate-color, across the top of which was still
+      decipherable the sign: &ldquo;Charbon, Bois. Lhomond.&rdquo; On the grimed window
+      beside the door, was painted in white: &ldquo;Debit de Boissons.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews pushed on the door, which opened easily. Somewhere in the interior
+      a bell jangled, startlingly loud after the silence of the street. On the
+      wall opposite the door was a speckled mirror with a crack in it, the shape
+      of a star, and under it a bench with three marble-top tables. The zinc bar
+      filled up the third wall. In the fourth was a glass door pasted up with
+      newspapers. Andrews walked over to the bar. The jangling of the bell faded
+      to silence. He waited, a curious uneasiness gradually taking possession of
+      him. Anyways, he thought, he was wasting his time; he ought to be doing
+      something to arrange his future. He walked over to the street door. The
+      bell jangled again when he opened it. At the same moment a man came out
+      through the door the newspapers were pasted over. He was a stout man in a
+      dirty white shirt stained to a brownish color round the armpits and caught
+      in very tightly at the waist by the broad elastic belt that held up his
+      yellow corduroy trousers. His face was flabby, of a greenish color; black
+      eyes looked at Andrews fixedly through barely open lids, so that they
+      seemed long slits above the cheekbones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's the Chink,&rdquo; thought Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said the man, taking his place behind the bar with his legs far
+      apart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A beer, please,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There isn't any.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A glass of wine then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man nodded his head, and keeping his eyes fastened on Andrews all the
+      while, strode out of the door again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A moment later, Chrisfield came out, with rumpled hair, yawning, rubbing
+      an eye with the knuckles of one fist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lawsie, Ah juss woke up, Andy. Come along in back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews followed him through a small room with tables and benches, down a
+      corridor where the reek of ammonia bit into his eyes, and up a staircase
+      littered with dirt and garbage. Chrisfield opened a door directly on the
+      stairs, and they stumbled into a large room with a window that gave on the
+      court. Chrisfield closed the door carefully, and turned to Andrews with a
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah was right smart 'askeered ye wouldn't find it, Andy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So this is where you live?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Um hum, a bunch of us lives here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A wide bed without coverings, where a man in olive-drab slept rolled in a
+      blanket, was the only furniture of the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Three of us sleeps in that bed,&rdquo; said Chrisfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who's that?&rdquo; cried the man in the bed, sitting up suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, Al, he's a buddy o' mine,&rdquo; said Chrisfield. &ldquo;He's taken off
+      his uniform.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jesus, you got guts,&rdquo; said the man in the bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews looked at him sharply. A piece of towelling, splotched here and
+      there with dried blood, was wrapped round his head, and a hand, swathed in
+      bandages, was drawn up to his body. The man's mouth took on a twisted
+      expression of pain as he let his head gradually down to the bed again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gosh, what did you do to yourself?&rdquo; cried Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tried to hop a freight at Marseilles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Needs practice to do that sort o' thing,&rdquo; said Chrisfield, who sat on the
+      bed, pulling his shoes off. &ldquo;Ah'm go-in' to git back to bed, Andy. Ah'm
+      juss dead tired. Ah chucked cabbages all night at the market. They give ye
+      a job there without askin' no questions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have a cigarette.&rdquo; Andrews sat down on the foot of the bed and threw a
+      cigarette towards Chrisfield. &ldquo;Have one?&rdquo; he asked Al.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. I couldn't smoke. I'm almost crazy with this hand. One of the wheels
+      went over it.... I cut what was left of the little finger off with a
+      razor.&rdquo; Andrews could see the sweat rolling down his cheek as he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Christ, that poor beggar's been havin' a time, Andy. We was 'askeert to
+      get a doctor, and we all didn't know what to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I got some pure alcohol an' washed it in that. It's not infected. I guess
+      it'll be all right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you from, Al?&rdquo; asked Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Frisco. Oh, I'm goin' to try to sleep. I haven't slept a wink for four
+      nights.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't you get some dope?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, we all ain't had a cent to spare for anythin', Andy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, if we had kale we could live like kings&mdash;not,&rdquo; said Al in the
+      middle of a nervous little giggle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look, Chris,&rdquo; said Andrews, &ldquo;I'll halve with you. I've got five hundred
+      francs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jesus Gawd, man, don't kid about anything like that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here's two hundred and fifty.... It's not so much as it sounds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews handed him five fifty-franc notes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, how did you come to bust loose?&rdquo; said Al, turning his head towards
+      Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I got away from a labor battalion one night. That's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me about it, buddy. I don't feel my hand so much when I'm talking to
+      somebody.... I'd be home now if it wasn't for a gin mill in Alsace. Say,
+      don't ye think that big headgear they sport up there is awful good
+      looking? Got my goat every time I saw one.... I was comin' back from leave
+      at Grenoble, an' I went through Strasburg. Some town. My outfit was in
+      Coblenz. That's where I met up with Chris here. Anyway, we was raisin'
+      hell round Strasburg, an' I went into a gin mill down a flight of steps.
+      Gee, everything in that town's plumb picturesque, just like a kid I used
+      to know at home whose folks were Eytalian used to talk about when he said
+      how he wanted to come overseas. Well, I met up with a girl down there, who
+      said she'd just come down to a place like that to look for her brother who
+      was in the foreign legion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews and Chrisfield laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What you laughin' at?&rdquo; went on Al in an eager taut voice. &ldquo;Honest to
+      Gawd. I'm goin' to marry her if I ever get out of this. She's the best
+      little girl I ever met up with. She was waitress in a restaurant, an' when
+      she was off duty she used to wear that there Alsatian costume.... Hell, I
+      just stayed on. Every day, I thought I'd go away the next day.... Anyway,
+      the war was over. I warn't a damn bit of use.... Hasn't a fellow got any
+      rights at all? Then the M.P.'s started cleanin' up Strasburg after
+      A.W.O.L.'s, an' I beat it out of there, an' Christ, it don't look as if
+      I'd ever be able to get back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Andy,&rdquo; said Chrisfield, suddenly, &ldquo;let's go down after some booze.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Al, do you want me to get you anything at the drug store?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. I won't do anythin' but lay low and bathe it with alcohol now and
+      then, against infection. Anyways, it's the first of May. You'll be crazy
+      to go out. You might get pulled. They say there's riots going on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gosh, I forgot it was the first of May,&rdquo; cried Andrews. &ldquo;They're running
+      a general strike to protest against the war with Russia and....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A guy told me,&rdquo; interrupted Al, in a shrill voice, &ldquo;there might be a
+      revolution.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come along, Andy,&rdquo; said Chris from the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the stairs Andrews felt Chrisfield's hand squeezing his arm hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Andy,&rdquo; Chris put his lips close to Andrews's ear and spoke in a
+      rasping whisper. &ldquo;You're the only one that knows... you know what. You an'
+      that sergeant. Doan you say anythin' so that the guys here kin ketch on,
+      d'ye hear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, Chris, I won't, but man alive, you oughtn't to lose your nerve
+      about it. You aren't the only one who ever shot an...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shut yer face, d'ye hear?&rdquo; muttered Chrisfield savagely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They went down the stairs in silence. In the room next, to the bar they
+      found the Chink reading a newspaper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he French?&rdquo; whispered Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah doan know what he is. He ain't a white man, Ah'll wager that,&rdquo; said
+      Chris, &ldquo;but he's square.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D'you know anything about what's going on?&rdquo; asked Andrews in French,
+      going up to the Chink.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where?&rdquo; The Chink got up, flashing a glance at Andrews out of the corners
+      of his slit-like eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Outside, in the streets, in Paris, anywhere where people are out in the
+      open and can do things. What do you think about the revolution?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Chink shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anything's possible,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D'you think they really can overthrow the army and the government in one
+      day, like that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who?&rdquo; broke in Chrisfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, the people, Chris, the ordinary people like you and me, who are
+      tired of being ordered round, who are tired of being trampled down by
+      other people just like them, who've had the luck to get in right with the
+      system.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D'you know what I'll do when the revolution comes?&rdquo; broke in the Chink
+      with sudden intensity, slapping himself on the chest with one hand. &ldquo;I'll
+      go straight to one of those jewelry stores, rue Royale, and fill my
+      pockets and come home with my hands full of diamonds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What good'll that do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What good? I'll bury them back there in the court and wait. I'll need
+      them in the end. D'you know what it'll mean, your revolution? Another
+      system! When there's a system there are always men to be bought with
+      diamonds. That's what the world's like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But they won't be worth anything. It'll only be work that is worth
+      anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll see,&rdquo; said the Chink.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D'you think it could happen, Andy, that there'd be a revolution, an'
+      there wouldn't be any more armies, an' we'd be able to go round like we
+      are civilians? Ah doan think so. Fellers like us ain't got it in 'em to
+      buck the system, Andy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Many a system's gone down before; it will happen again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They're fighting the Garde Republicaine now before the Gare de l'Est,&rdquo;
+       said the Chink in an expressionless voice. &ldquo;What do you want down here?
+      You'd better stay in the back. You never know what the police may put over
+      on us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give us two bottles of vin blank, Chink,&rdquo; said Chrisfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When'll you pay?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right now. This guy's given me fifty francs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rich, are you?&rdquo; said the Chink with hatred in his voice, turning to
+      Andrews. &ldquo;Won't last long at that rate. Wait here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He strode into the bar, closing the door carefully after him. A sudden
+      jangling of the bell was followed by a sound of loud voices and stamping
+      feet. Andrews and Chrisfield tiptoed into the dark corridor, where they
+      stood a long time, waiting, breathing the foul air that stung their
+      nostrils with the stench of plaster-damp and rotting wine. At last the
+      Chink came back with three bottles of wine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you're right,&rdquo; he said to Andrews. &ldquo;They are putting up barricades
+      on the Avenue Magenta.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On the stairs they met a girl sweeping. She had untidy hair that straggled
+      out from under a blue handkerchief tied under her chin, and a
+      pretty-colored fleshy face. Chrisfield caught her up to him and kissed
+      her, as he passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We all calls her the dawg-faced girl,&rdquo; he said to Andrews in explanation.
+      &ldquo;She does our work. Ah like to had a fight with Slippery over her
+      yisterday.... Didn't Ah, Slippery?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When he followed Chrisfield into the room, Andrews saw a man sitting on
+      the window ledge smoking. He was dressed as a second lieutenant, his
+      puttees were brilliantly polished, and he smoked through a long, amber
+      cigarette-holder. His pink nails were carefully manicured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is Slippery, Andy,&rdquo; said Chrisfield. &ldquo;This guy's an ole buddy o'
+      mine. We was bunkies together a hell of a time, wasn't we, Andy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You bet we were.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you've taken your uniform off, have you? Mighty foolish,&rdquo; said
+      Slippery. &ldquo;Suppose they nab you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's all up now anyway. I don't intend to get nabbed,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We got booze,&rdquo; said Chrisfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Slippery had taken dice from his pocket and was throwing them meditatively
+      on the floor between his feet, snapping his fingers with each throw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll shoot you one of them bottles, Chris,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews walked over to the bed. Al was stirring uneasily, his face flushed
+      and his mouth twitching.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;What's the news?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They say they're putting up barricades near the Gare de l'Est. It may be
+      something.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God, I hope so. God, I wish they'd do everything here like they did in
+      Russia; then we'd be free. We couldn't go back to the States for a while,
+      but there wouldn't be no M.P.'s to hunt us like we were criminals.... I'm
+      going to sit up a while and talk.&rdquo; Al giggled hysterically for a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have a swig of wine?&rdquo; asked Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure, it may set me up a bit; thanks.&rdquo; He drank greedily from the bottle,
+      spilling a little over his chin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, is your face badly cut up, Al?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it's just scotched, skin's off; looks like beefsteak, I reckon....
+      Ever been to Strasburg?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Man, that's the town. And the girls in that costume.... Whee!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, you're from San Francisco, aren't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I wonder if you knew a fellow I knew at training camp, a kid named
+      Fuselli from 'Frisco?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knew him! Jesus, man, he's the best friend I've got.... Ye don't know
+      where he is now, do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw him here in Paris two months ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'll be damned.... God, that's great!&rdquo; Al's voice was staccato from
+      excitement. &ldquo;So you knew Dan at training camp? The last letter from him
+      was 'bout a year ago. Dan'd just got to be corporal. He's a damn clever
+      kid, Dan is, an' ambitious too, one of the guys always makes good....
+      Gawd, I'd hate to see him this way. D'you know, we used to see a hell of a
+      lot of each other in 'Frisco, an' he always used to tell me how he'd make
+      good before I did. He was goddam right, too. Said I was too soft about
+      girls.... Did ye know him real well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. I even remember that he used to tell me about a fellow he knew who
+      was called Al.... He used to tell me about how you two used to go down to
+      the harbor and watch the big liners come in at night, all aflare with
+      lights through the Golden Gate. And he used to tell you he'd go over to
+      Europe in one, when he'd made his pile.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's why Strasburg made me think of him,&rdquo; broke in Al, tremendously
+      excited. &ldquo;'Cause it was so picturesque like.... But honest, I've tried
+      hard to make good in this army. I've done everything a feller could. An'
+      all I did was to get into a cushy job in the regimental office.... But
+      Dan, Gawd, he may even be an officer by this time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, he's not that,&rdquo; said Andrews. &ldquo;Look here, you ought to keep quiet
+      with that hand of yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn my hand. Oh, it'll heal all right if I forget about it. You see, my
+      foot slipped when they shunted a car I was just climbing into, an'...I
+      guess I ought to be glad I wasn't killed. But, gee, when I think that if I
+      hadn't been a fool about that girl I might have been home by now....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Chink says they're putting up barricades on the Avenue Magenta.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That means business, kid!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Business nothin',&rdquo; shouted Slippery from where he and Chrisfield leaned
+      over the dice on the tile floor in front of the window. &ldquo;One tank an' a
+      few husky Senegalese'll make your goddam socialists run so fast they won't
+      stop till they get to Dijon.... You guys ought to have more sense.&rdquo;
+       Slippery got to his feet and came over to the bed, jingling the dice in
+      his hand. &ldquo;It'll take more'n a handful o' socialists paid by the Boches to
+      break the army. If it could be broke, don't ye think people would have
+      done it long ago?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shut up a minute. Ah thought Ah heard somethin',&rdquo; said Chrisfield
+      suddenly, going to the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They held their breath. The bed creaked as Al stirred uneasily in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, warn't anythin'; Ah'd thought Ah'd heard people singin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Internationale,&rdquo; cried Al.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shut up,&rdquo; said Chrisfield in a low gruff voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through the silence of the room they heard steps on the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, it's only Smiddy,&rdquo; said Slippery, and he threw the dice down
+      on the tiles again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door opened slowly to let in a tall, stoop-shouldered man with a long
+      face and long teeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who's the frawg?&rdquo; he asked in a startled way, with one hand on the door
+      knob.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, Smiddy; it ain't a frawg; it's a guy Chris knows. He's taken
+      his uniform off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Lo, buddy,&rdquo; said Smiddy, shaking Andrews's hand. &ldquo;Gawd, you look like a
+      frawg.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's good,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's hell to pay,&rdquo; broke out Smiddy breathlessly. &ldquo;You know Gus Evans
+      and the little black-haired guy goes 'round with him? They been picked up.
+      I seen 'em myself with some M. P.'s at Place de la Bastille. An' a guy I
+      talked to under the bridge where I slep' last night said a guy'd tole him
+      they were goin' to clean the A. W. O. L.'s out o' Paris if they had to
+      search through every house in the place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If they come here they'll git somethin' they ain't lookin' for,&rdquo; muttered
+      Chrisfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm goin' down to Nice; getting too hot around here,&rdquo; said Slippery.
+      &ldquo;I've got travel orders in my pocket now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did you get 'em?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Easy as pie,&rdquo; said Slippery, lighting a cigarette and puffing affectedly
+      towards the ceiling. &ldquo;I met up with a guy, a second loot, in the
+      Knickerbocker Bar. We gets drunk together, an' goes on a party with two
+      girls I know. In the morning I get up bright an' early, and now I've got
+      five thousand francs, a leave slip and a silver cigarette case, an'
+      Lootenant J. B. Franklin's runnin' around sayin' how he was robbed by a
+      Paris whore, or more likely keepin' damn quiet about it. That's my
+      system.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, gosh darn it, I don't see how you can go around with a guy an' drink
+      with him, an' then rob him,&rdquo; cried Al from the bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No different from cleaning a guy up at craps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' suppose that feller knew that I was only a bloody private. Don't you
+      think he'd have turned me over to the M. P.'s like winkin'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I don't think so,&rdquo; said Al. &ldquo;They're juss like you an me, skeered to
+      death they'll get in wrong, but they won't light on a feller unless they
+      have to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's a goddam lie,&rdquo; cried Chrisfield. &ldquo;They like ridin' yer. A
+      doughboy's less'n a dawg to 'em. Ah'd shoot anyone of 'em lake Ah'd shoot
+      a nigger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews was watching Chrisfield's face; it suddenly flushed red. He was
+      silent abruptly. His eyes met Andrews's eyes with a flash of fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They're all sorts of officers, like they're all sorts of us,&rdquo; Al was
+      insisting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you damn fools, quit arguing,&rdquo; cried Smiddy. &ldquo;What the hell are we
+      goin' to do? It ain't safe here no more, that's how I look at it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last Chrisfield said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What you goin' to do, Andy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hardly know. I think I'll go out to St. Germain to see a boy I know
+      there who works on a farm to see if it's safe to take a job there. I won't
+      stay in Paris. Then there's a girl here I want to look up. I must see
+      her.&rdquo; Andrews broke off suddenly, and started walking back and forth
+      across the end of the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'd better be damn careful; they'll probably shoot you if they catch
+      you,&rdquo; said Slippery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'd rather be shot than go to Leavenworth for twenty years, Gawd! I
+      would,&rdquo; cried Al.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you fellers eat here?&rdquo; asked Slippery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We buy stuff an' the dawg-faced girl cooks it for us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Got anything for this noon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll go see if I can buy some stuff,&rdquo; said Andrews. &ldquo;It's safer for me to
+      go out than for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, here's twenty francs,&rdquo; said Slippery, handing Andrews a bill
+      with an offhand gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chrisfield followed Andrews down the stairs. When they reached the passage
+      at the foot of the stairs, he put his hand on Andrews's shoulder and
+      whispered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Andy, d'you think there's anything in that revolution business? Ah
+      hadn't never thought they could buck the system thataway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They did in Russia.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then we'd be free, civilians, like we all was before the draft. But that
+      ain't possible, Andy; that ain't possible, Andy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll see,&rdquo; said Andrews, as, he opened the door to the bar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went up excitedly to the Chink, who sat behind the row of bottles along
+      the bar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what's happening?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By the Gare de l'Est, where they were putting up barricades?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Barricades!&rdquo; shouted a young man in a red sash who was drinking at a
+      table. &ldquo;Why, they tore down some of the iron guards round the trees, if
+      you call that barricades. But they're cowards. Whenever the cops charge
+      they run. They're dirty cowards.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D'you think anything's going to happen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What can happen when you've got nothing but a bunch of dirty cowards?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What d'you think about it?&rdquo; said Andrews, turning to the Chink.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Chink shook his head without answering. Andrews went out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he cams back he found Al and Chrisfield alone in their room.
+      Chrisfield was walking up and down, biting his finger nails. On the wall
+      opposite the window was a square of sunshine reflected from the opposite
+      wall of the Court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For God's sake beat it, Chris. I'm all right,&rdquo; Al was saying in a weak,
+      whining voice, his face twisted up by pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the matter?&rdquo; cried Andrews, putting down a large bundle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Slippery's seen a M. P. nosin' around in front of the gin mill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good God!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They've beat it.... The trouble is Al's too sick.... Honest to gawd,
+      Ah'll stay with you, Al.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. If you know somewhere to go, beat it, Chris. I'll stay here with Al
+      and talk French to the M. P.'s if they come. We'll fool 'em somehow.&rdquo;
+       Andrews felt suddenly amused and joyous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Honest to gawd, Andy, Ah'd stay if it warn't that that sergeant knows,&rdquo;
+       said Chrisfield in a jerky voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beat it, Chris. There may be no time to waste.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So long, Andy.&rdquo; Chrisfield slipped out of the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's funny, Al,&rdquo; said Andrews, sitting on the edge of the bed and
+      unwrapping the package of food, &ldquo;I'm not a damn bit scared any more. I
+      think I'm free of the army, Al.... How's your hand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dunno. Oh, how I wish I was in my old bunk at Coblenz. I warn't made
+      for buckin' against the world this way.... If we had old Dan with us....
+      Funny that you know Dan.... He'd have a million ideas for gettin' out of
+      this fix. But I'm glad he's not here. He'd bawl me out so, for not havin'
+      made good. He's a powerful ambitious kid, is Dan.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it's not the sort of thing a man can make good in, Al,&rdquo; said Andrews
+      slowly. They were silent. There was no sound in the courtyard, only very
+      far away the clatter of a patrol of cavalry over cobblestones. The sky had
+      become overcast and the room was very dark. The mouldy plaster peeling off
+      the walls had streaks of green in it. The light from the courtyard had a
+      greenish tinge that made their faces look pale and dead, like the faces of
+      men that have long been shut up between damp prison walls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Fuselli had a girl named Mabe,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, she married a guy in the Naval Reserve. They had a grand wedding,&rdquo;
+       said Al.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                             IV
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At last I've got to you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      John Andrews had caught sight of Genevieve on a bench at the end of the
+      garden under an arbor of vines. Her hair flamed bright in a splotch of sun
+      as she got to her feet. She held out both hands to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How good-looking you are like that,&rdquo; she cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was conscious only of her hands in his hands and of her pale-brown eyes
+      and of the bright sun-splotches and the green shadows fluttering all about
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you are out of prison,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and demobilized. How wonderful! Why
+      didn't you write? I have been very uneasy about you. How did you find me
+      here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your mother said you were here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how do you like it, my Poissac?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She made a wide gesture with her hand. They stood silent a moment, side by
+      side, looking about them. In front of the arbor was a parterre of rounded
+      box-bushes edging beds where disorderly roses hung in clusters of pink and
+      purple and apricot-color. And beyond it a brilliant emerald lawn full of
+      daisies sloped down to an old grey house with, at one end, a squat round
+      tower that had an extinguisher-shaped roof. Beyond the house were tall,
+      lush-green poplars, through which glittered patches of silver-grey river
+      and of yellow sand banks. From somewhere came a drowsy scent of mown
+      grass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How brown you are!&rdquo; she said again. &ldquo;I thought I had lost you.... You
+      might kiss me, Jean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The muscles of his arms tightened about her shoulders. Her hair flamed in
+      his eyes. The wind that rustled through broad grape-leaves made a flutter
+      of dancing light and shadow about them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How hot you are with the sun!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I love the smell of the sweat
+      of your body. You must have run very hard, coming here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you remember one night in the spring we walked home from Pelleas and
+      Melisande? How I should have liked to have kissed you then, like this!&rdquo;
+       Andrews's voice was strange, hoarse, as if he spoke with difficulty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is the chateau tres froid et tres profond,&rdquo; she said with a little
+      laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And your hair. 'Je les tiens dans les doits, je les tiens dans la
+      bouche.... Toute ta chevelure, toute ta chevelure, Melisande, est tombee
+      de la tour.... D'you remember?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How wonderful you are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They sat side by side on the stone bench without touching each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's silly,&rdquo; burst out Andrews excitedly. &ldquo;We should have faith in our
+      own selves. We can't live a little rag of romance without dragging in
+      literature. We are drugged with literature so that we can never live at
+      all, of ourselves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jean, how did you come down here? Have you been demobilized long?&rdquo;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I walked almost all the way from Paris. You see, I am very dirty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How wonderful! But I'll be quiet. You must tell me everything from the
+      moment you left me in Chartres.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll tell you about Chartres later,&rdquo; said Andrews gruffly. &ldquo;It has been
+      superb, one of the biggest weeks in my life, walking all day under the
+      sun, with the road like a white ribbon in the sun over the hills and along
+      river banks, where there were yellow irises blooming, and through woods
+      full of blackbirds, and with the dust in a little white cloud round my
+      feet, and all the time walking towards you, walking towards you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And la Reine de Saba, how is it coming?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. It's a long time since I thought of it.... You have been
+      here long?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hardly a week. But what are you going to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have a room overlooking the river in a house owned by a very fat woman
+      with a very red face and a tuft of hair on her chin....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame Boncour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course. You must know everybody.... It's so small.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you're going to stay here a long time?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Almost forever, and work, and talk to you; may I use your piano now and
+      then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How wonderful!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Genevieve Rod jumped to her feet. Then she stood looking at him, leaning
+      against one of the twisted stems of the vines, so that the broad leaves
+      fluttered about her face, A white cloud, bright as silver, covered the
+      sun, so that the hairy young leaves and the wind-blown grass of the lawn
+      took on a silvery sheen. Two white butterflies fluttered for a second
+      about the arbor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must always dress like that,&rdquo; she said after a while.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little cleaner, I hope,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But there can't be much change. I
+      have no other clothes and ridiculously little money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who cares for money?&rdquo; cried Genevieve. Andrews fancied he detected a
+      slight affectation in her tone, but he drove the idea from his mind
+      immediately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder if there is a farm round here where I could get work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you couldn't do the work of a farm labourer,&rdquo; cried Genevieve,
+      laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You just watch me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It'll spoil your hands for the piano.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't care about that; but all that's later, much later. Before
+      anything else I must finish a thing I am working on. There is a theme that
+      came to me when I was first in the army, when I was washing windows at the
+      training camp.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How funny you are, Jean! Oh, it's lovely to have you about again. But
+      you're awfully solemn today. Perhaps it's because I made you kiss me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Genevieve, it's not in one day that you can unbend a slave's back,
+      but with you, in this wonderful place.... Oh, I've never seen such sappy
+      richness of vegetation! And think of it, a week's walking first across
+      those grey rolling uplands, and then at Blois down into the haze of
+      richness of the Loire.... D'you know Vendome? I came by a funny little
+      town from Vendome to Blois. You see, my feet.... And what wonderful cold
+      baths I've had on the sand banks of the Loire.... No, after a while the
+      rhythm of legs all being made the same length on drill fields, the
+      hopeless caged dullness will be buried deep in me by the gorgeousness of
+      this world of yours!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He got to his feet and crushed a leaf softly between his fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, the little grapes are already forming.... Look up there,&rdquo; she
+      said as she brushed the leaves aside just above his head. &ldquo;These grapes
+      here are the earliest; but I must show you my domain, and my cousins and
+      the hen yard and everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She took his hand and pulled him out of the arbor. They ran like children,
+      hand in hand, round the box-bordered paths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I mean is this,&rdquo; he stammered, following her across the lawn. &ldquo;If I
+      could once manage to express all that misery in music, I could shove it
+      far down into my memory. I should be free to live my own existence, in the
+      midst of this carnival of summer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the house she turned to him; &ldquo;You see the very battered ladies over the
+      door,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;They are said to be by a pupil of Jean Goujon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They fit wonderfully in the landscape, don't they? Did I ever tell you
+      about the sculptures in the hospital where I was when I was wounded?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, but I want you to look at the house now. See, that's the tower; all
+      that's left of the old building. I live there, and right under the roof
+      there's a haunted room I used to be terribly afraid of. I'm still afraid
+      of it.... You see this Henri Quatre part of the house was just a fourth of
+      the house as planned. This lawn would have been the court. We dug up
+      foundations where the roses are. There are all sorts of traditions as to
+      why the house was never finished.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must tell me them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall later; but now you must come and meet my aunt and my cousins.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please, not just now, Genevieve.... I don't feel like talking to anyone
+      except you. I have so much to talk to you about.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it's nearly lunch time, Jean. We can have all that after lunch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I can't talk to anyone else now. I must go and clean myself up a
+      little anyway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just as you like.... But you must come this afternoon and play to us. Two
+      or three people are coming to tea.... It would be very sweet of you, if
+      you'd play to us, Jean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But can't you understand? I can't see you with other people now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just as you like,&rdquo; said Genevieve, flushing, her hand on the iron latch
+      of the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can't I come to see you tomorrow morning? Then I shall feel more like
+      meeting people, after talking to you a long while. You see, I....&rdquo; He
+      paused, with his eyes on the ground. Then he burst out in a low,
+      passionate voice: &ldquo;Oh, if I could only get it out of my mind... those
+      tramping feet, those voices shouting orders.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His hand trembled when he put it in Genevieve's hand. She looked in his
+      eyes calmly with her wide brown eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How strange you are today, Jean! Anyway, come back early tomorrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She went in the door. He walked round the house, through the carriage
+      gate, and went off with long strides down the road along the river that
+      led under linden trees to the village.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thoughts swarmed teasingly through his head, like wasps about a rotting
+      fruit. So at last he had seen Genevieve, and had held her in his arms and
+      kissed her. And that was all. His plans for the future had never gone
+      beyond that point. He hardly knew what he had expected, but in all the
+      sunny days of walking, in all the furtive days in Paris, he had thought of
+      nothing else. He would see Genevieve and tell her all about himself; he
+      would unroll his life like a scroll before her eyes. Together they would
+      piece together the future. A sudden terror took possession of him. She had
+      failed him. Floods of denial seethed through his mind. It was that he had
+      expected so much; he had expected her to understand him without
+      explanation, instinctively. He had told her nothing. He had not even told
+      her he was a deserter. What was it that had kept him from telling her?
+      Puzzle as he would, he could not formulate it. Only, far within him, the
+      certainty lay like an icy weight: she had failed him. He was alone. What a
+      fool he had been to build his whole life on a chance of sympathy? No. It
+      was rather this morbid playing at phrases that was at fault. He was like a
+      touchy old maid, thinking imaginary results. &ldquo;Take life at its face
+      value,&rdquo; he kept telling himself. They loved each other anyway, somehow; it
+      did not matter how. And he was free to work. Wasn't that enough?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But how could he wait until tomorrow to see her, to tell her everything,
+      to break down all the silly little barriers between them, so that they
+      might look directly into each other's lives?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The road turned inland from the river between garden walls at the entrance
+      to the village. Through half-open doors Andrews got glimpses of
+      neatly-cultivated kitchen-gardens and orchards where silver-leaved boughs
+      swayed against the sky. Then the road swerved again into the village,
+      crowded into a narrow paved street by the white and cream-colored houses
+      with green or grey shutters and pale, red-tiled roofs. At the end, stained
+      golden with lichen, the mauve-grey tower of the church held up its bells
+      against the sky in a belfry of broad pointed arches. In front of the
+      church Andrews turned down a little lane towards the river again, to come
+      out in a moment on a quay shaded by skinny acacia trees. On the corner
+      house, a ramshackle house with roofs and gables projecting in all
+      directions, was a sign: &ldquo;Rendezvous de la Marine.&rdquo; The room he stepped
+      into was so low, Andrews had to stoop under the heavy brown beams as he
+      crossed it. Stairs went up from a door behind a worn billiard table in the
+      corner. Mme. Boncour stood between Andrews and the stairs. She was a
+      flabby, elderly woman with round eyes and a round, very red face and a
+      curious smirk about the lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur payera un petit peu d'advance, n'est-ce pas, Monsieur?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said Andrews, reaching for his pocketbook. &ldquo;Shall I pay you a
+      week in advance?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman smiled broadly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Si Monsieur desire.... It's that life is so dear nowadays. Poor people
+      like us can barely get along.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know that only too well,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur est etranger....&rdquo; began the woman in a wheedling tone, when she
+      had received the money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. I was only demobilized a short time ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aha! Monsieur est demobilise. Monsieur remplira la petite feuille pour la
+      police, n'est-ce pas?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman brought from behind her back a hand that held a narrow printed
+      slip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right. I'll fill it out now,&rdquo; said Andrews, his heart thumping.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without thinking what he was doing, he put the paper on the edge of the
+      billiard table and wrote: &ldquo;John Brown, aged 23. Chicago Ill., Etats-Unis.
+      Musician. Holder of passport No. 1,432,286.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Merci, Monsieur. A bientot, Monsieur. Au revoir, Monsieur.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman's singing voice followed him up the rickety stairs to his room.
+      It was only when he had closed the door that he remembered that he had put
+      down for a passport number his army number. &ldquo;And why did I write John
+      Brown as a name?&rdquo; he asked himself.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
+      But his soul goes marching on.
+      Glory, glory, hallelujah!
+      But his soul goes marching on.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      He heard the song so vividly that he thought for an instant someone must
+      be standing beside him singing it. He went to the window and ran his hand
+      through his hair. Outside the Loire rambled in great loops towards the
+      blue distance, silvery reach upon silvery reach, with here and there the
+      broad gleam of a sand bank. Opposite were poplars and fields patched in
+      various greens rising to hills tufted with dense shadowy groves. On the
+      bare summit of the highest hill a windmill waved lazy arms against the
+      marbled sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gradually John Andrews felt the silvery quiet settle about him. He pulled
+      a sausage and a piece of bread out of the pocket of his coat, took a long
+      swig of water from the pitcher on his washstand, and settled himself at
+      the table before the window in front of a pile of ruled sheets of music
+      paper. He nibbled the bread and the sausage meditatively for a long while,
+      then wrote &ldquo;Arbeit und Rhythmus&rdquo; in a large careful hand at the top of the
+      paper. After that he looked out of the window without moving, watching the
+      plumed clouds sail like huge slow ships against the slate-blue sky.
+      Suddenly he scratched out what he had written and scrawled above it: &ldquo;The
+      Body and Soul of John Brown.&rdquo; He got to his feet and walked about the room
+      with clenched hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How curious that I should have written that name. How curious that I
+      should have written that name!&rdquo; he said aloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat down at the table again and forgot everything in the music that
+      possessed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning he walked out early along the river, trying to occupy
+      himself until it should be time to go to see Genevieve. The memory of his
+      first days in the army, spent washing windows at the training camp, was
+      very vivid in his mind. He saw himself again standing naked in the middle
+      of a wide, bare room, while the recruiting sergeant measured and prodded
+      him. And now he was a deserter. Was there any sense to it all? Had his
+      life led in any particular direction, since he had been caught haphazard
+      in the treadmill, or was it all chance? A toad hopping across a road in
+      front of a steam roller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood still, and looked about him. Beyond a clover field was the river
+      with its sand banks and its broad silver reaches. A boy was wading far out
+      in the river catching minnows with a net. Andrews watched his quick
+      movements as he jerked the net through the water. And that boy, too, would
+      be a soldier; the lithe body would be thrown into a mould to be made the
+      same as other bodies, the quick movements would be standardized into the
+      manual at arms, the inquisitive, petulant mind would be battered into
+      servility. The stockade was built; not one of the sheep would escape. And
+      those that were not sheep? They were deserters; every rifle muzzle held
+      death for them; they would not live long. And yet other nightmares had
+      been thrown off the shoulders of men. Every man who stood up courageously
+      to die loosened the grip of the nightmare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews walked slowly along the road, kicking his feet into the dust like
+      a schoolboy. At a turning he threw himself down on the grass under some
+      locust trees. The heavy fragrance of their flowers and the grumbling of
+      the bees that hung drunkenly on the white racemes made him feel very
+      drowsy. A cart passed, pulled by heavy white horses; an old man with his
+      back curved like the top of a sunflower stalk hobbled after, using the
+      whip as a walking stick. Andrews saw the old man's eyes turned on him
+      suspiciously. A faint pang of fright went through him; did the old man
+      know he was a deserter? The cart and the old man had already disappeared
+      round the bend in the road. Andrews lay a long while listening to the
+      jingle of the harness thin into the distance, leaving him again to the
+      sound of the drowsy bees among the locust blossoms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he sat up, he noticed that through a break in the hedge beyond the
+      slender black trunks of the locusts, he could see rising above the trees
+      the extinguisher-shaped roof of the tower of Genevieve Rod's house. He
+      remembered the day he had first seen Genevieve, and the boyish awkwardness
+      with which she poured tea. Would he and Genevieve ever find a moment of
+      real contact? All at once a bitter thought came to him. &ldquo;Or is it that she
+      wants a tame pianist as an ornament to a clever young woman's drawing
+      room?&rdquo; He jumped to his feet and started walking fast towards the town
+      again. He would go to see her at once and settle all that forever. The
+      village clock had begun to strike; the clear notes vibrated crisply across
+      the fields: ten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Walking back to the village he began to think of money. His room was
+      twenty francs a week. He had in his purse a hundred and twenty-four
+      francs. After fishing in all his pockets for silver, he found three francs
+      and a half more. A hundred and twenty-seven francs fifty. If he could live
+      on forty francs a week, he would have three weeks in which to work on the
+      &ldquo;Body and Soul of John Brown.&rdquo; Only three weeks; and then he must find
+      work. In any case he would write Henslowe to send him money if he had any;
+      this was no time for delicacy; everything depended on his having money.
+      And he swore to himself that he would work for three weeks, that he would
+      throw the idea that flamed within him into shape on paper, whatever
+      happened. He racked his brains to think of someone in America he could
+      write to for money, A ghastly sense of solitude possessed him. And would
+      Genevieve fail him too?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Genevieve was coming out by the front door of the house when he reached
+      the carriage gate beside the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She ran to meet him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good morning. I was on my way to fetch you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She seized his hand and pressed it hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How sweet of you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Jean, you're not coming from the village.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've been walking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How early you must get up!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, the sun rises just opposite my window, and shines in on my bed.
+      That makes me get up early.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She pushed him in the door ahead of her. They went through the hall to a
+      long high room that had a grand piano and many old high-backed chairs, and
+      in front of the French windows that opened on the garden, a round table of
+      black mahogany littered with books. Two tall girls in muslin dresses stood
+      beside the piano.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These are my cousins.... Here he is at last. Monsieur Andrews, ma cousine
+      Berthe et ma cousine Jeanne. Now you've got to play to us; we are bored to
+      death with everything we know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right.... But I have a great deal to talk to you about later,&rdquo; said
+      Andrews in a low voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Genevieve nodded understandingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't you play us La Reine de Saba, Jean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, do play that,&rdquo; twittered the cousins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you don't mind, I'd rather play some Bach.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's a lot of Bach in that chest in the corner,&rdquo; cried Genevieve.
+      &ldquo;It's ridiculous; everything in the house is jammed with music.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They leaned over the chest together, so that Andrews felt her hair brush
+      against his cheek, and the smell of her hair in his nostrils. The cousins
+      remained by the piano.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must talk to you alone soon,&rdquo; whispered Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; she said, her face reddening as she leaned over the chest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On top of the music was a revolver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look out, it's loaded,&rdquo; she said, when he picked it up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her inquiringly. &ldquo;I have another in my room. You see Mother
+      and I are often alone here, and then, I like firearms. Don't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hate them,&rdquo; muttered Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here's tons of Bach.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fine.... Look, Genevieve,&rdquo; he said suddenly, &ldquo;lend me that revolver for a
+      few days. I'll tell you why I want it later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly. Be careful, because it's loaded,&rdquo; she said in an offhand
+      manner, walking over to the piano with two volumes under each arm. Andrews
+      closed the chest and followed her, suddenly bubbling with gaiety. He
+      opened a volume haphazard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To a friend to dissuade him from starting on a journey,&rdquo; he read. &ldquo;Oh, I
+      used to know that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He began to play, putting boisterous vigor into the tunes. In a pianissimo
+      passage he heard one cousin whisper to the other: &ldquo;Qu'il a l'air
+      interessant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Farouche, n'est-ce pas? Genre revolutionnaire,&rdquo; answered the other
+      cousin, tittering. Then he noticed that Mme. Rod was smiling at him. He
+      got to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mais ne vous derangez pas,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A man with white flannel trousers and tennis shoes and a man in black with
+      a pointed grey beard and amused grey eyes had come into the room, followed
+      by a stout woman in hat and veil, with long white cotton gloves on her
+      arms. Introductions were made. Andrews's spirits began to ebb. All these
+      people were making strong the barrier between him and Genevieve. Whenever
+      he looked at her, some well-dressed person stepped in front of her with a
+      gesture of politeness. He felt caught in a ring of well-dressed
+      conventions that danced about him with grotesque gestures of politeness.
+      All through lunch he had a crazy desire to jump to his feet and shout:
+      &ldquo;Look at me; I'm a deserter. I'm under the wheels of your system. If your
+      system doesn't succeed in killing me, it will be that much weaker, it will
+      have less strength to kill others.&rdquo; There was talk about his
+      demobilization, and his music, and the Schola Cantorum. He felt he was
+      being exhibited. &ldquo;But they don't know what they're exhibiting,&rdquo; he said to
+      himself with a certain bitter joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After lunch they went out into the grape arbor, where coffee was brought.
+      Andrews sat silent, not listening to the talk, which was about Empire
+      furniture and the new taxes, staring up into the broad sun-splotched
+      leaves of the grape vines, remembering how the sun and shade had danced
+      about Genevieve's hair when they had been in the arbor alone the day
+      before, turning it all to red flame. Today she sat in shadow, and her hair
+      was rusty and dull. Time dragged by very slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last Genevieve got to her feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You haven't seen my boat,&rdquo; she said to Andrews. &ldquo;Let's go for a row. I'll
+      row you about.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews jumped up eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Make her be careful, Monsieur Andrews, she's dreadfully imprudent,'&rdquo; said
+      Madame Rod.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were bored to death,&rdquo; said Genevieve, as they walked out on the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, but those people all seemed to be building new walls between you and
+      me. God knows there are enough already.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked him sharply in the eyes a second, but said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They walked slowly through the sand of the river edge, till they came to
+      an old flat-bottomed boat painted green with an orange stripe, drawn up
+      among the reeds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will probably sink; can you swim?&rdquo; she asked, laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews smiled, and said in a stiff voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can swim. It was by swimming that I got out of the army.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I deserted.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you deserted?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Genevieve leaned over to pull on the boat. Their heads almost touching,
+      they pulled the boat down to the water's edge, then pushed it half out on
+      to the river.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if you are caught?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They might shoot me; I don't know. Still, as the war is over, it would
+      probably be life imprisonment, or at least twenty years.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can speak of it as coolly as that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is no new idea to my mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What induced you to do such a thing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was not willing to submit any longer to the treadmill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come let's go out on the river.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Genevieve stepped into the boat and caught up the oars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now push her off, and don't fall in,&rdquo; she cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boat glided out into the water. Genevieve began pulling on the oars
+      slowly and regularly. Andrews looked at her without speaking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you're tired, I'll row,&rdquo; he said after a while.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind them the village, patched white and buff-color and russet and pale
+      red with stucco walls and steep, tiled roofs, rose in an irregular pyramid
+      to the church. Through the wide pointed arches of the belfry they could
+      see the bells hanging against the sky. Below in the river the town was
+      reflected complete, with a great rift of steely blue across it where the
+      wind ruffled the water. The oars creaked rhythmically as Genevieve pulled
+      on them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Remember, when you are tired,&rdquo; said Andrews again after a long pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Genevieve spoke through clenched teeth:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, you have no patriotism.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As you mean it, none.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They rounded the edge of a sand bank where the current ran hard. Andrews
+      put his hands beside her hands on the oars, and pushed with her. The bow
+      of the boat grounded in some reeds under willows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll stay here,&rdquo; she said, pulling in the oars that flashed in the sun
+      as she jerked them, dripping silver, out of the water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She clasped her hands round her knees and leaned over towards him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So that is why you want my revolver.... Tell me all about it, from
+      Chartres,&rdquo; she said, in a choked voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, I was arrested at Chartres and sent to a labor battalion, the
+      equivalent for your army prison, without being able to get word to my
+      commanding officer in the School Detachment....&rdquo; He paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A bird was singing in the willow tree. The sun was under a cloud; beyond
+      the long pale green leaves that fluttered ever so slightly in the wind,
+      the sky was full of silvery and cream-colored clouds, with here and there
+      a patch the color of a robin's egg. Andrews began laughing softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Genevieve, how silly those words are, those pompous, efficient
+      words: detachment, battalion, commanding officer. It would have all
+      happened anyway. Things reached the breaking point; that was all. I could
+      not submit any longer to the discipline.... Oh, those long Roman words,
+      what millstones they are about men's necks! That was silly, too; I was
+      quite willing to help in the killing of Germans, I had no quarrel with,
+      out of curiosity or cowardice.... You see, it has taken me so long to find
+      out how the world is. There was no one to show me the way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused as if expecting her to speak. The bird in the willow tree was
+      still singing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly a dangling twig blew aside a little so that Andrews could see him&mdash;a
+      small grey bird, his throat all puffed out with song.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems to me,&rdquo; he said very softly, &ldquo;that human society has been always
+      that, and perhaps will be always that: organizations growing and stifling
+      individuals, and individuals revolting hopelessly against them, and at
+      last forming new societies to crush the old societies and becoming slaves
+      again in their turn....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought you were a socialist,&rdquo; broke in Genevieve sharply, in a voice
+      that hurt him to the quick, he did not know why.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A man told me at the labor battalion,&rdquo; began Andrews again, &ldquo;that they'd
+      tortured a friend of his there once by making him swallow lighted
+      cigarettes; well, every order shouted at me, every new humiliation before
+      the authorities, was as great an agony to me. Can't you understand?&rdquo; His
+      voice rose suddenly to a tone of entreaty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded her head. They were silent. The willow leaves shivered in a
+      little wind. The bird had gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But tell me about the swimming part of it. That sounds exciting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were working unloading cement at Passy&mdash;cement to build the
+      stadium the army is presenting to the French, built by slave labor, like
+      the pyramids.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Passy's where Balzac lived. Have you ever seen his house there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was a boy working with me, the Kid, 'le gosse,' it'd be in French.
+      Without him, I should never have done it. I was completely crushed.... I
+      suppose that he was drowned.... Anyway, we swam under water as far as we
+      could, and, as it was nearly dark, I managed to get on a barge, where a
+      funny anarchist family took care of me. I've never heard of the Kid since.
+      Then I bought these clothes that amuse you so, Genevieve, and came back to
+      Paris to find you, mainly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean as much to you as that?&rdquo; whispered Genevieve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In Paris, too. I tried to find a boy named Marcel, who worked on a farm
+      near St. Germain. I met him out there one day. I found he'd gone to
+      sea.... If it had not been that I had to see you, I should have gone
+      straight to Bordeaux or Marseilles. They aren't too particular who they
+      take as a seaman now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But in the army didn't you have enough of that dreadful life, always
+      thrown among uneducated people, always in dirty, foulsmelling
+      surroundings, you, a sensitive person, an artist? No wonder you are almost
+      crazy after years of that.&rdquo; Genevieve spoke passionately, with her eyes
+      fixed on his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it wasn't that,&rdquo; said Andrews with despair in his voice. &ldquo;I rather
+      like the people you call low. Anyway, the differences between people are
+      so slight....&rdquo; His sentence trailed away. He stopped speaking, sat
+      stirring uneasily on the seat, afraid he would cry out. He noticed the
+      hard shape of the revolver against his leg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But isn't there something you can do about it? You must have friends,&rdquo;
+       burst out Genevieve. &ldquo;You were treated with horrible injustice. You can
+      get yourself reinstated and properly demobilised. They'll see you are a
+      person of intelligence. They can't treat you as they would anybody.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must be, as you say, a little mad, Genevieve,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But now that I, by pure accident, have made a gesture, feeble as it is,
+      towards human freedom, I can't feel that.... Oh, I suppose I'm a fool....
+      But there you have me, just as I am, Genevieve.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat with his head drooping over his chest, his two hands clasping the
+      gunwales of the boat. After a long while Genevieve said in a dry little
+      voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, we must go back now; it's time for tea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews looked up. There was a dragon fly poised on the top of a reed,
+      with silver wings and a long crimson body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look just behind you, Genevieve.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, a dragon fly! What people was it that made them the symbol of life?
+      It wasn't the Egyptians. O, I've forgotten.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll row,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boat was hurried along by the current. In a very few minutes they had
+      pulled it up on the bank in front of the Rods' house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come and have some tea,&rdquo; said Genevieve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I must work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are doing something new, aren't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's its name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Soul and Body of John Brown.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who's John Brown?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was a madman who wanted to free people. There's a song about him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is based on popular themes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not that I know of.... I only thought of the name yesterday. It came to
+      me by a very curious accident.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll come tomorrow?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you're not too busy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's see, the Boileaus are coming to lunch. There won't be anybody at
+      tea time. We can have tea together alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took her hand and held it, awkward as a child with a new playmate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, at about four. If there's nobody there, we'll play music,&rdquo; he
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She pulled her hand from him hurriedly, made a curious formal gesture of
+      farewell, and crossed the road to the gate without looking back. There was
+      one idea in his head, to get to his room and lock the door and throw
+      himself face down on the bed. The idea amused some distant part of his
+      mind. That had been what he had always done when, as a child, the world
+      had seemed too much for him. He would run upstairs and lock the door and
+      throw himself face downward on the bed. &ldquo;I wonder if I shall cry?&rdquo; he
+      thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Boncour was coming down the stairs as he went up. He backed down
+      and waited. When she got to the bottom, pouting a little, she said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you are a friend of Mme. Rod, Monsieur?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did you know that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A dimple appeared near her mouth in either cheek.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know, in the country, one knows everything,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Au revoir,&rdquo; he said, starting up the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mais, Monsieur. You should have told me. If I had known I should not have
+      asked you to pay in advance. Oh, never. You must pardon me, Monsieur.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur est Americain? You see I know a lot.&rdquo; Her puffy cheeks shook
+      when she giggled. &ldquo;And Monsieur has known Mme. Rod et Mlle. Rod a long
+      time. An old friend. Monsieur is a musician.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Bon soir.&rdquo; Andrews ran up the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Au revoir, Monsieur.&rdquo; Her chanting voice followed him up the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He slammed the door behind him and threw himself on the bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Andrews awoke next morning, his first thought was how long he had to
+      wait that day to see Genevieve. Then he remembered their talk of the day
+      before. Was it worth while going to see her at all, he asked himself. And
+      very gradually he felt cold despair taking hold of him. He felt for a
+      moment that he was the only living thing in a world of dead machines; the
+      toad hopping across the road in front of a steam roller. Suddenly he
+      thought of Jeanne. He remembered her grimy, overworked fingers lying in
+      her lap. He pictured her walking up and down in front of the Cafe de Rohan
+      one Wednesday night, waiting for him. In the place of Genevieve, what
+      would Jeanne have done? Yet people were always alone, really; however much
+      they loved each other, there could be no real union. Those who rode in the
+      great car could never feel as the others felt; the toads hopping across
+      the road. He felt no rancour against Genevieve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These thoughts slipped from him while he was drinking the coffee and
+      eating the dry bread that made his breakfast; and afterwards, walking back
+      and forth along the river bank, he felt his mind and body becoming as if
+      fluid, and supple, trembling, bent in the rush of his music like a poplar
+      tree bent in a wind. He sharpened a pencil and went up to his room again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sky was cloudless that day. As he sat at his table the square of blue
+      through the window and the hills topped by their windmill and the
+      silver-blue of the river, were constantly in his eyes. Sometimes he wrote
+      notes down fast, thinking nothing, feeling nothing, seeing nothing; other
+      times he sat for long periods staring at the sky and at the windmill
+      vaguely happy, playing with unexpected thoughts that came and vanished, as
+      now and then a moth fluttered in the window to blunder about the ceiling
+      beams, and, at last, to disappear without his knowing how.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the clock struck twelve, he found he was very hungry. For two days he
+      had eaten nothing but bread, sausage and cheese. Finding Madame Boncour
+      behind the bar downstairs, polishing glasses, he ordered dinner of her.
+      She brought him a stew and a bottle of wine at once, and stood over him
+      watching him eat it, her arms akimbo and the dimples showing in her huge
+      red cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur eats less than any young man I ever saw,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm working hard,&rdquo; said Andrews, flushing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But when you work you have to eat a great deal, a great deal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if the money is short?&rdquo; asked Andrews with a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Something in the steely searching look that passed over her eyes for a
+      minute startled him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are not many people here now, Monsieur, but you should see it on a
+      market day.... Monsieur will take some dessert?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cheese and coffee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing more? It's the season of strawberries.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing more, thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Madame Boncour came back with the cheese, she said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had Americans here once, Monsieur. A pretty time I had with them, too.
+      They were deserters. They went away without paying, with the gendarmes
+      after them I hope they were caught and sent to the front, those
+      good-for-nothings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are all sorts of Americans,&rdquo; said Andrews in a low voice. He was
+      angry with himself because his heart beat so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'm going for a little walk. Au revoir, Madame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur is going for a little walk. Amusez-vous bien, Monsieur. Au
+      revoir, Monsieur,&rdquo; Madame Boncour's singsong tones followed him out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A little before four Andrews knocked at the front door of the Rods' house.
+      He could hear Santo, the little black and tan, barking inside. Madame Rod
+      opened the door for him herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, here you are,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Come and have some tea. Did the work go
+      well to-day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Genevieve?&rdquo; stammered Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She went out motoring with some friends. She left a note for you. It's on
+      the tea-table.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He found himself talking, making questions and answers, drinking tea,
+      putting cakes into his mouth, all through a white dead mist. Genevieve's
+      note said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jean:&mdash;I'm thinking of ways and means. You must get away to a
+      neutral country. Why couldn't you have talked it over with me first,
+      before cutting off every chance of going back. I'll be in tomorrow at the
+      same time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bien a vous. G. R.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would it disturb you if I played the piano a few minutes, Madame Rod?&rdquo;
+       Andrews found himself asking all at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, go ahead. We'll come in later and listen to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was only as he left the room that he realized he had been talking to
+      the two cousins as well as to Madame Rod.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the piano he forgot everything and regained his mood of vague
+      joyousness. He found paper and a pencil in his pocket, and played the
+      theme that had come to him while he had been washing windows at the top:
+      of a step-ladder at training camp arranging it, modelling it, forgetting
+      everything, absorbed in his rhythms and cadences. When he stopped work it
+      was nearly dark. Genevieve Rod, a veil round her head, stood in the French
+      window that led to the garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I heard you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Go on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm through. How was your motor ride?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I loved it. It's not often I get a chance to go motoring.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor is it often I get a chance to talk to you alone,&rdquo; cried Andrews
+      bitterly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem to feel you have rights of ownership over me. I resent it. No
+      one has rights over me.&rdquo; She spoke as if it were not the first time she
+      had thought of the phrase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked over and leaned against the window beside her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has it made such a difference to you, Genevieve, finding out that I am a
+      deserter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, of course not,&rdquo; she said hastily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think it has, Genevieve.... What do you want me to do? Do you think I
+      should give myself up? A man I knew in Paris has given himself up, but he
+      hadn't taken his uniform off. It seems that makes a difference. He was a
+      nice fellow. His name was Al, he was from San Francisco. He had nerve, for
+      he amputated his own little finger when his hand was crushed by a freight
+      car.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no, no. Oh, this is so frightful. And you would have been a great
+      composer. I feel sure of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, would have been? The stuff I'm doing now's better than any of the
+      dribbling things I've done before, I know that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes, but you'll need to study, to get yourself known.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I can pull through six months, I'm safe. The army will have gone. I
+      don't believe they extradite deserters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but the shame of it, the danger of being found out all the time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am ashamed of many things in my life, Genevieve. I'm rather proud of
+      this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But can't you understand that other people haven't your notions of
+      individual liberty?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must go, Genevieve.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must come in again soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One of these days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he was out in the road in the windy twilight, with his music papers
+      crumpled in his hand. The sky was full of tempestuous purple clouds;
+      between them were spaces of clear claret-colored light, and here and there
+      a gleam of opal. There were a few drops of rain in the wind that rustled
+      the broad leaves of the lindens and filled the wheat fields with waves
+      like the sea, and made the river very dark between rosy sand banks. It
+      began to rain. Andrews hurried home so as not to drench his only suit.
+      Once in his room he lit four candles and placed them at the corners of his
+      table. A little cold crimson light still filtered in through the rain from
+      the afterglow, giving the candles a ghostly glimmer. Then he lay on his
+      bed, and staring up at the flickering light on the ceiling, tried to
+      think.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you're alone now, John Andrews,&rdquo; he said aloud, after a half-hour,
+      and jumped jauntily to his feet. He stretched himself and yawned. Outside
+      the rain pattered loudly and steadily. &ldquo;Let's have a general accounting,&rdquo;
+       he said to himself. &ldquo;It'll be easily a month before I hear from old Howe
+      in America, and longer before I hear from Henslowe, and already I've spent
+      twenty francs on food. Can't make it this way. Then, in real possessions,
+      I have one volume of Villon, a green book on counterpoint, a map of France
+      torn in two, and a moderately well-stocked mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He put the two books on the middle of the table before him, on top of his
+      disorderly bundle of music papers and notebooks. Then he went on, piling
+      his possessions there as he thought of them. Three pencils, a fountain
+      pen. Automatically he reached for his watch, but he remembered he'd given
+      it to Al to pawn in case he didn't decide to give himself up, and needed
+      money. A toothbrush. A shaving set. A piece of soap. A hairbrush and a
+      broken comb. Anything else? He groped in the musette that hung on the foot
+      of the bed. A box of matches. A knife with one blade missing, and a mashed
+      cigarette. Amusement growing on him every minute, he contemplated the
+      pile. Then, in the drawer, he remembered, was a clean shirt and two pairs
+      of soiled socks. And that was all, absolutely all. Nothing saleable there.
+      Except Genevieve's revolver. He pulled it out of his pocket. The
+      candlelight flashed on the bright nickel. No, he might need that; it was
+      too valuable to sell. He pointed it towards himself. Under the chin was
+      said to be the best place. He wondered if he would pull the trigger when
+      the barrel was pressed against his chin. No, when his money gave out he'd
+      sell the revolver. An expensive death for a starving man. He sat on the
+      edge of the bed and laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he discovered he was very hungry. Two meals in one day; shocking! He
+      said to himself. Whistling joyfully, like a schoolboy, he strode down the
+      rickety stairs to order a meal of Madame Boncour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was with a strange start that he noticed that the tune he was whistling
+      was:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
+     But his soul goes marching on.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The lindens were in bloom. From a tree beside the house great gusts of
+      fragrance, heavy as incense, came in through the open window. Andrews lay
+      across the table with his eyes closed and his cheek in a mass of ruled
+      papers. He was very tired. The first movement of the &ldquo;Soul and Body of
+      John Brown&rdquo; was down on paper. The village clock struck two. He got to his
+      feet and stood a moment looking absently out of the window. It was a
+      sultry afternoon of swollen clouds that hung low over the river. The
+      windmill on the hilltop opposite was motionless. He seemed to hear
+      Genevieve's voice the last time he had seen her, so long ago. &ldquo;You would
+      have been a great composer.&rdquo; He walked over to the table and turned over
+      some sheets without looking at them. &ldquo;Would have been!&rdquo; He shrugged his
+      shoulders. So you couldn't be a great composer and a deserter too in the
+      year 1919. Probably Genevieve was right. But he must have something to
+      eat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how late it is,&rdquo; expostulated Madame Boncour, when he asked for
+      lunch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it's very late. I have just finished a third of the work I'm
+      doing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And do you get paid a great deal, when that is finished?&rdquo; asked Madame
+      Boncour, the dimples appearing in her broad cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some day, perhaps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will be lonely now that the Rods have left.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have they left?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Didn't you know? Didn't you go to say goodby? They've gone to the
+      seashore.... But I'll make you a little omelette.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Madame Boncour cams back with the omelette and fried potatoes, she
+      said to him in a mysterious voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You didn't go to see the Rods as often these last weeks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Boncour stood staring at him, with her red arms folded round her
+      breasts, shaking her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he got up to go upstairs again, she suddenly shouted:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And when are you going to pay me? It's two weeks since you have paid me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Madame Boncour, I told you I had no money. If you wait a day or two,
+      I'm sure to get some in the mail. It can't be more than a day or two.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've heard that story before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've even tried to get work at several farms round here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Boncour threw back her head and laughed, showing the blackened
+      teeth of her lower jaw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; she said at length, &ldquo;after this week, it's finished. You
+      either pay me, or...And I sleep very lightly, Monsieur.&rdquo; Her voice took on
+      suddenly its usual sleek singsong tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews broke away and ran upstairs to his room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must fly the coop tonight,&rdquo; he said to himself. But suppose then
+      letters came with money the next day. He writhed in indecision all the
+      afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That evening he took a long walk. In passing the Rods' house he saw that
+      the shutters were closed. It gave him a sort of relief to know that
+      Genevieve no longer lived near him. His solitude was complete, now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And why, instead of writing music that would have been worth while if he
+      hadn't been a deserter, he kept asking himself, hadn't he tried long ago
+      to act, to make a gesture, however feeble, however forlorn, for other
+      people's freedom? Half by accident he had managed to free himself from the
+      treadmill. Couldn't he have helped others? If he only had his life to live
+      over again. No; he had not lived up to the name of John Brown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was dark when he got back to the village. He had decided to wait one
+      more day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning he started working on the second movement. The lack of a
+      piano made it very difficult to get ahead, yet he said to himself that he
+      should put down what he could, as it would be long before he found leisure
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One night he had blown out his candle and stood at the window watching the
+      glint of the moon on the river. He heard a soft heavy step on the landing
+      outside his room. A floorboard creaked, and the key turned in the lock.
+      The step was heard again on the stairs. John Andrews laughed aloud. The
+      window was only twenty feet from the ground, and there was a trellis. He
+      got into bed contentedly. He must sleep well, for tomorrow night he would
+      slip out of the window and make for Bordeaux.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another morning. A brisk wind blew, fluttering Andrews's papers as he
+      worked. Outside the river was streaked blue and silver and slate-colored.
+      The windmill's arms waved fast against the piled clouds. The scent of the
+      lindens came only intermittently on the sharp wind. In spite of himself,
+      the tune of &ldquo;John Brown's Body&rdquo; had crept in among his ideas. Andrews sat
+      with a pencil at his lips, whistling softly, while in the back of his mind
+      a vast chorus seemed singing:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
+      But his soul goes marching on.
+      Glory, glory, hallelujah!
+      But his soul goes marching on.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      If one could only find freedom by marching for it, came the thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All at once he became rigid, his hands clutched the table edge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an American voice under his window:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D'you think she's kiddin' us, Charley?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews was blinded, falling from a dizzy height. God, could things repeat
+      themselves like that? Would everything be repeated? And he seemed to hear
+      voices whisper in his ears: &ldquo;One of you men teach him how to salute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He jumped to his feet and pulled open the drawer. It was empty. The woman
+      had taken the revolver. &ldquo;It's all planned, then. She knew,&rdquo; he said aloud
+      in a low voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He became suddenly calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A man in a boat was passing down the river. The boat was painted bright
+      green; the man wore a curious jacket of a burnt-brown color, and held a
+      fishing pole.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews sat in his chair again. The boat was out of sight now, but there
+      was the windmill turning, turning against the piled white clouds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were steps on the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two swallows, twittering, curved past the window, very near, so that
+      Andrews could make out the marking on their wings and the way they folded
+      their legs against their pale-grey bellies. There was a knock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come in,&rdquo; said Andrews firmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg yer pardon,&rdquo; said a soldier with his hat, that had a band, in his
+      hand. &ldquo;Are you the American?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, the woman down there said she thought your papers wasn't in very
+      good order.&rdquo; The man stammered with embarrassment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their eyes met.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I'm a deserter,&rdquo; said Andrews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The M. P. snatched for his whistle and blew it hard. There was an
+      answering whistle from outside the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get your stuff together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, walk downstairs slowly in front of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Outside the windmill was turning, turning, against the piled white clouds
+      of the sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews turned his eyes towards the door. The M. P. closed the door after
+      them, and followed on his heels down the steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On John Andrews's writing table the brisk wind rustled among the broad
+      sheets of paper. First one sheet, then another, blew off the table, until
+      the floor was littered with them.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+</pre>
+  </body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Three Soldiers, by John Dos Passos
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Three Soldiers
+
+Author: John Dos Passos
+
+Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6362]
+Last Updated: August 17, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE SOLDIERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eve Sobol
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THREE SOLDIERS
+
+By John Dos Passos
+
+
+1921
+
+
+
+LIST OF CONTENTS
+
+PART ONE: MAKING THE MOULD
+
+PART TWO: THE METAL COOLS
+
+PART THREE: MACHINES
+
+PART FOUR: RUST
+
+PART FIVE: THE WORLD OUTSIDE
+
+PART SIX: UNDER THE WHEELS
+
+
+  "Les contemporains qui souffrent de certaines choses ne peuvent
+  s'en souvenir qu'avec une horreur qui paralyse tout autre plaisir,
+  meme celui de lire un conte."
+
+                                            STENDHAL
+
+
+
+
+PART ONE: MAKING THE MOULD
+
+
+I
+
+The company stood at attention, each man looking straight before him
+at the empty parade ground, where the cinder piles showed purple with
+evening. On the wind that smelt of barracks and disinfectant there was
+a faint greasiness of food cooking. At the other side of the wide field
+long lines of men shuffled slowly into the narrow wooden shanty that was
+the mess hall. Chins down, chests out, legs twitching and tired from the
+afternoon's drilling, the company stood at attention. Each man stared
+straight in front of him, some vacantly with resignation, some trying
+to amuse themselves by noting minutely every object in their field of
+vision,--the cinder piles, the long shadows of the barracks and mess
+halls where they could see men standing about, spitting, smoking,
+leaning against clapboard walls. Some of the men in line could hear
+their watches ticking in their pockets.
+
+Someone moved, his feet making a crunching noise in the cinders.
+
+The sergeant's voice snarled out: "You men are at attention. Quit yer
+wrigglin' there, you!"
+
+The men nearest the offender looked at him out of the corners of their
+eyes.
+
+Two officers, far out on the parade ground, were coming towards them. By
+their gestures and the way they walked, the men at attention could see
+that they were chatting about something that amused them. One of the
+officers laughed boyishly, turned away and walked slowly back across
+the parade ground. The other, who was the lieutenant, came towards them
+smiling. As he approached his company, the smile left his lips and he
+advanced his chin, walking with heavy precise steps.
+
+"Sergeant, you may dismiss the company." The lieutenant's voice was
+pitched in a hard staccato.
+
+The sergeant's hand snapped up to salute like a block signal. "Companee
+dis...missed," he rang out.
+
+The row of men in khaki became a crowd of various individuals with dusty
+boots and dusty faces. Ten minutes later they lined up and marched in a
+column of fours to mess. A few red filaments of electric lights gave a
+dusty glow in the brownish obscurity where the long tables and benches
+and the board floors had a faint smell of garbage mingled with the smell
+of the disinfectant the tables had been washed off with after the last
+meal. The men, holding their oval mess kits in front of them, filed by
+the great tin buckets at the door, out of which meat and potatoes were
+splashed into each plate by a sweating K.P. in blue denims.
+
+"Don't look so bad tonight," said Fuselli to the man opposite him as he
+hitched his sleeves up at the wrists and leaned over his steaming food.
+He was sturdy, with curly hair and full vigorous lips that he smacked
+hungrily as he ate.
+
+"It ain't," said the pink flaxen-haired youth opposite him, who wore his
+broad-brimmed hat on the side of his head with a certain jauntiness:
+
+"I got a pass tonight," said Fuselli, tilting his head vainly.
+
+"Goin' to tear things up?"
+
+"Man...I got a girl at home back in Frisco. She's a good kid."
+
+"Yer right not to go with any of the girls in this goddam town.... They
+ain't clean, none of 'em.... That is if ye want to go overseas."
+
+The flaxen-haired youth leaned across the table earnestly.
+
+"I'm goin' to git some more chow: Wait for me, will yer?" said Fuselli.
+
+"What yer going to do down town?" asked the flaxen-haired youth when
+Fuselli came back.
+
+"Dunno,--run round a bit an' go to the movies," he answered, filling his
+mouth with potato.
+
+"Gawd, it's time fer retreat." They overheard a voice behind them.
+
+Fuselli stuffed his mouth as full as he could and emptied the rest of
+his meal reluctantly into the garbage pail.
+
+A few moments later he stood stiffly at attention in a khaki row that
+was one of hundreds of other khaki rows, identical, that filled all
+sides of the parade ground, while the bugle blew somewhere at the other
+end where the flag-pole was. Somehow it made him think of the man behind
+the desk in the office of the draft board who had said, handing him the
+papers sending him to camp, "I wish I was going with you," and had held
+out a white bony hand that Fuselli, after a moment's hesitation, had
+taken in his own stubby brown hand. The man had added fervently, "It
+must be grand, just grand, to feel the danger, the chance of being
+potted any minute. Good luck, young feller.... Good luck." Fuselli
+remembered unpleasantly his paper-white face and the greenish look
+of his bald head; but the words had made him stride out of the office
+sticking out his chest, brushing truculently past a group of men in the
+door. Even now the memory of it, mixing with the strains of the national
+anthem made him feel important, truculent.
+
+"Squads right!" came an order. Crunch, crunch, crunch in the gravel. The
+companies were going back to their barracks. He wanted to smile but he
+didn't dare. He wanted to smile because he had a pass till midnight,
+because in ten minutes he'd be outside the gates, outside the green
+fence and the sentries and the strands of barbed wire. Crunch, crunch,
+crunch; oh, they were so slow in getting back to the barracks and he was
+losing time, precious free minutes. "Hep, hep, hep," cried the sergeant,
+glaring down the ranks, with his aggressive bulldog expression, to where
+someone had fallen out of step.
+
+The company stood at attention in the dusk. Fuselli was biting the
+inside of his lips with impatience. Minutes at last, as if reluctantly,
+the sergeant sang out:
+
+"Dis...missed."
+
+Fuselli hurried towards the gate, brandishing his pass with an important
+swagger.
+
+Once out on the asphalt of the street, he looked down the long row of
+lawns and porches where violet arc lamps already contested the faint
+afterglow, drooping from their iron stalks far above the recently
+planted saplings of the avenue. He stood at the corner slouched against
+a telegraph pole, with the camp fence, surmounted by three strands of
+barbed wire, behind him, wondering which way he would go. This was a
+hell of a town anyway. And he used to think he wanted to travel
+round and see places.--"Home'll be good enough for me after this," he
+muttered. Walking down the long street towards the centre of town,
+where was the moving-picture show, he thought of his home, of the dark
+apartment on the ground floor of a seven-storey house where his aunt
+lived. "Gee, she used to cook swell," he murmured regretfully.
+
+On a warm evening like this he would have stood round at the corner
+where the drugstore was, talking to fellows he knew, giggling when the
+girls who lived in the street, walking arm and arm, twined in couples or
+trios, passed by affecting ignorance of the glances that followed them.
+Or perhaps he would have gone walking with Al, who worked in the same
+optical-goods store, down through the glaring streets of the theatre
+and restaurant quarter, or along the wharves and ferry slips, where they
+would have sat smoking and looking out over the dark purple harbor, with
+its winking lights and its moving ferries spilling swaying reflections
+in the water out of their square reddish-glowing windows. If they had
+been lucky, they would have seen a liner come in through the Golden
+Gate, growing from a blur of light to a huge moving brilliance, like the
+front of a high-class theatre, that towered above the ferry boats. You
+could often hear the thump of the screw and the swish of the bow
+cutting the calm baywater, and the sound of a band playing, that came
+alternately faint and loud. "When I git rich," Fuselli had liked to say
+to Al, "I'm going to take a trip on one of them liners."
+
+"Yer dad come over from the old country in one, didn't he?" Al would
+ask.
+
+"Oh, he came steerage. I'd stay at home if I had to do that. Man, first
+class for me, a cabin de lux, when I git rich."
+
+But here he was in this town in the East, where he didn't know anybody
+and where there was no place to go but the movies.
+
+"'Lo, buddy," came a voice beside him. The tall youth who had sat
+opposite at mess was just catching up to him. "Goin' to the movies?"
+
+"Yare, nauthin' else to do."
+
+"Here's a rookie. Just got to camp this mornin'," said the tall youth,
+jerking his head in the direction of the man beside him.
+
+"You'll like it. Ain't so bad as it seems at first," said Fuselli
+encouragingly.
+
+"I was just telling him," said the other, "to be careful as hell not to
+get in wrong. If ye once get in wrong in this damn army... it's hell."
+
+"You bet yer life... so they sent ye over to our company, did they,
+rookie? Ain't so bad. The sergeant's sort o' decent if yo're in right
+with him, but the lieutenant's a stinker.... Where you from?"
+
+"New York," said the rookie, a little man of thirty with an ash-colored
+face and a shiny Jewish nose. "I'm in the clothing business there. I
+oughtn't to be drafted at all. It's an outrage. I'm consumptive." He
+spluttered in a feeble squeaky voice.
+
+"They'll fix ye up, don't you fear," said the tall youth. "They'll make
+you so goddam well ye won't know yerself. Yer mother won't know ye, when
+you get home, rookie.... But you're in luck."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Bein' from New York. The corporal, Tim Sidis, is from New York, an' all
+the New York fellers in the company got a graft with him."
+
+"What kind of cigarettes d'ye smoke?" asked the tall youth.
+
+"I don't smoke."
+
+"Ye'd better learn. The corporal likes fancy ciggies and so does the
+sergeant; you jus' slip 'em each a butt now and then. May help ye to get
+in right with 'em."
+
+"Don't do no good," said Fuselli.... "It's juss luck. But keep neat-like
+and smilin' and you'll get on all right. And if they start to ride ye,
+show fight. Ye've got to be hard boiled to git on in this army."
+
+"Ye're goddam right," said the tall youth. "Don't let 'em ride yer....
+What's yer name, rookie?"
+
+"Eisenstein."
+
+"This feller's name's Powers.... Bill Powers. Mine's Fuselli.... Goin'
+to the movies, Mr. Eisenstein?"
+
+"No, I'm trying to find a skirt." The little man leered wanly. "Glad to
+have got ackwainted."
+
+"Goddam kike!" said Powers as Eisenstein walked off up a side street,
+planted, like the avenue, with saplings on which the sickly leaves
+rustled in the faint breeze that smelt of factories and coal dust.
+
+"Kikes ain't so bad," said Fuselli, "I got a good friend who's a kike."
+
+
+
+They were coming out of the movies in a stream of people in which the
+blackish clothes of factory-hands predominated.
+
+"I came near bawlin' at the picture of the feller leavin' his girl to go
+off to the war," said Fuselli.
+
+"Did yer?"
+
+"It was just like it was with me. Ever been in Frisco, Powers?"
+
+The tall youth shook his head. Then he took off his broad-brimmed hat
+and ran his fingers over his stubby tow-head.
+
+"Gee, it was some hot in there," he muttered.
+
+"Well, it's like this," said Fuselli. "You have to cross the ferry to
+Oakland. My aunt... ye know I ain't got any mother, so I always live
+at my aunt's.... My aunt an' her sister-in-law an' Mabe... Mabe's my
+girl... they all came over on the ferry-boat, 'spite of my tellin' 'em I
+didn't want 'em. An' Mabe said she was mad at me, 'cause she'd seen the
+letter I wrote Georgine Slater. She was a toughie, lived in our street,
+I used to write mash notes to. An' I kep' tellin' Mabe I'd done it juss
+for the hell of it, an' that I didn't mean nawthin' by it. An' Mabe said
+she wouldn't never forgive me, an' then I said maybe I'd be killed an'
+she'd never see me again, an' then we all began to bawl. Gawd! it was a
+mess.... "
+
+"It's hell sayin' good-by to girls," said Powers, understandingly. "Cuts
+a feller all up. I guess it's better to go with coosies. Ye don't have
+to say good-by to them."
+
+"Ever gone with a coosie?"
+
+"Not exactly," admitted the tall youth, blushing all over his pink face,
+so that it was noticeable even under the ashen glare of the arc lights
+on the avenue that led towards camp.
+
+"I have," said Fuselli, with a certain pride. "I used to go with a
+Portugee girl. My but she was a toughie. I've given all that up now I'm
+engaged, though.... But I was tellin' ye.... Well, we finally made up
+an' I kissed her an' Mabe said she'd never marry any one but me. So when
+we was walkin" up the street I spied a silk service flag in a winder,
+that was all fancy with a star all trimmed up to beat the band, an' I
+said to myself, I'm goin' to give that to Mabe, an' I ran in an' bought
+it. I didn't give a hoot in hell what it cost. So when we was all
+kissin' and bawlin' when I was goin' to leave them to report to the
+overseas detachment, I shoved it into her hand, an' said, 'Keep that,
+girl, an' don't you forgit me.' An' what did she do but pull out a
+five-pound box o' candy from behind her back an' say, 'Don't make
+yerself sick, Dan.' An' she'd had it all the time without my knowin' it.
+Ain't girls clever?"
+
+"Yare," said the tall youth vaguely.
+
+
+
+Along the rows of cots, when Fuselli got back to the barracks, men were
+talking excitedly.
+
+"There's hell to pay, somebody's broke out of the jug."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Damned if I know."
+
+"Sergeant Timmons said he made a rope of his blankets."
+
+"No, the feller on guard helped him to get away."
+
+"Like hell he did. It was like this. I was walking by the guardhouse
+when they found out about it."
+
+"What company did he belong ter?"
+
+"Dunno."
+
+"What's his name?"
+
+
+"Some guy on trial for insubordination. Punched an officer in the jaw."
+
+"I'd a liked to have seen that."
+
+"Anyhow he's fixed himself this time."
+
+"You're goddam right."
+
+"Will you fellers quit talkin'? It's after taps," thundered the
+sergeant, who sat reading the paper at a little board desk at the door
+of the barracks under the feeble light of one small bulb, carefully
+screened. "You'll have the O. D. down on us."
+
+Fuselli wrapped the blanket round his head and prepared to sleep.
+Snuggled down into the blankets on the narrow cot, he felt sheltered
+from the sergeant's thundering voice and from the cold glare of
+officers' eyes. He felt cosy and happy like he had felt in bed at home,
+when he had been a little kid. For a moment he pictured to himself the
+other man, the man who had punched an officer's jaw, dressed like he
+was, maybe only nineteen, the same age like he was, with a girl like
+Mabe waiting for him somewhere. How cold and frightful it must feel to
+be out of the camp with the guard looking for you! He pictured himself
+running breathless down a long street pursued by a company with guns, by
+officers whose eyes glinted cruelly like the pointed tips of bullets.
+He pulled the blanket closer round his head, enjoying the warmth and
+softness of the wool against his cheek. He must remember to smile at
+the sergeant when he passed him off duty. Somebody had said there'd be
+promotions soon. Oh, he wanted so hard to be promoted. It'd be so swell
+if he could write back to Mabe and tell her to address her letters
+Corporal Dan Fuselli. He must be more careful not to do anything that
+would get him in wrong with anybody. He must never miss an opportunity
+to show them what a clever kid he was. "Oh, when we're ordered overseas,
+I'll show them," he thought ardently, and picturing to himself long
+movie reels of heroism he went off to sleep.
+
+ A sharp voice beside his cot woke him with a jerk.
+
+"Get up, you."
+
+The white beam of a pocket searchlight was glaring in the face of the
+man next to him.
+
+"The O. D." said Fuselli to himself.
+
+"Get up, you," came the sharp voice again.
+
+The man in the next cot stirred and opened his eyes.
+
+"Get up."
+
+"Here, sir," muttered the man in the next cot, his eyes blinking
+sleepily in the glare of the flashlight. He got out of bed and stood
+unsteadily at attention.
+
+"Don't you know better than to sleep in your O. D. shirt? Take it off."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+The man looked up, blinking, too dazed to speak. "Don't know your own
+name, eh?" said the officer, glaring at the man savagely, using his curt
+voice like a whip.--"Quick, take off yer shirt and pants and get back to
+bed."
+
+The Officer of the Day moved on, flashing his light to one side and
+the other in his midnight inspection of the barracks. Intense blackness
+again, and the sound of men breathing deeply in sleep, of men snoring.
+As he went to sleep Fuselli could hear the man beside him swearing,
+monotonously, in an even whisper, pausing now and then to think of new
+filth, of new combinations of words, swearing away his helpless anger,
+soothing himself to sleep by the monotonous reiteration of his swearing.
+
+A little later Fuselli woke with a choked nightmare cry. He had dreamed
+that he had smashed the O. D. in the jaw and had broken out of the jug
+and was running, breathless, stumbling, falling, while the company on
+guard chased him down an avenue lined with little dried-up saplings,
+gaining on him, while with voices metallic as the clicking of rifle
+triggers officers shouted orders, so that he was certain to be caught,
+certain to be shot. He shook himself all over, shaking off the nightmare
+as a dog shakes off water, and went back to sleep again, snuggling into
+his blankets.
+
+
+
+                             II
+
+John Andrews stood naked in the center of a large bare room, of which
+the walls and ceiling and floor were made of raw pine boards. The air
+was heavy from the steam heat. At a desk in one corner a typewriter
+clicked spasmodically.
+
+"Say, young feller, d'you know how to spell imbecility?"
+
+John Andrews walked over to the desk, told him, and added, "Are you
+going to examine me?"
+
+The man went on typewriting without answering. John Andrews stood in
+the center of the floor with his arms folded, half amused, half angry,
+shifting his weight from one foot to the other, listening to the sound
+of the typewriter and of the man's voice as he read out each word of the
+report he was copying.
+
+"Recommendation for discharge"... click, click..."Damn this
+typewriter.... Private Coe Elbert"... click, click. "Damn these rotten
+army typewriters.... Reason... mental deficiency. History of Case...." At
+that moment the recruiting sergeant came back. "Look here, if you don't
+have that recommendation ready in ten minutes Captain Arthurs'll be mad
+as hell about it, Hill. For God's sake get it done. He said already that
+if you couldn't do the work, to get somebody who could. You don't want
+to lose your job do you?"
+
+"Hullo," the sergeant's eyes lit on John Andrews, "I'd forgotten you.
+Run around the room a little.... No, not that way. Just a little so I
+can test yer heart.... God, these rookies are thick."
+
+While he stood tamely being prodded and measured, feeling like a prize
+horse at a fair, John Andrews listened to the man at the typewriter,
+whose voice went on monotonously. "No... record of sexual dep.... O hell,
+this eraser's no good!... pravity or alcoholism; spent... normal... youth
+on farm. App-ear-ance normal though im... say, how many 'm's' in
+immature?"
+
+"All right, put yer clothes on," said the recruiting sergeant. "Quick, I
+can't spend all day. Why the hell did they send you down here alone?"
+
+"The papers were balled up," said Andrews.
+
+"Scores ten years... in test B," went on the voice of the man at the
+typewriter. "Sen... exal ment... m-e-n-t-a-l-i-t-y that of child of eight.
+Seems unable... to either.... Goddam this man's writin'. How kin I copy
+it when he don't write out his words?"
+
+"All right. I guess you'll do. Now there are some forms to fill out.
+Come over here."
+
+Andrews followed the recruiting sergeant to a desk in the far corner of
+the room, from which he could hear more faintly the click, click of the
+typewriter and the man's voice mumbling angrily.
+
+"Forgets to obey orders.... Responds to no form of per... suasion.
+M-e-m-o-r-y, nil."
+
+"All right. Take this to barracks B.... Fourth building, to the right;
+shake a leg," said the recruiting sergeant.
+
+Andrews drew a deep breath of the sparkling air outside. He stood
+irresolutely a moment on the wooden steps of the building looking down
+the row of hastily constructed barracks. Some were painted green, some
+were of plain boards, and some were still mere skeletons. Above his
+head great piled, rose-tinted clouds were moving slowly across the
+immeasurable free sky. His glance slid down the sky to some tall trees
+that flamed bright yellow with autumn outside the camp limits, and then
+to the end of the long street of barracks, where was a picket fence
+and a sentry walking to and fro, to and fro. His brows contracted for
+a moment. Then he walked with a sort of swagger towards the fourth
+building to the right.
+
+
+
+John Andrews was washing windows. He stood in dirty blue denims at the
+top of a ladder, smearing with a soapy cloth the small panes of the
+barrack windows. His nostrils were full of a smell of dust and of the
+sandy quality of the soap. A little man with one lined greyish-red cheek
+puffed out by tobacco followed him up also on a ladder, polishing the
+panes with a dry cloth till they shone and reflected the mottled cloudy
+sky. Andrews's legs were tired from climbing up and down the ladder, his
+hands were sore from the grittiness of the soap; as he worked he looked
+down, without thinking, on rows of cots where the blankets were all
+folded the same way, on some of which men were sprawled in attitudes of
+utter relaxation. He kept remarking to himself how strange it was that
+he was not thinking of anything. In the last few days his mind seemed to
+have become a hard meaningless core.
+
+"How long do we have to do this?" he asked the man who was working with
+him. The man went on chewing, so that Andrews thought he was not going
+to answer at all. He was just beginning to speak again when the man,
+balancing thoughtfully on top of his ladder, drawled out:
+
+"Four o'clock."
+
+"We won't finish today then?"
+
+The man shook his head and wrinkled his face into a strange spasm as he
+spat.
+
+"Been here long?"
+
+"Not so long."
+
+"How long?"
+
+"Three months.... Ain't so long." The man spat again, and climbing down
+from his ladder waited, leaning against the wall, until Andrews should
+finish soaping his window.
+
+"I'll go crazy if I stay here three months.... I've been here a week,"
+muttered Andrews between his teeth as he climbed down and moved his
+ladder to the next window.
+
+They both climbed their ladders again in silence.
+
+"How's it you're in Casuals?" asked Andrews again.
+
+"Ain't got no lungs."
+
+"Why don't they discharge you?"
+
+"Reckon they're going to, soon."
+
+They worked on in silence for a long time. Andrews stared at the upper
+right-hand corner and smeared with soap each pane of the window in turn.
+Then he climbed down, moved his ladder, and started on the next window.
+At times he would start in the middle of the window for variety. As he
+worked a rhythm began pushing its way through the hard core of his mind,
+leavening it, making it fluid. It expressed the vast dusty dullness, the
+men waiting in rows on drill fields, standing at attention, the monotony
+of feet tramping in unison, of the dust rising from the battalions going
+back and forth over the dusty drill fields. He felt the rhythm filling
+his whole body, from his sore hands to his legs, tired from marching
+back and forth from making themselves the same length as millions of
+other legs. His mind began unconsciously, from habit, working on it,
+orchestrating it. He could imagine a vast orchestra swaying with it. His
+heart was beating faster. He must make it into music; he must fix it in
+himself, so that he could make it into music and write it down, so that
+orchestras could play it and make the ears of multitudes feel it, make
+their flesh tingle with it.
+
+He went on working through the endless afternoon, climbing up and down
+his ladder, smearing the barrack windows with a soapy rag. A silly
+phrase took the place of the welling of music in his mind: "Arbeit
+und Rhythmus." He kept saying it over and over to himself: "Arbeit und
+Rhythmus." He tried to drive the phrase out of his mind, to bury his
+mind in the music of the rhythm that had come to him, that expressed the
+dusty boredom, the harsh constriction of warm bodies full of gestures
+and attitudes and aspirations into moulds, like the moulds toy soldiers
+are cast in. The phrase became someone shouting raucously in his ears:
+"Arbeit und Rhythmus,"--drowning everything else, beating his mind hard
+again, parching it.
+
+But suddenly he laughed aloud. Why, it was in German. He was being got
+ready to kill men who said that. If anyone said that, he was going to
+kill him. They were going to kill everybody who spoke that language, he
+and all the men whose feet he could hear tramping on the drill field,
+whose legs were all being made the same length on the drill field.
+
+
+
+                             III
+
+It was Saturday morning. Directed by the corporal, a bandy-legged
+Italian who even on the army diet managed to keep a faint odour of
+garlic about him, three soldiers in blue denims were sweeping up the
+leaves in the street between the rows of barracks.
+
+"You fellers are slow as molasses.... Inspection in twenty-five
+minutes," he kept saying.
+
+The soldiers raked on doggedly, paying no attention. "You don't give a
+damn. If we don't pass inspection, I get hell--not you. Please queeck.
+Here, you, pick up all those goddam cigarette butts."
+
+Andrews made a grimace and began collecting the little grey sordid ends
+of burnt-out cigarettes. As he leant over he found himself looking into
+the dark-brown eyes of the soldier who was working beside him. The eyes
+were contracted with anger and there was a flush under the tan of the
+boyish face.
+
+"Ah didn't git in this here army to be ordered around by a goddam wop,"
+he muttered.
+
+"Doesn't matter much who you're ordered around by, you're ordered around
+just the same," said Andrews. "Where d'ye come from, buddy?"
+
+"Oh, I come from New York. My folks are from Virginia," said Andrews.
+
+"Indiana's ma state. The tornado country.... Git to work; here's that
+bastard wop comin' around the buildin'."
+
+"Don't pick 'em up that-a-way; sweep 'em up," shouted the corporal.
+
+Andrews and the Indiana boy went round with a broom and a shovel
+collecting chewed-out quids of tobacco and cigar butts and stained bits
+of paper.
+
+"What's your name? Mahn's Chrisfield. Folks all call me Chris."
+
+"Mine's Andrews, John Andrews."
+
+"Ma dad uster have a hired man named Andy. Took sick an' died last
+summer. How long d'ye reckon it'll be before us-guys git overseas?"
+
+"God, I don't know."
+
+"Ah want to see that country over there."
+
+"You do?"
+
+"Don't you?"
+
+"You bet I do."
+
+"All right, what you fellers stand here for? Go and dump them garbage
+cans. Lively!" shouted the corporal waddling about importantly on his
+bandy legs. He kept looking down the row of barracks, muttering to
+himself, "Goddam.... Time fur inspectin' now, goddam. Won't never pass
+this time."
+
+His face froze suddenly into obsequious immobility. He brought his hand
+up to the brim of his hat. A group of officers strode past him into the
+nearest building.
+
+John Andrews, coming back from emptying the garbage pails, went in the
+back door of his barracks.
+
+"Attention!" came the cry from the other end. He made his neck and arms
+as rigid as possible.
+
+Through the silent barracks came the hard clank of the heels of the
+officers inspecting.
+
+A sallow face with hollow eyes and heavy square jaw came close to
+Andrews's eyes. He stared straight before him noting the few reddish
+hairs on the officer's Adam's apple and the new insignia on either side
+of his collar.
+
+"Sergeant, who is this man?" came a voice from the sallow face.
+
+"Don't know, sir; a new recruit, sir. Corporal Valori, who is this man?"
+
+"The name's Andrews, sergeant," said the Italian corporal with an
+obsequious whine in his voice.
+
+The officer addressed Andrews directly, speaking fast and loud. "How
+long have you been in the army?"
+
+"One week, sir."
+
+"Don't you know you have to be clean and shaved and ready for inspection
+every Saturday morning at nine?"
+
+"I was cleaning the barracks, sir."
+
+"To teach you not to answer back when an officer addresses you...." The
+officer spaced his words carefully, lingering on them. As he spoke he
+glanced out of the corner of his eye at his superior and noticed the
+major was frowning. His tone changed ever so slightly. "If this ever
+occurs again you may be sure that disciplinary action will be taken....
+Attention there!" At the other end of the barracks a man had moved.
+Again, amid absolute silence, could be heard the clanking of the
+officers' heels as the inspection continued.
+
+
+"Now, fellows, all together," cried the "Y" man who stood with his arms
+stretched wide in front of the movie screen. The piano started jingling
+and the roomful of crowded soldiers roared out:
+
+     "Hail, Hail, the gang's all here;
+      We're going to get the Kaiser,
+      We're going to get the Kaiser,
+      We're going to get the Kaiser,
+      Now!"
+
+The rafters rang with their deep voices.
+
+The "Y" man twisted his lean face into a facetious expression.
+
+"Somebody tried to put one over on the 'Y' man and sing 'What the hell
+do we care?' But you do care, don't you, Buddy?" he shouted.
+
+There was a little rattle of laughter.
+
+"Now, once more," said the "Y" man again, "and lots of guts in the get
+and lots of kill in the Kaiser. Now all together.... "
+
+The moving pictures had begun. John Andrews looked furtively about him,
+at the face of the Indiana boy beside him intent on the screen, at the
+tanned faces and the close-cropped heads that rose above the mass of
+khaki-covered bodies about him. Here and there a pair of eyes glinted
+in the white flickering light from the screen. Waves of laughter or
+of little exclamations passed over them. They were all so alike, they
+seemed at moments to be but one organism. This was what he had sought
+when he had enlisted, he said to himself. It was in this that he would
+take refuge from the horror of the world that had fallen upon him. He
+was sick of revolt, of thought, of carrying his individuality like a
+banner above the turmoil. This was much better, to let everything go, to
+stamp out his maddening desire for music, to humble himself into the
+mud of common slavery. He was still tingling with sudden anger from the
+officer's voice that morning: "Sergeant, who is this man?" The officer
+had stared in his face, as a man might stare at a piece of furniture.
+
+"Ain't this some film?" Chrisfield turned to him with a smile that drove
+his anger away in a pleasant feeling of comradeship.
+
+"The part that's comin's fine. I seen it before out in Frisco," said the
+man on the other side of Andrews. "Gee, it makes ye hate the Huns."
+
+The man at the piano jingled elaborately in the intermission between the
+two parts of the movie.
+
+The Indiana boy leaned in front of John Andrews, putting an arm round
+his shoulders, and talked to the other man.
+
+"You from Frisco?"
+
+"Yare."
+
+"That's goddam funny. You're from the Coast, this feller's from New
+York, an' Ah'm from ole Indiana, right in the middle."
+
+"What company you in?"
+
+"Ah ain't yet. This feller an me's in Casuals."
+
+"That's a hell of a place.... Say, my name's Fuselli."
+
+"Mahn's Chrisfield."
+
+"Mine's Andrews."
+
+"How soon's it take a feller to git out o' this camp?"
+
+"Dunno. Some guys says three weeks and some says six months.... Say,
+mebbe you'll get into our company. They transferred a lot of men out
+the other day, an' the corporal says they're going to give us rookies
+instead."
+
+"Goddam it, though, but Ah want to git overseas."
+
+"It's swell over there," said Fuselli, "everything's awful pretty-like.
+Picturesque, they call it. And the people wears peasant costumes.... I
+had an uncle who used to tell me about it. He came from near Torino."
+
+"Where's that?"
+
+"I dunno. He's an Eyetalian."
+
+"Say, how long does it take to git overseas?"
+
+"Oh, a week or two," said Andrews.
+
+"As long as that?" But the movie had begun again, unfolding scenes of
+soldiers in spiked helmets marching into Belgian cities full of little
+milk carts drawn by dogs and old women in peasant costume. There were
+hisses and catcalls when a German flag was seen, and as the troops were
+pictured advancing, bayonetting the civilians in wide Dutch pants, the
+old women with starched caps, the soldiers packed into the stuffy Y. M.
+C. A. hut shouted oaths at them. Andrews felt blind hatred stirring like
+something that had a life of its own in the young men about him. He was
+lost in it, carried away in it, as in a stampede of wild cattle. The
+terror of it was like ferocious hands clutching his throat. He glanced
+at the faces round him. They were all intent and flushed, glinting with
+sweat in the heat of the room.
+
+As he was leaving the hut, pressed in a tight stream of soldiers moving
+towards the door, Andrews heard a man say:
+
+"I never raped a woman in my life, but by God, I'm going to. I'd give a
+lot to rape some of those goddam German women."
+
+"I hate 'em too," came another voice, "men, women, children and unborn
+children. They're either jackasses or full of the lust for power like
+their rulers are, to let themselves be governed by a bunch of warlords
+like that."
+
+"Ah'd lahk te cepture a German officer an' make him shine ma boots an'
+then shoot him dead," said Chris to Andrews as they walked down the long
+row towards their barracks.
+
+"You would?"
+
+"But Ah'd a damn side rather shoot somebody else Ah know," went on Chris
+intensely. "Don't stay far from here either. An' Ah'll do it too, if he
+don't let off pickin' on me."
+
+"Who's that?"
+
+"That big squirt Anderson they made a file closer at drill yesterday.
+He seems to think that just because Ah'm littler than him he can do
+anything he likes with me."
+
+Andrews turned sharply and looked in his companion's face; something in
+the gruffness of the boy's tone startled him. He was not accustomed to
+this. He had thought of himself as a passionate person, but never in his
+life had he wanted to kill a man.
+
+"D'you really want to kill him?"
+
+"Not now, but he gits the hell started in me, the way he teases me. Ah
+pulled ma knife on him yisterday. You wasn't there. Didn't ye notice Ah
+looked sort o' upsot at drill?"
+
+"Yes... but how old are you, Chris!"
+
+"Ah'm twenty. You're older than me, ain't yer?"
+
+"I'm twenty-two."
+
+They were leaning against the wall of their barracks, looking up at the
+brilliant starry night.
+
+"Say, is the stars the same over there, overseas, as they is here?"
+
+"I guess so," said Andrews, laughing. "Though I've never been to see."
+
+"Ah never had much schoolin'," went on Chris. "I lef school when I was
+twelve, 'cause it warn't much good, an' dad drank so the folks needed me
+to work on the farm."
+
+"What do you grow in your part of the country?"
+
+"Mostly coan. A little wheat an' tobacca. Then we raised a lot o'
+stock.... But Ah was juss going to tell ye Ah nearly did kill a guy
+once."
+
+"Tell me about it."
+
+"Ah was drunk at the time. Us boys round Tallyville was a pretty tough
+bunch then. We used ter work juss long enough to git some money to tear
+things up with. An' then we used to play craps an' drink whiskey. This
+happened just at coan-shuckin' time. Hell, Ah don't even know what it
+was about, but Ah got to quarrellin' with a feller Ah'd been right smart
+friends with. Then he laid off an' hit me in the jaw. Ah don't know what
+Ah done next, but before Ah knowed it Ah had a hold of a shuck-in' knife
+and was slashin' at him with it. A knife like that's a turruble thing
+to stab a man with. It took four of 'em to hold me down an' git it
+away from me. They didn't keep me from givin' him a good cut across
+the chest, though. Ah was juss crazy drunk at the time. An' man, if Ah
+wasn't a mess to go home, with half ma clothes pulled off and ma shirt
+torn. Ah juss fell in the ditch an' slep' there till daylight an' got
+mud all through ma hair.... Ah don't scarcely tech a drop now, though."
+
+"So you're in a hurry to get overseas, Chris, like me," said Andrews
+after a long pause.
+
+"Ah'll push that guy Anderson into the sea, if we both go over on the
+same boat," said Chrisfield laughing; but he added after a pause: "It
+would have been hell if Ah'd killed that feller, though. Honest Ah
+wouldn't a-wanted to do that."
+
+
+
+"That's the job that pays, a violinist," said somebody.
+
+"No, it don't," came a melancholy drawling voice from a lanky man who
+sat doubled up with his long face in his hands and his elbows resting on
+his knees. "Just brings a living wage... a living wage."
+
+Several men were grouped at the end of the barracks. From them the
+long row of cots, with here and there a man asleep or a man hastily
+undressing, stretched, lighted by occasional feeble electric-light
+bulbs, to the sergeant's little table beside the door.
+
+"You're gettin' a dis-charge, aren't you?" asked a man with a brogue,
+and the red face of a jovial gorilla, that signified the bartender.
+
+"Yes, Flannagan, I am," said the lanky man dolefully.
+
+"Ain't he got hard luck?" came a voice from the crowd.
+
+"Yes, I have got hard luck, Buddy," said the lanky man, looking at the
+faces about him out of sunken eyes. "I ought to be getting forty dollars
+a week and here I am getting seven and in the army besides."
+
+"I meant that you were gettin' out of this goddam army."
+
+"The army, the army, the democratic army," chanted someone under his
+breath.
+
+"But, begorry, I want to go overseas and 'ave a look at the 'uns," said
+Flannagan, who managed with strange skill to combine a cockney whine
+with his Irish brogue.
+
+"Overseas?" took up the lanky man. "If I could have gone an' studied
+overseas, I'd be making as much as Kubelik. I had the makings of a good
+player in me."
+
+"Why don't you go?" asked Andrews, who stood on the outskirts with
+Fuselli and Chris.
+
+"Look at me... t. b.," said the lanky man.
+
+"Well, they can't get me over there soon enough," said Flannagan.
+
+"Must be funny not bein' able to understand what folks say. They say
+'we' over there when they mean 'yes,' a guy told me."
+
+"Ye can make signs to them, can't ye?" said Flannagan "an' they can
+understand an Irishman anywhere. But ye won't 'ave to talk to the 'uns.
+Begorry I'll set up in business when I get there, what d'ye think of
+that?"
+
+Everybody laughed.
+
+"How'd that do? I'll start an Irish House in Berlin, I will, and
+there'll be O'Casey and O'Ryan and O'Reilly and O'Flarrety, and begod
+the King of England himself'll come an' set the goddam Kaiser up to a
+drink."
+
+"The Kaiser'll be strung up on a telephone pole by that time; ye needn't
+worry, Flannagan."
+
+"They ought to torture him to death, like they do niggers when they
+lynch 'em down south."
+
+A bugle sounded far away outside on the parade ground. Everyone slunk
+away silently to his cot.
+
+John Andrews arranged himself carefully in his blankets, promising
+himself a quiet time of thought before going to sleep. He needed to be
+awake and think at night this way, so that he might not lose entirely
+the thread of his own life, of the life he would take up again some day
+if he lived through it. He brushed away the thought of death. It was
+uninteresting. He didn't care anyway. But some day he would want to play
+the piano again, to write music. He must not let himself sink too deeply
+into the helpless mentality of the soldier. He must keep his will power.
+
+No, but that was not what he had wanted to think about. He was so bored
+with himself. At any cost he must forget himself. Ever since his first
+year at college he seemed to have done nothing but think about himself,
+talk about himself. At least at the bottom, in the utterest degradation
+of slavery, he could find forgetfulness and start rebuilding the fabric
+of his life, out of real things this time, out of work and comradeship
+and scorn. Scorn--that was the quality he needed. It was such a raw,
+fantastic world he had suddenly fallen into. His life before this
+week seemed a dream read in a novel, a picture he had seen in a shop
+window--it was so different. Could it have been in the same world at
+all? He must have died without knowing it and been born again into a
+new, futile hell.
+
+When he had been a child he had lived in a dilapidated mansion that
+stood among old oaks and chestnuts, beside a road where buggies and
+oxcarts passed rarely to disturb the sandy ruts that lay in the mottled
+shade. He had had so many dreams; lying under the crepe-myrtle bush
+at the end of the overgrown garden he had passed the long Virginia
+afternoons, thinking, while the dryflies whizzed sleepily in the
+sunlight, of the world he would live in when he grew up. He had planned
+so many lives for himself: a general, like Caesar, he was to conquer the
+world and die murdered in a great marble hall; a wandering minstrel,
+he would go through all countries singing and have intricate endless
+adventures; a great musician, he would sit at the piano playing, like
+Chopin in the engraving, while beautiful women wept and men with long,
+curly hair hid their faces in their hands. It was only slavery that
+he had not foreseen. His race had dominated for too many centuries for
+that. And yet the world was made of various slaveries.
+
+John Andrews lay on his back on his cot while everyone about him slept
+and snored in the dark barracks. A certain terror held him. In a week
+the great structure of his romantic world, so full of many colors and
+harmonies, that had survived school and college and the buffeting
+of making a living in New York, had fallen in dust about him. He was
+utterly in the void. "How silly," he thought; "this is the world as it
+has appeared to the majority of men, this is just the lower half of the
+pyramid."
+
+He thought of his friends, of Fuselli and Chrisfield and that funny
+little man Eisenstein. They seemed at home in this army life. They did
+not seem appalled by the loss of their liberty. But they had never lived
+in the glittering other world. Yet he could not feel the scorn of them
+he wanted to feel. He thought of them singing under the direction of the
+"Y" man:
+
+     "Hail, Hail, the gang's all here;
+      We're going to get the Kaiser,
+      We're going to get the Kaiser,
+      We're going to get the Kaiser,
+      Now!"
+
+He thought of himself and Chrisfield picking up cigarette butts and
+the tramp, tramp, tramp of feet on the drill field. Where was the
+connection? Was this all futile madness? They'd come from such various
+worlds, all these men sleeping about him, to be united in this. And what
+did they think of it, all these sleepers? Had they too not had dreams
+when they were boys? Or had the generations prepared them only for this?
+
+He thought of himself lying under the crepe-myrtle bush through the hot,
+droning afternoon, watching the pale magenta flowers flutter down into
+the dry grass, and felt, again, wrapped in his warm blankets among
+all these sleepers, the straining of limbs burning with desire to rush
+untrammelled through some new keen air. Suddenly darkness overspread his
+mind.
+
+
+He woke with a start. The bugle was blowing outside.
+
+"All right, look lively!" the sergeant was shouting. Another day.
+
+
+
+                             IV
+
+The stars were very bright when Fuselli, eyes stinging with sleep,
+stumbled out of the barracks. They trembled like bits of brilliant jelly
+in the black velvet of the sky, just as something inside him trembled
+with excitement.
+
+"Anybody know where the electricity turns on?" asked the sergeant in
+a good-humored voice. "Here it is." The light over the door of the
+barracks snapped on, revealing a rotund cheerful man with a little
+yellow mustache and an unlit cigarette dangling out of the corner of his
+mouth. Grouped about him, in overcoats and caps, the men of the company
+rested their packs against their knees.
+
+"All right; line up, men."
+
+Eyes looked curiously at Fuselli as he lined up with the rest. He had
+been transferred into the company the night before.
+
+"Attenshun," shouted the sergeant. Then he wrinkled up his eyes and
+grinned hard at the slip of paper he had in his hand, while the men of
+his company watched him affectionately.
+
+"Answer 'Here' when your name is called. Allan, B.C."
+
+"Yo!" came a shrill voice from the end of the line.
+
+"Anspach."
+
+"Here."
+
+Meanwhile outside the other barracks other companies could be heard
+calling the roll. Somewhere from the end of the street came a cheer.
+
+"Well, I guess I can tell you now, fellers," said the sergeant with his
+air of quiet omniscience, when he had called the last name. "We're going
+overseas."
+
+Everybody cheered.
+
+"Shut up, you don't want the Huns to hear us, do you?"
+
+The company laughed, and there was a broad grin on the sergeant's round
+face.
+
+"Seem to have a pretty decent top-kicker," whispered Fuselli to the man
+next to him.
+
+"You bet yer, kid, he's a peach," said the other man in a voice full of
+devotion. "This is some company, I can tell you that."
+
+"You bet it is," said the next man along. "The corporal's in the Red Sox
+outfield."
+
+The lieutenant appeared suddenly in the area of light in front of the
+barracks. He was a pink-faced boy. His trench coat, a little too large,
+was very new and stuck out stiffly from his legs.
+
+"Everything all right, sergeant? Everything all right?" he asked several
+times, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
+
+"All ready for entrainment, sir," said the sergeant heartily.
+
+"Very good, I'll let you know the order of march in a minute."
+
+Fuselli's ears pounded with strange excitement. These phrases,
+"entrainment," "order of march," had a businesslike sound. He suddenly
+started to wonder how it would feel to be under fire. Memories of movies
+flickered in his mind.
+
+"Gawd, ain't I glad to git out o' this hell-hole," he said to the man
+next him.
+
+"The next one may be more of a hell-hole yet, buddy," said the sergeant
+striding up and down with his important confident walk.
+
+Everybody laughed.
+
+"He's some sergeant, our sergeant is," said the man next to Fuselli.
+"He's got brains in his head, that boy has."
+
+"All right, break ranks," said the sergeant, "but if anybody moves away
+from this barracks, I'll put him in K. P. Till--till he'll be able to
+peel spuds in his sleep."
+
+The company laughed again. Fuselli noticed with displeasure that the
+tall man with the shrill voice whose name had been called first on the
+roll did not laugh but spat disgustedly out of the corner of his mouth.
+
+"Well, there are bad eggs in every good bunch," thought Fuselli.
+
+It gradually grew grey with dawn. Fuselli's legs were tired from
+standing so long. Outside all the barracks, as far as he could see up
+the street, men stood in ragged lines waiting.
+
+The sun rose hot on a cloudless day. A few sparrows twittered about the
+tin roof of the barracks.
+
+"Hell, we're not goin' this day."
+
+"Why?" asked somebody savagely.
+
+"Troops always leaves at night."
+
+"The hell they do!"
+
+"Here comes Sarge."
+
+Everybody craned their necks in the direction pointed out.
+
+The sergeant strolled up with a mysterious smile on his face.
+
+"Put away your overcoats and get out your mess kits."
+
+Mess kits clattered and gleamed in the slanting rays of the sun. They
+marched to the mess hall and back again, lined up again with packs and
+waited some more.
+
+Everybody began to get tired and peevish. Fuselli wondered where his old
+friends of the other company were. They were good kids too, Chris and
+that educated fellow, Andrews. Tough luck they couldn't have come along.
+
+The sun rose higher. Men sneaked into the barracks one by one and lay
+down on the bare cots.
+
+"What you want to bet we won't leave this camp for a week yet?" asked
+someone.
+
+At noon they lined up for mess again, ate dismally and hurriedly. As
+Fuselli was leaving the mess hall tapping a tattoo on his kit with two
+dirty finger nails, the corporal spoke to him in a low voice.
+
+"Be sure to wash yer kit, buddy. We may have pack inspection."
+
+The corporal was a slim yellow-faced man with a wrinkled skin, though he
+was still young, and an arrow-shaped mouth that opened and shut like the
+paper mouths children make.
+
+"All right, corporal," Fuselli answered cheerfully. He wanted to make
+a good impression. "Fellers'll be sayin' 'All right, corporal,' to me
+soon," he thought. An idea that he repelled came into his mind. The
+corporal didn't look strong. He wouldn't last long overseas. And he
+pictured Mabe writing Corporal Dan Fuselli, O.A.R.D.5.
+
+At the end of the afternoon, the lieutenant appeared suddenly, his face
+flushed, his trench coat stiffer than ever.
+
+"All right, sergeant; line up your men," he said in a breathless voice.
+
+All down the camp street companies were forming. One by one they marched
+out in columns of fours and halted with their packs on. The day was
+getting amber with sunset. Retreat sounded.
+
+Fuselli's mind had suddenly become very active. The notes of the bugle
+and of the band playing "The Star Spangled Banner" sifted into his
+consciousness through a dream of what it would be like over there. He
+was in a place like the Exposition ground, full of old men and women
+in peasant costume, like in the song, "When It's Apple Blossom Time in
+Normandy." Men in spiked helmets who looked like firemen kept charging
+through, like the Ku-Klux Klan in the movies, jumping from their horses
+and setting fire to buildings with strange outlandish gestures, spitting
+babies on their long swords. Those were the Huns. Then there were flags
+blowing very hard in the wind, and the sound of a band. The Yanks were
+coming. Everything was lost in a scene from a movie in which khaki-clad
+regiments marched fast, fast across the scene. The memory of the
+shouting that always accompanied it drowned out the picture. "The guns
+must make a racket, though," he added as an after-thought.
+
+"Atten-shun!
+
+"Forwa--ard, march!"
+
+The long street of the camp was full of the tramping of feet. They were
+off. As they passed through the gate Fuselli caught a glimpse of Chris
+standing with his arm about Andrews's shoulders. They both waved.
+Fuselli grinned and expanded his chest. They were just rookies still. He
+was going overseas.
+
+The weight of the pack tugged at his shoulders and made his feet heavy
+as if they were charged with lead. The sweat ran down his close-clipped
+head under the overseas cap and streamed into his eyes and down the
+sides of his nose. Through the tramp of feet he heard confusedly
+cheering from the sidewalk. In front of him the backs of heads and the
+swaying packs got smaller, rank by rank up the street. Above them flags
+dangled from windows, flags leisurely swaying in the twilight. But
+the weight of the pack, as the column marched under arc lights glaring
+through the afterglow, inevitably forced his head to droop forward. The
+soles of boots and legs wrapped in puttees and the bottom strap of the
+pack of the man ahead of him were all he could see. The pack seemed
+heavy enough to push him through the asphalt pavement. And all about him
+was the faint jingle of equipment and the tramp of feet. Every part of
+him was full of sweat. He could feel vaguely the steam of sweat that
+rose from the ranks of struggling bodies about him. But gradually he
+forgot everything but the pack tugging at his shoulders, weighing down
+his thighs and ankles and feet, and the monotonous rhythm of his feet
+striking the pavement and of the other feet, in front of him, behind
+him, beside him, crunching, crunching.
+
+
+
+The train smelt of new uniforms on which the sweat had dried, and of
+the smoke of cheap cigarettes. Fuselli awoke with a start. He had been
+asleep with his head on Bill Grey's shoulder. It was already broad
+daylight. The train was jolting slowly over cross-tracks in some dismal
+suburb, full of long soot-smeared warehouses and endless rows of freight
+cars, beyond which lay brown marshland and slate-grey stretches of
+water.
+
+"God! that must be the Atlantic Ocean," cried Fuselli in excitement.
+
+"Ain't yer never seen it before? That's the Perth River," said Bill Grey
+scornfully.
+
+"No, I come from the Coast."
+
+They stuck their heads out of the window side by side so that their
+cheeks touched.
+
+"Gee, there's some skirts," said Bill Grey. The train jolted to a stop.
+Two untidy red-haired girls were standing beside the track waving their
+hands.
+
+"Give us a kiss," cried Bill Grey.
+
+"Sure," said a girl,--"anythin' fer one of our boys."
+
+She stood on tiptoe and Grey leaned far out of the window, just managing
+to reach the girl's forehead.
+
+Fuselli felt a flush of desire all over him.
+
+"Hol' onter my belt," he said. "I'll kiss her right."
+
+He leaned far out, and, throwing his arms around the girl's pink gingham
+shoulders, lifted her off the ground and kissed her furiously on the
+lips.
+
+"Lemme go, lemme go," cried the girl. Men leaning out of the other
+windows of the car cheered and shouted.
+
+Fuselli kissed her again and then dropped her.
+
+"Ye're too rough, damn ye," said the girl angrily.
+
+A man from one of the windows yelled, "I'll go an' tell mommer"; and
+everybody laughed. The train moved on. Fuselli looked about him proudly.
+The image of Mabe giving him the five-pound box of candy rose a moment
+in his mind.
+
+"Ain't no harm in havin' a little fun. Don't mean nothin'," he said
+aloud.
+
+"You just wait till we hit France. We'll hit it up some with the
+Madimerzels, won't we, kid?" said Bill Grey, slapping Fuselli on the
+knee.
+
+     "Beautiful Katy,
+      Ki-Ki-Katy,
+      You're the only gugugu-girl that I adore;
+      And when the mo-moon shines
+      Over the cowshed,
+      I'll be waiting at the ki-ki-ki-kitchen door."
+
+Everybody sang as the thumping of wheels over rails grew faster. Fuselli
+looked about contentedly at the company sprawling over their packs and
+equipment in the smoky car.
+
+"It's great to be a soldier," he said to Bill Grey. "Ye kin do anything
+ye goddam please."
+
+
+
+"This," said the corporal, as the company filed into barracks identical
+to those they had left two days before, "is an embarkation camp, but I'd
+like to know where the hell we embark at." He twisted his face into a
+smile, and then shouted with lugubrious intonation: "Fall in for mess."
+
+It was pitch dark in that part of the camp. The electric lights had a
+sparse reddish glow. Fuselli kept straining his eyes, expecting to see a
+wharf and the masts of a ship at the end of every alley. The line filed
+into a dim mess hall, where a thin stew was splashed into the mess
+kits. Behind the counter of the kitchen the non-coms, the jovial first
+sergeant, and the businesslike sergeant who looked like a preacher, and
+the wrinkled-faced corporal who had been on the Red Sox outfield, could
+be seen eating steak. A faint odor of steak frying went through the mess
+hall and made the thin chilly stew utterly tasteless in comparison.
+
+Fuselli looked enviously towards the kitchen and thought of the day
+when he would be a non-com too. "I got to get busy," he said to himself
+earnestly. Overseas, under fire, he'd have a chance to show what he was
+worth; and he pictured himself heroically carrying a wounded captain
+back to a dressing tent, pursued by fierce-whiskered men with spiked
+helmets like firemen's helmets.
+
+The strumming of a guitar came strangely down the dark street of the
+camp.
+
+"Some guy sure can play," said Bill Grey who, with his hands in his
+pockets, slouched along beside Fuselli.
+
+They looked in the door of one of the barracks. A lot of soldiers were
+sitting in a ring round two tall negroes whose black faces and chests
+glistened like jet in the faint light.
+
+"Come on, Charley, give us another," said someone.
+
+"Do Ah git it now, or mus' Ah hesit-ate?"
+
+One negro began chanting while the other strummed carelessly on the
+guitar.
+
+"No, give us the 'Titanic.'"
+
+The guitar strummed in a crooning rag-time for a moment. The negro's
+voice broke into it suddenly, pitched high.
+
+"Dis is de song ob de Titanic, Sailin' on de sea."
+
+The guitar strummed on. There had been a tension in the negro's
+voice that had made everyone stop talking. The soldiers looked at him
+curiously.
+
+     "How de Titanic ran in dat cole iceberg,
+      How de Titanic ran in dat cole iceberg
+      Sailin' on de sea."
+
+His voice was confidential and soft, and the guitar strummed to the
+same sobbing rag-time. Verse after verse the voice grew louder and the
+strumming faster.
+
+     "De Titanic's sinkin' in de deep blue,
+      Sinkin' in de deep blue, deep blue,
+      Sinkin' in de sea.
+      O de women an' de chilen a-floatin' in de sea,
+      O de women an' de chilen a-floatin' in de sea,
+      Roun' dat cole iceberg,
+      Sung 'Nearer, my gawd, to Thee,'
+      Sung 'Nearer, my gawd, to Thee,
+      Nearer to Thee.'"
+
+The guitar was strumming the hymn-tune. The negro was singing with every
+cord in his throat taut, almost sobbing.
+
+A man next to Fuselli took careful aim and spat into the box of sawdust
+in the middle of the ring of motionless soldiers.
+
+The guitar played the rag-time again, fast, almost mockingly. The negro
+sang in low confidential tones.
+
+     "O de women an' de chilen dey sank in de sea.
+      O de women an' de chilen dey sank in de sea,
+      Roun' dat cole iceberg."
+
+Before he had finished a bugle blew in the distance. Everybody
+scattered.
+
+Fuselli and Bill Grey went silently back to their barracks.
+
+"It must be an awful thing to drown in the sea," said Grey as he rolled
+himself in his blankets. "If one of those bastard U-boats..."
+
+"I don't give a damn," said Fuselli boisterously; but as he lay staring
+into the darkness, cold terror stiffened him suddenly. He thought for a
+moment of deserting, pretending he was sick, anything to keep from going
+on the transport.
+
+     "O de women an' de chilen dey sank in de sea,
+      Roun" dat cole iceberg."
+
+He could feel himself going down through icy water. "It's a hell of a
+thing to send a guy over there to drown," he said to himself, and he
+thought of the hilly streets of San Francisco, and the glow of the
+sunset over the harbor and ships coming in through the Golden Gate. His
+mind went gradually blank and he went to sleep.
+
+
+The column was like some curious khaki-colored carpet, hiding the road
+as far as you could see. In Fuselli's company the men were shifting
+their weight from one foot to the other, muttering, "What the hell a'
+they waiting for now?" Bill Grey, next to Fuselli in the ranks, stood
+bent double so as to take the weight of his pack off his shoulders. They
+were at a cross-roads on fairly high ground so that they could see the
+long sheds and barracks of the camp stretching away in every direction,
+in rows and rows, broken now and then by a grey drill field. In front
+of them the column stretched to the last bend in the road, where it
+disappeared on a hill among mustard-yellow suburban houses.
+
+Fuselli was excited. He kept thinking of the night before, when he had
+helped the sergeant distribute emergency rations, and had carried about
+piles of boxes of hard bread, counting them carefully without a mistake.
+He felt full of desire to do things, to show what he was good for.
+"Gee," he said to himself, "this war's a lucky thing for me. I might
+have been in the R.C. Vicker Company's store for five years an' never
+got a raise, an' here in the army I got a chance to do almost anything."
+
+Far ahead down the road the column was beginning to move. Voices
+shouting orders beat crisply on the morning air. Fuselli's heart was
+thumping. He felt proud of himself and of the company--the damn best
+company in the whole outfit. The company ahead was moving, it was their
+turn now.
+
+"Forwa--ard, march!"
+
+They were lost in the monotonous tramp of feet. Dust rose from the road,
+along which like a drab brown worm crawled the column.
+
+
+A sickening unfamiliar smell choked their nostrils.
+
+"What are they taking us down here for?"
+
+"Damned if I know."
+
+They were filing down ladders into the terrifying pit which the hold of
+the ship seemed to them. Every man had a blue card in his hand with a
+number on it. In a dim place like an empty warehouse they stopped. The
+sergeant shouted out:
+
+"I guess this is our diggings. We'll have to make the best of it." Then
+he disappeared.
+
+Fuselli looked about him. He was sitting in one of the lowest of three
+tiers of bunks roughly built of new pine boards. Electric lights placed
+here and there gave a faint reddish tone to the gloom, except at the
+ladders, where high-power lamps made a white glare. The place was full
+of tramping of feet and the sound of packs being thrown on bunks as
+endless files of soldiers poured in down every ladder. Somewhere down
+the alley an officer with a shrill voice was shouting to his men: "Speed
+it up there; speed it up there." Fuselli sat on his bunk looking at the
+terrifying confusion all about, feeling bewildered and humiliated. For
+how many days would they be in that dark pit? He suddenly felt angry.
+They had no right to treat a feller like that. He was a man, not a bale
+of hay to be bundled about as anybody liked.
+
+"An' if we're torpedoed a fat chance we'll have down here," he said
+aloud.
+
+"They got sentries posted to keep us from goin up on deck," said
+someone.
+
+"God damn them. They treat you like you was a steer being taken over for
+meat."
+
+"Well, you're not a damn sight more. Meat for the guns."
+
+A little man lying in one of the upper bunks had spoken suddenly,
+contracting his sallow face into a curious spasm, as if the words had
+burst from him in spite of an effort to keep them in.
+
+Everybody looked up at him angrily.
+
+"That goddam kike Eisenstein," muttered someone.
+
+"Say, tie that bull outside," shouted Bill Grey good-naturedly.
+
+"Fools," muttered Eisenstein, turning over and burying his face in his
+hands.
+
+"Gee, I wonder what it is makes it smell so funny down here," said
+Fuselli.
+
+
+Fuselli lay flat on deck resting his head on his crossed arms. When he
+looked straight up he could see a lead-colored mast sweep back and
+forth across the sky full of clouds of light grey and silver and dark
+purplish-grey showing yellowish at the edges. When he tilted his head a
+little to one side he could see Bill Grey's heavy colorless face and the
+dark bristles of his unshaven chin and his mouth a little twisted to the
+left, from which a cigarette dangled unlighted. Beyond were heads
+and bodies huddled together in a mass of khaki overcoats and life
+preservers. And when the roll tipped the deck he had a view of moving
+green waves and of a steamer striped grey and white, and the horizon, a
+dark taut line, broken here and there by the tops of waves.
+
+"O God, I feel sick," said Bill Grey, taking the cigarette out of his
+mouth and looking at it revengefully.
+
+"I'd be all right if everything didn't stink so. An' that mess hall.
+Nearly makes a guy puke to think of it." Fuselli spoke in a whining
+voice, watching the top of the mast move like a pencil scrawling on
+paper, back and forth across the mottled clouds.
+
+"You belly-achin' again?" A brown moon-shaped face with thick black
+eyebrows and hair curling crisply about a forehead with many horizontal
+wrinkles rose from the deck on the other side of Fuselli.
+
+"Get the hell out of here."
+
+"Feel sick, sonny?" came the deep voice again, and the dark eyebrows
+contracted in an expression of sympathy. "Funny, I'd have my sixshooter
+out if I was home and you told me to get the hell out, sonny."
+
+"Well, who wouldn't be sore when they have to go on K.P.?" said Fuselli
+peevishly.
+
+"I ain't been down to mess in three days. A feller who lives on the
+plains like I do ought to take to the sea like a duck, but it don't seem
+to suit me."
+
+"God, they're a sick lookin' bunch I have to sling the hash to," said
+Fuselli more cheerfully. "I don't know how they get that way. The
+fellers in our company ain't that way. They look like they was askeered
+somebody was going to hit 'em. Ever noticed that, Meadville?"
+
+"Well, what d'ye expect of you guys who live in the city all your lives
+and don't know the butt from the barrel of a gun an' never straddled
+anything more like a horse than a broomstick. Ye're juss made to be
+sheep. No wonder they have to herd you round like calves." Meadville got
+to his feet and went unsteadily to the rail, keeping, as he threaded his
+way through the groups that covered the transport's after deck, a little
+of his cowboy's bow-legged stride.
+
+"I know what it is that makes men's eyes blink when they go down to that
+putrid mess," came a nasal voice.
+
+Fuselli turned round.
+
+Eisenstein was sitting in the place Meadville had just left.
+
+"You do, do you?"
+
+"It's part of the system. You've got to turn men into beasts before ye
+can get 'em to act that way. Ever read Tolstoi?"
+
+"No. Say, you want to be careful how you go talkin' around the way you
+do." Fuselli lowered his voice confidentially. "I heard of a feller
+bein' shot at Camp Merritt for talkin' around."
+
+"I don't care.... I'm a desperate man," said Eisenstein.
+
+"Don't ye feel sick? Gawd, I do.... Did you get rid o' any of it,
+Meadville?"
+
+"Why don't they fight their ole war somewhere a man can get to on a
+horse?... Say that's my seat."
+
+"The place was empty.... I sat down in it," said Eisenstein, lowering
+his head sullenly.
+
+"You kin have three winks to get out o' my place," said Meadville,
+squaring his broad shoulders.
+
+"You are stronger than me," said Eisenstein, moving off.
+
+"God, it's hell not to have a gun," muttered Meadville as he settled
+himself on the deck again. "D'ye know, sonny, I nearly cried when I
+found I was going to be in this damn medical corps? I enlisted for the
+tanks. This is the first time in my life I haven't had a gun. I even
+think I had one in my cradle."
+
+"That's funny," said Fuselli.
+
+The sergeant appeared suddenly in the middle of the group, his face red.
+
+"Say, fellers," he said in a low voice, "go down an' straighten out the
+bunks as fast as you goddam can. They're having an inspection. It's a
+hell of a note."
+
+They all filed down the gang planks into the foul-smelling hold, where
+there was no light but the invariable reddish glow of electric bulbs.
+They had hardly reached their bunks when someone called, "Attention!"
+
+Three officers stalked by, their firm important tread a little disturbed
+by the rolling. Their heads were stuck forward and they peered from side
+to side among the bunks with the cruel, searching glance of hens looking
+for worms.
+
+
+
+"Fuselli," said the first sergeant, "bring up the record book to my
+stateroom; 213 on the lower deck."
+
+"All right, Sarge," said Fuselli with alacrity. He admired the first
+sergeant and wished he could imitate his jovial, domineering manner.
+
+It was the first time he had been in the upper part of the ship. It
+seemed a different world. The long corridors with red carpets, the white
+paint and the gilt mouldings on the partitions, the officers strolling
+about at their ease--it all made him think of the big liners he used to
+watch come in through the Golden Gate, the liners he was going to Europe
+on some day, when he got rich. Oh, if he could only get to be a sergeant
+first-class, all this comfort and magnificence would be his. He found
+the number and knocked on the door. Laughter and loud talking came from
+inside the stateroom.
+
+"Wait a sec!" came an unfamiliar voice.
+
+"Sergeant Olster here?"
+
+"Oh, it's one o' my gang," came the sergeant's voice. "Let him in. He
+won't peach on us."
+
+The door opened and he saw Sergeant Olster and two other young men
+sitting with their feet dangling over the red varnished boards that
+enclosed the bunks. They were talking gaily, and had glasses in their
+hands.
+
+"Paris is some town, I can tell you," one was saying. "They say the
+girls come up an' put their arms round you right in the main street."
+
+"Here's the records, sergeant," said Fuselli stiffly in his best
+military manner.
+
+"Oh thanks.... There's nothing else I want," said the sergeant, his
+voice more jovial than ever. "Don't fall overboard like the guy in
+Company C."
+
+Fuselli laughed as he closed the door, growing serious suddenly on
+noticing that one of the young men wore in his shirt the gold bar of a
+second lieutenant.
+
+"Gee," he said to himself. "I ought to have saluted."
+
+He waited a moment outside the closed door of the stateroom, listening
+to the talk and the laughter, wishing he were one of that merry group
+talking about women in Paris. He began thinking. Sure he'd get private
+first-class as soon as they got overseas. Then in a couple of months he
+might be corporal. If they saw much service, he'd move along all right,
+once he got to be a non-com.
+
+"Oh, I mustn't get in wrong. Oh, I mustn't get in wrong," he kept saying
+to himself as he went down the ladder into the hold. But he forgot
+everything in the seasickness that came on again as he breathed in the
+fetid air.
+
+
+
+The deck now slanted down in front of him, now rose so that he was
+walking up an incline. Dirty water slushed about from one side of the
+passage to the other with every lurch of the ship. When he reached the
+door the whistling howl of the wind through the hinges and cracks made
+Fuselli hesitate a long time with his hand on the knob. The moment he
+turned the knob the door flew open and he was in the full sweep of the
+wind. The deck was deserted. The wet ropes strung along it shivered
+dismally in the wind. Every other moment came the rattle of spray, that
+rose up in white fringy trees to windward and smashed against him like
+hail. Without closing the door he crept forward along the deck, clinging
+as hard as he could to the icy rope. Beyond the spray he could see huge
+marbled green waves rise in constant succession out of the mist. The
+roar of the wind in his ears confused him and terrified him. It seemed
+ages before he reached the door of the forward house that opened on a
+passage that smelt of drugs; and breathed out air, where men waited in
+a packed line, thrown one against the other by the lurching of the boat,
+to get into the dispensary. The roar of the wind came to them faintly,
+and only now and then the hollow thump of a wave against the bow.
+
+"You sick?" a man asked Fuselli.
+
+"Naw, I'm not sick; but Sarge sent me to get some stuff for some guys
+that's too sick to move."
+
+"An awful lot o' sickness on this boat."
+
+"Two fellers died this mornin' in that there room," said another man
+solemnly, pointing over his shoulder with a jerk of the thumb. "Ain't
+buried 'em yet. It's too rough."
+
+"What'd they die of?" asked Fuselli eagerly.
+
+"Spinal somethin'...."
+
+"Menegitis," broke in a man at the end of the line.
+
+"Say, that's awful catchin' ain't it?"
+
+"It sure is."
+
+"Where does it hit yer?" asked Fuselli.
+
+"Yer neck swells up, an' then you juss go stiff all over," came the
+man's voice from the end of the line.
+
+There was a silence. From the direction of the infirmary a man with a
+packet of medicines in his hand began making his way towards the door.
+
+"Many guys in there?" asked Fuselli in a low voice as the man brushed
+past him.
+
+When the door closed again the man beside Fuselli, who was tall and
+broad shouldered with heavy black eyebrows, burst out, as if he were
+saying something he'd been trying to keep from saying for a long while:
+
+"It won't be right if that sickness gets me; indeed it won't.... I've
+got a girl waitin' for me at home. It's two years since I ain't touched
+a woman all on account of her. It ain't natural for a fellow to go so
+long as that.
+
+"Why didn't you marry her before you left?" somebody asked mockingly.
+
+"Said she didn't want to be no war bride, that she could wait for me
+better if I didn't."
+
+Several men laughed.
+
+"It wouldn't be right if I took sick an' died of this sickness, after
+keepin' myself clean on account of that girl.... It wouldn't be right,"
+the man muttered again to Fuselli.
+
+Fuselli was picturing himself lying in his bunk with a swollen neck,
+while his arms and legs stiffened, stiffened.
+
+A red-faced man half way up the passage started speaking:
+
+"When I thinks to myself how much the folks need me home, it makes
+me feel sort o' confident-like, I dunno why. I juss can't cash in my
+checks, that's all." He laughed jovially.
+
+No one joined in the laugh.
+
+"Is it awfully catchin'?" asked Fuselli of the man next him.
+
+"Most catchin' thing there is," he answered solemnly. "The worst of
+it is," another man was muttering in a shrill hysterical voice, "bein'
+thrown over to the sharks. Gee, they ain't got a right to do that, even
+if it is war time, they ain't got a right to treat a Christian like he
+was a dead dawg."
+
+"They got a right to do anythin' they goddam please, buddy. Who's goin'
+to stop 'em I'd like to know," cried the red-faced man.
+
+"If he was an awficer, they wouldn't throw him over like that," came the
+shrill hysterical voice again.
+
+"Cut that," said someone else, "no use gettin' in wrong juss for the
+sake of talkin'."
+
+"But ain't it dangerous, waitin' round up here so near where those
+fellers are with that sickness," whispered Fuselli to the man next him.
+
+"Reckon it is, buddy," came the other man's voice dully.
+
+Fuselli started making his way toward the door.
+
+"Lemme out, fellers, I've got to puke," he said. "Shoot," he was
+thinking, "I'll tell 'em the place was closed; they'll never come to
+look."
+
+As he opened the door he thought of himself crawling back to his bunk
+and feeling his neck swell and his hands burn with fever and his arms
+and legs stiffen until everything would be effaced in the blackness
+of death. But the roar of the wind and the lash of the spray as he
+staggered back along the deck drowned all other thought.
+
+
+
+Fuselli and another man carried the dripping garbage-can up the ladder
+that led up from the mess hall. It smelt of rancid grease and coffee
+grounds and greasy juice trickled over their fingers as they struggled
+with it. At last they burst out on to the deck where a free wind blew
+out of the black night. They staggered unsteadily to the rail and
+emptied the pail into the darkness. The splash was lost in the sound of
+the waves and of churned water fleeing along the sides. Fuselli leaned
+over the rail and looked down at the faint phosphorescence that was
+the only light in the whole black gulf. He had never seen such darkness
+before. He clutched hold of the rail with both hands, feeling lost and
+terrified in the blackness, in the roaring of the wind in his ears
+and the sound of churned water fleeing astern. The alternative was the
+stench of below decks.
+
+"I'll bring down the rosie, don't you bother," he said to the other man,
+kicking the can that gave out a ringing sound as he spoke.
+
+He strained his eyes to make out something. The darkness seemed to press
+in upon his eyeballs, blinding him. Suddenly he noticed voices near him.
+Two men were talking.
+
+"I ain't never seen the sea before this, I didn't know it was like
+this."
+
+"We're in the zone, now."
+
+"That means we may go down any minute."
+
+"Yare."
+
+"Christ, how black it is.... It'ld be awful to drown in the dark like
+this."
+
+"It'ld be over soon."
+
+"Say, Fred, have you ever been so skeered that...?"
+
+"D'you feel a-skeert?"
+
+"Feel my hand, Fred.... No.... There it is. God, it's so hellish black
+you can't see yer own hand."
+
+"It's cold. Why are you shiverin' so? God, I wish I had a drink."
+
+"I ain't never seen the sea before...I didn't know..."
+
+Fuselli heard distinctly the man's teeth chattering in the darkness.
+
+"God, pull yerself together, kid. You can't be skeered like this."
+
+"O God."
+
+There was a long pause. Fuselli heard nothing but the churned water
+speeding along the ship's side and the wind roaring in his ears.
+
+"I ain't never seen the sea before this time, Fred, an' it sort o'
+gits my goat, all this sickness an' all.... They dropped three of 'em
+overboard yesterday."
+
+"Hell, kid, don't think of it."
+
+"Say, Fred, if I... if I... if you're saved, Fred, an' not me, you'll
+write to my folks, won't you?"
+
+"Indeed I will. But I reckon you an' me'll both go down together."
+
+"Don't say that. An' you won't forget to write that girl I gave you the
+address of?"
+
+"You'll do the same for me."
+
+"Oh, no, Fred, I'll never see land.... Oh, it's no use. An' I feel so
+well an' husky.... I don't want to die. I can't die like this."
+
+"If it only wasn't so goddam black."
+
+
+
+
+PART TWO: THE METAL COOLS                            I
+
+It was purplish dusk outside the window. The rain fell steadily making
+long flashing stripes on the cracked panes, beating a hard monotonous
+tattoo on the tin roof overhead. Fuselli had taken off his wet slicker
+and stood in front of the window looking out dismally at the rain.
+Behind him was the smoking stove into which a man was poking wood, and
+beyond that a few broken folding chairs on which soldiers sprawled in
+attitudes of utter boredom, and the counter where the "Y" man stood with
+a set smile doling out chocolate to a line of men that filed past.
+
+"Gee, you have to line up for everything here, don't you?" Fuselli
+muttered.
+
+"That's about all you do do in this hell-hole, buddy," said a man beside
+him.
+
+The man pointed with his thumb at the window and said again:
+
+"See that rain? Well, I been in this camp three weeks and it ain't
+stopped rainin' once. What d'yer think of that fer a country?"
+
+"It certainly ain't like home," said Fuselli. "I'm going to have some
+chauclate."
+
+"It's damn rotten."
+
+"I might as well try it once."
+
+Fuselli slouched over to the end of the line and stood waiting his turn.
+He was thinking of the steep streets of San Francisco and the glimpses
+he used to get of the harbor full of yellow lights, the color of amber
+in a cigarette holder, as he went home from work through the blue dusk.
+He had begun to think of Mabe handing him the five-pound box of candy
+when his attention was distracted by the talk of the men behind him. The
+man next to him was speaking with hurried nervous intonation. Fuselli
+could feel his breath on the back of his neck.
+
+"I'll be goddamned," the man said, "was you there too? Where d'you get
+yours?"
+
+"In the leg; it's about all right, though."
+
+"I ain't. I won't never be all right. The doctor says I'm all right now,
+but I know I'm not, the lyin' fool."
+
+"Some time, wasn't it?"
+
+"I'll be damned to hell if I do it again. I can't sleep at night
+thinkin' of the shape of the Fritzies' helmets. Have you ever thought
+that there was somethin' about the shape of them goddam helmets...?"
+
+"Ain't they just or'nary shapes?" asked Fuselli, half turning round. "I
+seen 'em in the movies." He laughed apologetically.
+
+"Listen to the rookie, Tub, he's seen 'em in the movies!" said the man
+with the nervous twitch in his voice, laughing a croaking little laugh.
+"How long you been in this country, buddy?"
+
+"Two days."
+
+"Well, we only been here two months, ain't we, Tub?"
+
+"Four months; you're forgettin', kid."
+
+The "Y" man turned his set smile on Fuselli while he filled his tin cup
+up with chocolate.
+
+"How much?"
+
+"A franc; one of those looks like a quarter," said the "Y" man, his
+well-fed voice full of amiable condescension.
+
+"That's a hell of a lot for a cup of chauclate," said Fuselli.
+
+"You're at the war, young man, remember that," said the "Y" man
+severely. "You're lucky to get it at all."
+
+A cold chill gripped Fuselli's spine as he went back to the stove to
+drink the chocolate. Of course he mustn't crab. He was in the war
+now. If the sergeant had heard him crabbing, it might have spoiled his
+chances for a corporalship. He must be careful. If he just watched out
+and kept on his toes, he'd be sure to get it.
+
+"And why ain't there no more chocolate, I want to know?" the nervous
+voice of the man who had stood in line behind Fuselli rose to a sudden
+shriek. Everybody looked round. The "Y" man was moving his head from
+side to side in a flustered way, saying in a shrill little voice:
+
+"I've told you there's no more. Go away!"
+
+"You ain't got no right to tell me to go away. You got to get me some
+chocolate. You ain't never been at the front, you goddam slacker." The
+man was yelling at the top of his lungs. He had hold of the counter with
+two hands and swayed from side to side. His friend was trying to pull
+him away.
+
+"Look here, none of that, I'll report you," said the "Y" man. "Is there
+a non-commissioned officer in the hut?"
+
+"Go ahead, you can't do nothin'. I can't never have nothing done worse
+than what's been done to me already." The man's voice had reached a
+sing-song fury.
+
+"Is there a non-commissioned officer in the room?" The "Y" man kept
+looking from side to side. His little eyes were hard and spiteful and
+his lips were drawn up in a thin straight line.
+
+"Keep quiet, I'll get him away," said the other man in a low voice.
+"Can't you see he's not...?"
+
+A strange terror took hold of Fuselli. He hadn't expected things to be
+like that. When he had sat in the grandstand in the training camp
+and watched the jolly soldiers in khaki marching into towns, pursuing
+terrified Huns across potato fields, saving Belgian milk-maids against
+picturesque backgrounds.
+
+"Does many of 'em come back that way?" he asked a man beside him.
+
+"Some do. It's this convalescent camp." The man and his friend stood
+side by side near the stove talking in low voices.
+
+"Pull yourself together, kid," the friend was saying.
+
+"All right, Tub; I'm all right now, Tub. That slacker got my goat, that
+was all."
+
+Fuselli was looking at him curiously. He had a yellow parchment face and
+a high, gaunt forehead going up to sparse, curly brown hair. His eyes
+had a glassy look about them when they met Fuselli's. He smiled amiably.
+
+"Oh, there's the kid who's seen Fritzies' helmets in the movies.... Come
+on, buddy, come and have a beer at the English canteen."
+
+"Can you get beer?"
+
+"Sure, over in the English camp." They went out into the slanting
+rain. It was nearly dark, but the sky had a purplish-red color that was
+reflected a little on the slanting sides of tents and on the roofs
+of the rows of sheds that disappeared into the rainy mist in every
+direction. A few lights gleamed, a very bright polished yellow. They
+followed a board-walk that splashed mud up from the puddles under the
+tramp of their heavy boots.
+
+At one place they flattened themselves against the wet flap of a tent
+and saluted as an officer passed waving a little cane jauntily.
+
+"How long does a fellow usually stay in these rest camps?" asked
+Fuselli.
+
+"Depends on what's goin' on out there," said Tub, pointing carelessly to
+the sky beyond the peaks of the tents.
+
+"You'll leave here soon enough. Don't you worry, buddy," said the man
+with the nervous voice. "What you in?"
+
+"Medical Replacement Unit."
+
+"A medic are you? Those boys didn't last long at the Chateau, did they,
+Tub?"
+
+"No, they didn't."
+
+Something inside Fuselli was protesting; "I'll last out though. I'll
+last out though."
+
+"Do you remember the fellers went out to get poor ole Corporal Jones,
+Tub? I'll be goddamned if anybody ever found a button of their pants."
+He laughed his creaky little laugh. "They got in the way of a torpedo."
+
+The "wet" canteen was full of smoke and a cosy steam of beer. It was
+crowded with red-faced men, with shiny brass buttons on their khaki
+uniforms, among whom was a good sprinkling of lanky Americans.
+
+"Tommies," said Fuselli to himself.
+
+After standing in line a while, Fuselli's cup was handed back to him
+across the counter, foaming with beer.
+
+"Hello, Fuselli," Meadville clapped him on the shoulder. "You found the
+liquor pretty damn quick, looks like to me."
+
+Fuselli laughed.
+
+"May I sit with you fellers?"
+
+"Sure, come along," said Fuselli proudly, "these guys have been to the
+front."
+
+"You have?" asked Meadville. "The Huns are pretty good scrappers, they
+say. Tell me, do you use your rifle much, or is it mostly big gun work?"
+
+"Naw; after all the months I spent learnin' how to drill with my goddam
+rifle, I'll be a sucker if I've used it once. I'm in the grenade squad."
+
+Someone at the end of the room had started singing:
+
+"O Mademerselle from Armenteers,      Parley voo!"
+
+The man with the nervous voice went on talking, while the song roared
+about them.
+
+"I don't spend a night without thinkin' o' them funny helmets the
+Fritzies wear. Have you ever thought that there was something goddam
+funny about the shape o' them helmets?"
+
+"Can the helmets, kid," said his friend. "You told us all about them
+onct."
+
+"I ain't told you why I can't forgit 'em, have I?"
+
+     "A German officer crossed the Rhine;
+          Parley voo?
+      A German officer crossed the Rhine;
+      He loved the women and liked the wine;
+          Hanky Panky, parley voo.... "
+
+"Listen to this, fellers," said the man in his twitching nervous voice,
+staring straight into Fuselli's eyes. "We made a little attack to
+straighten out our trenches a bit just before I got winged. Our barrage
+cut off a bit of Fritzie's trench an' we ran right ahead juss about dawn
+an' occupied it. I'll be goddamned if it wasn't as quiet as a Sunday
+morning at home."
+
+"It was!" said his friend.
+
+"An' I had a bunch of grenades an' a feller came runnin' up to me,
+whisperin', 'There's a bunch of Fritzies playin' cards in a dugout. They
+don't seem to know they're captured. We'd better take 'em pris'ners!"
+
+"'Pris'ners, hell,' says I, 'We'll go and clear the buggars out.' So we
+crept along to the steps and looked down.... "
+
+The song had started again:
+
+      "O Mademerselle from Armenteers,
+             Parley voo?
+
+"Their helmets looked so damn like toadstools I came near laughin'. An'
+they sat round the lamp layin' down the cards serious-like, the way I've
+seen Germans do in the Rathskeller at home."
+
+      "He loved the women and liked the wine,
+             Parley voo?
+
+"I lay there lookin' at 'em for a hell of a time, an' then I clicked a
+grenade an' tossed it gently down the steps. An' all those funny helmets
+like toadstools popped up in the air an' somebody gave a yell an' the
+light went out an' the damn grenade went off. Then I let 'em have the
+rest of 'em an' went away 'cause one o' 'em was still moanin'-like. It
+was about that time they let their barrage down on us and I got mine."
+
+     "The Yanks are havin' a hell of a time,
+            Parley voo?
+
+"An' the first thing I thought of when I woke up was how those goddam
+helmets looked. It upsets a feller to think of a thing like that." His
+voice ended in a whine like the broken voice of a child that has been
+beaten.
+
+"You need to pull yourself together, kid," said his friend.
+
+"I know what I need, Tub. I need a woman."
+
+"You know where you get one?" asked Meadville. "I'd like to get me a
+nice little French girl a rainy night like this."
+
+"It must be a hell of a ways to the town.... They say it's full of M.
+P.'s too," said Fuselli.
+
+"I know a way," said the man with the nervous voice, "Come on; Tub."
+
+"No, I've had enough of these goddam frog women."
+
+They all left the canteen.
+
+As the two men went off down the side of the building, Fuselli heard the
+nervous twitching voice through the metallic patter of the rain:
+
+"I can't find no way of forgettin' how funny the helmets looked all
+round the lamp... I can't find no way.... "
+
+
+
+Bill Grey and Fuselli pooled their blankets and slept together. They lay
+on the hard floor of the tent very close to each other, listening to the
+rain pattering endlessly on the drenched canvas that slanted above their
+heads.
+
+"Hell, Bill, I'm gettin' pneumonia," said Fuselli, clearing his nose.
+
+"That's the only thing that scares me in the whole goddam business. I'd
+hate to die o' sickness... an' they say another kid's kicked off with
+that--what d'they call it?--menegitis."
+
+"Was that what was the matter with Stein?"
+
+"The corporal won't say."
+
+"Ole Corp. looks sort o' sick himself," said Fuselli.
+
+"It's this rotten climate" whispered Bill Grey, in the middle of a fit
+of coughing.
+
+"For cat's sake quit that coughin'. Let a feller sleep," came a voice
+from the other side of the tent.
+
+"Go an' get a room in a hotel if you don't like it."
+
+"That's it, Bill, tell him where to get off."
+
+"If you fellers don't quit yellin', I'll put the whole blame lot of you
+on K. P.," came the sergeant's good-natured voice.
+
+"Don't you know that taps has blown?"
+
+The tent was silent except for the fast patter of the rain and Bill
+Grey's coughing.
+
+"That sergeant gives me a pain in the neck," muttered Bill Grey
+peevishly, when his coughing had stopped, wriggling about under the
+blankets.
+
+After a while Fuselli said in a very low voice, so that no one but his
+friend should hear:
+
+"Say, Bill, ain't it different from what we thought it was going to be?"
+
+"Yare."
+
+"I mean fellers don't seem to think about beatin' the Huns at all,
+they're so busy crabbin' on everything."
+
+"It's the guys higher up that does the thinkin'," said Grey
+grandiloquently.
+
+"Hell, but I thought it'd be excitin' like in the movies."
+
+"I guess that was a lot o' talk."
+
+"Maybe."
+
+Fuselli went to sleep on the hard floor, feeling the comfortable warmth
+of Grey's body along the side of him, hearing the endless, monotonous
+patter of the rain on the drenched canvas above his head. He tried to
+stay awake a minute to remember what Mabe looked like, but sleep closed
+down on him suddenly.
+
+The bugle wrenched them out of their blankets before it was light. It
+was not raining. The air was raw and full of white mist that was cold as
+snow against their faces still warm from sleep. The corporal called the
+roll, lighting matches to read the list. When he dismissed the formation
+the sergeant's voice was heard from the tent, where he still lay rolled
+in his blankets.
+
+"Say, Corp, go an' tell Fuselli to straighten out Lieutenant Stanford's
+room at eight sharp in Officers' Barracks, Number Four."
+
+"Did you hear, Fuselli?"
+
+"All right," said Fuselli. His blood boiled up suddenly. This was the
+first time he'd had to do servants' work. He hadn't joined the army to
+be a slavey to any damned first loot. It was against army regulations
+anyway. He'd go and kick. He wasn't going to be a slavey.... He walked
+towards the door of the tent, thinking what he'd say to the sergeant.
+But he noticed the corporal coughing into his handkerchief with an
+expression of pain on his face. He turned and strolled away. It would
+get him in wrong if he started kicking like that. Much better shut his
+mouth and put up with it. The poor old corp couldn't last long at this
+rate. No, it wouldn't do to get in wrong.
+
+At eight, Fuselli, with a broom in his hand, feeling dull fury pounding
+and fluttering within him, knocked on the unpainted board door.
+
+"Who's that?"
+
+"To clean the room, sir," said Fuselli. "Come back in about twenty
+minutes," came the voice of the lieutenant.
+
+"All right, sir."
+
+Fuselli leaned against the back of the barracks and smoked a cigarette.
+The air stung his hands as if they had been scraped by a nutmeg-grater.
+Twenty minutes passed slowly. Despair seized hold of him. He was so far
+from anyone who cared about him, so lost in the vast machine. He was
+telling himself that he'd never get on, would never get up where he
+could show what he was good for. He felt as if he were in a treadmill.
+Day after day it would be like this,--the same routine, the same
+helplessness. He looked at his watch. Twenty-five minutes had passed. He
+picked up his broom and moved round to the lieutenant's room.
+
+"Come in," said the lieutenant carelessly. He was in his shirtsleeves,
+shaving. A pleasant smell of shaving soap filled the dark clapboard
+room, which had no furniture but three cots and some officers' trunks.
+He was a red-faced young man with flabby cheeks and dark straight
+eyebrows. He had taken command of the company only a day or two before.
+
+"Looks like a decent feller," thought Fuselli.
+
+"What's your name?" asked the lieutenant, speaking into the small nickel
+mirror, while he ran the safety razor obliquely across his throat. He
+stuttered a little. To Fuselli he seemed to speak like an Englishman.
+
+"Fuselli."
+
+"Italian parentage, I presume?"
+
+"Yes," said Fuselli sullenly, dragging one of the cots away from the
+wall.
+
+"Parla Italiano?"
+
+"You mean, do I speak Eyetalian? Naw, sir," said Fuselli emphatically,
+"I was born in Frisco."
+
+"Indeed? But get me some more water, will you, please?"
+
+When Fuselli came back, he stood with his broom between his knees,
+blowing on his hands that were blue and stiff from carrying the heavy
+bucket. The lieutenant was dressed and was hooking the top hook of the
+uniform carefully. The collar made a red mark on his pink throat.
+
+"All right; when you're through, report back to the Company." The
+lieutenant went out, drawing on a pair of khaki-colored gloves with a
+satisfied and important gesture.
+
+Fuselli walked back slowly to the tents where the Company was quartered,
+looking about him at the long lines of barracks, gaunt and dripping in
+the mist, at the big tin sheds of the cook shacks where the cooks and K.
+P.'s in greasy blue denims were slouching about amid a steam of cooking
+food.
+
+Something of the gesture with which the lieutenant drew on his gloves
+caught in the mind of Fuselli. He had seen peoople make gestures
+like that in the movies, stout dignified people in evening suits. The
+president of the Company that owned the optical goods store, where he
+had worked, at home in Frisco, had had something of that gesture about
+him.
+
+And he pictured himself drawing on a pair of gloves that way,
+importantly, finger by finger, with a little wave, of self-satisfaction
+when the gesture was completed.... He'd have to get that corporalship.
+
+"There's a long, long trail a-winding Through no man's land in France."
+
+The company sang lustily as it splashed through the mud down a grey road
+between high fences covered with great tangles of barbed wire, above
+which peeked the ends of warehouses and the chimneys of factories.
+
+The lieutenant and the top sergeant walked side by side chatting, now
+and then singing a little of the song in a deprecating way. The corporal
+sang, his eyes sparkling with delight. Even the sombre sergeant who
+rarely spoke to anyone, sang. The company strode along, its ninety-six
+legs splashing jauntily through the deep putty-colored puddles. The
+packs swayed merrily from side to side as if it were they and not the
+legs that were walking.
+
+"There's a long, long trail a-winding Through no man's land in France."
+
+At last they were going somewhere. They had separated from the
+contingent they had come over with. They were all alone now. They were
+going to be put to work. The lieutenant strode along importantly.
+The sergeant strode along importantly. The corporal strode along
+importantly. The right guard strode along more importantly than anyone.
+A sense of importance, of something tremendous to do, animated the
+company like wine, made the packs and the belts seem less heavy, made
+their necks and shoulders less stiff from struggling with the weight of
+the packs, made the ninety-six legs tramp jauntily in spite of the oozy
+mud and the deep putty-colored puddles.
+
+It was cold in the dark shed of the freight station where they waited.
+Some gas lamps flickered feebly high up among the rafters, lighting up
+in a ghastly way white piles of ammunition boxes and ranks and ranks of
+shells that disappeared in the darkness. The raw air was full of
+coal smoke and a smell of freshly-cut boards. The captain and the top
+sergeant had disappeared. The men sat about, huddled in groups, sinking
+as far as they could into their overcoats, stamping their numb wet feet
+on the mud-covered cement of the floor. The sliding doors were shut.
+Through them came a monotonous sound of cars shunting, of buffers
+bumping against buffers, and now and then the shrill whistle of an
+engine.
+
+"Hell, the French railroads are rotten," said someone.
+
+"How d'you know?" snapped Eisenstein, who sat on a box away from the
+rest with his lean face in his hands staring at his mud-covered boots.
+
+"Look at this," Bill Grey made a disgusted gesture towards the ceiling.
+"Gas. Don't even have electric light."
+
+"Their trains run faster than ours," said Eisenstein.
+
+"The hell they do. Why, a fellow back in that rest camp told me that it
+took four or five days to get anywhere."
+
+"He was stuffing you," said Eisenstein. "They used to run the fastest
+trains in the world in France."
+
+"Not so fast as the 'Twentieth Century.' Goddam, I'm a railroad man and
+I know."
+
+"I want five men to help me sort out the eats," said the top sergeant,
+coming suddenly out of the shadows. "Fuselli, Grey, Eisenstein,
+Meadville, Williams... all right, come along."
+
+"Say, Sarge, this guy says that frog trains are faster than our trains.
+What d'ye think o' that?"
+
+The sergeant put on his comic expression. Everybody got ready to laugh.
+
+"Well, if he'd rather take the side-door Pullmans we're going to get
+aboard tonight than the 'Sunset Limited,' he's welcome. I've seen 'em.
+You fellers haven't."
+
+Everybody laughed. The top sergeant turned confidentially to the five
+men who followed him into a small well-lighted room that looked like a
+freight office.
+
+"We've got to sort out the grub, fellers. See those cases? That's three
+days' rations for the outfit. I want to sort it into three lots, one for
+each car. Understand?"
+
+Fuselli pulled open one of the boxes. The cans of bully beef flew under
+his fingers. He kept looking out of the corner of his eye at Eisenstein,
+who seemed very skilful in a careless way. The top sergeant stood
+beaming at them with his legs wide apart. Once he said something in
+a low voice to the corporal. Fuselli thought he caught the words:
+"privates first-class," and his heart started thumping hard. In a few
+minutes the job was done, and everybody stood about lighting cigarettes.
+
+"Well, fellers," said Sergeant Jones, the sombre man who rarely spoke,
+"I certainly didn't reckon when I used to be teachin' and preachin' and
+tendin' Sunday School and the like that I'd come to be usin' cuss words,
+but I think we got a damn good company."
+
+"Oh, we'll have you sayin' worse things than 'damn' when we get you out
+on the front with a goddam German aeroplane droppin' bombs on you," said
+the top sergeant, slapping him on the back. "Now, I want you five men to
+look out for the grub." Fuselli's chest swelled. "The company'll be in
+charge of the corporal for the night. Sergeant Jones and I have got to
+be with the lieutenant, understand?"
+
+They all walked back to the dingy room where the rest of the company
+waited huddled in their coats, trying to keep their importance from
+being too obvious in their step.
+
+"I've really started now," thought Fuselli to himself. "I've really
+started now."
+
+
+
+The bare freight car clattered and rumbled monotonously over the rails.
+A bitter cold wind blew up through the cracks in the grimy splintered
+boards of the floor. The men huddled in the corners of the car, curled
+up together like puppies in a box. It was pitch black. Fuselli lay half
+asleep, his head full of curious fragmentary dreams, feeling through his
+sleep the aching cold and the unending clattering rumble of the wheels
+and the bodies and arms and legs muffled in coats and blankets pressing
+against him. He woke up with a start. His teeth were chattering. The
+clanking rumble of wheels seemed to be in his head. His head was being
+dragged along, bumping over cold iron rails. Someone lighted a match.
+The freight car's black swaying walls, the packs piled in the center,
+the bodies heaped in the corners where, out of khaki masses here and
+there gleamed an occasional white face or a pair of eyes--all showed
+clear for a moment and then vanished again in the utter blackness.
+Fuselli pillowed his head in the crook of someone's arm and tried to go
+to sleep, but the scraping rumble of wheels over rails was too loud;
+he stayed with open eyes staring into the blackness, trying to draw his
+body away from the blast of cold air that blew up through a crack in the
+floor.
+
+When the first greyness began filtering into the car, they all stood up
+and stamped and pounded each other and wrestled to get warm.
+
+When it was nearly light, the train stopped and they opened the sliding
+doors. They were in a station, a foreign-looking station where the walls
+were plastered with unfamiliar advertisements. "V-E-R-S-A-I-L-L-E-S";
+Fuselli spelt out the name.
+
+"Versales," said Eisenstein. "That's where the kings of France used to
+live."
+
+The train started moving again slowly. On the platform stood the top
+sergeant.
+
+"How d'ye sleep," he shouted as the car passed him. "Say, Fuselli,
+better start some grub going."
+
+"All right, Sarge," said Fuselli.
+
+The sergeant ran back to the front of the car and climbed on. With a
+delicious feeling of leadership, Fuselli divided up the bread and the
+cans of bully beef and the cheese. Then he sat on his pack eating dry
+bread and unsavoury beef, whistling joyfully, while the train
+rumbled and clattered along through a strange, misty-green
+countryside,--whistling joyfully because he was going to the front,
+where there would be glory and excitement, whistling joyfully because he
+felt he was getting along in the world.
+
+
+
+It was noon. A pallid little sun like a toy balloon hung low in the
+reddish-grey sky. The train had stopped on a siding in the middle of a
+russet plain. Yellow poplars, faint as mist, rose slender against the
+sky along a black shining stream that swirled beside the track. In
+the distance a steeple and a few red roofs were etched faintly in the
+greyness.
+
+The men stood about balancing first on one foot and then on the other,
+stamping to get warm. On the other side of the river an old man with an
+oxcart had stopped and was looking sadly at the train.
+
+"Say, where's the front?" somebody shouted to him.
+
+Everybody took up the cry; "Say, where's the front?"
+
+The old man waved his hand, shook his head and shouted to the oxen. The
+oxen took up again their quiet processional gait and the old man walked
+ahead of them, his eyes on the ground.
+
+"Say, ain't the frogs dumb?"
+
+"Say, Dan," said Bill Grey, strolling away from a group of men he had
+been talking to. "These guys say we are going to the Third Army."
+
+"Say, fellers," shouted Fuselli. "They say we're going to the Third
+Army."
+
+"Where's that?"
+
+"In the Oregon forest," ventured somebody.
+
+"That's at the front, ain't it?"
+
+At that moment the lieutenant strode by. A long khaki muffler was thrown
+carelessly round his neck and hung down his back.
+
+"Look here, men," he said severely, "the orders are to stay in the
+cars."
+
+The men slunk back into the cars sullenly.
+
+A hospital train passed, clanking slowly over the cross-tracks. Fuselli
+looked fixedly at the dark enigmatic windows, at the red crosses, at
+the orderlies in white who leaned out of the doors, waving their hands.
+Somebody noticed that there were scars on the new green paint of the
+last car.
+
+"The Huns have been shooting at it."
+
+"D'ye hear that? The Huns tried to shoot up that hospital train."
+
+Fuselli remembered the pamphlet "German Atrocities" he had read one
+night in the Y. M. C. A. His mind became suddenly filled with pictures
+of children with their arms cut off, of babies spitted on bayonets,
+of women strapped on tables and violated by soldier after soldier. He
+thought of Mabe. He wished he were in a combatant service; he wanted
+to fight, fight. He pictured himself shooting dozens of men in green
+uniforms, and he thought of Mabe reading about it in the papers. He'd
+have to try to get into a combatant service. No, he couldn't stay in the
+medics.
+
+The train had started again. Misty russet fields slipped by and dark
+clumps of trees that gyrated slowly waving branches of yellow and brown
+leaves and patches of black lace-work against the reddish-grey sky.
+Fuselli was thinking of the good chance he had of getting to be
+corporal.
+
+
+
+At night. A dim-lighted station platform. The company waited in two
+lines, each man sitting on his pack. On the opposite platform crowds
+of little men in blue with mustaches and long, soiled overcoats that
+reached almost to their feet were shouting and singing. Fuselli watched
+them with a faint disgust.
+
+"Gee, they got funny lookin' helmets, ain't they?"
+
+"They're the best fighters in the world," said Eisenstein, "not that
+that's sayin' much about a man."
+
+"Say, that's an M. P.," said Bill Grey, catching Fuselli's arm. "Let's
+go ask him how near the front we are. I thought I heard guns a minute
+ago."
+
+"Did you? I guess we're in for it now," said Fuselli. "Say, buddy, how
+near the front are we?" they spoke together excitedly.
+
+"The front?" said the M. P., who was a red-faced Irishman with a
+crushed nose. "You're 'way back in the middle of France." The M. P.
+spat disgustedly. "You fellers ain't never goin' to the front, don't you
+worry."
+
+"Hell!" said Fuselli.
+
+"I'll be goddamned if I don't get there somehow," said Bill Grey,
+squaring his jaw.
+
+A fine rain was falling on the unprotected platform. On the other side
+the little men in blue were singing a song Fuselli could not understand,
+drinking out of their ungainly-looking canteens.
+
+Fuselli announced the news to the company. Everybody clustered round
+him cursing. But the faint sense of importance it gave him did not
+compensate for the feeling he had of being lost in the machine, of being
+as helpless as a sheep in a flock. Hours passed. They stamped about the
+platform in the fine rain or sat in a row on their packs, waiting for
+orders. A grey belt appeared behind the trees. The platform began to
+take on a silvery gleam. They sat in a row on their packs, waiting.
+
+
+
+                             II
+
+The company stood at attention lined up outside of their barracks, a
+long wooden shack covered with tar paper, in front of them was a row of
+dishevelled plane trees with white trunks that looked like ivory in the
+faint ruddy sunlight. Then there was a rutted road on which stood a
+long line of French motor trucks with hunched grey backs like elephants.
+Beyond these were more plane trees and another row of barracks covered
+with tar paper, outside of which other companies were lined up standing
+at attention.
+
+A bugle was sounding far away.
+
+The lieutenant stood at attention very stiffly. Fuselli's eyes followed
+the curves of his brilliantly-polished puttees up to the braid on his
+sleeves.
+
+"Parade rest!" shouted the lieutenant in a muffled voice.
+
+Feet and hands moved in unison.
+
+Fuselli was thinking of the town. After retreat you could go down the
+irregular cobbled street from the old fair-ground where the camp was
+to a little square where there was a grey stone fountain and a gin-mill
+where you could sit at an oak table and have beer and eggs and fried
+potatoes served you by a girl with red cheeks and plump white appetizing
+arms.
+
+"Attention!"
+
+Feet and hands moved in unison again. They could hardly hear the bugle,
+it was so faint.
+
+"Men, I have some appointments to announce," said the lieutenant, facing
+the company and taking on an easy conversational tone. "At rest!...
+You've done good work in the storehouse here, men. I'm glad I have such
+a willing bunch of men under me. And I certainly hope that we can manage
+to make as many promotions as possible--as many as possible."
+
+Fuselli's hands were icy, and his heart was pumping the blood so fast to
+his ears that he could hardly hear.
+
+"The following privates to private first-class, read the lieutenant in
+a routine voice: "Grey, Appleton, Williams, Eisenstein,
+Porter...Eisenstein will be company clerk.... " Fuselli was almost ready
+to cry. His name was not on the list. The sergeant's voice came after a
+long pause, smooth as velvet.
+
+"You forget Fuselli, sir."
+
+"Oh, so I did," the lieutenant laughed--a small dry laugh.--"And
+Fuselli."
+
+"Gee, I must write Mabe tonight," Fuselli was saying to himself. "She'll
+be a proud kid when she gets that letter."
+
+"Companee dis... missed!", shouted the sergeant genially.
+
+     "O Madermoiselle from Armenteers,
+           Parley voo?
+      O Madermoiselle from Armenteers,
+
+struck up the sergeant in his mellow voice.
+
+The front room of the cafe was full of soldiers. Their khaki hid the
+worn oak benches and the edges of the square tables and the red tiles
+of the floor. They clustered round the tables, where glasses and bottles
+gleamed vaguely through the tobacco smoke. They stood in front of the
+bar, drinking out of bottles, laughing, scraping their feet on
+the floor. A stout girl with red cheeks and plump white arms moved
+contentedly among them, carrying away empty bottles, bringing back full
+ones, taking the money to a grim old woman with a grey face and eyes
+like bits of jet, who stared carefully at each coin, fingered it with
+her grey hands and dropped it reluctantly into the cash drawer. In the
+corner sat Sergeant Olster with a flush on his face, and the corporal
+who had been on the Red Sox outfield and another sergeant, a big
+man with black hair and a black mustache. About them clustered, with
+approbation and respect in their faces, Fuselli, Bill Grey and
+Meadville the cowboy, and Earl Williams, the blue-eyed and yellow-haired
+drug-clerk.
+
+"O the Yanks are having the hell of a time,     Parley voo?"
+
+They pounded their bottles on the table in time to the song.
+
+"It's a good job," the top sergeant said, suddenly interrupting the
+song. "You needn't worry about that, fellers. I saw to it that we got
+a good job.... And about getting to the front, you needn't worry about
+that. We'll all get to the front soon enough.... Tell me--this war is
+going to last ten years."
+
+"I guess we'll all be generals by that time, eh, Sarge?" said Williams.
+"But, man, I wish I was back jerkin' soda water."
+
+"It's a great life if you don't weaken," murmured Fuselli automatically.
+
+"But I'm beginnin' to weaken," said Williams. "Man, I'm homesick. I
+don't care who knows it. I wish I could get to the front and be done
+with it."
+
+"Say, have a heart. You need a drink," said the top sergeant, banging
+his fist on the table. "Say, mamselle, mame shows, mame shows!"
+
+"I didn't know you could talk French, Sarge," said Fuselli.
+
+"French, hell!" said the top sergeant. "Williams is the boy can talk
+French."
+
+"Voulay vous couchay aveck moy.... That's all I know."
+
+Everybody laughed.
+
+"Hey, mamzelle," cried the top sergeant. "Voulay vous couchay aveck moy?
+We We, champagne." Everybody laughed, uproariously.
+
+The girl slapped his head good-naturedly.
+
+At that moment a man stamped noisily into the cafe, a tall
+broad-shouldered man in a loose English tunic, who had a swinging
+swagger that made the glasses ring on all the tables. He was humming
+under his breath and there was a grin on his broad red face. He went
+up to the girl and pretended to kiss her, and she laughed and talked
+familiarly with him in French.
+
+"There's wild Dan Cohan," said the dark-haired sergeant. "Say, Dan,
+Dan."
+
+"Here, yer honor."
+
+"Come over and have a drink. We're going to have some fizzy."
+
+"Never known to refuse."
+
+They made room for him on the bench.
+
+"Well, I'm confined to barracks," said Dan Cohan. "Look at me!" He
+laughed and gave his head a curious swift jerk to one side. "Compree?"
+
+"Ain't ye scared they'll nab you?" said Fuselli.
+
+"Nab me, hell, they can't do nothin' to me. I've had three
+court-martials already and they're gettin' a fourth up on me."
+
+Dan Cohan pushed his head to one side and laughed. "I got a friend. My
+old boss is captain, and he's goin' to fix it up. I used to alley around
+politics chez moy. Compree?"
+
+The champagne came and Dan Cohan popped the cork up to the ceiling with
+dexterous red fingers.
+
+"I was just wondering who was going to give me a drink," he said. "Ain't
+had any pay since Christ was a corporal. I've forgotten what it looks
+like."
+
+The champagne fizzed into the beer-glasses.
+
+"This is the life," said Fuselli.
+
+"Ye're damn right, buddy, if yer don't let them ride yer," said Dan.
+
+"What they got yer up for now, Dan?"
+
+"Murder."
+
+"Murder, hell! How's that?"
+
+"That is, if that bloke dies."
+
+"The hell you say!"
+
+"It all started by that goddam convoy down from Nantes...Bill Rees an'
+me.... They called us the shock troops.--Hy! Marie! Ancore champagne,
+beaucoup.--I was in the Ambulance service then. God knows what rotten
+service I'm in now.... Our section was on repo and they sent some of us
+fellers down to Nantes to fetch a convoy of cars back to Sandrecourt. We
+started out like regular racers, just the chassis, savey? Bill Rees
+an' me was the goddam tail of the peerade. An' the loot was a hell of a
+blockhead that didn't know if he was coming or going."
+
+"Where the hell's Nantes?" asked the top sergeant, as if it had just
+slipped his mind.
+
+"On the coast," answered Fuselli. "I seen it on the map."
+
+"Nantes's way off to hell and gone anyway," said wild Dan Cohan, taking
+a gulp of champagne that he held in his mouth a moment, making his mouth
+move like a cow ruminating.
+
+"An' as Bill Rees an' me was the tail of the peerade an' there was lots
+of cafes and little gin-mills, Bill Rees an' me'd stop off every now and
+then to have a little drink an' say 'Bonjour' to the girls an' talk to
+the people, an' then we'd go like a bat out of hell to catch up. Well, I
+don't know if we went too fast for 'em or if they lost the road or what,
+but we never saw that goddam convoy from the time we went out of Nantes.
+Then we thought we might as well see a bit of the country, compree?...
+An' we did, goddam it.... We landed up in Orleans, soused to the gills
+and without any gas an' with an M. P; climbing up on the dashboard."
+
+"Did they nab you, then?"
+
+"Not a bit of it," said wild Dan Cohen, jerking his head to one side.
+"They gave us gas and commutation of rations an' told us to go on in
+the mornin'. You see we put up a good line of talk, compree?... Well,
+we went to the swankiest restaurant.... You see we had on those bloody
+British uniforms they gave us when the O. D. gave out, an' the M. P.'s
+didn't know just what sort o' birds we were. So we went and ordered up a
+regular meal an' lots o' vin rouge an' vin blank an' drank a few cognacs
+an' before we knew it we were eating dinner with two captains and a
+sergeant. One o' the captains was the drunkest man I ever did see....
+Good kid! We all had dinner and Bill Rees says, 'Let's go for a
+joy-ride.' An' the captains says, 'Fine,' and the sergeant would have
+said, 'Fine,' but he was so goggle-eyed drunk he couldn't. An' we
+started off!... Say, fellers, I'm dry as hell! Let's order up another
+bottle."
+
+"Sure," said everyone.
+
+     "Ban swar, ma cherie,
+      Comment allez vous?"
+
+"Encore champagne, Marie, gentille!"
+
+"Well," he went on, "we went like a bat out of hell along a good state
+road, and it was all fine until one of the captains thought we ought to
+have a race. We did.... Compree? The flivvers flivved all right, but
+the hell of it was we got so excited about the race we forgot about the
+sergeant an' he fell off an' nobody missed him. An' at last we all pull
+up before a gin-mill an' one captain says, 'Where's the sergeant?' an'
+the other captain says there hadn't been no sergeant. An' we all had a
+drink on that. An' one captain kept sayin', 'It's all imagination.
+Never was a sergeant. I wouldn't associate with a sergeant, would I,
+lootenant?' He kept on calling me lootenant.... Well that was how they
+got this new charge against me. Somebody picked up the sergeant an' he
+got concussion o' the brain an' there's hell to pay, an' if the poor
+buggar croaks.... I'm it.... Compree? About that time the captains start
+wantin' to go to Paris, an' we said we'd take 'em, an' so we put all the
+gas in my car an' the four of us climbed on that goddam chassis an' off
+we went like a bat out of hell! It'ld all have been fine if I wasn't
+lookin' cross-eyed.... We piled up in about two minutes on one of those
+nice little stone piles an' there we were. We all got up an' one o' the
+captains had his arm broke, an' there was hell to pay, worse than losing
+the sergeant. So we walked on down the road. I don't know how it got to
+be daylight. But we got to some hell of a town or other an' there was
+two M. P.'s all ready to meet us.... Compree?... Well, we didn't mess
+around with them captains. We just lit off down a side street an' got
+into a little cafe an' went in back an' had a hell of a lot o' cafe o'
+lay. That made us feel sort o' good an' I says to Bill, 'Bill, we've got
+to get to headquarters an' tell 'em that we accidentally smashed up
+our car, before the M. P.'s get busy.' An' he says, 'You're goddamned
+right,' an' at that minute I sees an M. P. through a crack in the door
+comin' into the cafe. We lit out into the garden and made for the wall.
+We got over that, although we left a good piece of my pants in the
+broken glass. But the hell of it was the M. P.'s got over too an' they
+had their pop-guns out. An' the last I saw of Bill Rees was--there was a
+big fat woman in a pink dress washing clothes in a big tub, an' poor
+ole Bill Rees runs head on into her an' over they both goes into the
+washtub. The M. P.'s got him all right. That's how I got away. An' the
+last I saw of Bill Rees he was squirming about on top of the washtub
+like he was swimmin', an' the fat woman was sittin' on the ground
+shaking her fist at him. Bill Rees was the best buddy I ever had."
+
+He paused and poured the rest of the champagne in his glass and wiped
+the sweat off his face with his big red hand.
+
+"You ain't stringin' us, are you?" asked Fuselli.
+
+"You just ask Lieutenant Whitehead, who's defending me in the
+court-martial, if I'm stringin' yer. I been in the ring, kid, and you
+can bet your bottom dollar that a man's been in the ring'll tell the
+truth."
+
+"Go on, Dan," said the sergeant.
+
+"An' I never heard a word about Bill Rees since. I guess they got him
+into the trenches and made short work of him."
+
+Dan Cohan paused to light a cigarette.
+
+"Well, one o' the M. P.'s follows after me and starts shootin'. An'
+don't you believe I ran. Gee, I was scared! But I was in luck 'cause
+a Frenchman had just started his camion an' I jumped in and said the
+gendarmes were after me. He was white, that frog was. He shot the juice
+into her an' went off like a bat out of hell an' there was a hell of a
+lot of traffic on the road because there was some damn-fool attack or
+other goin' on. So I got up to Paris.... An' then it'ld all have been
+fine if I hadn't met up with a Jane I knew. I still had five hundred
+francs on me, an' so we raised hell until one day we was havin' dinner
+in the cafe de Paris, both of us sort of jagged up, an' we didn't have
+enough money to pay the bill an' Janey made a run for it, but an M. P.
+got me an' then there was hell to pay.... Compree? They put me in the
+Bastille, great place.... Then they shipped me off to some damn camp
+or other an' gave me a gun an' made me drill for a week an' then they
+packed a whole gang of us, all A. W. O. L's, into a train for the front.
+That was nearly the end of little Daniel again. But when we was in
+Vitry-le-Francois, I chucked my rifle out of one window and jumped out
+of the other an' got on a train back to Paris an' went an' reported to
+headquarters how I'd smashed the car an' been in the Bastille an' all,
+an' they were sore as hell at the M. P.'s an' sent me out to a section
+an' all went fine until I got ordered back an' had to alley down to this
+goddam camp. Ah' now I don't know what they're goin' to do to me."
+
+"Gee whiz!"
+
+"It's a great war, I tell you, Sarge. It's a great war. I wouldn't have
+missed it."
+
+Across the room someone was singing.
+
+"Let's drown 'em out," said the top sergeant boisterously.
+
+     "O Mademerselle from Armenteers,
+      Parley voo?"
+
+"Well, I've got to get the hell out of here," said wild Dan Cohan,
+after a minute. "I've got a Jane waitin' for me. I'm all fixed up,...
+Compree?"
+
+He swaggered out singing:
+
+     "Bon soir, ma cherie,
+      Comment alley vous?
+      Si vous voulez
+      Couche avec moi...."
+
+The door slammed behind him, leaving the cafe quiet.
+
+Many men had left. Madame had taken up her knitting and Marie of the
+plump white arms sat beside her, leaning her head back among the bottles
+that rose in tiers behind the bars.
+
+Fuselli was staring at a door on one side of the bar. Men kept opening
+it and looking in and closing it again with a peculiar expression on
+their faces. Now and then someone would open it with a smile and go into
+the next room, shuffling his feet and closing the door carefully behind
+him.
+
+"Say, I wonder what they've got there," said the top sergeant, who had
+been staring at the door. "Mush be looked into, mush be looked into," he
+added, laughing drunkenly.
+
+"I dunno," said Fuselli. The champagne was humming in his head like a
+fly against a window pane. He felt very bold and important.
+
+The top sergeant got to his feet unsteadily.
+
+"Corporal, take charge of the colors," he said, and walked to the door.
+He opened it a little, peeked in; winked elaborately to his friends and
+skipped into the other room, closing the door carefully behind him.
+
+The corporal went over next. He said, "Well, I'll be damned," and walked
+straight in, leaving the door ajar. In a moment it was closed from the
+inside.
+
+"Come on, Bill, let's see what the hell they got in there," said
+Fuselli.
+
+"All right, old kid," said Bill Grey. They went together over to the
+door. Fuselli opened it and looked in. He let out a breath through his
+teeth with a faint whistling sound.
+
+"Gee, come in, Bill," he said, giggling.
+
+The room was small, nearly filled up by a dining table with a red cloth.
+On the mantel above the empty fireplace were candlesticks with dangling
+crystals that glittered red and yellow and purple in the lamplight,
+in front of a cracked mirror that seemed a window into another dingier
+room. The paper was peeling off the damp walls, giving a mortuary smell
+of mildewed plaster that not even the reek of beer and tobacco had done
+away with.
+
+"Look at her, Bill, ain't she got style?" whispered Fuselli.
+
+Bill Grey grunted.
+
+"Say, d'ye think the Jane that feller was tellin' us he raised hell with
+in Paris was like that?"
+
+At the end of the table, leaning on her elbows, was a woman with black
+frizzy hair cut short, that stuck out from her head in all directions.
+Her eyes were dark and her lips red with a faint swollen look. She
+looked with a certain defiance at the men who stood about the walls and
+sat at the table.
+
+The men stared at her silently. A big man with red hair and a heavy
+jaw who sat next her kept edging up nearer. Someone knocked against the
+table making the bottles and liqueur glasses clustered in the center
+jingle.
+
+"She ain't clean; she's got bobbed hair," said the man next Fuselli.
+
+The woman said something in French.
+
+Only one man understood it. His laugh rang hollowly in the silent room
+and stopped suddenly.
+
+The woman looked attentively at the faces round her for a moment,
+shrugged her shoulders, and began straightening the ribbon on the hat
+she held on her lap.
+
+"How the hell did she get here? I thought the M. P.'s ran them out of
+town the minute they got here," said one man.
+
+The woman continued plucking at her hat.
+
+"You venay Paris?" said a boy with a soft voice who sat near her. He had
+blue eyes and a milky complexion, faintly tanned, that went strangely
+with the rough red and brown faces in the room.
+
+"Oui; de Paris," she said after a pause, glancing suddenly in the boy's
+face.
+
+"She's a liar, I can tell you that," said the red-haired man, who by
+this time had moved his chair very close to the woman's.
+
+"You told him you came from Marseilles, and him you came from Lyon,"
+said the boy with the milky complexion, smiling genially. "Vraiment de
+ou venay vous?"
+
+"I come from everywhere," she said, and tossed the hair back from her
+face.
+
+"Travelled a lot?" asked the boy again.
+
+"A feller told me," said Fuselli to Bill Grey, "that he'd talked to a
+girl like that who'd been to Turkey an' Egypt I bet that girl's seen
+some life."
+
+The woman jumped to her feet suddenly screaming with rage. The man with
+the red hair moved away sheepishly. Then he lifted his large dirty hands
+in the air.
+
+"Kamarad," he said.
+
+Nobody laughed. The room was silent except for feet scraping
+occasionally on the floor.
+
+She put her hat on and took a little box from the chain bag in her lap
+and began powdering her face, making faces into the mirror she held in
+the palm of her hand.
+
+The men stared at her.
+
+"Guess she thinks she's the Queen of the May," said one man, getting to
+his feet. He leaned across the table and spat into the fireplace. "I'm
+going back to barracks." He turned to the woman and shouted in a voice
+full of hatred, "Bon swar."
+
+The woman was putting the powder puff away in her jet bag. She did not
+look up; the door closed sharply.
+
+"Come along," said the woman, suddenly, tossing her head back. "Come
+along one at a time; who go with me first?"
+
+Nobody spoke. The men stared at her silently. There was no sound except
+that of feet scraping occasionally on the floor.
+
+
+
+                              III
+
+The oatmeal flopped heavily into the mess-kit. Fuselli's eyes were still
+glued together with sleep. He sat at the dark greasy bench and took a
+gulp of the scalding coffee that smelt vaguely of dish rags. That woke
+him up a little. There was little talk in the mess shack. The men, that
+the bugle had wrenched out of their blankets but fifteen minutes before,
+sat in rows, eating sullenly or blinking at each other through the misty
+darkness. You could hear feet scraping in the ashes of the floor
+and mess kits clattering against the tables and here and there a man
+coughing. Near the counter where the food was served out one of the
+cooks swore interminably in a whiny sing-sing voice.
+
+"Gee, Bill, I've got a head," said Fuselli.
+
+"Ye're ought to have," growled Bill Grey. "I had to carry you up into
+the barracks. You said you were goin' back and love up that goddam
+girl."
+
+"Did I?" said Fuselli, giggling.
+
+"I had a hell of a time getting you past the guard."
+
+"Some cognac!... I got a hangover now," said Fuselli.
+
+"I'm goddamned if I can go this much longer."
+
+"What?"
+
+They were washing their mess-kits in the tub of warm water thick with
+grease from the hundred mess-kits that had gone before, in front of the
+shack. An electric light illumined faintly the wet trunk of a plane tree
+and the surface of the water where bits of oatmeal floated and coffee
+grounds,--and the garbage pails with their painted signs: WET GARBAGE,
+DRY GARBAGE; and the line of men who stood waiting to reach the tub.
+
+"This hell of a life!" said Bill Grey, savagely.
+
+"What d'ye mean?"
+
+"Doin' nothin' but pack bandages in packin' cases and take bandages out
+of packin' cases. I'll go crazy. I've tried gettin' drunk; it don't do
+no good."
+
+"Gee; I've got a head," said Fuselli.
+
+Bill Grey put his heavy muscular hand round Fuselli's shoulder as they
+strolled towards the barracks.
+
+"Say, Dan, I'm goin' A. W. O. L."
+
+"Don't ye do it, Bill. Hell, look at the chance we've got to get ahead.
+We can both of us get promoted if we don't get in wrong."
+
+"I don't give a hoot in hell for all that.... What d'ye think I got in
+this goddamed army for? Because I thought I'd look nice in the uniform?"
+
+Bill Grey thrust his hands into his pockets and spat dismally in front
+of him.
+
+"But, Bill, you don't want to stay a buck private, do you?"
+
+"I want to get to the front.... I don't want to stay here till I get in
+the jug for being spiffed or get a court-martial.... Say, Dan, will you
+come with me?"
+
+"Hell, Bill, you ain't goin'. You're just kiddin', ain't yer? They'll
+send us there soon enough. I want to get to be a corporal,"--he puffed
+out his chest a little--"before I go to the front, so's to be able to
+show what I'm good for. See, Bill?"
+
+A bugle blew.
+
+"There's fatigue, an' I ain't done my bunk."
+
+"Me neither.... They won't do nothin', Dan.... Don't let them ride yer,
+Dan."
+
+They lined up in the dark road feeling the mud slopping under their
+feet. The ruts were full of black water, in which gleamed a reflection
+of distant electric lights.
+
+"All you fellows work in Storehouse A today," said the sergeant, who had
+been a preacher, in his sad, drawling voice. "Lieutenant says that's all
+got to be finished by noon. They're sending it to the front today."
+
+Somebody let his breath out in a whistle of surprise.
+
+"Who did that?"
+
+Nobody answered.
+
+"Dismissed!" snapped the sergeant disgustedly.
+
+They straggled off into the darkness towards one of the lights, their
+feet splashing confusedly in the puddles.
+
+Fuselli strolled up to the sentry at the camp gate. He was picking his
+teeth meditatively with the splinter of a pine board.
+
+"Say, Phil, you couldn't lend me a half a dollar, could you?" Fuselli
+stopped, put his hands in his pockets and looked at the sentry with the
+splinter sticking out of a corner of his mouth.
+
+"Sorry, Dan," said the other man; "I'm cleaned out. Ain't had a cent
+since New Year's."
+
+"Why the hell don't they pay us?"
+
+"You guys signed the pay roll yet?"
+
+"Sure. So long!"
+
+
+
+Fuselli strolled on down the dark road, where the mud was frozen into
+deep ruts, towards the town. It was still strange to him, this town of
+little houses faced with cracked stucco, where the damp made grey stains
+and green stains, of confused red-tiled roofs, and of narrow cobbled
+streets that zigzagged in and out among high walls overhung with
+balconies. At night, when it was dark except for where a lamp in
+a window spilt gold reflections out on the wet street or the light
+streamed out from a store or a cafe, it was almost frighteningly unreal.
+He walked down into the main square, where he could hear the fountain
+gurgling. In the middle he stopped indecisively, his coat unbuttoned,
+his hands pushed to the bottom of his trousers pockets, where they
+encountered nothing but the cloth. He listened a long time to the
+gurgling of the fountain and to the shunting of trains far away in the
+freight yards. "An' this is the war," he thought. "Ain't it queer? It's
+quieter than it was at home nights." Down the street at the end of the
+square a band of white light appeared, the searchlight of a staff car.
+The two eyes of the car stared straight into his eyes, dazzling him,
+then veered off to one side and whizzed past, leaving a faint smell of
+gasoline and a sound of voices. Fuselli watched the fronts of houses
+light up as the car made its way to the main road. Then the town was
+dark and silent again.
+
+He strolled across the square towards the Cheval Blanc, the large cafe
+where the officers went.
+
+"Button yer coat," came a gruff voice. He saw a stiff tall figure at the
+edge of the curve. He made out the shape of the pistol holster that
+hung like a thin ham at the man's thigh. An M. P. He buttoned his coat
+hurriedly and walked off with rapid steps.
+
+He stopped outside a cafe that had "Ham and Eggs" written in white paint
+on the window and looked in wistfully. Someone from behind him put two
+big hands over his eyes. He wriggled his head free.
+
+"Hello, Dan," he said. "How did you get out of the jug?"
+
+"I'm a trusty, kid," said Dan Cohan. "Got any dough?"
+
+"Not a damn cent!"
+
+"Me neither.... Come on in anyway," said Cohan. "I'll fix it up with
+Marie." Fuselli followed doubtfully. He was a little afraid of Dan
+Cohan; he remembered how a man had been court-martialed last week for
+trying to bolt out of a cafe without paying for his drinks.
+
+He sat down at a table near the door. Dan had disappeared into the back
+room. Fuselli felt homesick. He was thinking how long it was since, he
+had had a letter from Mabe. "I bet she's got another feller," he told
+himself savagely. He tried to remember how she looked, but he had to
+take out his watch and peep in the back before he could make out if
+her nose were straight or snub. He looked up, clicking the watch in his
+pocket. Marie of the white arms was coming laughing out of the inner
+room. Her large firm breasts, neatly held in by the close-fitting
+blouse, shook a little when she laughed. Her cheeks were very red and
+a strand of chestnut hair hung down along her neck. She picked it up
+hurriedly and caught it up with a hairpin, walking slowly into the
+middle of the room as she did so with her hands behind her head. Dan
+Cohan followed her into the room, a broad grin on his face.
+
+"All right, kid," he said. "I told her you'ld pay when Uncle Sam came
+across. Ever had any Kummel?"
+
+"What the hell's that?"
+
+"You'll see."
+
+They sat down before a dish of fried eggs at the table in the corner,
+the favoured table, where Marie herself often sat and chatted, when
+wizened Madame did not have her eye upon her.
+
+Several men drew up their chairs. Wild Dan Cohan always had an audience.
+
+"Looks like there was going to be another offensive at Verdun," said Dan
+Cohan. Someone answered vaguely.
+
+"Funny how little we know about what's going on out there," said one
+man. "I knew more about the war when I was home in Minneapolis than I do
+here."
+
+"I guess we're lightin' into 'em all right," said Fuselli in a patriotic
+voice.
+
+"Hell! Nothin' doin' this time o' year anyway," said Cohan. A grin
+spread across his red face. "Last time I was at the front the Boche had
+just made a coup de main and captured a whole trenchful."
+
+"Of who?"
+
+"Of Americans--of us!"
+
+"The hell you say!"
+
+"That's a goddam lie," shouted a black-haired man with an ill-shaven
+jaw, who had just come in. "There ain't never been an American captured,
+an' there never will be, by God!"
+
+"How long were you at the front, buddy," asked Cohan coolly. "I guess
+you been to Berlin already, ain't yer?"
+
+"I say that any man who says an American'ld let himself be captured by
+a stinkin' Hun, is a goddam liar," said the man with the ill-shaven jaw,
+sitting down sullenly.
+
+"Well, you'd better not say it to me," said Cohan laughing, looking
+meditatively at one of his big red fists.
+
+There had been a look of apprehension on Marie's face. She looked at
+Cohan's fist and shrugged her shoulders and laughed.
+
+Another crowd had just slouched into the cafe.
+
+"Well if that isn't wild Dan! Hello, old kid, how are you?"
+
+"Hello, Dook!"
+
+A small man in a coat that looked almost like an officer's coat, it
+was so well cut, was shaking hands effusively with Cohan. He wore a
+corporal's stripes and a British aviator's fatigue cap. Cohan made room
+for him on the bench.
+
+"What are you doing in this hole, Dook?" The man twisted his mouth so
+that his neat black mustache was a slant.
+
+"G. O. 42," he said.
+
+"Battle of Paris?" said Cohan in a sympathetic voice. "Battle of Nice!
+I'm going back to my section soon. I'd never have got a court-martial if
+I'd been with my outfit. I was in the Base Hospital 15 with pneumonia."
+
+"Tough luck!"
+
+"It was a hell of a note."
+
+"Say, Dook, your outfit was working with ours at Chamfort that time,
+wasn't it?"
+
+"You mean when we evacuated the nut hospital?"
+
+"Yes, wasn't that hell?" Dan Cohan gulped down half a glass of red wine,
+smacked his thick lips, and began in his story-telling voice:
+
+"Our section had just come out of Verdun where we'd been getting hell
+for three weeks on the Bras road. There was one little hill where we'd
+have to get out and shove every damn time, the mud was so deep, and
+God, it stank there with the shells turning up the ground all full
+of mackabbies as the poilus call them.... Say, Dook, have you got any
+money?"
+
+"I've got some," said Dook, without enthusiasm.
+
+"Well, the champagne's damn good here. I'm part of the outfit in this
+gin mill; they'll give it to you at a reduction."
+
+"All right!"
+
+Dan Cohan turned round and whispered something to Marie. She laughed and
+dived down behind the curtain.
+
+"But that Chamfort was worse yet. Everybody was sort o' nervous because
+the Germans had dropped a message sayin' they'd give 'em three days
+to clear the hospital out, and that then they'd shell hell out of the
+place."
+
+"The Germans done that! Quit yer kiddin'," said Fuselli.
+
+"They did it at Souilly, too," said Dook. "Hell, yes.... A funny thing
+happened there. The hospital was in a big rambling house, looked like an
+Atlantic City hotel.... We used to run our car in back and sleep in it.
+It was where we took the shell-shock cases, fellows who were roarin'
+mad, and tremblin' all over, and some of 'em paralysed like.... There
+was a man in the wing opposite where we slept who kept laugh-in'. Bill
+Rees was on the car with me, and we laid in our blankets in the bottom
+of the car and every now and then one of us'ld turn over and whisper:
+'Ain't this hell, kid?' 'cause that feller kept laughin' like a man who
+had just heard a joke that was so funny he couldn't stop laughin'. It
+wasn't like a crazy man's laugh usually is. When I first heard it I
+thought it was a man really laughin', and I guess I laughed too. But it
+didn't stop.... Bill Rees an' me laid in our car shiverin', listenin'
+to the barrage in the distance with now and then the big noise of an
+aeroplane bomb, an' that feller laughin', laughin', like he'd just
+heard a joke, like something had struck him funny." Cohan took a gulp of
+champagne and jerked his head to one side. "An that damn laughin'
+kept up until about noon the next day when the orderlies strangled the
+feller.... Got their goat, I guess."
+
+Fuselli was looking towards the other side of the room, where a faint
+murmur of righteous indignation was rising from the dark man with the
+unshaven jaw and his companions. Fuselli was thinking that it wasn't
+good to be seen round too much with a fellow like Cohan, who talked
+about the Germans notifying hospitals before they bombarded them and who
+was waiting for a court-martial. Might get him in wrong. He slipped out
+of the cafe into the dark. A dank wind blew down the irregular street,
+ruffling the reflected light in the puddles, making a shutter bang
+interminably somewhere. Fuselli went to the main square again, casting
+an envious glance in the window of the Cheval Blanc, where he saw
+officers playing billiards in a well-lighted room painted white and
+gold, and a blond girl in a raspberry-colored shirtwaist enthroned
+haughtily behind the bar. He remembered the M. P. and automatically
+hastened his steps. In a narrow street the other side of the square he
+stopped before the window of a small grocery shop and peered inside,
+keeping carefully out of the oblong of light that showed faintly the
+grass-grown cobbles and the green and grey walls opposite. A girl sat
+knitting beside the small counter with her two little black feet placed
+demurely side by side on the edge of a box full of red beets. She was
+very small and slender. The lamplight gleamed on her black hair, done
+close to her head. Her face was in the shadow. Several soldiers lounged
+awkwardly against the counter and the jambs of the door, following her
+movements with their eyes as dogs watch a plate of meat being moved
+about in a kitchen.
+
+After a little the girl rolled up her knitting and jumped to her feet,
+showing her face,--an oval white face with large dark lashes and an
+impertinent mouth. She stood looking at the soldiers who stood about her
+in a circle, then twisted up her mouth in a grimace and disappeared into
+the inner room.
+
+Fuselli walked to the end of the street where there was a bridge over a
+small stream. He leaned on the cold stone rail and looked into the water
+that was barely visible gurgling beneath between rims of ice.
+
+"O this is a hell of a life," he muttered.
+
+He shivered in the cold wind but remained leaning over the water. In
+the distance trains rumbled interminably, giving him a sense of vast
+desolate distances. The village clock struck eight. The bell had a soft
+note like the bass string of a guitar. In the darkness Fuselli could
+almost see the girl's face grimacing with its broad impertinent lips. He
+thought of the sombre barracks and men sitting about on the end of their
+cots. Hell, he couldn't go back yet. His whole body was taut with desire
+for warmth and softness and quiet. He slouched back along the narrow
+street cursing in a dismal monotone. Before the grocery store he
+stopped. The men had gone. He went in jauntily pushing his cap a little
+to one side so that some of his thick curly hair came out over his
+forehead. The little bell in the door clanged.
+
+The girl came out of the inner room. She gave him her hand
+indifferently.
+
+"Comment ca va! Yvonne? Bon?"
+
+His pidgin-French made her show her little pearly teeth in a smile.
+
+"Good," she said in English.
+
+They laughed childishly.
+
+"Say, will you be my girl, Yvonne?"
+
+She looked in his eyes and laughed.
+
+"Non compris," she said.
+
+"We, we; voulez vous et' ma fille?"
+
+She shrieked with laughter and slapped him hard on the cheek. "Venez,"
+she said, still laughing. He followed her. In the inner room was a
+large oak table with chairs round it. At the end Eisenstein and a French
+soldier were talking excitedly, so absorbed in what they were saying
+that they did not notice the other two. Yvonne took the Frenchman by the
+hair and pulled his head back and told him, still laughing, what Fuselli
+had said. He laughed.
+
+"No, you must not say that," he said in English, turning to Fuselli.
+
+Fuselli was angry and sat down sullenly at the end of the table, keeping
+his eyes on Yvonne. She drew the knitting out of the pocket of her apron
+and holding it up comically between two fingers, glanced towards the
+dark corner of the room where an old woman with a lace cap on her head
+sat asleep, and then let herself fall into a chair.
+
+"Boom!" she said.
+
+Fuselli laughed until the tears filled his eyes. She laughed too. They
+sat a long while looking at each other and giggling, while Eisenstein
+and the Frenchman talked. Suddenly Fuselli caught a phrase that startled
+him.
+
+"What would you Americans do if revolution broke out in France?"
+
+"We'd do what we were ordered to," said Eisenstein bitterly. "We're a
+bunch of slaves." Fuselli noticed that Eisenstein's puffy sallow face
+was flushed and that there was a flash in his eyes he had never seen
+before.
+
+"How do you mean, revolution?" asked Fuselli in a puzzled voice.
+
+The Frenchman turned black eyes searchingly upon him.
+
+"I mean, stop the butchery,--overthrow the capitalist government.--The
+social revolution."
+
+"But you're a republic already, ain't yer?"
+
+"As much as you are."
+
+"You talk like a socialist," said Fuselli. "They tell me they shoot guys
+in America for talkin' like that."
+
+"You see!" said Eisenstein to the Frenchman.
+
+"Are they all like that?"
+
+"Except a very few. It's hopeless," said Eisenstein, burying his face in
+his hands. "I often think of shooting myself."
+
+"Better shoot someone else," said the Frenchman. "It will be more
+useful."
+
+Fuselli stirred uneasily in his chair.
+
+"Where'd you fellers get that stuff anyway?" he asked. In his mind he
+was saying: "A kike and a frog, that's a good combination."
+
+His eye caught Yvonne's and they both laughed, Yvonne threw her knitting
+ball at him. It rolled down under the table and they both scrambled
+about under the chairs looking for it.
+
+"Twice I have thought it was going to happen," said the Frenchman.
+
+"When was that?"
+
+"A little while ago a division started marching on Paris.... And when I
+was in Verdun.... O there will be a revolution.... France is the country
+of revolutions."
+
+"We'll always be here to shoot you down," said Eisenstein.
+
+"Wait till you've been in the war a little while. A winter in the
+trenches will make any army ready for revolution."
+
+"But we have no way of learning the truth. And in the tyranny of the
+army a man becomes a brute, a piece of machinery. Remember you are freer
+than we are. We are worse than the Russians!"
+
+"It is curious!... O but you must have some feeling of civilization. I
+have always heard that Americans were free and independent. Will they
+let themselves be driven to the slaughter always?"
+
+"O I don't know." Eisenstein got to his feet. "We'd better be getting to
+barracks. Coming, Fuselli?" he said.
+
+"Guess so," said Fuselli indifferently, without getting up.
+
+Eisenstein and the Frenchman went out into the shop.
+
+"Bon swar," said Fuselli, softly, leaning across the table. "Hey,
+girlie?"
+
+He threw himself on his belly on the wide table and put his arms round
+her neck and kissed her, feeling everything go blank in a flame of
+desire.
+
+She pushed him away calmly with strong little arms.
+
+"Stop!" she said, and jerked her head in the direction of the old woman
+in the chair in the dark corner of the room. They stood side by side
+listening to her faint wheezy snoring. He put his arms round her and
+kissed her long on the mouth.
+
+"Demain," he said.
+
+She nodded her head.
+
+Fuselli walked fast up the dark street towards the camp. The blood
+pounded happily through his veins. He caught up with Eisenstein.
+
+"Say, Eisenstein," he said in a comradely voice, "I don't think you
+ought to go talking round like that. You'll get yourself in too deep one
+of these days."
+
+"I don't care!"
+
+"But, hell, man, you don't want to get in the wrong that bad. They shoot
+fellers for less than you said."
+
+"Let them."
+
+"Christ, man, you don't want to be a damn fool," expostulated Fuselli.
+
+"How old are you, Fuselli?"
+
+"I'm twenty now."
+
+"I'm thirty. I've lived more, kid. I know what's good and what's bad.
+This butchery makes me unhappy."
+
+"God, I know. It's a hell of a note. But who brought it on? If somebody
+had shot that Kaiser."
+
+Eisenstein laughed bitterly. At the entrance of camp Fuselli lingered a
+moment watching the small form of Eisenstein disappear with its curious
+waddly walk into the darkness.
+
+"I'm going to be damn careful who I'm seen goin' into barracks with," he
+said to himself. "That damn kike may be a German spy or a secret-service
+officer." A cold chill of terror went over him, shattering his mood
+of joyous self-satisfaction. His feet slopped in the puddles, breaking
+through the thin ice, as he walked up the road towards the barracks. He
+felt as if people were watching him from everywhere out of the darkness,
+as if some gigantic figure were driving him forward through the
+darkness, holding a fist over his head, ready to crush him.
+
+When he was rolled up in his blankets in the bunk next to Bill Grey, he
+whispered to his friend:
+
+"Say, Bill, I think I've got a skirt all fixed up in town."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Yvonne--don't tell anybody."
+
+Bill Grey whistled softly.
+
+"You're some highflyer, Dan."
+
+Fuselli chuckled.
+
+"Hell, man, the best ain't good enough for me."
+
+"Well, I'm going to leave you," said Bill Grey.
+
+"When?"
+
+"Damn soon. I can't go this life. I don't see how you can."
+
+Fuselli did not answer. He snuggled warmly into his blankets, thinking
+of Yvonne and the corporalship.
+
+
+
+In the light of the one flickering lamp that made an unsteady circle of
+reddish glow on the station platform Fuselli looked at his pass. From
+Reveille on February fourth to Reveille on February fifth he was a
+free man. His eyes smarted with sleep as he walked up and down the
+cold station platform. For twenty-four hours he wouldn't have to obey
+anybody's orders. Despite the loneliness of going away on a train in a
+night like this in a strange country Fuselli was happy. He clinked the
+money in his pocket.
+
+Down the track a red eye appeared and grew nearer. He could hear the
+hard puffing of the engine up the grade. Huge curves gleamed as the
+engine roared slowly past him. A man with bare arms black with coal dust
+was leaning out of the cab, lit up from behind by a yellowish red glare.
+Now the cars were going by, flat cars with guns, tilted up like the
+muzzles of hunting dogs, freight cars out of which here and there peered
+a man's head. The train almost came to a stop. The cars clanged one
+against the other all down the train. Fuselli was looking into a pair of
+eyes that shone in the lamplight; a hand was held out to him.
+
+"So long, kid," said a boyish voice. "I don't know who the hell you are,
+but so long; good luck."
+
+"So long," stammered Fuselli. "Going to the front?"
+
+"Yer goddam right," answered another voice.
+
+The train took up speed again; the clanging of car against car ceased
+and in a moment they were moving fast before Fuselli's eyes. Then the
+station was dark and empty again, and he was watching the red light grow
+smaller and paler while the train rumbled on into the darkness.
+
+
+
+A confusion of gold and green and crimson silks and intricate designs of
+naked pink-fleshed cupids filled Fuselli's mind, when, full of wonder,
+he walked down the steps of the palace out into the faint ruddy sunlight
+of the afternoon. A few names, Napoleon, Josephine, the Empire, that had
+never had significance in his mind before, flared with a lurid
+gorgeous light in his imagination like a tableau of living statues at a
+vaudeville theatre.
+
+"They must have had a heap of money, them guys," said the man who was
+with him, a private in Aviation. "Let's go have a drink."
+
+Fuselli was silent and absorbed in his thoughts. Here was something that
+supplemented his visions of wealth and glory that he used to tell Al
+about, when they'd sit and watch the big liners come in, all glittering
+with lights, through the Golden Gate.
+
+"They didn't mind having naked women about, did they?" said the private
+in Aviation, a morose foul-mouthed little man who had been in the woolen
+business. "D'ye blame them?"
+
+"No, I can't say's I do.... I bet they was immoral, them guys," he
+continued vaguely.
+
+They wandered about the streets of Fontainebleau listlessly, looking
+into shop windows, staring at women, lolling on benches in the parks
+where the faint sunlight came through a lacework of twigs purple and
+crimson and yellow, that cast intricate lavender-grey shadows on the
+asphalt.
+
+"Let's go have another drink," said the private in Aviation.
+
+Fuselli looked at his watch; they had hours before train time.
+
+A girl in a loose dirty blouse wiped off the table.
+
+"Vin blank," said the other man.
+
+"Mame shows," said Fuselli.
+
+His head was full of gold and green mouldings and silk and crimson
+velvet and intricate designs in which naked pink-fleshed cupids writhed
+indecently. Some day, he was saying to himself, he'd make a hell of a
+lot of money and live in a house like that with Mabe; no, with Yvonne,
+or with some other girl.
+
+"Must have been immoral, them guys," said the private in Aviation,
+leering at the girl in the dirty blouse.
+
+Fuselli remembered a revel he'd seen in a moving picture of "Quo Vadis,"
+people in bath robes dancing around with large cups in their hands and
+tables full of dishes being upset.
+
+"Cognac, beaucoup," said the private in Aviation.
+
+"Mame shows," said Fuselli.
+
+The cafe was full of gold and green silks, and great brocaded beds
+with heavy carvings above them, beds in which writhed, pink-fleshed and
+indecent, intricate patterns of cupids.
+
+Somebody said, "Hello, Fuselli."
+
+He was on the train; his ears hummed and his head had an iron band
+round it. It was dark except for the little light that flickered in the
+ceiling. For a minute he thought it was a goldfish in a bowl, but it was
+a light that flickered in the ceiling.
+
+"Hello, Fuselli," said Eisenstein. "Feel all right?"
+
+"Sure," said Fuselli with a thick voice. "Why shouldn't I?"
+
+"How did you find that house?" said Eisenstein seriously.
+
+"Hell, I don't know," muttered Fuselli. "I'm goin' to sleep."
+
+His mind was a jumble. He remembered vast halls full of green and gold
+silks, and great beds with crowns over them where Napoleon and Josephine
+used to sleep. Who were they? O yes, the Empire,--or was it the
+Abdication? Then there were patterns of flowers and fruits and cupids,
+all gilded, and a dark passage and stairs that smelt musty, where he and
+the man in Aviation fell down. He remembered how it felt to rub his nose
+hard on the gritty red plush carpet of the stairs. Then there were women
+in open-work skirts standing about, or were those the pictures on the
+walls? And there was a bed with mirrors round it. He opened his eyes.
+Eisenstein was talking to him. He must have been talking to him for some
+time.
+
+"I look at it this way," he was saying. "A feller needs a little of that
+to keep healthy. Now, if he's abstemious and careful..."
+
+Fuselli went to sleep. He woke up again thinking suddenly: he must
+borrow that little blue book of army regulations. It would be useful to
+know that in case something came up. The corporal who had been in the
+Red Sox outfield had been transferred to a Base Hospital. It was t.
+b. so Sergeant Osier said. Anyway they were going to appoint an acting
+corporal. He stared at the flickering little light in the ceiling.
+
+"How did you get a pass?" Eisenstein was asking.
+
+"Oh, the sergeant fixed me up with one," answered Fuselli mysteriously.
+
+"You're in pretty good with the sergeant, ain't yer?" said Eisenstein.
+
+Fuselli smiled deprecatingly.
+
+"Say, d'ye know that little kid Stockton?"
+
+"The white-faced little kid who's clerk in that outfit that has the
+other end of the barracks?"
+
+"That's him," said Eisenstein. "I wish I could do something to help that
+kid. He just can't stand the discipline.... You ought to see him wince
+when the red-haired sergeant over there yells at him.... The kid looks
+sicker every day."
+
+"Well, he's got a good soft job: clerk," said Fuselli.
+
+"Ye think it's soft? I worked twelve hours day before yesterday getting
+out reports," said Eisenstein, indignantly. "But the kid's lost it and
+they keep ridin' him for some reason or other. It hurts a feller to see
+that. He ought to be at home at school."
+
+"He's got to take his medicine," said Fuselli.
+
+"You wait till we get butchered in the trenches. We'll see how you like
+your medicine," said Eisenstein.
+
+"Damn fool," muttered Fuselli, composing himself to sleep again.
+
+
+
+The bugle wrenched Fuselli out of his blankets, half dead with sleep.
+
+"Say, Bill, I got a head again," he muttered. There was no answer. It
+was only then that he noticed that the cot next to his was empty. The
+blankets were folded neatly at the foot. Sudden panic seized him. He
+couldn't get along without Bill Grey, he said to himself, he wouldn't
+have anyone to go round with. He looked fixedly at the empty cot.
+
+"Attention!"
+
+The company was lined up in the dark with their feet in the mud puddles
+of the road. The lieutenant strode up and down in front of them with the
+tail of his trench coat sticking out behind. He had a pocket flashlight
+that he kept flashing at the gaunt trunks of trees, in the faces of the
+company, at his feet, in the puddles of the road.
+
+"If any man knows anything about the whereabouts of Private 1st-class
+William Grey, report at once, as otherwise we shall have to put him down
+A. W. O. L. You know what that means?" The lieutenant spoke in short
+shrill periods, chopping off the ends of his words as if with a hatchet.
+
+No one said anything.
+
+"I guess he's S. O. L."; this from someone behind Fuselli.
+
+"And I have one more announcement to make, men," said the lieutenant
+in his natural voice. "I'm going to appoint Fuselli, 1st-class private,
+acting corporal."
+
+Fuselli's knees were weak under him. He felt like shouting and dancing
+with joy. He was glad it was dark so that no one could see how excited
+he was.
+
+"Sergeant, dismiss the company," said the lieutenant bringing his voice
+back to its military tone.
+
+"Companee dis-missed!" said out the sergeant jovially.
+
+In groups, talking with crisp voices, cheered by the occurrence of
+events, the company straggled across the great stretch of mud puddles
+towards the mess shack.
+
+
+
+                             IV
+
+Yvonne tossed the omelette in the air. It landed sizzling in the pan
+again, and she came forward into the light, holding the frying pan
+before her. Behind her was the dark stove and above it a row of copper
+kettles that gleamed through the bluish obscurity. She flicked the
+omelette out of the pan into the white dish that stood in the middle of
+the table, full in the yellow lamplight.
+
+"Tiens," she said, brushing a few stray hairs off her forehead with the
+back of her hand.
+
+"You're some cook," said Fuselli getting to his feet. He had been
+sprawling on a chair in the other end of the kitchen, watching Yvonne's
+slender body in tight black dress and blue apron move in and out of the
+area of light as she got dinner ready. A smell of burnt butter with a
+faint tang of pepper in it, filled the kitchen, making his mouth water.
+
+"This is the real stuff," he was saying to himself,--"like home."
+
+He stood with his hands deep in his pockets and his head thrown back,
+watching her cut the bread, holding the big loaf to her chest and
+pulling the knife towards her, she brushed some crumbs off her dress
+with a thin white hand.
+
+"You're my girl, Yvonne; ain't yer?" Fuselli put his arms round her.
+
+"Sale bete," she said, laughing and pushing him away.
+
+There was a brisk step outside and another girl came into the kitchen, a
+thin yellow-faced girl with a sharp nose and long teeth.
+
+"Ma cousine.... Mon 'tit americain." They both laughed. Fuselli blushed
+as he shook the girl's hand.
+
+"Il est beau, hein?" said Yvonne gruffly.
+
+"Mais, ma petite, il est charmant, vot' americain!" They laughed
+again. Fuselli who did not understand laughed too, thinking to himself,
+"They'll let the dinner get cold if they don't sit down soon."
+
+"Get maman, Dan," said Yvonne. Fuselli went into the shop through
+the room with the long oak table. In the dim light that came from the
+kitchen he saw the old woman's white bonnet. Her face was in shadow but
+there was a faint gleam of light in her small beady eyes.
+
+"Supper, ma'am," he shouted.
+
+Grumbling in her creaky little voice, the old woman followed him back
+into the kitchen.
+
+Steam, gilded by the lamplight, rose in pillars to the ceiling from the
+big tureen of soup.
+
+There was a white cloth on the table and a big loaf of bread at the end.
+The plates, with borders of little roses on them, seemed, after the army
+mess, the most beautiful things Fuselli had ever seen. The wine bottle
+was black beside the soup tureen and the wine in the glasses cast a dark
+purple stain on the cloth.
+
+Fuselli ate his soup silently understanding very little of the French
+that the two girls rattled at each other. The old woman rarely spoke and
+when she did one of the girls would throw her a hasty remark that hardly
+interrupted their chatter.
+
+Fuselli was thinking of the other men lining up outside the dark mess
+shack and the sound the food made when it flopped into the mess kits. An
+idea came to him. He'd have to bring Sarge to see Yvonne. They could set
+him up to a feed. "It would help me to stay in good with him," He had
+a minute's worry about his corporalship. He was acting corporal right
+enough, but he wanted them to send in his appointment.
+
+The omelette melted in his mouth.
+
+"Damn bon," he said to Yvonne with his mouth full.
+
+She looked at him fixedly.
+
+"Bon, bon," he said again.
+
+"You.... Dan, bon," she said and laughed. The cousin was looking from
+one to the other enviously, her upper lip lifted away from her teeth in
+a smile.
+
+The old woman munched her bread in a silent preoccupied fashion.
+
+"There's somebody in the store," said Fuselli after a long pause. "Je
+irey." He put his napkin down and went out wiping his mouth on the back
+of his hand. Eisenstein and a chalky-faced boy were in the shop.
+
+"Hullo! are you keepin' house here?" asked Eisenstein.
+
+"Sure," said Fuselli conceitedly.
+
+"Have you got any chawclit?" asked the chalky-faced boy in a thin
+bloodless voice.
+
+Fuselli looked round the shelves and threw a cake of chocolate down on
+the counter.
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"Nothing, thank you, corporal. How much is it?"
+
+Whistling "There's a long, long trail a-winding," Fuselli strode back
+into the inner room.
+
+"Combien chocolate?" he asked.
+
+When he had received the money, he sat down at his place at table again,
+smiling importantly. He must write Al about all this, he was thinking,
+and he was wondering vaguely whether Al had been drafted yet.
+
+After dinner the women sat a long time chatting over their coffee, while
+Fuselli squirmed uneasily on his chair, looking now and then at his
+watch. His pass was till twelve only; it was already getting on to ten.
+He tried to catch Yvonne's eye, but she was moving about the kitchen
+putting things in order for the night, and hardly seemed to notice him.
+At last the old woman shuffled into the shop and there was the sound
+of a key clicking hard in the outside door. When she came back, Fuselli
+said good-night to everyone and left by the back door into the court.
+There he leaned sulkily against the wall and waited in the dark,
+listening to the sounds that came from the house. He could see shadows
+passing across the orange square of light the window threw on the
+cobbles of the court. A light went on in an upper window, sending a
+faint glow over the disorderly tiles of the roof of the shed opposite.
+The door opened and Yvonne and her cousin stood on the broad stone
+doorstep chattering. Fuselli had pushed himself in behind a big hogshead
+that had a pleasant tang of old wood damp with sour wine. At last the
+heads of the shadows on the cobbles came together for a moment and the
+cousin clattered across the court and out into the empty streets. Her
+rapid footsteps died away. Yvonne's shadow was still in the door:
+
+"Dan," she said softly.
+
+Fuselli came out from behind the hogshead, his whole body flushing with
+delight. Yvonne pointed to his shoes. He took them off, and left them
+beside the door. He looked at his watch. It was a quarter to eleven.
+
+"Viens," she said.
+
+He followed her, his knees trembling a little from excitement, up the
+steep stairs.
+
+
+
+The deep broken strokes of the town clock had just begun to strike
+midnight when Fuselli hurried in the camp gate. He gave up his pass
+jauntily to the guard and strolled towards his barracks. The long shed
+was pitch black, full of a sound of deep breathing and of occasional
+snoring. There was a thick smell of uniform wool on which the sweat had
+dried. Fuselli undressed without haste, stretching his arms luxuriously.
+He wriggled into his blankets feeling cool and tired, and went to sleep
+with a smile of self-satisfaction on his lips.
+
+
+
+The companies were lined up for retreat, standing stiff as toy soldiers
+outside their barracks. The evening was almost warm. A little playful
+wind, oozing with springtime, played with the swollen buds on the plane
+trees. The sky was a drowsy violet color, and the blood pumped hot and
+stinging through the stiffened arms and legs of the soldiers who stood
+at attention. The voices of the non-coms were particularly harsh and
+metallic this evening. It was rumoured that a general was about. Orders
+were shouted with fury.
+
+Standing behind the line of his company, Fuselli's chest was stuck out
+until the buttons of his tunic were in danger of snapping off. His shoes
+were well-shined, and he wore a new pair of puttees, wound so tightly
+that his legs ached.
+
+At last the bugle sounded across the silent camp.
+
+"Parade rest!" shouted the lieutenant.
+
+Fuselli's mind was full of the army regulations which he had been
+studying assiduously for the last week. He was thinking of an imaginary
+examination for the corporalship, which he would pass, of course.
+
+When the company was dismissed, he went up familiarly to the top
+sergeant:
+
+"Say, Sarge, doin' anything this evenin'?"
+
+"What the hell can a man do when he's broke?" said the top sergeant.
+
+"Well, you come down town with me. I want to introjuce you to somebody."
+
+"Great!"
+
+"Say, Sarge, have they sent that appointment in yet?"
+
+"No, they haven't, Fuselli," said the top sergeant. "It's all made out,"
+he added encouragingly.
+
+They walked towards the town silently. The evening was silvery-violet.
+The few windows in the old grey-green houses that were lighted shone
+orange.
+
+"Well, I'm goin' to get it, ain't I?"
+
+A staff car shot by, splashing them with mud, leaving them a glimpse of
+officers leaning back in the deep cushions.
+
+"You sure are," said the top sergeant in his good-natured voice.
+
+They had reached the square. They saluted stiffly as two officers
+brushed past them.
+
+"What's the regulations about a feller marryin' a French girl?" broke
+out Fuselli suddenly.
+
+"Thinking of getting hitched up, are you?"
+
+"Hell, no." Fuselli was crimson. "I just sort o' wanted to know."
+
+"Permission of C. O., that's all I know of."
+
+They had stopped in front of the grocery shop. Fuselli peered in through
+the window. The shop was full of soldiers lounging against the counter
+and the walls. In the midst of them, demurely knitting, sat Yvonne.
+
+"Let's go and have a drink an' then come back," said Fuselli.
+
+They went to the cafe where Marie of the white arms presided. Fuselli
+paid for two hot rum punches.
+
+"You see it's this way, Sarge," he said confidentially, "I wrote all my
+folks at home I'd been made corporal, an' it'ld be a hell of a note to
+be let down now."
+
+The top sergeant was drinking his hot drink in little sips. He smiled
+broadly and put his hand paternal-fashion on Fuselli's knee.
+
+"Sure; you needn't worry, kid. I've got you fixed up all right," he
+said; then he added jovially, "Well, let's go see that girl of yours."
+
+They went out into the dark streets, where the wind, despite the smell
+of burnt gasolene and army camps, had a faint suavity, something like
+the smell of mushrooms; the smell of spring.
+
+Yvonne sat under the lamp in the shop, her feet up on a box of canned
+peas, yawning dismally. Behind her on the counter was the glass case
+full of yellow and greenish-white cheeses. Above that shelves rose to
+the ceiling in the brownish obscurity of the shop where gleamed faintly
+large jars and small jars, cans neatly placed in rows, glass jars and
+vegetables. In the corner, near the glass curtained door that led to the
+inner room, hung clusters of sausages large and small, red, yellow,
+and speckled. Yvonne jumped up when Fuselli and the sergeant opened the
+door.
+
+"You are good," she said. "Je mourrais de cafard." They laughed.
+
+"You know what that mean--cafard?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"It is only since the war. Avant la guerre on ne savais pas ce que
+c'etait le cafard. The war is no good."
+
+"Funny, ain't it?" said Fuselli to the top sergeant, "a feller can't
+juss figure out what the war is like."
+
+"Don't you worry. We'll all get there," said the top sergeant knowingly.
+
+"This is the sarjon, Yvonne," said Fuselli.
+
+"Oui, oui, je sais," said Yvonne, smiling at the top sergeant. They sat
+in the little room behind the shop and drank white wine, and talked as
+best they could to Yvonne, who, very trim in her black dress and blue
+apron, perched on the edge of her chair with her feet in tiny pumps
+pressed tightly together, and glanced now and then at the elaborate
+stripes on the top sergeant's arm.
+
+
+
+Fuselli strode familiarly into the grocery shop, whistling, and threw
+open the door to the inner room. His whistling stopped in the middle of
+a bar.
+
+"Hello," he said in an annoyed voice.
+
+"Hello, corporal," said Eisenstein. Eisenstein, his French soldier
+friend, a lanky man with a scraggly black heard and burning black eyes,
+and Stockton, the chalky-faced boy, were sitting at the table that
+filled up the room, chatting intimately and gaily with Yvonne, who
+leaned against the yellow wall beside the Frenchman and showed all her
+little pearly teeth in a laugh. In the middle of the dark oak table was
+a pot of hyacinths and some glasses that had had wine in them. The
+odor of the hyacinths hung in the air with a faint warm smell from the
+kitchen.
+
+After a second's hesitation, Fuselli sat down to wait until the others
+should leave. It was long after pay-day and his pockets were empty, so
+he had nowhere else to go.
+
+"How are they treatin' you down in your outfit now?" asked Eisenstein of
+Stockton, after a silence.
+
+"Same as ever," said Stockton in his thin voice, stuttering a little....
+"Sometimes I wish I was dead."
+
+"Hum," said Eisenstein, a curious expression of understanding on his
+flabby face. "We'll be civilians some day."
+
+"I won't" said Stockton.
+
+"Hell," said Eisenstein. "You've got to keep your upper lip stiff. I
+thought I was goin' to die in that troopship coming over here. An' when
+I was little an' came over with the emigrants from Poland, I thought I
+was goin' to die. A man can stand more than he thinks for.... I never
+thought I could stand being in the army, bein' a slave like an' all
+that, an' I'm still here. No, you'll live long and be successful yet."
+He put his hand on Stockton's shoulder. The boy winced and drew his
+chair away. "What for you do that? I ain't goin' to hurt you," said
+Eisenstein.
+
+Fuselli looked at them both with a disgusted interest.
+
+"I'll tell you what you'd better do, kid," he said condescendingly. "You
+get transferred to our company. It's an Al bunch, ain't it, Eisenstein?
+We've got a good loot an' a good top-kicker, an' a damn good bunch o'
+fellers."
+
+"Our top-kicker was in here a few minutes ago," said Eisenstein.
+
+"He was?" asked Fuselli. "Where'd he go?"
+
+"Damned if I know."
+
+Yvonne and the French soldier were talking in low voices, laughing a
+little now and then. Fuselli leaned back in his chair looking at them,
+feeling out of things, wishing despondently that he knew enough French
+to understand what they were saying. He scraped his feet angrily back
+and forth on the floor. His eyes lit on the white hyacinths. They made
+him think of florists' windows at home at Eastertime and the noise and
+bustle of San Francisco's streets. "God, I hate this rotten hole," he
+muttered to himself. He thought of Mabe. He made a noise with his lips.
+Hell, she was married by this time. Anyway Yvonne was the girl for him.
+If he could only have Yvonne to himself; far away somewhere, away from
+the other men and that damn frog and her old mother. He thought of
+himself going to the theatre with Yvonne. When he was a sergeant he
+would be able to afford that sort of thing. He counted up the months. It
+was March. Here he'd been in Europe five months and he was still only a
+corporal, and not that yet. He clenched his fists with impatience.
+But once he got to be a non-com it would go faster, he told himself
+reassuringly.
+
+He leaned over and sniffed loudly at the hyacinths.
+
+"They smell good," he said. "Que disay vous, Yvonne?"
+
+Yvonne looked at him as if she had forgotten that he was in the room.
+Her eyes looked straight into his, and she burst out laughing. Her
+glance had made him feel warm all over, and he leaned back in his chair
+again, looking at her slender body so neatly cased in its black dress
+and at her little head with its tightly-done hair, with a comfortable
+feeling of possession.
+
+"Yvonne, come over here," he said, beckoning with his head. She looked
+from him to the Frenchman provocatively. Then she came over and stood
+behind him.
+
+"Que voulez-vous?"
+
+Fuselli glanced at Eisenstein. He and Stockton were deep in excited
+conversation with the Frenchman again. Fuselli heard that uncomfortable
+word that always made him angry, he did not know why, "Revolution."
+
+"Yvonne," he said so that only she could hear, "what you say you and me
+get married?"
+
+"Marries.... moi et toi?" asked Yvonne in a puzzled voice.
+
+"We we."
+
+She looked him in the eyes a moment, and then threw hack her head in a
+paroxysm of hysterical laughter.
+
+Fuselli flushed scarlet, got to his feet and strode out, slamming the
+door behind him so that the glass rang. He walked hurriedly back to
+camp, splashed with mud by the long lines of grey motor trucks that were
+throbbing their way slowly through the main street, each with a yellow
+eye that lit up faintly the tailboards of the truck ahead. The barracks
+were dark and nearly empty. He sat down at the sergeant's desk and
+began moodily turning over the pages of the little blue book of Army
+Regulations.
+
+
+
+The moonlight glittered in the fountain at the end of the main square
+of the town. It was a warm dark night of faint clouds through which the
+moon shone palely as through a thin silk canopy. Fuselli stood by the
+fountain smoking a cigarette, looking at the yellow windows of the
+Cheval Blanc at the other end of the square, from which came a sound of
+voices and of billiard balls clinking. He stood quiet letting the acrid
+cigarette smoke drift out through his nose, his ears full of the silvery
+tinkle of the water in the fountain beside him. There were little drifts
+of warm and chilly air in the breeze that blew fitfully from the west.
+Fuselli was waiting. He took out his watch now and then and strained his
+eyes to see the time, but there was not light enough. At last the deep
+broken note of the bell in the church spire struck once. It must be half
+past ten.
+
+He started walking slowly towards the street where Yvonne's grocery
+shop was. The faint glow of the moon lit up the grey houses with the
+shuttered windows and tumultuous red roofs full of little dormers and
+skylights. Fuselli felt deliciously at ease with the world. He could
+almost feel Yvonne's body in his arms and he smiled as he remembered
+the little faces she used to make at him. He slunk past the shuttered
+windows of the shop and dove into the darkness under the arch that led
+to the court. He walked cautiously, on tiptoe, keeping close to the
+moss-covered wall, for he heard voices in the court. He peeped round
+the edge of the building and saw that there were several people in the
+kitchen door talking. He drew his head back into the shadow. But he
+had caught a glimpse of the dark round form of the hogshead beside the
+kitchen door. If he only could get behind that as he usually did, he
+would be hidden until the people went away.
+
+Keeping well in the shadow round the edge of the court, he slipped to
+the other side, and was just about to pop himself in behind the hogshead
+when he noticed that someone was there before him.
+
+He caught his breath and stood still, his heart thumping. The figure
+turned and in the dark he recognised the top sergeant's round face.
+
+"Keep quiet, can't you?" whispered the top sergeant peevishly.
+
+Fuselli stood still with his fists clenched. The blood flamed through
+his head, making his scalp tingle.
+
+Still the top sergeant was the top sergeant, came the thought. It
+would never do to get in wrong with him. Fuselli's legs moved him
+automatically back into a corner of the court, where he leaned against
+the damp wall; glaring with smarting eyes at the two women who stood
+talking outside the kitchen door, and at the dark shadow behind the
+hogshead. At last, after several smacking kisses, the women went away
+and the kitchen door closed. The bell in the church spire struck eleven
+slowly and mournfully. When it had ceased striking, Fuselli heard a
+discreet tapping and saw the shadow of the top sergeant against the
+door. As he slipped in, Fuselli heard the top sergeant's good-natured
+voice in a large stage whisper, followed by a choked laugh from Yvonne.
+The door closed and the light was extinguished, leaving the court in
+darkness except for a faint marbled glow in the sky.
+
+Fuselli strode out, making as much noise as he could with his heels on
+the cobble stones. The streets of the town were silent under the pale
+moon. In the square the fountain sounded loud and metallic. He gave up
+his pass to the guard and strode glumly towards the barracks. At the
+door he met a man with a pack on his back.
+
+"Hullo, Fuselli," said a voice he knew. "Is my old bunk still there?"
+
+"Damned if I know," said Fuselli; "I thought they'd shipped you home."
+
+The corporal who had been on the Red Sox outfield broke into a fit of
+coughing.
+
+"Hell, no," he said. "They kep' me at that goddam hospital till they saw
+I wasn't goin' to die right away, an' then they told me to come back to
+my outfit. So here I am!"
+
+"Did they bust you?" said Fuselli with sudden eagerness.
+
+"Hell, no. Why should they? They ain't gone and got a new corporal, have
+they?"
+
+"No, not exactly," said Fuselli.
+
+
+
+                             V
+
+Meadville stood near the camp gate, watching the motor trucks go by
+on the main road. Grey, lumbering, and mud-covered, they throbbed by
+sloughing in and out of the mud holes in the worn road in an endless
+train stretching as far as he could see into the town and as far as he
+could see up the road.
+
+He stood with his legs far apart and spat into the center of the road;
+then he turned to the corporal who had been in the Red Sox outfield and
+said:
+
+"I'll be goddamed if there ain't somethin' doin'!"
+
+"A hell of a lot doin'," said the corporal, shaking his head.
+
+"Seen that guy Daniels who's been to the front?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, he says hell's broke loose. Hell's broke loose!"
+
+"What's happened?... Be gorry, we may see some active service," said
+Meadville, grinning. "By God, I'd give the best colt on my ranch to see
+some action."
+
+"Got a ranch?" asked the corporal.
+
+The motor trucks kept on grinding past monotonously; their drivers were
+so splashed with mud it was hard to see what uniform they wore.
+
+"What d'ye think?" asked Meadville. "Think I keep store?"
+
+Fuselli walked past them towards the town.
+
+"Say, Fuselli," shouted Meadville. "Corporal says hell's broke loose out
+there. We may smell gunpowder yet."
+
+Fuselli stopped and joined them.
+
+"I guess poor old Bill Grey's smelt plenty of gunpowder by this time,"
+he said.
+
+"I wish I had gone with him," said Meadville. "I'll try that little
+trick myself now the good weather's come on if we don't get a move on
+soon."
+
+"Too damn risky!"
+
+"Listen to the kid. It'll be too damn risky in the trenches.... Or do
+you think you're goin' to get a cushy job in camp here?"
+
+"Hell, no! I want to go to the front. I don't want to stay in this
+hole."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"But ain't no good throwin' yerself in where it don't do no good.... A
+guy wants to get on in this army if he can."
+
+"What's the good o' gettin' on?" said the corporal. "Won't get home a
+bit sooner."
+
+"Hell! but you're a non-com."
+
+Another train of motor trucks went by, drowning their Talk.
+
+
+
+Fuselli was packing medical supplies in a box in a great brownish
+warehouse full of packing cases where a little sun filtered in through
+the dusty air at the corrugated sliding tin doors. As he worked, he
+listened to Daniels talking to Meadville who worked beside him.
+
+"An' the gas is the goddamndest stuff I ever heard of," he was saying.
+"I've seen fellers with their arms swelled up to twice the size like
+blisters from it. Mustard gas, they call it."
+
+"What did you get to go to the hospital?" said Meadville.
+
+"Only pneumonia," said Daniels, "but I had a buddy who was split right
+in half by a piece of a shell. He was standin' as near me as you are an'
+was whistlin' 'Tipperary' under his breath when all at once there was a
+big spurt o' blood an' there he was with his chest split in half an' his
+head hangin' a thread like."
+
+Meadville moved his quid of tobacco from one cheek to the other and spat
+on to the sawdust of the floor. The men within earshot stopped working
+and looked admiringly at Daniels.
+
+"Well; what d'ye reckon's goin' on at the front now?" said Meadville.
+
+"Damned of I know. The goddam hospital at Orleans was so full up there
+was guys in stretchers waiting all day on the pavement outside. I know
+that.... Fellers there said hell'd broke loose for fair. Looks to me
+like the Fritzies was advancin'."
+
+Meadville looked at him incredulously.
+
+"Those skunks?" said Fuselli. "Why they can't advance. They're starvin'
+to death."
+
+"The hell they are," said Daniels. "I guess you believe everything you
+see in the papers."
+
+Eyes looked at Daniels indignantly. They all went on working in silence.
+
+Suddenly the lieutenant, looking strangely flustered, strode into the
+warehouse, leaving the tin door open behind him.
+
+"Can anyone tell me where Sergeant Osler is?"
+
+"He was here a few minutes ago," spoke up Fuselli.
+
+"Well, where is he now?" snapped the lieutenant angrily.
+
+"I don't know, sir," mumbled Fuselli, flushing.
+
+"Go and see if you can find him."
+
+Fuselli went off to the other end of the warehouse. Outside the door he
+stopped and bit off a cigarette in a leisurely fashion. His blood boiled
+sullenly. How the hell should he know where the top sergeant was? They
+didn't expect him to be a mind-reader, did they? And all the flood
+of bitterness that had been collecting in his spirit seethed to the
+surface. They had not treated him right, He felt full of hopeless
+anger against this vast treadmill to which he was bound. The endless
+succession of the days, all alike, all subject to orders, to the
+interminable monotony of drills and line-ups, passed before his mind. He
+felt he couldn't go on, yet he knew that he must and would go on, that
+there was no stopping, that his feet would go on beating in time to the
+steps of the treadmill.
+
+He caught sight of the sergeant coming towards the warehouse, across the
+new green grass, scarred by the marks of truck wheels.
+
+"Sarge," he called. Then he went up to him mysteriously. "The loot wants
+to see you at once in Warehouse B."
+
+He slouched back to his work, arriving just in time to hear the
+lieutenant say in a severe voice to the sergeant:
+
+"Sergeant, do you know how to draw up court-martial papers?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said the sergeant, a look of surprise on his face. He
+followed the precise steps of the lieutenant out of the door.
+
+Fuselli had a moment of panic terror, during which he went on working
+methodically, although his hands trembled. He was searching his memory
+for some infringement of a regulation that might be charged against him.
+The terror passed as fast as it had come. Of course he had no reason to
+fear. He laughed softly to himself. What a fool he'd been to get scared
+like that, and a summary court-martial couldn't do much to you anyway.
+He went on working as fast and as carefully as he could, through the
+long monotonous afternoon.
+
+That night nearly the whole company gathered in a group at the end
+of the barracks. Both sergeants were away. The corporal said he knew
+nothing, and got sulkily into bed, where he lay, rolled in his blankets,
+shaken by fit after fit of coughing.
+
+At last someone said:
+
+"I bet that kike Eisenstein's turned out to be a spy."
+
+"I bet he has too."
+
+"He's foreign born, ain't he? Born in Poland or some goddam place."
+
+"He always did talk queer."
+
+"I always thought," said Fuselli, "he'd get into trouble talking the way
+he did."
+
+"How'd he talk?" asked Daniels.
+
+"Oh, he said that war was wrong and all that goddamed pro-German stuff."
+
+"D'ye know what they did out at the front?" said Daniels. "In the second
+division they made two fellers dig their own graves and then shot 'em
+for sayin' the war was wrong."
+
+"Hell, they did?"
+
+"You're goddam right, they did. I tell you, fellers, it don't do to
+monkey with the buzz-saw in this army."
+
+"For God's sake shut up. Taps has blown. Meadville, turn the lights
+out!" said the corporal angrily. The barracks was dark, full of a sound
+of men undressing in their bunks, and of whispered talk.
+
+
+
+The company was lined up for morning mess. The sun that had just risen
+was shining in rosily through the soft clouds of the sky. The sparrows
+kept up a great clattering in the avenue of plane trees. Their riotous
+chirping could be heard above the sound of motors starting that came
+from a shed opposite the mess shack.
+
+The sergeant appeared suddenly; walking past with his shoulders stiff,
+so that everyone knew at once that something important was going on.
+
+"Attention, men, a minute," he said.
+
+Mess kits clattered as the men turned round.
+
+"After mess I want you to go immediately to barracks and roll your
+packs. After that every man must stand by his pack until orders come."
+The company cheered and mess kits clattered together like cymbals.
+
+"As you were," shouted the top sergeant jovially.
+
+Gluey oatmeal and greasy bacon were hurriedly bolted down, and every
+man in the company, his heart pounding, ran to the barracks to do up his
+pack, feeling proud under the envious eyes of the company at the other
+end of the shack that had received no orders.
+
+When the packs were done up, they sat on the empty hunks and drummed
+their feet against the wooden partitions waiting.
+
+"I don't suppose we'll leave here till hell freezes over," said
+Meadville, who was doing up the last strap on his pack.
+
+"It's always like this.... You break your neck to obey orders an'..."
+
+"Outside!" shouted the sergeant, poking his head in the door.
+
+"Fall in! Atten-shun!"
+
+The lieutenant in his trench coat and in a new pair of roll puttees
+stood facing the company, looking solemn.
+
+"Men," he said, biting off his words as a man bites through a piece
+of hard stick candy; "one of your number is up for courtmartial for
+possibly disloyal statements found in a letter addressed to friends at
+home. I have been extremely grieved to find anything of this sort in
+any company of mine; I don't believe there is another man in the
+company... low enough to hold... entertain such ideas...."
+
+Every man in the company stuck out his chest, vowing inwardly to
+entertain no ideas at all rather than run the risk of calling forth such
+disapproval from the lieutenant. The lieutenant paused:
+
+"All I can say is if there is any such man in the company, he had better
+keep his mouth shut and be pretty damn careful what he writes home....
+Dismissed!"
+
+He shouted the order grimly, as if it were the order for the execution
+of the offender.
+
+"That goddam skunk Eisenstein," said someone.
+
+The lieutenant heard it as he walked away. "Oh, sergeant," he said
+familiarly; "I think the others have got the right stuff in them."
+
+The company went into the barracks and waited.
+
+
+
+The sergeant-major's office was full of a clicking of typewriters, and
+was overheated by a black stove that stood in the middle of the floor,
+letting out occasional little puffs of smoke from a crack in the stove
+pipe. The sergeant-major was a small man with a fresh boyish face and a
+drawling voice who lolled behind a large typewriter reading a magazine
+that lay on his lap.
+
+Fuselli slipped in behind the typewriter and stood with his cap in his
+hand beside the sergeant-major's chair.
+
+"Well what do you want?" asked the sergeant-major gruffly.
+
+"A feller told me, Sergeant-Major, that you was look-in' for a man with
+optical experience;" Fuselli's voice was velvety.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I worked three years in an optical-goods store at home in Frisco."
+
+"What's your name, rank, company?"
+
+"Daniel Fuselli, Private 1st-class, Company C, medical supply
+warehouse."
+
+"All right, I'll attend to it."
+
+"But, sergeant."
+
+"All right; out with what you've got to say, quick." The sergeant-major
+fingered the leaves of his magazine impatiently.
+
+"My company's all packed up to go. The transfer'll have to be today,
+sergeant."
+
+"Why the hell didn't you come in earlier?... Stevens, make out a
+transfer to headquarters company and get the major to sign it when he
+goes through.... That's the way it always is," he cried, leaning back
+tragically in his swivel chair. "Everybody always puts everything off on
+me at the last minute."
+
+"Thank you, sir," said Fuselli, smiling. The sergeant-major ran his hand
+through his hair and took up his magazine again peevishly.
+
+Fuselli hurried back to barracks where he found the company still
+waiting. Several men were crouched in a circle playing craps. The rest
+lounged in their bare bunks or fiddled with their packs. Outside it had
+begun to rain softly, and a smell of wet sprouting earth came in through
+the open door. Fuselli sat on the floor beside his bunk throwing his
+knife down so that it stuck in the boards between his knees. He was
+whistling softly to himself. The day dragged on. Several times he heard
+the town clock strike in the distance.
+
+At last the top sergeant came in, shaking the water off his slicker, a
+serious, important expression on his face.
+
+"Inspection of medical belts," he shouted. "Everybody open up their belt
+and lay it on the foot of their bunk and stand at attention on the left
+side."
+
+The lieutenant and a major appeared suddenly at one end of the barracks
+and came through slowly, pulling the little packets out of the belts.
+The men looked at them out of the corners of their eyes. As they
+examined the belts, they chatted easily, as if they had been alone.
+
+"Yes," said the major. "We're in for it this time.... That damned
+offensive."
+
+"Well, we'll be able to show 'em what we're good for," said the
+lieutenant, laughing. "We haven't had a chance yet."
+
+"Hum! Better mark that belt, lieutenant, and have it changed. Been to
+the front yet?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Hum, well.... You'll look at things differently when you have," said
+the major.
+
+The lieutenant frowned.
+
+"Well, on the whole, lieutenant, your outfit is in very good shape....
+At ease, men!" The lieutenant and the major stood at the door a moment
+raising the collars of their coats; then they dove out into the rain.
+
+A few minutes later the sergeant came in.
+
+"All right, get your slickers on and line up."
+
+They stood lined up in the rain for a long while. It was a leaden
+afternoon. The even clouds had a faint coppery tinge. The rain beat in
+their faces, making them tingle. Fuselli was looking anxiously at the
+sergeant. At last the lieutenant appeared.
+
+"Attention!" cried the sergeant.
+
+The roll was called and a new man fell in at the end of the line, a tall
+man with large protruding eyes like a calf's.
+
+"Private 1st-class Daniel Fuselli, fall out and report to headquarters
+company!"
+
+Fuselli saw a look of surprise come over men's faces. He smiled wanly at
+Meadville.
+
+"Sergeant, take the men down to the station."
+
+"Squads, right," cried the sergeant. "March!"
+
+The company tramped off into the streaming rain.
+
+Fuselli went back to the barracks, took off his pack and slicker and
+wiped the water off his face.
+
+
+
+The rails gleamed gold in the early morning sunshine above the deep
+purple cinders of the track. Fuselli's eyes followed the track until
+it curved into a cutting where the wet clay was a bright orange in the
+clear light. The station platform, where puddles from the night's rain
+glittered as the wind ruffled them, was empty. Fuselli started walking
+up and down with his hands in his pockets. He had been sent down to
+unload some supplies that were coming on that morning's train. He felt
+free and successful since he joined the headquarters company! At last,
+he told himself, he had a job where he could show what he was good for.
+He walked up and down whistling shrilly.
+
+A train pulled slowly into the station. The engine stopped to take water
+and the couplings clanked all down the line of cars. The platform was
+suddenly full of men in khaki, stamping their feet, running up and down
+shouting.
+
+"Where you guys goin'?" asked Fuselli.
+
+"We're bound for Palm Beach. Don't we look it?" someone snarled in
+reply.
+
+But Fuselli had seen a familiar face. He was shaking hands with two
+browned men whose faces were grimy with days of travelling in freight
+cars.
+
+"Hullo, Chrisfield. Hullo, Andrews!" he cried. "When did you fellows get
+over here?"
+
+"Oh, 'bout four months ago," said Chrisfield, whose black eyes looked
+at Fuselli searchingly. "Oh! Ah 'member you. You're Fuselli. We was at
+trainin' camp together. 'Member him, Andy?"
+
+"Sure," said Andrews. "How are you makin' out?"
+
+"Fine," said Fuselli. "I'm in the optical department here."
+
+"Where the hell's that?"
+
+"Right here." Fuselli pointed vaguely behind the station.
+
+"We've been training about four months near Bordeaux," said Andrews;
+"and now we're going to see what it's like."
+
+The whistle blew and the engine started puffing hard. Clouds of white
+steam filled the station platform, where the soldiers scampered for
+their cars.
+
+"Good luck!" said Fuselli; but Andrews and Chrisfield had already gone.
+He saw them again as the train pulled out, two brown and dirt-grimed
+faces among many other brown and dirt-grimed faces. The steam floated
+up tinged with yellow in the bright early morning air as the last car of
+the train disappeared round the curve into the cutting.
+
+
+
+The dust rose thickly about the worn broom. As it was a dark morning,
+very little light filtered into the room full of great white packing
+cases, where Fuselli was sweeping. He stopped now and then and leaned on
+his broom. Far away he heard a sound of trains shunting and shouts and
+the sound of feet tramping in unison from the drill ground. The building
+where he was was silent. He went on sweeping, thinking of his company
+tramping off through the streaming rain, and of those fellows he had
+known in training Camp in America, Andrews and Chrisfield, jolting in
+box cars towards the front, where Daniel's buddy had had his chest split
+in half by a piece of shell. And he'd written home he'd been made a
+corporal. What was he going to do when letters came for him, addressed
+Corporal Dan Fuselli? Putting the broom away, he dusted the yellow chair
+and the table covered with order slips that stood in the middle of the
+piles of packing boxes. The door slammed somewhere below and there was a
+step on the stairs that led to the upper part of the warehouse. A little
+man with a monkey-like greyish-brown face and spectacles appeared and
+slipped out of his overcoat, like a very small bean popping out of a
+very large pod.
+
+The sergeant's stripes looked unusually wide and conspicuous on his thin
+arm.
+
+He grunted at Fuselli, sat down at the desk, and began at once peering
+among the order slips.
+
+"Anything in our mailbox this morning?" he asked Fuselli in a hoarse
+voice.
+
+"It's all there, sergeant," said Fuselli.
+
+The sergeant peered about the desk some more.
+
+"Ye'll have to wash that window today," he said after a pause.
+"Major's likely to come round here any time.... Ought to have been done
+yesterday."
+
+"All right," said Fuselli dully.
+
+He slouched over to the corner of the room, got the worn broom and began
+sweeping down the stairs. The dust rose about him, making him cough.
+He stopped and leaned on the broom. He thought of all the days that had
+gone by since he'd last seen those fellows, Andrews and Chrisfield,
+at training camp in America; and of all the days that would go by. He
+started sweeping again, sweeping the dust down from stair to stair.
+
+
+
+Fuselli sat on the end of his bunk. He had just shaved. It was a Sunday
+morning and he looked forward to having the afternoon off. He rubbed his
+face on his towel and got to his feet. Outside, the rain fell in great
+silvery sheets, so that the noise on the tarpaper roof of the barracks
+was almost deafening.
+
+Fuselli noticed, at the other end of the row of bunks, a group of
+men who all seemed to be looking at the same thing. Rolling down his
+sleeves, with his tunic hitched over one arm, he walked down to see what
+was the matter. Through the patter of the rain, he heard a thin voice
+say:
+
+"It ain't no use, sergeant, I'm sick. I ain't a' goin' to get up."
+
+"The kid's crazy," someone beside Fuselli said, turning away.
+
+"You get up this minute," roared the sergeant. He was a big man with
+black hair who looked like a lumberman. He stood over the bunk. In the
+bunk at the end of a bundle of blankets was the chalk-white face of
+Stockton. The boy's teeth were clenched, and his eyes were round and
+protruding, it seemed from terror.
+
+"You get out o' bed this minute," roared the sergeant again.
+
+The boy; was silent; his white cheeks quivered.
+
+"What the hell's the matter with him?"
+
+"Why don't you yank him out yourself, Sarge?"
+
+"You get out of bed this minute," shouted the sergeant again, paying no
+attention.
+
+The men gathered about walked away. Fuselli watched fascinated from a
+little distance.
+
+"All right, then, I'll get the lieutenant. This is a court-martial
+offence. Here, Morton and Morrison, you're guards over this man."
+
+The boy lay still in his blankets. He closed his eyes. By the way
+the blanket rose and fell over his chest, they could see that he was
+breathing heavily.
+
+"Say, Stockton, why don't you get up, you fool?"' said Fuselli. "You
+can't buck the whole army."
+
+The boy didn't answer.
+
+Fuselli walked away.
+
+"He's crazy," he muttered.
+
+The lieutenant was a stoutish red-faced man who came in puffing followed
+by the tall sergeant. He stopped and shook the water off his Campaign
+hat. The rain kept up its deafening patter on the roof.
+
+"Look here, are you sick? If you are, report sick call at once," said
+the lieutenant in an elaborately kind voice.
+
+The boy looked at him dully and did not answer.
+
+"You should get up and stand at attention when an officer speaks to you.
+
+"I ain't goin' to get up," came the thin voice.
+
+The officer's red face became crimson.
+
+"Sergeant, what's the matter with the man?" he asked in a furious tone.
+
+"I can't do anything with him, lieutenant. I think he's gone crazy."
+
+"Rubbish.... Mere insubordination.... You're under arrest, d'ye hear?"
+he shouted towards the bed.
+
+There was no answer. The rain pattered hard on the roof.
+
+"Have him brought down to the guardhouse, by force if necessary,"
+snapped the lieutenant. He strode towards the door. "And sergeant, start
+drawing up court-martial papers at once." The door slammed behind him.
+
+"Now you've got to get him up," said the sergeant to the two guards.
+
+Fuselli walked away.
+
+"Ain't some people damn fools?" he said to a man at the other end of the
+barracks. He stood looking out of the window at the bright sheets of the
+rain.
+
+"Well, get him up," shouted the sergeant.
+
+The boy lay with his eyes closed, his chalk-white face half-hidden by
+the blankets; he was very still.
+
+"Well, will you get up and go to the guardhouse, or have we to carry you
+there?" shouted the sergeant.
+
+The guards laid hold of him gingerly and pulled him up to a sitting
+posture.
+
+"All right, yank him out of bed."
+
+The frail form in khaki shirt and whitish drawers was held up for a
+moment between the two men. Then it fell a limp heap on the floor.
+
+"Say, Sarge, he's fainted."
+
+"The hell he has.... Say, Morrison, ask one of the orderlies to come up
+from the Infirmary."
+
+"He ain't fainted.... The kid's dead," said the other man.
+
+"Give me a hand."
+
+The sergeant helped lift the body on the bed again. "Well, I'll be
+goddamned," said the sergeant.
+
+The eyes had opened. They covered the head with a blanket.
+
+
+
+
+PART THREE: MACHINES                            I
+
+The fields and the misty blue-green woods slipped by slowly as the box
+car rumbled and jolted over the rails, now stopping for hours on sidings
+amid meadows, where it was quiet and where above the babel of voices
+of the regiment you could hear the skylarks, now clattering fast over
+bridges and along the banks of jade-green rivers where the slim poplars
+were just coming into leaf and where now and then a fish jumped. The men
+crowded in the door, grimy and tired, leaning on each other's shoulders
+and watching the plowed lands slip by and the meadows where the
+golden-green grass was dappled with buttercups, and the villages of
+huddled red roofs lost among pale budding trees and masses of peach
+blossom. Through the smells of steam and coal smoke and of unwashed
+bodies in uniforms came smells of moist fields and of manure from
+fresh-sowed patches and of cows and pasture lands just coming into
+flower.
+
+"Must be right smart o'craps in this country.... Ain't like that damn
+Polignac, Andy?" said Chrisfield.
+
+"Well, they made us drill so hard there wasn't any time for the grass to
+grow."
+
+"You're damn right there warn't."
+
+"Ah'd lak te live in this country a while," said Chrisfield.
+
+"We might ask 'em to let us off right here."
+
+"Can't be that the front's like this," said Judkins, poking his head
+out between Andrews's and Chrisfield's heads so that the bristles of his
+unshaven chin rubbed against Chrisfield's cheek. It was a large square
+head with closely cropped light hair and porcelain-blue eyes under lids
+that showed white in the red sunburned face, and a square jaw made a
+little grey by the sprouting beard.
+
+"Say, Andy, how the hell long have we all been in this goddam train?...
+Ah've done lost track o' the time...."
+
+"What's the matter; are you gettin' old, Chris?" asked Judkins laughing.
+
+Chrisfield had slipped out of the place he held and began poking himself
+in between Andrews and Judkins.
+
+"We've been on this train four days and five nights, an' we've got half
+a day's rations left, so we must be getting somewhere," said Andrews.
+
+"It can't be like this at the front."
+
+"It must be spring there as well as here," said Andrews.
+
+It was a day of fluffy mauve-tinted clouds that moved across the sky,
+sometimes darkening to deep blue where a small rainstorm trailed across
+the hills, sometimes brightening to moments of clear sunlight that gave
+blue shadows to the poplars and shone yellow on the smoke of the engine
+that puffed on painfully at the head of the long train.
+
+"Funny, ain't it? How li'l everythin' is," said Chrisfield. "Out Indiana
+way we wouldn't look at a cornfield that size. But it sort o' reminds me
+the way it used to be out home in the spring o' the year."
+
+"I'd like to see Indiana in the springtime," said Andrews.
+
+"Well you'll come out when the war's over and us guys is all
+home... won't you, Andy?"
+
+"You bet I will."
+
+They were going into the suburbs of a town. Rows and clusters of little
+brick and stucco houses were appearing along the roads. It began to rain
+from a sky full of lights of amber and lilac color. The slate roofs and
+the pinkish-grey streets of the town shone cheerfully in the rain. The
+little patches of garden were all vivid emerald-green. Then they were
+looking at rows and rows of red chimney pots over wet slate roofs that
+reflected the bright sky. In the distance rose the purple-grey spire of
+a church and the irregular forms of old buildings. They passed through a
+station.
+
+"Dijon," read Andrews. On the platform were French soldiers in their
+blue coats and a good sprinkling of civilians.
+
+"Gee, those are about the first real civies I've seen since I came
+overseas," said Judkins. "Those goddam country people down at Polignac
+didn't look like real civilians. There's folks dressed like it was New
+York."
+
+They had left the station and were rumbling slowly past interminable
+freight trains. At last the train came to a dead stop.
+
+A whistle sounded.
+
+"Don't nobody get out," shouted the sergeant from the car ahead.
+
+"Hell! They keep you in this goddam car like you was a convict,"
+muttered Chrisfield.
+
+"I'd like to get out and walk around Dijon."
+
+"O boy!"
+
+"I swear I'd make a bee line for a dairy lunch," said Judkins.
+
+"Hell of a fine dairy lunch you'll find among those goddam frogs. No,
+vin blank is all you'ld get in that goddam town."
+
+"Ah'm goin' to sleep," said Chrisfield. He stretched himself out on the
+pile of equipment at the end of the car. Andrews sat down near him and
+stared at his mud-caked boots, running one of his long hands, as brown
+as Chrisfield's now, through his light short-cut hair.
+
+Chrisfield lay looking at the gaunt outline of Andrews's face against
+the light through half-closed eyes. And he felt a warm sort of a smile
+inside him as he said to himself: "He's a damn good kid." Then
+he thought of the spring in the hills of southern Indiana and the
+mocking-bird singing in the moonlight among the flowering locust trees
+behind the house. He could almost smell the heavy sweetness of the
+locust blooms, as he used to smell them sitting on the steps after
+supper, tired from a day's heavy plowing, while the clatter of his
+mother's housework came from the kitchen. He didn't wish he was back
+there, but it was pleasant to think of it now and then, and how the
+yellow farmhouse looked and the red barn where his father never had been
+able to find time to paint the door, and the tumble-down cowshed where
+the shingles were always coming off. He wondered dully what it would be
+like out there at the front. It couldn't be green and pleasant, the way
+the country was here. Fellows always said it was hell out there. Well,
+he didn't give a damn. He went to sleep.
+
+He woke up gradually, the warm comfort of sleep giving place slowly to
+the stiffness of his uncomfortable position with the hobnails of a boot
+from the back of a pack sticking into his shoulder. Andrews was sitting
+in the same position, lost in thought. The rest of the men sat at the
+open doors or sprawled over the equipment.
+
+Chrisfield got up, stretched himself, yawned, and went to the door to
+look out. There was a heavy important step on the gravel outside. A
+large man with black eyebrows that met over his nose and a very black
+stubbly beard passed the car. There were a sergeants stripes on his arm.
+
+"Say, Andy," cried Chrisfield, "that bastard is a sergeant."
+
+"Who's that?" asked Andrews getting up with a smile, his blue eyes
+looking mildly into Chrisfield's black ones.
+
+"You know who Ah mean."
+
+Under their heavy tan Chrisfield's rounded cheeks were flushed. His eyes
+snapped under their long black lashes. His fists were clutched.
+
+"Oh, I know, Chris. I didn't know he was in this regiment."
+
+"God damn him!" muttered Chrisfield in a low voice, throwing himself
+down on his packs again.
+
+"Hold your horses, Chris," said Andrews. "We may all cash in our checks
+before long... no use letting things worry us."
+
+"I don't give a damn if we do."
+
+"Nor do I, now." Andrews sat down beside Chrisfield again.
+
+After a while the train got jerkily into motion. The wheels rumbled and
+clattered over the rails and the clots of mud bounced up and down on the
+splintered boards of the floor. Chrisfield pillowed his head on his arm
+and went to sleep again, still smarting from the flush of his anger.
+
+Andrews looked out through his fingers at the swaying black box car, at
+the men sprawled about on the floor, their heads nodding with each jolt,
+and at the mauve-grey clouds and bits of sparkling blue sky that he
+could see behind the silhouettes of the heads and shoulders of the men
+who stood in the doors. The wheels ground on endlessly.
+
+
+
+The car stopped with a jerk that woke up all the sleepers and threw one
+man off his feet. A whistle blew shrilly outside.
+
+"All right, out of the cars! Snap it up; snap it up!" yelled the
+sergeant.
+
+The men piled out stiffly, handing the equipment out from hand to hand
+till it formed a confused heap of packs and rifles outside. All down the
+train at each door there was a confused pile of equipment and struggling
+men.
+
+"Snap it up.... Full equipment.... Line up!" the sergeant yelled.
+
+The men fell into line slowly, with their packs and rifles. Lieutenants
+hovered about the edges of the forming lines, tightly belted into their
+stiff trench coats, scrambling up and down the coal piles of the siding.
+The men were given "at ease" and stood leaning on their rifles staring
+at a green water-tank on three wooden legs, over the top of which had
+been thrown a huge piece of torn grey cheesecloth. When the confused
+sound of tramping feet subsided, they could hear a noise in the
+distance, like someone lazily shaking a piece of heavy sheet-iron. The
+sky was full of little dabs of red, purple and yellow and the purplish
+sunset light was over everything.
+
+The order came to march. They marched down a rutted road where the
+puddles were so deep they had continually to break ranks to avoid them.
+In a little pine-wood on one side were rows of heavy motor trucks and
+ammunition caissons; supper was cooking in a field kitchen about which
+clustered the truck drivers in their wide visored caps. Beyond the wood
+the column turned off into a field behind a little group of stone and
+stucco houses that had lost their roofs. In the field they halted. The
+grass was brilliant emerald and the wood and the distant hills were
+shades of clear deep blue. Wisps of pale-blue mist lay across the field.
+In the turf here and there were small clean bites, that might have been
+made by some strange animal. The men looked at them curiously.
+
+"No lights, remember we're in sight of the enemy. A match might
+annihilate the detachment," announced the lieutenant dramatically after
+having given the orders for the pup tents to be set up.
+
+When the tents were ready, the men stood about in the chilly white mist
+that kept growing denser, eating their cold rations. Everywhere were
+grumbling snorting voices.
+
+"God, let's turn in, Chris, before our bones are frozen," said Andrews.
+
+Guards had been posted and walked up and down with a business-like
+stride, peering now and then suspiciously into the little wood where the
+truck-drivers were.
+
+Chrisfield and Andrews crawled into their little tent and rolled up
+together in their blankets, getting as close to each other as they
+could. At first it was very cold and hard, and they squirmed about
+restlessly, but gradually the warmth from their bodies filled their thin
+blankets and their muscles began to relax. Andrews went to sleep first
+and Chrisfield lay listening to his deep breathing. There was a frown
+on his face. He was thinking of the man who had walked past the train at
+Dijon. The last time he had seen that man Anderson was at training camp.
+He had only been a corporal then. He remembered the day the man had
+been made corporal. It had not been long before that that Chrisfield had
+drawn his knife on him, one night in the barracks. A fellow had caught
+his hand just in time. Anderson had looked a bit pale that time and had
+walked away. But he'd never spoken a word to Chrisfield since. As he lay
+with his eyes closed, pressed close against Andrew's limp sleeping body,
+Chrisfield could see the man's face, the eyebrows that joined across the
+nose and the jaw, always blackish from the heavy beard, that looked blue
+when he had just shaved. At last the tenseness of his mind slackened; he
+thought of women for a moment, of a fair-haired girl he'd seen from
+the train, and then suddenly crushing sleepiness closed down on him and
+everything went softly warmly black, as he drifted off to sleep with no
+sense but the coldness of one side and the warmth of his bunkie's body
+on the other.
+
+In the middle of the night he awoke and crawled out of the tent. Andrews
+followed him. Their teeth chattered a little, and they stretched their
+legs stiffly. It was cold, but the mist had vanished. The stars shone
+brilliantly. They walked out a little way into the field away from the
+bunch of tents to make water. A faint rustling and breathing noise, as
+of animals herded together, came from the sleeping regiment. Somewhere
+a brook made a shrill gurgling. They strained their ears, but they could
+hear no guns. They stood side by side looking up at the multitudes of
+stars.
+
+"That's Orion," said Andrews.
+
+"What?"
+
+"That bunch of stars there is called Orion. D'you see 'em. It's supposed
+to look like a man with a bow, but he always looks to me like a fellow
+striding across the sky."
+
+"Some stars tonight, ain't there? Gee, what's that?"
+
+Behind the dark hills a glow rose and fell like the glow in a forge.
+
+"The front must be that way," said Andrews, shivering. "I guess we'll
+know tomorrow."
+
+"Yes; tomorrow night we'll know more about it," said Andrews. They stood
+silent a moment listening to the noise the brook made.
+
+"God, it's quiet, ain't it? This can't be the front. Smell that?"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Smells like an apple tree in bloom somewhere.... Hell, let's git in,
+before our blankets git cold."
+
+Andrews was still staring at the group of stars he had said was Orion.
+
+Chrisfield pulled him by the arm. They crawled into their tent again,
+rolled up together and immediately were crushed under an exhausted
+sleep.
+
+
+
+As far ahead of him as Chrisfield could see were packs and heads with
+caps at a variety of angles, all bobbing up and down with the swing of
+the brisk marching time. A fine warm rain was falling, mingling with the
+sweat that ran down his face. The column had been marching a long time
+along a straight road that was worn and scarred with heavy traffic.
+Fields and hedges where clusters of yellow flowers were in bloom had
+given place to an avenue of poplars. The light wet trunks and the stiff
+branches hazy with green filed by, interminable, as interminable as the
+confused tramp of feet and jingle of equipment that sounded in his ears.
+
+"Say, are we goin' towards the front?"
+
+"Goddamned if I know."
+
+"Ain't no front within miles."
+
+Men's sentences came shortly through their heavy breathing.
+
+The column shifted over to the side of the road to avoid a train of
+motor trucks going the other way. Chrisfield felt the heavy mud spurt up
+over him as truck after truck rumbled by. With the wet back of one hand
+he tried to wipe it off his face, but the grit, when he rubbed it, hurt
+his skin, made tender by the rain. He swore long and whiningly, half
+aloud. His rifle felt as heavy as an iron girder.
+
+They entered a village of plaster-and-timber houses. Through open doors
+they could see into comfortable kitchens where copper pots gleamed and
+where the floors were of clean red tiles. In front of some of the houses
+were little gardens full of crocuses and hyacinths where box-bushes
+shone a very dark green in the rain. They marched through the square
+with its pavement of little yellow rounded cobbles, its grey church with
+a pointed arch in the door, its cafes with names painted over them.
+Men and women looked out of doors and windows. The column perceptibly
+slackened its speed, but kept on, and as the houses dwindled and became
+farther apart along the road the men's hope of stopping vanished. Ears
+were deafened by the confused tramp of feet on the macadam road. Men's
+feet seemed as lead, as if all the weight of the pack hung on them.
+Shoulders, worn callous, began to grow tender and sore under the
+constant sweating. Heads drooped. Each man's eyes were on the heels
+of the man ahead of him that rose and fell, rose and fell endlessly.
+Marching became for each man a personal struggle with his pack,
+that seemed to have come alive, that seemed something malicious and
+overpowering, wrestling to throw him.
+
+The rain stopped and the sky brightened a little, taking on pale
+yellowish lights as if the clouds that hid the sun were growing thin.
+
+The column halted at the edge of a group of farms and barns that
+scattered along the road. The men sprawled in all directions along
+the roadside hiding the bright green grass with the mud-color of their
+uniforms.
+
+Chrisfield lay in the field beside the road, pressing his hot face into
+the wet sprouting clover. The blood throbbed through his ears. His arms
+and legs seemed to cleave to the ground, as if he would never be able
+to move them again. He closed his eyes. Gradually a cold chill began
+stealing through his body. He sat up and slipped his arms out of the
+harness of his pack. Someone was handing him a cigarette, and he sniffed
+a little acrid sweet smoke.
+
+Andrews was lying beside him, his head propped against his pack,
+smoking, and poking a cigarette towards his friend with a muddy
+hand. His blue eyes looked strangely from out the flaming red of his
+mud-splotched face.
+
+Chrisfield took the cigarette, and fumbled in his pocket for a match.
+
+"That nearly did it for me," said Andrews.
+
+Chrisfield grunted. He pulled greedily on the cigarette.
+
+A whistle blew.
+
+Slowly the men dragged themselves off the ground and fell into line,
+drooping under the weight of their equipment.
+
+The companies marched off separately.
+
+Chrisfield overheard the lieutenant saying to a sergeant:
+
+"Damn fool business that. Why the hell couldn't they have sent us here
+in the first place?"
+
+"So we ain't goin' to the front after all?" said the sergeant.
+
+"Front, hell!" said the lieutenant. The lieutenant was a small man
+who looked like a jockey with a coarse red face which, now that he was
+angry, was almost purple.
+
+"I guess they're going to quarter us here," said somebody.
+
+Immediately everybody began saying: "We're going to be quartered here."
+
+They stood waiting in formation a long while, the packs cutting into
+their backs and shoulders. At last the sergeant shouted out:
+
+"All right, take yer stuff upstairs." Stumbling on each others' heels
+they climbed up into a dark loft, where the air was heavy with the smell
+of hay and with an acridity of cow manure from the stables below. There
+was a little straw in the corners, on which those who got there first
+spread their blankets.
+
+Chrisfield and Andrews tucked themselves in a corner from which through
+a hole where the tiles had fallen off the roof, they could see down into
+the barnyard, where white and speckled chickens pecked about with jerky
+movements. A middle-aged woman stood in the doorway of the house looking
+suspiciously at the files of khaki-clad soldiers that shuffled slowly
+into the barns by every door.
+
+An officer went up to her, a little red book in his hand. A conversation
+about some matter proceeded painfully. The officer grew very red.
+Andrews threw back his head and laughed, luxuriously rolling from side
+to side in the straw. Chrisfield laughed too, he hardly knew why. Over
+their heads they could hear the feet of pigeons on the roof, and a
+constant drowsy rou-cou-cou-cou.
+
+Through the barnyard smells began to drift... the greasiness of food
+cooking in the field kitchen.
+
+"Ah hope they give us somethin' good to eat," said Chrisfield. "Ah'm
+hongry as a thrasher."
+
+"So am I," said Andrews.
+
+"Say, Andy, you kin talk their language a li'l', can't ye?"
+
+Andrews nodded his head vaguely.
+
+"Well, maybe we kin git some aigs or somethin' out of the lady down
+there. Will ye try after mess?"
+
+"All right."
+
+They both lay back in the straw and closed their eyes. Their cheeks
+still burned from the rain. Everything seemed very peaceful; the men
+sprawled about talking in low drowsy voices. Outside, another shower had
+come up and beat softly on the tiles of the roof. Chrisfield thought
+he had never been so comfortable in his life, although his soaked
+shoes pinched his cold feet and his knees were wet and cold. But in the
+drowsiness of the rain and of voices talking quietly about him, he fell
+asleep.
+
+He dreamed he was home in Indiana, but instead of his mother cooking at
+the stove in the kitchen, there was the Frenchwoman who had stood in the
+farmhouse door, and near her stood a lieutenant with a little red book
+in his hand. He was eating cornbread and syrup off a broken plate. It
+was fine cornbread with a great deal of crust on it, crisp and hot, on
+which the butter was cold and sweet to his tongue. Suddenly he stopped
+eating and started swearing, shouting at the top of his lungs: "You
+goddam..." he started, but he couldn't seem to think of anything more
+to say. "You goddam..." he started again. The lieutenant looked towards
+him, wrinkling his black eyebrows that met across his nose. He was
+Sergeant Anderson. Chris drew his knife and ran at him, but it was Andy
+his bunkie he had run his knife into. He threw his arms round Andy's
+body, crying hot tears.... He woke up. Mess kits were clinking all
+about the dark crowded loft. The men had already started piling down the
+stairs.
+
+
+
+The larks filled the wine-tinged air with a constant chiming of little
+bells. Chrisfield and Andrews were strolling across a field of white
+clover that covered the brow of a hill. Below in the valley they could
+see a cluster of red roofs of farms and the white ribbon of the road
+where long trains of motor trucks crawled like beetles. The sun had just
+set behind the blue hills the other side of the shallow valley. The air
+was full of the smell of clover and of hawthorn from the hedgerows. They
+took deep breaths as they crossed the field.
+
+"It's great to get away from that crowd," Andrews was saying.
+
+Chrisfield walked on silently, dragging his feet through the matted
+clover. A leaden dullness weighed like some sort of warm choking
+coverlet on his limbs, so that it seemed an effort to walk, an effort to
+speak. Yet under it his muscles were taut and trembling as he had known
+them to be before when he was about to get into a fight or to make love
+to a girl.
+
+"Why the hell don't they let us git into it?" he said suddenly.
+
+"Yes, anything'ld be better than this... wait, wait, wait."
+
+They walked on, hearing the constant chirrup of the larks, the brush
+of their feet through the clover, the faint jingle of some coins in
+Chrisfield's pocket, and in the distance the irregular snoring of an
+aeroplane motor. As they walked Andrews leaned over from time to time
+and picked a couple of the white clover flowers.
+
+The aeroplane came suddenly nearer and swooped in a wide curve above the
+field, drowning every sound in the roar of its exhaust. They made out
+the figures of the pilot and the observer before the plane rose again
+and vanished against the ragged purple clouds of the sky. The observer
+had waved a hand at them as he passed. They stood still in the darkening
+field, staring up at the sky, where a few larks still hung chirruping.
+
+"Ah'd lahk to be one o' them guys," said Chrisfield.
+
+"You would?"
+
+"God damn it, Ah'd do anything to git out o' this hellish infantry. This
+ain't no sort o' life for a man to be treated lahk he was a nigger."
+
+"No, it's no sort of life for a man."
+
+"If they'd let us git to the front an' do some fightin' an' be done with
+it.... But all we do is drill and have grenade practice an' drill again
+and then have bayonet practice an' drill again. 'Nough to drive a feller
+crazy."
+
+"What the hell's the use of talking about it, Chris? We can't be any
+lower than we are, can we?" Andrews laughed.
+
+"There's that plane again."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"There, just goin' down behind the piece o' woods."
+
+"That's where their field is."
+
+"Ah bet them guys has a good time. Ah put in an application back in
+trainin' camp for Aviation. Ain't never heard nothing from it though. If
+Ah had, Ah wouldn't be lower than dirt in this hawg-pen."
+
+"It's wonderful up here on the hill this evening," said Andrews, looking
+dreamily at the pale orange band of light where the sun had set. "Let's
+go down and get a bottle of wine."
+
+"Now yo're talkin'. Ah wonder if that girl's down there tonight."
+
+"Antoinette?"
+
+"Um-hum.... Boy, Ah'd lahk to have her all by ma-self some night."
+
+Their steps grew brisker as they strode along a grass-grown road that
+led through high hedgerows to a village under the brow of the hill. It
+was almost dark under the shadow of the bushes on either side. Overhead
+the purple clouds were washed over by a pale yellow light that gradually
+faded to grey. Birds chirped and rustled among the young leaves.
+
+Andrews put his hand on Chrisfield's shoulder.
+
+"Let's walk slow," he said, "we don't want to get out of here too soon."
+He grabbed carelessly at little cluster of hawthorn flowers as he passed
+them, and seemed reluctant to untangle the thorny branches that caught
+in his coat and on his loosely wound puttees.
+
+"Hell, man," said Chrisfield, "we won't have time to get a bellyful. It
+must be gettin' late already."
+
+They hastened their steps again and came in a moment to the first
+tightly shuttered houses of the village.
+
+In the middle of the road was an M.P., who stood with his legs wide
+apart, waving his "billy" languidly. He had a red face, his eyes were
+fixed on the shuttered upper window of a house, through the chinks of
+which came a few streaks of yellow light. His lips were puckered up as
+if to whistle, but no sound came. He swayed back and forth indecisively.
+An officer came suddenly out of the little green door of the house
+in front of the M.P., who brought his heels together with a jump and
+saluted, holding his hand a long while to his cap. The officer flicked a
+hand up hastily to his hat, snatching his cigar out of his mouth for
+an instant. As the officer's steps grew fainter down the road, the M.P.
+gradually returned to his former position.
+
+Chrisfield and Andrews had slipped by on the other side, and gone in at
+the door of a small ramshackle house of which the windows were closed by
+heavy wooden shutters.
+
+"I bet there ain't many of them bastards at the front," said Chris.
+
+"Not many of either kind of bastards," said Andrews laughing, as he
+closed the door behind them. They were in a room that had once been the
+parlor of a farmhouse. The chandelier with its bits of crystal and the
+orange-blossoms on a piece of dusty red velvet under a bell glass on
+the mantelpiece denoted that. The furniture had been taken out, and four
+square oak tables crowded in. At one of the tables sat three Americans
+and at another a very young olive-skinned French soldier, who sat
+hunched over his table looking moodily down into his glass of wine.
+
+A girl in a faded frock of some purplish material that showed the strong
+curves of her shoulders and breasts slouched into the room, her hands
+in the pocket of a dark blue apron against which her rounded forearms
+showed golden brown. Her face had the same golden tan under a mass of
+dark blonde hair. She smiled when she saw the two soldiers, drawing her
+thin lips away from her ugly yellow teeth.
+
+"Ca va bien, Antoinette?" asked Andrews.
+
+"Oui," she said, looking beyond their heads at the French soldier who
+sat at the other side of the little room.
+
+"A bottle of vin rouge, vite," said Chrisfield.
+
+"Ye needn't be so damn vite about it tonight, Chris," said one of the
+men at the other table.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Ain't a-goin' to be no roll call. Corporal tole me his-self. Sarge's
+gone out to git stewed, an' the Loot's away."
+
+"Sure," said another man, "we kin stay out as late's we goddam please
+tonight."
+
+"There's a new M.P. in town," said Chrisfield.... "Ah saw him maself....
+You did, too, didn't you, Andy?"
+
+Andrews nodded. He was looking at the Frenchman, who sat with his face
+in shadow and his black lashes covering his eyes. A purplish flash had
+suffused the olive skin at his cheekbones.
+
+"Oh, boy," said Chrisfield. "That ole wine sure do go down fast.... Say,
+Antoinette, got any cognac?"
+
+"I'm going to have some more wine," said Andrews.
+
+"Go ahead, Andy; have all ye want. Ah want some-thin' to warm ma guts."
+
+Antoinette brought a bottle of cognac and two small glasses and sat
+down in an empty chair with her red hands crossed on her apron. Her eyes
+moved from Chrisfield to the Frenchman and back again.
+
+Chrisfield turned a little round in his chair and looked at the
+Frenchman, feeling in his eyes for a moment a glance of the man's
+yellowish-brown eyes.
+
+Andrews leaned back against the wall sipping his dark-colored wine, his
+eyes contracted dreamily, fixed on the shadow of the chandelier, which
+the cheap oil-lamp with its tin reflector cast on the peeling plaster of
+the wall opposite.
+
+Chrisfield punched him.
+
+"Wake up, Andy, are you asleep?"
+
+"No," said Andy smiling.
+
+"Have a li'l mo' cognac."
+
+Chrisfield poured out two more glasses unsteadily. His eyes were on
+Antoinette again. The faded purple frock was hooked at the neck. The
+first three hooks were undone revealing a V-shape of golden brown skin
+and a bit of whitish underwear.
+
+"Say, Andy," he said, putting his arm round his friend's neck and
+talking into his ear, "talk up to her for me, will yer, Andy?... Ah
+won't let that goddam frog get her, no, I won't, by Gawd. Talk up to her
+for me, Andy."
+
+Andrews laughed.
+
+"I'll try," he said. "But there's always the Queen of Sheba, Chris."
+
+"Antoinette, j'ai un ami," started Andrews, making a gesture with a long
+dirty hand towards Chris.
+
+Antoinette showed her bad teeth in a smile.
+
+"Joli garcon," said Andrews.
+
+Antoinette's face became impassive and beautiful again. Chrisfield
+leaned back in his chair with an empty glass in his hand and watched his
+friend admiringly.
+
+"Antoinette, mon ami vous... vous admire," said Andrews in a courtly
+voice.
+
+A woman put her head in the door. It was the same face and hair as
+Antoinette's, ten years older, only the skin, instead of being golden
+brown, was sallow and wrinkled.
+
+"Viens," said the woman in a shrill voice.
+
+Antoinette got up, brushed heavily against Chrisfield's leg as she
+passed him and disappeared. The Frenchman walked across the room from
+his corner, saluted gravely and went out.
+
+Chrisfield jumped to his feet. The room was like a white box reeling
+about him.
+
+"That frog's gone after her," he shouted.
+
+"No, he ain't, Chris," cried someone from the next table. "Sit tight,
+ole boy. We're bettin' on yer."
+
+"Yes, sit down and have a drink, Chris," said Andy. "I've got to
+have somethin' more to drink. I haven't had a thing to drink all the
+evening." He pulled him back into his chair. Chrisfield tried to get up
+again. Andrews hung on him so that the chair upset. Then both sprawled
+on the red tiles of the floor.
+
+"The house is pinched!" said a voice.
+
+Chrisfield saw Judkins standing over him, a grin on his large red face.
+He got to his feet and sat sulkily in his chair again. Andrews was
+already sitting opposite him, looking impassive as ever.
+
+The tables were full now. Someone was singing in a droning voice.
+
+     "O the oak and the ash and the weeping willow tree,
+     O green grows the grass in God's countree!"
+
+"Ole Indiana," shouted Chris. "That's the only God's country I know."
+He suddenly felt that he could tell Andy all about his home and the wide
+corn-fields shimmering and rustling under the July sun, and the creek
+with red clay banks where he used to go in swimming. He seemed to see it
+all before him, to smell the winey smell of the silo, to see the cattle,
+with their chewing mouths always stained a little with green, waiting to
+get through the gate to the water trough, and the yellow dust and roar
+of wheat-thrashing, and the quiet evening breeze cooling his throat and
+neck when he lay out on a shack of hay that he had been tossing all day
+long under the tingling sun. But all he managed to say was:
+
+"Indiana's God's country, ain't it, Andy?"
+
+"Oh, he has so many," muttered Andrews.
+
+"Ah've seen a hailstone measured nine inches around out home, honest to
+Gawd, Ah have."
+
+"Must be as good as a barrage."
+
+"Ah'd like to see any goddam barrage do the damage one of our thunder
+an' lightnin' storms'll do," shouted Chris.
+
+"I guess all the barrage we're going to see's grenade practice."
+
+"Don't you worry, buddy," said somebody across the room.
+
+"You'll see enough of it. This war's going to last damn long...."
+
+"Ah'd lak to get in some licks at those Huns tonight; honest to Gawd
+Ah would, Andy," muttered Chris in a low voice. He felt his muscles
+contract with a furious irritation. He looked through half-closed
+eyes at the men in the room, seeing them in distorted white lights and
+reddish shadows. He thought of himself throwing a grenade among a crowd
+of men. Then he saw the face of Anderson, a ponderous white face with
+eyebrows that met across his nose and a bluish, shaved chin.
+
+"Where does he stay at, Andy? I'm going to git him."
+
+Andrews guessed what he meant.
+
+"Sit down and have a drink, Chris," he said, "Remember you're going to
+sleep with the Queen of Sheba tonight."
+
+"Not if I can't git them goddam...." his voice trailed off into an
+inaudible muttering of oaths.
+
+     "O the oak and the ash and the weeping willow tree,
+     O green grows the grass in God's countree!"
+
+somebody sang again.
+
+Chrisfield saw a woman standing beside the table with her back to him,
+collecting the bottles. Andy was paying her.
+
+"Antoinette," he said. He got to his feet and put his arms round her
+shoulders. With a quick movement of the elbows she pushed him back into
+his chair. She turned round. He saw the sallow face and thin breasts of
+the older sister. She looked in his eyes with surprise. He was grinning
+drunkenly. As she left the room she made a sign to him with her head to
+follow her. He got up and staggered out the door, pulling Andrews after
+him.
+
+In the inner room was a big bed with curtains where the women slept, and
+the fireplace where they did their cooking. It was dark except for the
+corner where he and Andrews stood blinking in the glare of a candle
+on the table. Beyond they could only see ruddy shadows and the huge
+curtained bed with its red coverlet.
+
+The Frenchman, somewhere in the dark of the room, said something several
+times.
+
+"Avions boches... ss-t!"
+
+They were quiet.
+
+Above them they heard the snoring of aeroplane motors, rising and
+falling like the buzzing of a fly against a window pane.
+
+They all looked at each other curiously. Antoinette was leaning against
+the bed, her face expressionless. Her heavy hair had come undone and
+fell in smoky gold waves about her shoulders.
+
+The older woman was giggling.
+
+"Come on, let's see what's doing, Chris," said Andrews.
+
+They went out into the dark village street.
+
+"To hell with women, Chris, this is the war!" cried Andrews in a loud
+drunken voice as they reeled arm in arm up the street.
+
+"You bet it's the war.... Ah'm a-goin' to beat up...."
+
+Chrisfield felt his friend's hand clapped over his mouth. He let himself
+go limply, feeling himself pushed to the side of the road.
+
+Somewhere in the dark he heard an officer's voice say:
+
+"Bring those men to me."
+
+"Yes, sir," came another voice.
+
+Slow heavy footsteps came up the road in their direction. Andrews kept
+pushing him back along the side of a house, until suddenly they both
+fell sprawling in a manure pit.
+
+"Lie still for God's sake," muttered Andrews, throwing an arm over
+Chrisfield's chest. A thick odor of dry manure filled their nostrils.
+
+They heard the steps come nearer, wander about irresolutely and then go
+off in the direction from which they had come.
+
+Meanwhile the throb of motors overhead grew louder and louder.
+
+"Well?" came the officer's voice.
+
+"Couldn't find them, sir," mumbled the other voice.
+
+"Nonsense. Those men were drunk," came the officer's voice.
+
+"Yes, sir," came the other voice humbly.
+
+Chrisfield started to giggle. He felt he must yell aloud with laughter.
+
+The nearest motor stopped its singsong roar, making the night seem
+deathly silent.
+
+Andrews jumped to his feet.
+
+The air was split by a shriek followed by a racking snorting explosion.
+They saw the wall above their pit light up with a red momentary glare.
+
+Chrisfield got to his feet, expecting to see flaming ruins. The village
+street was the same as ever. There was a little light from the glow the
+moon, still under the horizon, gave to the sky. A window in the house
+opposite showed yellow. In it was a blue silhouette of an officer's cap
+and uniform.
+
+A little group stood in the street below.
+
+"What was that?" the form in the window was shouting in a peremptory
+voice.
+
+"German aeroplane just dropped a bomb, Major," came a breathless voice
+in reply.
+
+"Why the devil don't he close that window?" a voice was muttering all
+the while. "Juss a target for 'em to aim at... a target to aim at."
+
+"Any damage done?" asked the major.
+
+Through the silence the snoring of the motors sing-songed ominously
+overhead, like giant mosquitoes.
+
+"I seem to hear more," said the major, in his drawling voice.
+
+"O yes sir, yes sir, lots," answered an eager voice.
+
+"For God's sake tell him to close the window, Lieutenant," muttered
+another voice.
+
+"How the hell can I tell him? You tell him."
+
+"We'll all be killed, that's all there is about it."
+
+"There are no shelters or dugouts," drawled the major from the window.
+"That's Headquarters' fault."
+
+"There's the cellar!" cried the eager voice, again.
+
+"Oh," said the major.
+
+Three snorting explosions in quick succession drowned everything in a
+red glare. The street was suddenly filled with a scuttle of villagers
+running to shelter.
+
+"Say, Andy, they may have a roll call," said Chrisfield.
+
+"We'd better cut for home across country," said Andrews.
+
+They climbed cautiously out of their manure pit. Chrisfield was
+surprised to find that he was trembling. His hands were cold.
+
+It was with difficulty he kept his teeth from chattering.
+
+"God, we'll stink for a week."
+
+"Let's git out," muttered Chrisfield, "o' this goddam village."
+
+They ran out through an orchard, broke through a hedge and climbed up
+the hill across the open fields.
+
+Down the main road an anti-aircraft gun had started barking and the sky
+sparkled with exploding shrapnel. The "put, put, put" of a machine gun
+had begun somewhere. Chrisfield strode up the hill in step with his
+friend. Behind them bomb followed bomb, and above them the air seemed
+full of exploding shrapnel and droning planes. The cognac still throbbed
+a little in their blood. They stumbled against each other now and then
+as they walked. From the top of the hill they turned and looked back.
+Chrisfield felt a tremendous elation thumping stronger than the cognac
+through his veins. Unconsciously he put his arm round his friend's
+shoulders. They seemed the only live things in a reeling world.
+
+Below in the valley a house was burning brightly. From all directions
+came the yelp of anti-aircraft guns, and overhead unperturbed continued
+the leisurely singsong of the motors.
+
+Suddenly Chrisfield burst out laughing. "By God, Ah always have fun when
+Ah'm out with you, Andy," he said.
+
+They turned and hurried down the other slope of the hill towards the
+farms where they were quartered.
+
+
+
+                             II
+
+As far as he could see in every direction were the grey trunks of
+beeches bright green with moss on one side. The ground was thick with
+last year's leaves that rustled maddeningly with every step. In front of
+him his eyes followed other patches of olive-drab moving among the tree
+trunks. Overhead, through the mottled light and dark green of the leaves
+he could see now and then a patch of heavy grey sky, greyer than the
+silvery trunks that moved about him in every direction as he walked.
+He strained his eyes down each alley until they were dazzled by the
+reiteration of mottled grey and green. Now and then the rustling stopped
+ahead of him, and the olive-drab patches were still. Then, above the
+clamour of the blood in his ears, he could hear batteries "pong, pong,
+pong" in the distance, and the woods ringing with a sound like hail as
+a heavy shell hurtled above the tree tops to end in a dull rumble miles
+away.
+
+Chrisfield was soaked with sweat, but he could not feel his arms
+or legs. Every sense was concentrated in eyes and ears, and in the
+consciousness of his gun. Time and again he pictured himself taking
+sight at something grey that moved, and firing. His forefinger itched to
+press the trigger. He would take aim very carefully, he told himself;
+he pictured a dab of grey starting up from behind a grey tree trunk, and
+the sharp detonation of his rifle, and the dab of grey rolling among the
+last year's leaves.
+
+A branch carried his helmet off his head so that it rolled at his feet
+and bounced with a faint metallic sound against the root of a tree.
+
+He was blinded by the sudden terror that seized him. His heart seemed to
+roll from side to side in his chest. He stood stiff, as if paralyzed
+for a moment before he could stoop and pick the helmet up. There was a
+curious taste of blood in his mouth.
+
+"Ah'll pay 'em fer that," he muttered between clenched teeth.
+
+His fingers were still trembling when he stooped to pick up the helmet,
+which he put on again very carefully, fastening it with the strap under
+his chin. Furious anger had taken hold of him. The olive-drab patches
+ahead had moved forward again. He followed, looking eagerly to the right
+and the left, praying he might see something. In every direction were
+the silvery trunk of the beeches, each with a vivid green streak on one
+side. With every step the last year's russet leaves rustled underfoot,
+maddeningly loud.
+
+Almost out of sight among the moving tree trunks was a log. It was not
+a log; it was a bunch of grey-green cloth. Without thinking Chrisfield
+strode towards it. The silver trunks of the beeches circled about him,
+waving jagged arms. It was a German lying full length among the leaves.
+
+Chrisfield was furiously happy in the angry pumping of blood through his
+veins.
+
+He could see the buttons on the back of the long coat of the German, and
+the red band on his cap.
+
+He kicked the German. He could feel the ribs against his toes through
+the leather of his boot. He kicked again and again with all his might.
+The German rolled over heavily. He had no face. Chrisfield felt the
+hatred suddenly ebb out of him. Where the face had been was a spongy
+mass of purple and yellow and red, half of which stuck to the russet
+leaves when the body rolled over. Large flies with bright shiny green
+bodies circled about it. In a brown clay-grimed hand was a revolver.
+
+Chrisfield felt his spine go cold; the German had shot himself.
+
+He ran off suddenly, breathlessly, to join the rest of the
+reconnoitering squad. The silent beeches whirled about him, waving
+gnarled boughs above his head. The German had shot himself. That was why
+he had no face.
+
+Chrisfield fell into line behind the other men. The corporal waited for
+him.
+
+"See anything?" he asked.
+
+"Not a goddam thing," muttered Chrisfield almost inaudibly. The corporal
+went off to the head of the line. Chrisfield was alone again. The leaves
+rustled maddeningly loud underfoot.
+
+
+
+                            III
+
+Chrisfield's eyes were fixed on the leaves at the tops of the walnut
+trees, etched like metal against the bright colorless sky, edged with
+flicks and fringes of gold where the sunlight struck them. He stood
+stiff and motionless at attention, although there was a sharp pain in
+his left ankle that seemed swollen enough to burst the worn boot. He
+could feel the presence of men on both sides of him, and of men again
+beyond them. It seemed as if the stiff line of men in olive-drab,
+standing at attention, waiting endlessly for someone to release them
+from their erect paralysis, must stretch unbroken round the world.
+He let his glance fall to the trampled grass of the field where the
+regiment was drawn up. Somewhere behind him he could hear the clinking
+of spurs at some officer's heels. Then there was the sound of a motor on
+the road suddenly shut off, and there were steps coming down the line
+of men, and a group of officers passed hurriedly, with a businesslike
+stride, as if they did nothing else all their lives. Chrisfield made out
+eagles on tight khaki shoulders, then a single star and a double star,
+above which was a red ear and some grey hair; the general passed too
+soon for him to make out his face. Chrisfield swore to himself a little
+because his ankle hurt so. His eyes travelled back to the fringe of the
+trees against the bright sky. So this was what he got for those weeks
+in dugouts, for all the times he had thrown himself on his belly in the
+mud, for the bullets he had shot into the unknown at grey specks that
+moved among the grey mud. Something was crawling up the middle of his
+back. He wasn't sure if it were a louse or if he were imagining it. An
+order had been shouted. Automatically he had changed his position to
+parade rest. Somewhere far away a little man was walking towards the
+long drab lines. A wind had come up, rustling the stiff leaves of the
+grove of walnut trees. The voice squeaked above it, but Chrisfield could
+not make out what it said. The wind in the trees made a vast rhythmic
+sound like the churning of water astern of the transport he had come
+over on. Gold flicks and olive shadows danced among the indented
+clusters of leaves as they swayed, as if sweeping something away,
+against the bright sky. An idea came into Chrisfield's head. Suppose
+the leaves should sweep in broader and broader curves until they should
+reach the ground and sweep and sweep until all this was swept away,
+all these pains and lice and uniforms and officers with maple leaves
+or eagles or single stars or double stars or triple stars on their
+shoulders. He had a sudden picture of himself in his old comfortable
+overalls, with his shirt open so that the wind caressed his neck like
+a girl blowing down it playfully, lying on a shuck of hay under the hot
+Indiana sun. Funny he'd thought all that, he said to himself. Before
+he'd known Andy he'd never have thought of that. What had come over him
+these days?
+
+The regiment was marching away in columns of fours. Chrisfield's ankle
+gave him sharp hot pain with every step. His tunic was too tight and the
+sweat tingled on his back. All about him were sweating irritated faces;
+the woollen tunics with their high collars were like straight-jackets
+that hot afternoon. Chrisfield marched with his fists clenched; he
+wanted to fight somebody, to run his bayonet into a man as he ran it
+into the dummy in that everlasting bayonet drill, he wanted to strip
+himself naked, to squeeze the wrists of a girl until she screamed.
+
+His company was marching past another company that was lined up to be
+dismissed in front of a ruined barn which had a roof that sagged in the
+middle like an old cow's back. The sergeant stood in front of them with
+his arms crossed, looking critically at the company that marched past.
+He had a white heavy face and black eyebrows that met over his nose.
+Chrisfield stared hard at him as he passed, but Sergeant Anderson did
+not seem to recognize him. It gave him a dull angry feeling as if he'd
+been cut by a friend.
+
+The company melted suddenly into a group of men unbuttoning their
+shirts and tunics in front of the little board shanty where they were
+quartered, which had been put up by the French at the time of the Marne,
+years before, so a man had told Andy.
+
+"What are you dreamin' about, Indiana?" said Judkins, punching
+Chrisfield jovially in the ribs.
+
+Chrisfield doubled his fists and gave him a smashing blow in the jaw
+that Judkins warded of just in time.
+
+Judkins's face flamed red. He swung with a long bent arm.
+
+"What the hell d'you think this is?" shouted somebody. "What's he want
+to hit me for?" spluttered Judkins, breathless.
+
+Men had edged in between them.
+
+"Lemme git at him."
+
+"Shut up, you fool," said Andy, drawing Chrisfield away. The company
+scattered sullenly. Some of the men lay down in the long uncut grass in
+the shade of the ruins of the house, one of the walls of which made a
+wall of the shanty where they lived. Andrews and Chrisfield strolled in
+silence down the road, kicking their feet into the deep dust. Chrisfield
+was limping. On both sides of the road were fields of ripe wheat, golden
+under the sun. In the distance were low green hills fading to blue, pale
+yellow in patches with the ripe grain. Here and there a thick clump
+of trees or a screen of poplars broke the flatness of the long smooth
+hills. In the hedgerows were blue cornflowers and poppies in all colors
+from carmine to orange that danced in the wind on their wiry stalks. At
+the turn in the road they lost the noise of the division and could hear
+the bees droning in the big dull purple cloverheads and in the gold
+hearts of the daisies.
+
+"You're a wild man, Chris. What the hell came over you to try an' smash
+poor old Judkie's jaw? He could lick you anyway. He's twice as heavy as
+you are."
+
+Chrisfield walked on in silence.
+
+"God, I should think you'ld have had enough of that sort of thing....
+I should think you'ld be sick of wanting to hurt people. You don't like
+pain yourself, do you?"
+
+Andrews spoke in spurts, bitterly, his eyes on the ground.
+
+"Ah think Ah sprained ma goddam ankle when Ah tumbled off the back o'
+the truck yesterday."
+
+"Better go on sick call.... Say, Chris, I'm sick of this business....
+Almost like you'd rather shoot yourself than keep on."
+
+"Ah guess you're gettin' the dolefuls, Andy. Look... let's go in
+swimmin'. There's a lake down the road."
+
+"I've got my soap in my pocket. We can wash a few cooties off."
+
+"Don't walk so goddam fast...Andy, you got more learnin' than I have.
+You ought to be able to tell what it is makes a feller go crazy like
+that.... Ah guess Ah got a bit o' the devil in me."
+
+Andrews was brushing the soft silk of a poppy petal against his face.
+
+"I wonder if it'ld have any effect if I ate some of these," he said.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"They say you go to sleep if you lie down in a poppy-field. Wouldn't you
+like to do that, Chris, an' not wake up till the war was over and you
+could be a human being again."
+
+Andrews bit into the green seed capsule he held in his hand. A milky
+juice came out.
+
+"It's bitter...I guess it's the opium," he said.
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"A stuff that makes you go to sleep and have wonderful dreams. In
+China...."
+
+"Dreams," interrupted Chrisfield. "Ah had one of them last night.
+Dreamed Ah saw a feller that had shot hisself that I saw one time
+reconnoitrin' out in the Bringy Wood."
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"Nawthin', juss a Fritzie had shot hisself."
+
+"Better than opium," said Andrews, his voice trembling with sudden
+excitement.
+
+"Ah dreamed the flies buzzin' round him was aeroplanes.... Remember the
+last rest village?"
+
+"And the major who wouldn't close the window? You bet I do!"
+
+They lay down on the grassy bank that sloped from the road to the pond.
+The road was hidden from them by the tall reeds through which the wind
+lisped softly. Overhead huge white cumulus clouds, piled tier on tier
+like fantastic galleons in full sail, floated, changing slowly in a
+greenish sky. The reflection of clouds in the silvery glisten of the
+pond's surface was broken by clumps of grasses and bits of floating
+weeds. They lay on their backs for some time before they started taking
+their clothes off, looking up at the sky, that seemed vast and free,
+like the ocean, vaster and freer than the ocean.
+
+"Sarge says a delousin' machine's comin' through this way soon."
+
+"We need it, Chris."
+
+Andrews pulled his clothes off slowly.
+
+"It's great to feel the sun and the wind on your body, isn't it, Chris?"
+
+Andrews walked towards the pond and lay flat on his belly on the fine
+soft grass near the edge.
+
+"It's great to have your body there, isn't it?" he said in a dreamy
+voice. "Your skin's so soft and supple, and nothing in the world has the
+feel a muscle has.... Gee, I don't know what I'd do without my body."
+
+Chrisfield laughed.
+
+"Look how ma ole ankle's raised.... Found any cooties yet?" he said.
+
+"I'll try and drown 'em," said Andrews. "Chris, come away from those
+stinking uniforms and you'll feel like a human being with the sun on
+your flesh instead of like a lousy soldier."
+
+"Hello, boys," came a high-pitched voice unexpectedly. A "Y" man with
+sharp nose and chin had come up behind them.
+
+"Hello," said Chrisfield sullenly, limping towards the water.
+
+"Want the soap?" said Andrews.
+
+"Going to take a swim, boys?" asked the "Y" man. Then he added in a tone
+of conviction, "That's great."
+
+"Better come in, too," said Andrews.
+
+"Thanks, thanks.... Say, if you don't mind my suggestion, why don't you
+fellers get under the water.... You see there's two French girls looking
+at you from the road." The "Y" man giggled faintly.
+
+"They don't mind," said Andrews soaping, himself vigorously.
+
+"Ah reckon they lahk it," said Chrisfield.
+
+"I know they haven't any morals.... But still."
+
+"And why should they not look at us? Maybe there won't be many people
+who get a chance."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Have you ever seen what a little splinter of a shell does to a feller's
+body?" asked Andrews savagely. He splashed into the shallow water and
+swam towards the middle of the pond.
+
+"Ye might ask 'em to come down and help us pick the cooties off," said
+Chrisfield and followed in Andrews's wake. In the middle he lay on a
+sand bank in the warm shallow water and looked back at the "Y" man, who
+still stood on the bank. Behind him were other men undressing, and
+soon the grassy slope was filled with naked men and yellowish grey
+underclothes, and many dark heads and gleaming backs were bobbing up
+and down in the water. When he came out, he found Andrews sitting
+cross-legged near his clothes. He reached for his shirt and drew it on
+him.
+
+"God, I can't make up my mind to put the damn thing on again," said
+Andrews in a low voice, almost as if he were talking to himself; "I feel
+so clean and free. It's like voluntarily taking up filth and slavery
+again.... I think I'll just walk off naked across the fields."
+
+"D'you call serving your country slavery, my friend?" The "Y" man, who
+had been roaming among the bathers, his neat uniform and well-polished
+boots and puttees contrasting strangely with the mud-clotted,
+sweat-soaked clothing of the men about him, sat down on the grass beside
+Andrews.
+
+"You're goddam right I do."
+
+"You'll get into trouble, my boy, if you talk that way," said the "Y"
+man in a cautious voice.
+
+"Well, what is your definition of slavery?"
+
+"You must remember that you are a voluntary worker in the cause of
+democracy.... You're doing this so that your children will be able to
+live peaceful...."
+
+"Ever shot a man?"
+
+"No.... No, of course not, but I'd have enlisted, really I would. Only
+my eyes are weak."
+
+"I guess so," said Andrews under his breath. "Remember that your women
+folks, your sisters and sweethearts and mothers, are praying for you at
+this instant."
+
+"I wish somebody'd pray me into a clean shirt," said Andrews, starting
+to get into his clothes. "How long have you been over here?"
+
+"Just three months." The man's sallow face, with its pinched nose and
+chin lit up. "But, boys, those three months have been worth all the
+other years of my min--" he caught himself--"life.... I've heard the
+great heart of America beat. O boys, never forget that you are in a
+great Christian undertaking."
+
+"Come on, Chris, let's beat it." They left the "Y" man wandering among
+the men along the bank of the pond, to which the reflection of the
+greenish silvery sky and the great piled white clouds gave all the free
+immensity of space. From the road they could still hear his high pitched
+voice.
+
+"And that's what'll survive you and me," said Andrews.
+
+"Say, Andy, you sure can talk to them guys," said Chris admiringly.
+
+"What's the use of talking? God, there's a bit of honeysuckle still in
+bloom. Doesn't that smell like home to you, Chris?"
+
+"Say, how much do they pay those 'Y' men, Andy?"
+
+"Damned if I know."
+
+They were just in time to fall into line for mess. In the line everyone
+was talking and laughing, enlivened by the smell of food and the tinkle
+of mess-kits. Near the field kitchen Chrisfield saw Sergeant Anderson
+talking with Higgins, his own sergeant. They were laughing together,
+and he heard Anderson's big voice saying jovially, "We've pulled through
+this time, Higgins.... I guess we will again." The two sergeants looked
+at each other and cast a paternal, condescending glance over their men
+and laughed aloud.
+
+Chrisfield felt powerless as an ox under the yoke. All he could do was
+work and strain and stand at attention, while that white-faced Anderson
+could lounge about as if he owned the earth and laugh importantly like
+that. He held out his plate. The K.P. splashed the meat and gravy into
+it. He leaned against the tar-papered wall of the shack, eating his food
+and looking sullenly over at the two sergeants, who laughed and
+talked with an air of leisure while the men of their two companies ate
+hurriedly as dogs all round them.
+
+Chrisfield glanced suddenly at Anderson, who sat in the grass at the
+back of the house, looking out over the wheat fields, while the smoke of
+a cigarette rose in spirals about his face and his fair hair. He looked
+peaceful, almost happy. Chrisfield clenched his fists and felt the
+hatred of that other man rising stingingly within him.
+
+"Guess Ah got a bit of the devil in me," he thought.
+
+
+
+The windows were so near the grass that the faint light had a greenish
+color in the shack where the company was quartered. It gave men's faces,
+tanned as they were, the sickly look of people who work in offices, when
+they lay on their blankets in the bunks made of chicken wire, stretched
+across mouldy scantlings. Swallows had made their nests in the peak
+of the roof, and their droppings made white dobs and blotches on the
+floorboards in the alley between the bunks, where a few patches of
+yellow grass had not yet been completely crushed away by footsteps. Now
+that the shack was empty, Chrisfield could hear plainly the peep-peep of
+the little swallows in their mud nests. He sat quiet on the end of one
+of the bunks, looking out of the open door at the blue shadows that were
+beginning to lengthen on the grass of the meadow behind. His hands, that
+had got to be the color of terra cotta, hung idly between his legs. He
+was whistling faintly. His eyes, in their long black eyelashes, were
+fixed on the distance, though he was not thinking. He felt a comfortable
+unexpressed well-being all over him. It was pleasant to be alone in the
+barracks like this, when the other men were out at grenade practice.
+There was no chance of anyone shouting orders at him.
+
+A warm drowsiness came over him. From the field kitchen alongside came
+the voice of a man singing:
+
+     "O my girl's a lulu, every inch a lulu,
+      Is Lulu, that pretty lil' girl o' mi-ine."
+
+In their mud nests the young swallows twittered faintly overhead. Now
+and then there was a beat of wings and a big swallow skimmed into the
+shack. Chrisfield's cheeks began to feel very softly flushed. His head
+drooped over on his chest. Outside the cook was singing over and over
+again in a low voice, amid a faint clatter of pans:
+
+     "O my girl's a lulu, every inch a lulu,
+     Is Lulu, that pretty lil' girl o' mi-ine."
+
+Chrisfield fell asleep.
+
+He woke up with a start. The shack was almost dark. A tall man stood out
+black against the bright oblong of the door.
+
+"What are you doing here?" said a deep snarling voice.
+
+Chrisfield's eyes blinked. Automatically he got to his feet; it might be
+an officer. His eyes focussed suddenly. It was Anderson's face that was
+between him and the light. In the greenish obscurity the skin looked
+chalk-white in contrast to the heavy eyebrows that met over the nose and
+the dark stubble on the chin.
+
+"How is it you ain't out with the company?"
+
+"Ah'm barracks guard," muttered Chrisfield. He could feel the blood
+beating in his wrists and temples, stinging his eyes like fire. He was
+staring at the floor in front of Anderson's feet.
+
+"Orders was all the companies was to go out an' not leave any guard."
+
+"Ah!'
+
+"We'll see about that when Sergeant Higgins comes in. Is this place
+tidy?"
+
+"You say Ah'm a goddamed liar, do ye?" Chrisfield felt suddenly cool and
+joyous. He felt anger taking possession of him. He seemed to be standing
+somewhere away from himself watching himself get angry.
+
+"This place has got to be cleaned up.... That damn General may come back
+to look over quarters," went on Anderson coolly.
+
+"You call me a goddam liar," said Chrisfield again, putting as much
+insolence as he could summon into his voice. "Ah guess you doan'
+remember me."
+
+"Yes, I know, you're the guy tried to run a knife into me once," said
+Anderson coolly, squaring his shoulders. "I guess you've learned a
+little discipline by this time. Anyhow you've got to clean this place
+up. God, they haven't even brushed the birds' nests down! Must be some
+company!" said Anderson with a half laugh.
+
+"Ah ain't agoin' to neither, fur you."
+
+"Look here, you do it or it'll be the worse for you," shouted the
+sergeant in his deep rasping voice.
+
+"If ever Ah gits out o' the army Ah'm goin' to shoot you. You've picked
+on me enough." Chrisfield spoke slowly, as coolly as Anderson.
+
+"Well, we'll see what a court-martial has to say to that."
+
+"Ah doan give a hoot in hell what ye do."
+
+Sergeant Anderson turned on his heel and went out, twisting the corner
+button of his tunic in his big fingers. Already the sound of tramping
+feet was heard and the shouted order, "Dis-missed." Then men crowded
+into the shack, laughing and talking. Chrisfield sat still on the end
+of the bunk, looking at the bright oblong of the door. Outside he saw
+Anderson talking to Sergeant Higgins. They shook hands, and Anderson
+disappeared. Chrisfield heard Sergeant Higgins call after him.
+
+"I guess the next time I see you I'll have to put my heels together an'
+salute."
+
+Andersen's booming laugh faded as he walked away.
+
+Sergeant Higgins came into the shack and walked straight up to
+Chrisfield, saying in a hard official voice:
+
+"You're under arrest.... Small, guard this man; get your gun and
+cartridge belt. I'll relieve you so you can get mess."
+
+He went out. Everyone's eyes were turned curiously on Chrisfield. Small,
+a red-faced man with a long nose that hung down over his upper lip,
+shuffled sheepishly over to his place beside Chrisfield's cot and let
+the butt of his rifle come down with a bang on the floor. Somebody
+laughed. Andrews walked up to them, a look of trouble in his blue eyes
+and in the lines of his lean tanned cheeks.
+
+"What's the matter, Chris?" he asked in a low voice.
+
+"Tol' that bastard Ah didn't give a hoot in hell what he did," said
+Chrisfield in a broken voice.
+
+"Say, Andy, I don't think I ought ter let anybody talk to him," said
+Small in an apologetic tone. "I don't see why Sarge always gives me all
+his dirty work."
+
+Andrews walked off without replying.
+
+"Never mind, Chris; they won't do nothin' to ye," said Jenkins, grinning
+at him good-naturedly from the door.
+
+"Ah doan give a hoot in hell what they do," said Chrisfield again.
+
+He lay back in his bunk and looked at the ceiling. The barracks was full
+of a bustle of cleaning up. Judkins was sweeping the floor with a broom
+made of dry sticks. Another man was knocking down the swallows' nests
+with a bayonet. The mud nests crumbled and fell on the floor and
+the bunks, filling the air with a flutter of feathers and a smell of
+birdlime. The little naked bodies, with their orange bills too big for
+them, gave a soft plump when they hit the boards of the floor, where
+they lay giving faint gasping squeaks. Meanwhile, with shrill little
+cries, the big swallows flew back and forth in the shanty, now and then
+striking the low roof.
+
+"Say, pick 'em up, can't yer?" said Small. Judkins was sweeping the
+little gasping bodies out among the dust and dirt.
+
+A stoutish man stooped and picked the little birds up one by one,
+puckering his lips into an expression of tenderness. He made his two
+hands into a nest-shaped hollow, out of which stretched the long necks
+and the gaping orange mouths. Andrews ran into him at the door.
+
+"Hello, Dad," he said. "What the hell?"
+
+"I just picked these up."
+
+"So they couldn't let the poor little devils stay there? God! it looks
+to me as if they went out of their way to give pain to everything, bird,
+beast or man."
+
+"War ain't no picnic," said Judkins.
+
+"Well, God damn it, isn't that a reason for not going out of your way to
+raise more hell with people's feelings than you have to?"
+
+A face with peaked chin and nose on which was stretched a
+parchment-colored skin appeared in the door.
+
+"Hello, boys," said the "Y" man. "I just thought I'd tell you I'm going
+to open the canteen tomorrow, in the last shack on the Beaucourt road.
+There'll be chocolate, ciggies, soap, and everything."
+
+Everybody cheered. The "Y" man beamed.
+
+His eye lit on the little birds in Dad's hands.
+
+"How could you?" he said. "An American soldier being deliberately cruel.
+I would never have believed it."
+
+"Ye've got somethin' to learn," muttered Dad, waddling out into the
+twilight on his bandy legs.
+
+Chrisfield had been watching the scene at the door with unseeing eyes.
+A terrified nervousness that he tried to beat off had come over him. It
+was useless to repeat to himself again and again that he didn't give a
+damn; the prospect of being brought up alone before all those officers,
+of being cross-questioned by those curt voices, frightened him. He would
+rather have been lashed. Whatever was he to say, he kept asking himself;
+he would get mixed up or say things he didn't mean to, or else he
+wouldn't be able to get a word out at all. If only Andy could go up with
+him, Andy was educated, like the officers were; he had more learning
+than the whole shooting-match put together. He'd be able to defend
+himself, and defend his friends, too, if only they'd let him.
+
+"I felt just like those little birds that time they got the bead on our
+trench at Boticourt," said Jenkins, laughing.
+
+Chrisfield listened to the talk about him as if from another world.
+Already he was cut off from his outfit. He'd disappear and they'd never
+know or care what became of him.
+
+The mess-call blew and the men filed out. He could hear their talk
+outside, and the sound of their mess-kits as they opened them. He lay
+on his bunk staring up into the dark. A faint blue light still came
+from outside, giving a curious purple color to Small's red face and long
+drooping nose at the end of which hung a glistening drop of moisture.
+
+
+
+Chrisfield found Andrews washing a shirt in the brook that flowed
+through the ruins of the village the other side of the road from the
+buildings where the division was quartered. The blue sky flicked with
+pinkish-white clouds gave a shimmer of blue and lavender and white to
+the bright water. At the bottom could be seen battered helmets and bits
+of equipment and tin cans that had once held meat. Andrews turned his
+head; he had a smudge of mud down his nose and soapsuds on his chin.
+
+"Hello, Chris," he said, looking him in the eyes with his sparkling blue
+eyes, "how's things?" There was a faint anxious frown on his forehead.
+
+"Two-thirds of one month's pay an' confined to quarters," said
+Chrisfield cheerfully.
+
+"Gee, they were easy."
+
+"Um-hum, said Ah was a good shot an' all that, so they'd let me off this
+time."
+
+Andrews started scrubbing at his shirt again.
+
+"I've got this shirt so full of mud I don't think I ever will get it
+clean," he said.
+
+"Move ye ole hide away, Andy. Ah'll wash it. You ain't no good for
+nothin'."
+
+"Hell no, I'll do it."
+
+"Move ye hide out of there."
+
+"Thanks awfully."
+
+Andrews got to his feet and wiped the mud off his nose with his bare
+forearm.
+
+"Ah'm goin' to shoot that bastard," said Chrisfield, scrubbing at the
+shirt.
+
+"Don't be an ass, Chris."
+
+"Ah swear to God Ah am."
+
+"What's the use of getting all wrought up. The thing's over. You'll
+probably never see him again."
+
+"Ah ain't all het up.... Ah'm goin' to do it though." He wrung the shirt
+out carefully and flipped Andrews in the face with it. "There ye are,"
+he said.
+
+"You're a good fellow, Chris, even if you are an ass."
+
+"Tell me we're going into the line in a day or two."
+
+"There's been a devil of a lot of artillery going up the road; French,
+British, every old kind."
+
+"Tell me they's raisin' hell in the Oregon forest."
+
+They walked slowly across the road. A motorcycle despatch-rider whizzed
+past them.
+
+"It's them guys has the fun," said Chrisfield.
+
+"I don't believe anybody has much."
+
+"What about the officers?"
+
+"They're too busy feeling important to have a real hell of a time."
+
+
+
+The hard cold rain beat like a lash in his; face. There was no light
+anywhere and no sound but the hiss of the rain in the grass. His eyes
+strained to see through the dark until red and yellow blotches danced
+before them. He walked very slowly and carefully, holding something very
+gently in his hand under his raincoat. He felt himself full of a strange
+subdued fury; he seemed to be walking behind himself spying on his own
+actions, and what he saw made him feel joyously happy, made him want to
+sing.
+
+He turned so that the rain beat against his cheek. Under his helmet
+he felt his hair full of sweat that ran with the rain down his glowing
+face. His fingers clutched very carefully the smooth stick he had in his
+hand.
+
+He stopped and shut his eyes for a moment; through the hiss of the rain
+he had heard a sound of men talking in one of the shanties. When he shut
+his eyes he saw the white face of Anderson before him, with its unshaven
+chin and the eyebrows that met across the nose.
+
+Suddenly he felt the wall of a house in front of him. He put out his
+hand. His hand jerked back from the rough wet feel of the tar paper,
+as if it had touched something dead. He groped along the wall, stepping
+very cautiously. He felt as he had felt reconnoitering in the Bringy
+Wood. Phrases came to his mind as they had then. Without thinking
+what they meant, the words Make the world safe for Democracy formed
+themselves in his head. They were very comforting. They occupied his
+thoughts. He said them to himself again and again. Meanwhile his free
+hand was fumbling very carefully with the fastening that held the
+wooden shutter over a window. The shutter opened a very little, creaking
+loudly, louder than the patter of rain on the roof of the shack. A
+stream of water from the roof was pouring into his face.
+
+Suddenly a beam of light transformed everything, cutting the darkness in
+two. The rain glittered like a bead curtain. Chrisfield was looking into
+a little room where a lamp was burning. At a table covered with printed
+blanks of different size sat a corporal; behind him was a bunk and
+a pile of equipment. The corporal was reading a magazine. Chrisfield
+looked at him a long time; his fingers were tight about the smooth
+stick. There was no one else in the room.
+
+A sort of panic seized Chrisfield; he strode away noisily from the
+window and pushed open the door of the shack.
+
+"Where's Sergeant Anderson?" he asked in a breathless voice of the first
+man he saw.
+
+"Corp's there if it's anything important," said the man. "Anderson's
+gone to an O. T. C. Left day before yesterday."
+
+Chrisfield was out in the rain again. It was beating straight in his
+face, so that his eyes were full of water. He was trembling. He had
+suddenly become terrified. The smooth stick he held seemed to burn him.
+He was straining his ears for an explosion. Walking straight before him
+down the road, he went faster and faster as if trying to escape from it.
+He stumbled on a pile of stones. Automatically he pulled the string out
+of the grenade and threw it far from him.
+
+There was a minute's pause.
+
+Red flame spurted in the middle of the wheatfield. He felt the sharp
+crash in his eardrums.
+
+He walked fast through the rain. Behind him, at the door of the shack,
+he could hear excited voices. He walked recklessly on, the rain blinding
+him. When he finally stepped into the light he was so dazzled he could
+not see who was in the wine shop.
+
+"Well, I'll be damned, Chris," said Andrews's voice. Chrisfield blinked
+the rain out of his lashes. Andrews sat writing with a pile of papers
+before him and a bottle of champagne. It seemed to Chrisfield to soothe
+his nerves to hear Andy's voice. He wished he would go on talking a long
+time without a pause.
+
+"If you aren't the crowning idiot of the ages," Andrews went on in a low
+voice. He took Chrisfield by the arm and led him into the little back
+room, where was a high bed with a brown coverlet and a big kitchen table
+on which were the remnants of a meal.
+
+"What's the matter? Your arm's trembling like the devil. But why.... O
+pardon, Crimpette. C'est un ami.... You know Crimpette, don't you?" He
+pointed to a youngish woman who had just appeared from behind the bed.
+She had a flabby rosy face and violet circles under her eyes, dark as
+if they'd been made by blows, and untidy hair. A dirty grey muslin
+dress with half the hooks off held in badly her large breasts and
+flabby figure. Chrisfield looked at her greedily, feeling his furious
+irritation flame into one desire.
+
+"What's the matter with you, Chris? You're crazy to break out of
+quarters this way?"
+
+"Say, Andy, git out o' here. Ah ain't your sort anyway.... Git out o'
+here."
+
+"You're a wild man. I'll grant you that.... But I'd just as soon be your
+sort as anyone else's.... Have a drink."
+
+"Not now."
+
+Andrews sat down with his bottle and his papers, pushing away the broken
+plates full of stale food to make a place on the greasy table. He took
+a gulp out of the bottle, that made him cough, then put the end of his
+pencil in his mouth and stared gravely at the paper.
+
+"No, I'm your sort, Chris," he said over his shoulder, "only they've
+tamed me. O God, how tame I am."
+
+Chrisfield did not listen to what he was saying. He stood in front of
+the woman, staring in her face. She looked at him in a stupid frightened
+way. He felt in his pockets for some money. As he had just been paid he
+had a fifty-franc note. He spread it out carefully before her. Her eyes
+glistened. The pupils seemed to grow smaller as they fastened on the bit
+of daintily colored paper. He crumpled it up suddenly in his fist and
+shoved it down between her breasts.
+
+
+
+Some time later Chrisfield sat down in front of Andrews. He still had
+his wet slicker on.
+
+"Ah guess you think Ah'm a swine," he said in his normal voice. "Ah
+guess you're about right."
+
+"No, I don't," said Andrews. Something made him put his hand on
+Chrisfield's hand that lay on the table. It had a feeling of cool
+health.
+
+"Say, why were you trembling so when you came in here? You seem all
+right now."
+
+"Oh, Ah dunno,'" said Chrisfield in a soft resonant voice.
+
+They were silent for a long while. They could hear the woman's footsteps
+going and coming behind them.
+
+"Let's go home," said Chrisfield.
+
+"All right.... Bonsoir, Crimpette."
+
+Outside the rain had stopped. A stormy wind had torn the clouds to rags.
+Here and there clusters of stars showed through. They splashed merrily
+through the puddles. But here and there reflected a patch of stars when
+the wind was not ruffling them.
+
+"Christ, Ah wish Ah was like you, Andy," said Chrisfield.
+
+"You don't want to be like me, Chris. I'm no sort of a person at all.
+I'm tame. O you don't know how damn tame I am."
+
+"Learnin' sure do help a feller to git along in the world."
+
+"Yes, but what's the use of getting along if you haven't any world to
+get along in? Chris, I belong to a crowd that just fakes learning. I
+guess the best thing that can happen to us is to get killed in this
+butchery. We're a tame generation.... It's you that it matters to kill."
+
+"Ah ain't no good for anythin'.... Ah doan give a damn.... Lawsee, Ah
+feel sleepy."
+
+As they slipped in the door of their quarters, the sergeant looked at
+Chrisfield searchingly. Andrews spoke up at once.
+
+"There's some rumors going on at the latrine, Sarge. The fellows from
+the Thirty-second say we're going to march into hell's halfacre about
+Thursday."
+
+"A lot they know about it."
+
+"That's the latest edition of the latrine news."
+
+"The hell it is! Well, d'you want to know something, Andrews.... It'll
+be before Thursday, or I'm a Dutchman."
+
+Sergeant Higgins put on a great air of mystery.
+
+Chrisfield went to his bunk, undressed quietly and climbed into his
+blankets. He stretched his arms languidly a couple of times, and while
+Andrews was still talking to the sergeant, fell asleep.
+
+
+
+                              IV
+
+The moon lay among clouds on the horizon, like a big red pumpkin among
+its leaves.
+
+Chrisfield squinted at it through the boughs of the apple trees laden
+with apples that gave a winey fragrance to the crisp air. He was sitting
+on the ground, his legs stretched limply before him, leaning against
+the rough trunk of an apple tree. Opposite him, leaning against another
+tree, was the square form, surmounted by a large long-jawed face, of
+Judkins. Between them lay two empty cognac bottles. All about them was
+the rustling orchard, with its crooked twigs that made a crackling sound
+rubbing together in the gusts of the autumn wind, that came heavy with a
+smell of damp woods and of rotting fruits and of all the ferment of
+the overripe fields. Chrisfield felt it stirring the moist hair on his
+forehead and through the buzzing haze of the cognac heard the plunk,
+plunk, plunk of apples dropping that followed each gust, and the
+twanging of night insects, and, far in the distance, the endless rumble
+of guns, like tomtoms beaten for a dance.
+
+"Ye heard what the Colonel said, didn't ye?" said Judkins in a voice
+hoarse from too much drink.
+
+Chrisfield belched and nodded his head vaguely. He remembered Andrews's
+white fury after the men had been dismissed, how he had sat down on the
+end of a log by the field kitchen, staring at the patch of earth he beat
+into mud with the toe of his boot.
+
+"Then," went on Judkins, trying to imitate the Colonel's solemn
+efficient voice, "'On the subject of prisoners'"--he hiccoughed and made
+a limp gesture with his hand--"'On the subject of prisoners, well, I'll
+leave that to you, but juss remember... juss remember what the Huns did
+to Belgium, an' I might add that we have barely enough emergency rations
+as it is, and the more prisoners you have the less you fellers'll git to
+eat.'"
+
+"That's what he said, Judkie; that's what he said."
+
+"'An the more prisoners ye have, the less youse'll git to eat,'" chanted
+Judkins, making a triumphal flourish with his hand.
+
+Chrisfield groped for the cognac bottle; it was empty; he waved it in
+the air a minute and then threw it into the tree opposite him. A shower
+of little apples fell about Judkins's head. He got unsteadily to his
+feet.
+
+"I tell you, fellers," he said, "war ain't no picnic."
+
+Chrisfield stood up and grabbed at an apple. His teeth crunched into it.
+
+"Sweet," he said.
+
+"Sweet, nauthin'," mumbled Judkins, "war ain't no picnic.... I tell
+you, buddy, if you take any prisoners"--he hiccoughed--"after what the
+Colonel said, I'll lick the spots out of you, by God I will.... Rip up
+their guts that's all, like they was dummies. Rip up their guts." His
+voice suddenly changed to one of childish dismay. "Gee, Chris, I'm going
+to be sick," he whispered.
+
+"Look out," said Chrisfield, pushing him away. Judkins leaned against a
+tree and vomited.
+
+The full moon had risen above the clouds and filled the apple orchard
+with chilly golden light that cast a fantastic shadow pattern of
+interlaced twigs and branches upon the bare ground littered with apples.
+The sound of the guns had grown nearer. There were loud eager rumbles
+as of bowls being rolled very hard on a bowling alley, combined with a
+continuous roar like sheets of iron being shaken.
+
+"Ah bet it's hell out there," said Chrisfield.
+
+"I feel better," said Judkins. "Let's go get some more cognac."
+
+"Ah'm hungry," said Chrisfield. "Let's go an' get that ole woman to cook
+us some aigs."
+
+"Too damn late," growled Judkins.
+
+"How the hell late is it?"
+
+"Dunno, I sold my watch."
+
+They were walking at random through the orchard. They came to a field
+full of big pumpkins that gleamed in the moonlight and cast shadows
+black as holes. In the distance they could see wooded hills.
+
+Chrisfield picked up a medium-sized pumpkin and threw it as hard as he
+could into the air. It split into three when it landed with a thud on
+the ground, and the moist yellow seeds spilled out.
+
+"Some strong man, you are," said Judkins, tossing up a bigger one.
+
+"Say, there's a farmhouse, maybe we could get some aigs from the
+hen-roost."
+
+"Hell of a lot of hens...."
+
+At that moment the crowing of a rooster came across the silent fields.
+They ran towards the dark farm buildings.
+
+"Look out, there may be officers quartered there."
+
+They walked cautiously round the square, silent group of buildings.
+There were no lights. The big wooden door of the court pushed open
+easily, without creaking. On the roof of the barn the pigeon-cot was
+etched dark against the disc of the moon. A warm smell of stables blew
+in their faces as the two men tiptoed into the manure-littered farmyard.
+Under one of the sheds they found a table on which a great many pears
+were set to ripen. Chrisfield put his teeth into one. The rich sweet
+juice ran down his chin. He ate the pear quickly and greedily, and then
+bit into another.
+
+"Fill yer pockets with 'em," whispered Judkins.
+
+"They might ketch us."
+
+"Ketch us, hell. We'll be goin' into the offensive in a day or two."
+
+"Ah sure would like to git some aigs."
+
+Chrisfield pushed open the door of one of the barns. A smell of creamy
+milk and cheeses filled his nostrils.
+
+"Come here," he whispered. "Want some cheese?"
+
+A lot of cheeses ranged on a board shone silver in the moonlight that
+came in through the open door.
+
+"Hell, no, ain't fit te eat," said Judkins, pushing his heavy fist into
+one of the new soft cheeses.
+
+"Doan do that."
+
+"Well, ain't we saved 'em from the Huns?"
+
+"But, hell."
+
+"War ain't no picnic, that's all," said Judkins.
+
+In the next door they found chickens roosting in a small room with straw
+on the floor. The chickens ruffled their feathers and made a muffled
+squeaking as they slept.
+
+Suddenly there was a loud squawking and all the chickens were cackling
+with terror.
+
+"Beat it," muttered Judkins, running for the gate of the farmyard.
+
+There were shrill cries of women in the house. A voice shrieking, "C'est
+les Boches, C'est les Boches," rose above the cackling of chickens and
+the clamor of guinea-hens. As they ran, they heard the rasping cries of
+a woman in hysterics, rending the rustling autumn night.
+
+"God damn," said Judkins breathless, "they ain't got no right, those
+frogs ain't, to carry on like that."
+
+They ducked into the orchard again. Above the squawking of the chicken
+Judkins still held, swinging it by its legs, Chrisfield could hear the
+woman's voice shrieking. Judkins dexterously wrung the chicken's neck.
+Crushing the apples underfoot they strode fast through the orchard.
+The voice faded into the distance until it could not be heard above the
+sound of the guns.
+
+"Gee, Ah'm kind o' cut up 'bout that lady," said Chrisfield.
+
+"Well, ain't we saved her from the Huns?"
+
+"Andy don't think so."
+
+"Well, if you want to know what I think about that guy Andy I don't
+think much of him. I think he's yaller, that's all," said Judkins.
+
+"No, he ain't."
+
+"I heard the lootenant say so. He's a goddam yeller dawg."
+
+Chrisfield swore sullenly.
+
+"Well, you juss wait 'n see. I tell you, buddy, war ain't no picnic."
+
+"What the hell are we goin' to do with that chicken?" said Judkins.
+
+"You remember what happened to Eddie White?"
+
+"Hell, we'd better leave it here."
+
+Judkins swung the chicken by its neck round his head and threw it as
+hard as he could into the bushes.
+
+They were walking along the road between chestnut trees that led to
+their village. It was dark except for irregular patches of bright
+moonlight in the centre that lay white as milk among the indentated
+shadows of the leaves. All about them rose a cool scent of woods,
+of ripe fruits and of decaying leaves, of the ferment of the autumn
+countryside.
+
+
+
+The lieutenant sat at a table in the sun, in the village street outside
+the company office. In front of him sparkled piles of money and daintily
+tinted banknotes. Beside him stood Sergeant Higgins with an air of
+solemnity and the second sergeant and the corporal. The men stood
+in line and as each came before the table he saluted with deference,
+received his money and walked away with a self-conscious air. A few
+villagers looked on from the small windows with grey frames of their
+rambling whitewashed houses. In the ruddy sunshine the line of men
+cast an irregular blue-violet shadow, like a gigantic centipede, on the
+yellow gravel road.
+
+From the table by the window of the cafe of "Nos Braves Poilus" where
+Small and Judkins and Chrisfield had established themselves with their
+pay crisp in their pockets, they could see the little front garden of
+the house across the road, where, behind a hedge of orange marigolds,
+Andrews sat on the doorstep talking to an old woman hunched on a low
+chair in the sun just inside the door, who leant her small white head
+over towards his yellow one.
+
+"There ye are," said Judkins in a solemn tone. "He don't even go after
+his pay. That guy thinks he's the whole show, he does."
+
+Chrisfield flushed, but said nothing. "He don't do nothing all day long
+but talk to that ole lady," said Small with a grin. "Guess she reminds
+him of his mother, or somethin'."
+
+"He always does go round with the frogs all he can. Looks to me like
+he'd rather have a drink with a frog than with an American."
+
+"Reckon he wants to learn their language," said Small. "He won't never
+come to much in this army, that's what I'm telling yer," said Judkins.
+
+The little houses across the way had flushed red with the sunset.
+Andrews got to his feet slowly and languidly and held out his hand to
+the old woman. She stood up, a small tottering figure in a black
+silk shawl. He leaned over towards her and she kissed both his cheeks
+vigorously several times. He walked down the road towards the billets,
+with his fatigue cap in his hand, looking at the ground.
+
+"He's got a flower behind his ear, like a cigarette," said Judkins, with
+a disgusted snort.
+
+"Well, I guess we'd better go," said Small. "We got to be in quarters at
+six."
+
+They were silent a moment. In the distance the guns kept up a continual
+tomtom sound.
+
+"Guess we'll be in that soon," said Small.
+
+Chrisfield felt a chill go down his spine. He moistened his lips with
+his tongue.
+
+"Guess it's hell out there," said Judkins. "War ain't no picnic."
+
+"Ah doan give a hoot in hell," said Chrisfield.
+
+
+
+The men were lined up in the village street with their packs on, waiting
+for the order to move. Thin wreaths of white mist still lingered in the
+trees and over the little garden plots. The sun had not yet risen,
+but ranks of clouds in the pale blue sky overhead were brilliant with
+crimson and gold. The men stood in an irregular line, bent over a little
+by the weight of their equipment, moving back and forth, stamping their
+feet and beating their arms together, their noses and ears red from the
+chill of the morning. The haze of their breath rose above their heads.
+
+Down the misty road a drab-colored limousine appeared, running slowly.
+It stopped in front of the line of men. The lieutenant came hurriedly
+out of the house opposite, drawing on a pair of gloves. The men standing
+in line looked curiously at the limousine. They could see that two of
+the tires were flat and that the glass was broken. There were scratches
+on the drab paint and in the door three long jagged holes that
+obliterated the number. A little murmur went down the line of men. The
+door opened with difficulty, and a major in a light buff-colored coat
+stumbled out. One arm, wrapped in bloody bandages, was held in a sling
+made of a handkerchief. His face was white and drawn into a stiff mask
+with pain. The lieutenant saluted.
+
+"For God's sake where's a repair station?" he asked in a loud shaky
+voice.
+
+"There's none in this village, Major."
+
+"Where the hell is there one?"
+
+"I don't know," said the lieutenant in a humble tone.
+
+"Why the hell don't you know? This organization's rotten, no good....
+Major Stanley's just been killed. What the hell's the name of this
+village?"
+
+"Thiocourt."
+
+"Where the hell's that?"
+
+The chauffeur had leaned out. He had no cap and his hair was full of
+dust.
+
+"You see, Lootenant, we wants to get to Chalons--"
+
+"Yes, that's it. Chalons sur...Chalons-sur-Marne," said the Major.
+
+"The billeting officer has a map," said the lieutenant, "last house to
+the left."
+
+"O let's go there quick," said the major. He fumbled with the fastening
+of the door.
+
+The lieutenant opened it for him.
+
+As he opened the door, the men nearest had a glimpse of the interior of
+the car. On the far side was a long object huddled in blankets, propped
+up on the seat.
+
+Before he got in the major leaned over and pulled a woollen rug out,
+holding it away from him with his one good arm. The car moved off
+slowly, and all down the village street the men, lined up waiting for
+orders, stared curiously at the three jagged holes in the door.
+
+The lieutenant looked at the rug that lay in the middle of the road. He
+touched it with his foot. It was soaked with blood that in places had
+dried into clots.
+
+The lieutenant and the men of his company looked at it in silence. The
+sun had risen and shone on the roofs of the little whitewashed houses
+behind them. Far down the road a regiment had begun to move.
+
+
+
+                               V
+
+At the brow of the hill they rested. Chrisfield sat on the red clay bank
+and looked about him, his rifle between his knees. In front of him
+on the side of the road was a French burying ground, where the little
+wooden crosses, tilting in every direction, stood up against the sky,
+and the bead wreaths glistened in the warm sunlight. All down the road
+as far as he could see was a long drab worm, broken in places by strings
+of motor trucks, a drab worm that wriggled down the slope, through the
+roofless shell of the village and up into the shattered woods on the
+crest of the next hills. Chrisfield strained his eyes to see the hills
+beyond. They lay blue and very peaceful in the moon mist. The river
+glittered about the piers of the wrecked stone bridge, and disappeared
+between rows of yellow poplars. Somewhere in the valley a big gun fired.
+The shell shrieked into the distance, towards the blue, peaceful hills.
+
+Chrisfield's regiment was moving again. The men, their feet slipping
+in the clayey mud, went downhill with long strides, the straps of their
+packs tugging at their shoulders.
+
+"Isn't this great country?" said Andrews, who marched beside him.
+
+"Ah'd liever be at an O. T. C. like that bastard Anderson."
+
+"Oh, to hell with that," said Andrews. He still had a big faded orange
+marigold in one of the buttonholes of his soiled tunic. He walked with
+his nose in the air and his nostrils dilated, enjoying the tang of the
+autumnal sunlight.
+
+Chrisfield took the cigarette, that had gone out half-smoked, from his
+mouth and spat savagely at the heels of the man in front of him.
+
+"This ain't no life for a white man," he said.
+
+"I'd rather be this than... than that," said Andrews bitterly. He tossed
+his head in the direction of a staff car full of officers that was
+stalled at the side of the road. They were drinking something out of
+a thermos bottle that they passed round with the air of Sunday
+excursionists. They waved, with a conscious relaxation of discipline, at
+the men as they passed. One, a little lieutenant with a black mustache
+with pointed ends, kept crying: "They're running like rabbits, fellers;
+they're running like rabbits." A wavering half-cheer would come from the
+column now and then where it was passing the staff car.
+
+The big gun fired again. Chrisfield was near it this time and felt the
+concussion like a blow in the head.
+
+"Some baby," said the man behind him.
+
+Someone was singing:
+
+     "Good morning, mister Zip Zip Zip,
+      With your hair cut just as short as,
+      With your hair cut just as short as,
+      With your hair cut just as short as mi-ine."
+
+Everybody took it up. Their steps rang in rhythm in the paved street
+that zigzagged among the smashed houses of the village. Ambulances
+passed them, big trucks full of huddled men with grey faces, from which
+came a smell of sweat and blood and carbolic. Somebody went on:
+
+     "O ashes to ashes
+      An' dust to dust..."
+
+"Can that," cried Judkins, "it ain't lucky."
+
+But everybody had taken up the song. Chrisfield noticed that Andrews's
+eyes were sparkling. "If he ain't the damnedest," he thought to himself.
+But he shouted at the top of his lungs with the rest:
+
+     "O ashes to ashes
+      An' dust to dust;
+      If the gasbombs don't get yer
+                  The eighty-eights must."
+
+They were climbing the hill again. The road was worn into deep ruts and
+there were many shell holes, full of muddy water, into which their feet
+slipped. The woods began, a shattered skeleton of woods, full of old
+artillery emplacements and dugouts, where torn camouflage fluttered from
+splintered trees. The ground and the road were littered with tin cans
+and brass shell-cases. Along both sides of the road the trees were
+festooned, as with creepers, with strand upon strand of telephone wire.
+
+When next they stopped Chrisfield was on the crest of the hill beside a
+battery of French seventy-fives. He looked curiously at the Frenchmen,
+who sat about on logs in their pink and blue shirtsleeves playing cards
+and smoking. Their gestures irritated him.
+
+"Say, tell 'em we're advancin'," he said to Andrews.
+
+"Are we?" said Andrews. "All right.... Dites-donc, les Boches
+courent-ils comme des lapins?" he shouted.
+
+One of the men turned his head and laughed.
+
+"He says they've been running that way for four years," said Andrews.
+He slipped his pack off, sat down on it, and fished for a cigarette.
+Chrisfield took off his helmet and rubbed a muddy hand through his hair.
+He took a bite of chewing tobacco and sat with his hands clasped over
+his knees.
+
+"How the hell long are we going to wait this time?" he muttered. The
+shadows of the tangled and splintered trees crept slowly across the
+road. The French artillerymen were eating their supper. A long train of
+motor trucks growled past, splashing mud over the men crowded along
+the sides of the road. The sun set, and a lot of batteries down in the
+valley began firing, making it impossible to talk. The air was full of
+a shrieking and droning of shells overhead. The Frenchmen stretched
+and yawned and went down into their dugout. Chrisfield watched them
+enviously. The stars were beginning to come out in the green sky behind
+the tall lacerated trees. Chrisfield's legs ached with cold. He began
+to get crazily anxious for something to happen, for something to happen,
+but the column waited, without moving, through the gathering darkness.
+Chrisfield chewed steadily, trying to think of nothing but the taste of
+the tobacco in his mouth.
+
+The column was moving again; as they reached the brow of another hill
+Chrisfield felt a curious sweetish smell that made his nostrils smart.
+"Gas," he thought, full of panic, and put his hand to the mask that hung
+round his neck. But he did not want to be the first to put it on. No
+order came. He marched on, cursing the sergeant and the lieutenant. But
+maybe they'd been killed by it. He had a vision of the whole regiment
+sinking down in the road suddenly, overcome by the gas.
+
+"Smell anythin', Andy?" he whispered cautiously.
+
+"I can smell a combination of dead horses and tube roses and banana
+oil and the ice cream we used to have at college and dead rats in the
+garret, but what the hell do we care now?" said Andrews, giggling. "This
+is the damnedest fool business ever...."
+
+"He's crazy," muttered Chrisfield to himself. He looked at the stars
+in the black sky that seemed to be going along with the column on its
+march. Or was it that they and the stars were standing still while the
+trees moved away from them, waving their skinny shattered arms? He could
+hardly hear the tramp of feet on the road, so loud was the pandemonium
+of the guns ahead and behind. Every now and then a rocket would burst
+in front of them and its red and green lights would mingle for a
+moment with the stars. But it was only overhead he could see the stars.
+Everywhere else white and red glows rose and fell as if the horizon were
+on fire.
+
+As they started down the slope, the trees suddenly broke away and they
+saw the valley between them full of the glare of guns and the white
+light of star shells. It was like looking into a stove full of glowing
+embers. The hillside that sloped away from them was full of crashing
+detonations and yellow tongues of flame. In a battery near the road,
+that seemed to crush their skulls each time a gun fired, they could see
+the dark forms of the artillerymen silhouetted in fantastic attitudes
+against the intermittent red glare. Stunned and blinded, they kept on
+marching down the road. It seemed to Chrisfield that they were going to
+step any minute into the flaring muzzle of a gun.
+
+At the foot of the hill, beside a little grove of uninjured trees, they
+stopped again. A new train of trucks was crawling past them, huge blots
+in the darkness. There were no batteries near, so they could hear the
+grinding roar of the gears as the trucks went along the uneven road,
+plunging in and out of shellholes.
+
+Chrisfield lay down in the dry ditch, full of bracken, and dozed with
+his head on his pack. All about him were stretched other men. Someone
+was resting his head on Chrisfield's thigh. The noise had subsided
+a little. Through his doze he could hear men's voices talking in low
+crushed tones, as if they were afraid of speaking aloud. On the road
+the truck-drivers kept calling out to each other shrilly, raspingly.
+The motors stopped running one after another, making almost a silence,
+during which Chrisfield fell asleep.
+
+Something woke him. He was stiff with cold and terrified. For a moment
+he thought he had been left alone, that the company had gone on, for
+there was no one touching him.
+
+Overhead was a droning as of gigantic mosquitoes, growing fast to a loud
+throbbing. He heard the lieutenant's voice calling shrilly:
+
+"Sergeant Higgins, Sergeant Higgins!"
+
+The lieutenant stood out suddenly black against a sheet of flame.
+Chrisfield could see his fatigue cap a little on one side and his trench
+coat, drawn in tight at the waist and sticking out stiffly at the knees.
+He was shaken by the explosion. Everything was black again. Chrisfield
+got to his feet, his ears ringing. The column was moving on. He heard
+moaning near him in the darkness. The tramp of feet and jingle of
+equipment drowned all other sound. He could feel his shoulders becoming
+raw under the tugging of the pack. Now and then the flare from aeroplane
+bombs behind him showed up wrecked trucks on the side of the road.
+Somewhere a machine gun spluttered. But the column tramped on, weighed
+down by the packs, by the deadening exhaustion.
+
+The turbulent flaring darkness was calming to the grey of dawn when
+Chrisfield stopped marching. His eyelids stung as if his eyeballs were
+flaming hot. He could not feel his feet and legs. The guns continued
+incessantly like a hammer beating on his head. He was walking very
+slowly in a single file, now and then stumbling against the man ahead
+of him. There was earth on both sides of him, clay walls that dripped
+moisture. All at once he stumbled down some steps into a dugout, where
+it was pitch-black. An unfamiliar smell struck him, made him uneasy; but
+his thoughts seemed to reach him from out of a great distance. He groped
+to the wall. His knees struck against a bunk with blankets in it. In
+another second he was sunk fathoms deep in sleep.
+
+When he woke up his mind was very clear. The roof of the dugout was of
+logs. A bright spot far away was the door. He hoped desperately that he
+wasn't on duty. He wondered where Andy was; then he remembered that Andy
+was crazy,--"a yeller dawg," Judkins had called him. Sitting up with
+difficulty he undid his shoes and puttees, wrapped himself in his
+blanket. All round him were snores and the deep breathing of exhausted
+sleep. He closed his eyes.
+
+He was being court-martialled. He stood with his hands at his sides
+before three officers at a table. All three had the same white faces
+with heavy blue jaws and eyebrows that met above the nose. They were
+reading things out of papers aloud, but, although he strained his ears,
+he couldn't make out what they were saying. All he could hear was a
+faint moaning. Something had a curious unfamiliar smell that troubled
+him. He could not stand still at attention, although the angry eyes of
+officers stared at him from all round. "Anderson, Sergeant Anderson,
+what's that smell?" he kept asking in a small whining voice. "Please
+tell a feller what that smell is." But the three officers at the table
+kept reading from their papers, and the moaning grew louder and louder
+in his ears until he shrieked aloud. There was a grenade in his hand. He
+pulled the string out and threw it, and he saw the lieutenant's trench
+coat stand out against a sheet of flame. Someone sprang at him. He was
+wrestling for his life with Anderson, who turned into a woman with
+huge flabby breasts. He crushed her to him and turned to defend himself
+against three officers who came at him, their trench coats drawn in
+tightly at the waist until they looked like wasps. Everything faded, he
+woke up.
+
+His nostrils were still full of the strange troubling smell. He sat on
+the edge of the bunk, wriggling in his clothes, for his body crawled
+with lice.
+
+"Gee, it's funny to be in where the Fritzies were not long ago," he
+heard a voice say.
+
+"Kiddo! we're advancin'," came another voice.
+
+"But, hell, this ain't no kind of an advance. I ain't seen a German
+yet."
+
+"Ah kin smell 'em though," said Chrisfield, getting suddenly to his
+feet.
+
+Sergeant Higgins' head appeared in the door. "Fall in," he shouted. Then
+he added in his normal voice, "It's up and at 'em, fellers."
+
+
+
+Chrisfield caught his puttee on a clump of briars at the edge of the
+clearing and stood kicking his leg back and forth to get it free. At
+last he broke away, the torn puttee dragging behind him. Out in the
+sunlight in the middle of the clearing he saw a man in olive-drab
+kneeling beside something on the ground. A German lay face down with a
+red hole in his back. The man was going through his pockets. He looked
+up into Chrisfield's face.
+
+"Souvenirs," he said.
+
+"What outfit are you in, buddy?"
+
+"143rd," said the man, getting to his feet slowly.
+
+"Where the hell are we?"
+
+"Damned if I know."
+
+The clearing was empty, except for the two Americans and the German with
+the hole in his back. In the distance they heard a sound of artillery
+and nearer the "put, put, put" of isolated machine guns. The leaves of
+the trees about them, all shades of brown and crimson and yellow, danced
+in the sunlight.
+
+"Say, that damn money ain't no good, is it?" asked Chrisfield.
+
+"German money? Hell, no.... I got a watch that's a peach though." The
+man held out a gold watch, looking suspiciously at Chrisfield all the
+while through half-closed eyes.
+
+"Ah saw a feller had a gold-handled sword," said Chrisfield.
+
+"Where's that?"
+
+"Back there in the wood"; he waved his hand vaguely.
+
+"Ah've got to find ma outfit; comin' along?" Chrisfield started towards
+the other edge of the clearing.
+
+"Looks to me all right here," said the other man, lying down on the
+grass in the sun.
+
+The leaves rustled underfoot as Chrisfield strode through the wood. He
+was frightened by being alone. He walked ahead as fast as he could, his
+puttee still dragging behind him. He came to a barbed-wire entanglement
+half embedded in fallen beech leaves. It had been partly cut in one
+place, but in crossing he tore his thigh on a barb. Taking off the torn
+puttee, he wrapped it round the outside of his trousers and kept on
+walking, feeling a little blood trickle down his leg.
+
+Later he came to a lane that cut straight through the wood where there
+were many ruts through the putty-coloured mud puddles; Down the lane in
+a patch of sunlight he saw a figure, towards which he hurried. It was a
+young man with red hair and a pink-and-white face. By a gold bar on the
+collar of his shirt Chrisfield saw that he was a lieutenant. He had
+no coat or hat and there was greenish slime all over the front of his
+clothes as if he had lain on his belly in a mud puddle.
+
+"Where you going?"
+
+"Dunno, sir."
+
+"All right, come along." The lieutenant started walking as fast as he
+could up the lane, swinging his arms wildly.
+
+"Seen any machine-gun nests?"
+
+"Not a one."
+
+"Hum."
+
+He followed the lieutenant, who walked so fast he had difficulty keeping
+up, splashing recklessly through the puddles.
+
+"Where's the artillery? That's what I want to know," cried the
+lieutenant, suddenly stopping in his tracks and running a hand through
+his red hair. "Where the hell's the artillery?" He looked at Chrisfield
+savagely out of green eyes. "No use advancing without artillery." He
+started walking faster than ever.
+
+All at once they saw sunlight ahead of them and olive-drab uniforms.
+Machine guns started firing all around them in a sudden gust. Chrisfield
+found himself running forward across a field full of stubble and
+sprouting clover among a group of men he did not know. The whip-like
+sound of rifles had chimed in with the stuttering of the machine guns.
+Little white clouds sailed above him in a blue sky, and in front of him
+was a group of houses that had the same color, white with lavender-grey
+shadows, as the clouds.
+
+He was in a house, with a grenade like a tin pineapple in each hand. The
+sudden loneliness frightened him again. Outside the house was a sound
+of machine-gun firing, broken by the occasional bursting; of a shell. He
+looked at the red-tiled roof and at a chromo of a woman nursing a
+child that hung on the whitewashed wall opposite him. He was in a small
+kitchen. There was a fire in the hearth where something boiled in a
+black pot. Chrisfield tiptoed over and looked in. At the bottom of the
+bubbling water he saw five potatoes. At the other end of the kitchen,
+beyond two broken chairs, was a door. Chrisfield crept over to it, the
+tiles seeming to sway under foot. He put his finger to the latch and
+took it off again suddenly. Holding in his breath he stood a long time
+looking at the door. Then he pulled it open recklessly. A young man
+with fair hair was sitting at a table, his head resting on his hands.
+Chrisfield felt a spurt of joy when he saw that the man's uniform was
+green. Very coolly he pressed the spring, held the grenade a second
+and then threw it, throwing himself backwards into the middle of the
+kitchen. The light-haired man had not moved; his blue eyes still stared
+straight before him.
+
+In the street Chrisfield ran into a tall man who was running. The man
+clutched him by the arm and said:
+
+"The barrage is moving up."
+
+"What barrage?"
+
+"Our barrage; we've got to run, we're ahead of it." His voice came in
+wheezy pants. There were red splotches on his face. They ran together
+down the empty village street. As they ran they passed the little
+red-haired lieutenant, who leaned against a whitewashed wall, his legs
+a mass of blood and torn cloth. He was shouting in a shrill delirious
+voice that followed them out along the open road.
+
+"Where's the artillery? That's what I want to know; where's the
+artillery?"
+
+
+
+The woods were grey and dripping with dawn. Chrisfield got stiffly to
+his feet from the pile of leaves where he had slept. He felt numb with
+cold and hunger, lonely and lost away from his outfit. All about him
+were men of another division. A captain with a sandy mustache was
+striding up and down with a blanket about him, on the road just behind a
+clump of beech trees. Chrisfield had watched him passing back and forth,
+back and forth, behind the wet clustered trunks of the trees, ever since
+it had been light. Stamping his feet among the damp leaves, Chrisfield
+strolled away from the group of men. No one seemed to notice him. The
+trees closed about him. He could see nothing but moist trees, grey-green
+and black, and the yellow leaves of saplings that cut off the view in
+every direction. He was wondering dully why he was walking off that way.
+Somewhere in the back of his mind there was a vague idea of finding his
+outfit. Sergeant Higgins and Andy and Judkins and Small--he wondered
+what had become of them. He thought of the company lined up for mess,
+and the smell of greasy food that came from the field-kitchen. He was
+desperately hungry. He stopped and leaned against the moss-covered trunk
+of a tree. The deep scratch in his leg was throbbing as if all the blood
+in his body beat through it. Now that his rustling footsteps had ceased,
+the woods were absolutely silent, except for the dripping of dew from
+the leaves and branches. He strained his ears to hear some other sound.
+Then he noticed that he was staring at a tree full of small red crab
+apples. He picked a handful greedily, but they were hard and sour and
+seemed to make him hungrier. The sour flavour in his mouth made him
+furiously angry. He kicked at the thin trunk of the tree while tears
+smarted in his eyes. Swearing aloud in a whining singsong voice, he
+strode off through the woods with his eyes on the ground. Twigs snapped
+viciously in his face, crooked branches caught at him, but he plunged
+on. All at once he stumbled against something hard that bounced among
+the leaves.
+
+He stopped still, looking about him, terrified. Two grenades lay just
+under his foot, a little further on a man was propped against a tree
+with his mouth open. Chrisfield thought at first he was asleep, as his
+eyes were closed. He looked at the grenades carefully. The fuses had
+not been sprung. He put one in each pocket, gave a glance at the man who
+seemed to be asleep, and strode off again, striking another alley in the
+woods, at the end of which he could see sunlight. The sky overhead was
+full of heavy purple clouds, tinged here and there with yellow. As he
+walked towards the patch of sunlight, the thought came to him that he
+ought to have looked in the pockets of the man he had just passed to
+see if he had any hard bread. He stood still a moment in hesitation, but
+started walking again doggedly towards the patch of sunlight.
+
+Something glittered in the irregular fringe of sun and shadow. A man was
+sitting hunched up on the ground with his fatigue cap pulled over his
+eyes so that the little gold bar just caught the horizontal sunlight.
+Chrisfield's first thought was that he might have food on him.
+
+"Say, Lootenant," he shouted, "d'you know where a fellow can get
+somethin' to eat."
+
+The man lifted his head slowly. Chrisfield turned cold all over when he
+saw the white heavy face of Anderson; an unshaven beard was very black
+on his square chin; there was a long scratch clotted with dried blood
+from the heavy eyebrow across the left cheek to the corner of the mouth.
+
+"Give me some water, buddy," said Anderson in a weak voice.
+
+Chrisfield handed him his canteen roughly in silence. He noticed that
+Anderson's arm was in a sling, and that he drank greedily, spilling the
+water over his chin and his wounded arm.
+
+"Where's Colonel Evans?" asked Anderson in a thin petulant voice.
+
+Chrisfield did not reply but stared at him sullenly. The canteen had
+dropped from his hand and lay on the ground in front of him. The water
+gleamed in the sunlight as it ran out among the russet leaves. A wind
+had come up, making the woods resound. A shower of yellow leaves dropped
+about them.
+
+"First you was a corporal, then you was a sergeant, and now you're a
+lootenant," said Chrisfield slowly.
+
+"You'ld better tell me where Colonel Evans is.... You must know.... He's
+up that road somewhere," said Anderson, struggling to get to his feet.
+
+Chrisfield walked away without answering. A cold hand was round the
+grenade in his pocket. He walked away slowly, looking at his feet.
+
+Suddenly he found he had pressed the spring of the grenade. He struggled
+to pull it out of his pocket. It stuck in the narrow pocket. His arm and
+his cold fingers that clutched the grenade seemed paralyzed. Then a warm
+joy went through him. He had thrown it.
+
+Anderson was standing up, swaying backwards and forwards. The explosion
+made the woods quake. A thick rain of yellow leaves came down. Anderson
+was flat on the ground. He was so flat he seemed to have sunk into the
+ground.
+
+Chrisfield pressed the spring of the other grenade and threw it with his
+eyes closed. It burst among the thick new-fallen leaves.
+
+A few drops of rain were falling. Chrisfield kept on along the lane,
+walking fast, feeling full of warmth and strength. The rain beat hard
+and cold against his back.
+
+He walked with his eyes to the ground. A voice in a strange language
+stopped him. A ragged man in green with a beard that was clotted with
+mud stood in front of him with his hands up. Chrisfield burst out
+laughing.
+
+"Come along," he said, "quick!"
+
+The man shambled in front of him; he was trembling so hard he nearly
+fell with each step.
+
+Chrisfield kicked him.
+
+The man shambled on without turning round. Chrisfield kicked him again,
+feeling the point of the man's spine and the soft flesh of his rump
+against his toes with each kick, laughing so hard all the while that he
+could hardly see where he was going.
+
+"Halt!" came a voice.
+
+"Ah've got a prisoner," shouted Chrisfield still laughing.
+
+"He ain't much of a prisoner," said the man, pointing his bayonet at the
+German. "He's gone crazy, I guess. I'll take keer o' him... ain't no use
+sendin' him back."
+
+"All right," said Chrisfield still laughing. "Say, buddy, where can Ah'
+git something to eat? Ah ain't had nothin' fur a day an a half."
+
+"There's a reconnoitrin' squad up the line; they'll give you
+somethin'.... How's things goin' up that way?" The man pointed up the
+road.
+
+"Gawd, Ah doan know. Ah ain't had nothin' to eat fur a day and a half."
+
+
+
+The warm smell of a stew rose to his nostrils from the mess-kit.
+Chrisfield stood, feeling warm and important, filling his mouth with
+soft greasy potatoes and gravy, while men about him asked him questions.
+Gradually he began to feel full and content, and a desire to sleep came
+over him. But he was given a gun, and had to start advancing again with
+the reconnoitering squad. The squad went cautiously up the same lane
+through the woods.
+
+"Here's an officer done for," said the captain, who walked ahead. He
+made a little clucking noise of distress with his tongue. "Two of you
+fellows go back and git a blanket and take him back to the cross-roads.
+Poor fellow." The captain walked on again, still making little clucking
+noises with his tongue.
+
+Chrisfield looked straight ahead of him. He did not feel lonely any more
+now that he was marching in ranks again. His feet beat the ground in
+time with the other feet. He would not have to think whether to go to
+the right or to the left. He would do as the others did.
+
+
+
+
+PART FOUR: RUST                             I
+
+There were tiny green frogs in one of the putty-colored puddles by the
+roadside. John Andrews fell out of the slowly advancing column a moment
+to look at them. The frogs' triangular heads stuck out of the water in
+the middle of the puddle. He leaned over, his hands on his knees, easing
+the weight of the equipment on his back. That way he could see their
+tiny jewelled eyes, topaz-colored. His eyes felt as if tears were coming
+to them with tenderness towards the minute lithe bodies of the frogs.
+Something was telling him that he must run forward and fall into line
+again, that he must shamble on through the mud, but he remained staring
+at the puddle, watching the frogs. Then he noticed his reflection in the
+puddle. He looked at it curiously. He could barely see the outlines of
+a stained grimacing mask, and the silhouette of the gun barrel slanting
+behind it. So this was what they had made of him. He fixed his eyes
+again on the frogs that swam with elastic, leisurely leg strokes in the
+putty-colored water.
+
+Absently, as if he had no connection with all that went on about him, he
+heard the twang of bursting shrapnel down the road. He had straightened
+himself wearily and taken a step forward, when he found himself sinking
+into the puddle. A feeling of relief came over him. His legs sunk in
+the puddle; he lay without moving against the muddy bank. The frogs had
+gone, but from somewhere a little stream of red was creeping out slowly
+into the putty-colored water. He watched the irregular files of men in
+olive-drab shambling by. Their footsteps drummed in his ears. He felt
+triumphantly separated from them, as if he were in a window somewhere
+watching soldiers pass, or in a box of a theater watching some dreary
+monotonous play. He drew farther and farther away from them until they
+had become very small, like toy soldiers forgotten among the dust in a
+garret. The light was so dim he couldn't see, he could only hear their
+feet tramping interminably through the mud.
+
+
+
+John Andrews was on a ladder that shook horribly. A gritty sponge in
+his hand, he was washing the windows of a barracks. He began in the left
+hand corner and soaped the small oblong panes one after the other. His
+arms were like lead and he felt that he would fall from the shaking
+ladder, but each time he turned to look towards the ground before
+climbing down he saw the top of the general's cap and the general's
+chin protruding from under the visor, and a voice snarled: "Attention,"
+terrifying him so that the ladder shook more than ever; and he went
+on smearing soap over the oblong panes with the gritty sponge through
+interminable hours, though every joint in his body was racked by the
+shaking of the ladder. Bright light flared from inside the windows which
+he soaped, pane after pane, methodically. The windows were mirrors.
+In each pane he saw his thin face, in shadow, with the shadow of a gun
+barrel slanting beside it. The jolting stopped suddenly. He sank into a
+deep pit of blackness.
+
+A shrill broken voice was singing in his ear:
+
+     "There's a girl in the heart of Maryland
+     With a heart that belongs to me-e."
+
+John Andrews opened his eyes. It was pitch black, except for a series of
+bright yellow oblongs that seemed to go up into the sky, where he could
+see the stars. His mind became suddenly acutely conscious. He began
+taking account of himself in a hurried frightened way. He craned his
+neck a little. In the darkness he could make out the form of a man
+stretched out flat beside him who kept moving his head strangely from
+side to side, singing at the top of his lungs in a shrill broken
+voice. At that moment Andrews noticed that the smell of carbolic was
+overpoweringly strong, that it dominated all the familiar smells of
+blood and sweaty clothes. He wriggled his shoulders so that he could
+feel the two poles of the stretcher. Then he fixed his eyes again in
+the three bright yellow oblongs, one above the other, that rose into the
+darkness. Of course, they were windows; he was near a house.
+
+He moved his arms a little. They felt like lead, but unhurt. Then he
+realized that his legs were on fire. He tried to move them; everything
+went black again in a sudden agony of pain. The voice was still
+shrieking in his ears:
+
+     "There's a girl in the heart of Maryland
+      With a heart that belongs to me-e."
+
+But another voice could be heard, softer, talking endlessly in tender
+clear tones:
+
+"An' he said they were goin' to take me way down south where there was a
+little house on the beach, all so warm an' quiet..."
+
+The song of the man beside him rose to a tuneless shriek, like a
+phonograph running down:
+
+     "An' Mary-land was fairy-land
+      When she said that mine she'd be..."
+
+Another voice broke in suddenly in short spurts of whining groans that
+formed themselves into fragments of drawn-out intricate swearing. And
+all the while the soft voice went on. Andrews strained his ears to hear
+it.
+
+It soothed his pain as if some cool fragrant oil were being poured over
+his body.
+
+"An' there'll be a garden full of flowers, roses an' hollyhocks, way
+down there in the south, an' it'll be so warm an' quiet, an' the sun'll
+shine all day, and the sky'll be so blue..."
+
+Andrews felt his lips repeating the words like lips following a prayer.
+
+"--An' it'll be so warm an' quiet, without any noise at all. An' the
+garden'll be full of roses an'..."
+
+But the other voices kept breaking in, drowning out the soft voice with
+groans, and strings of whining oaths.
+
+"An' he said I could sit on the porch, an' the sun'll be so warm an'
+quiet, an' the garden'll smell so good, an' the beach'll be all white,
+an' the sea..."
+
+Andrews felt his head suddenly rise in the air and then his feet. He
+swung out of the darkness into a brilliant white corridor. His legs
+throbbed with flaming agony. The face of a man with a cigarette in his
+mouth peered close to his. A hand fumbled at his throat, where the tag
+was, and someone read:
+
+"Andrews, 1.432.286."
+
+But he was listening to the voice out in the dark, behind him, that
+shrieked in rasping tones of delirium:
+
+     "There's a girl in the heart of Mary-land
+      With a heart that belongs to me-e."
+
+Then he discovered that he was groaning. His mind became entirely taken
+up in the curious rhythm of his groans. The only parts of his body
+that existed were his legs and something in his throat that groaned and
+groaned. It was absorbing. White figures hovered about him, he saw the
+hairy forearms of a man in shirt sleeves, lights glared and went out,
+strange smells entered at his nose and circulated through his whole
+body, but nothing could distract his attention from the singsong of his
+groans.
+
+Rain fell in his face. He moved his head from side to side, suddenly
+feeling conscious of himself. His mouth was dry, like leather; he put
+out his tongue to try to catch raindrops in it. He was swung roughly
+about in the stretcher. He lifted his head cautiously, feeling a great
+throb of delight that he still could lift his head.
+
+"Keep yer head down, can't yer?" snarled a voice beside him. He had seen
+the back of a man in a gleaming wet slicker at the end of the stretcher.
+
+"Be careful of my leg, can't yer?" he found himself whining over and
+over again. Then suddenly there was a lurch that rapped his head against
+the crosspiece of the stretcher, and he found himself looking up at a
+wooden ceiling from which the white paint had peeled in places. He smelt
+gasoline and could hear the throb of an engine. He began to think back;
+how long was it since he had looked at the little frogs in the puddle?
+A vivid picture came to his mind of the puddle with its putty-colored
+water and the little triangular heads of the frogs. But it seemed as
+long ago as a memory of childhood; all of his life before that was not
+so long as the time that had gone by since the car had started. And he
+was jolting and swinging about in the stretcher, clutching hard with his
+hands at the poles of the stretcher. The pain in his legs grew worse;
+the rest of his body seemed to shrivel under it. From below him came a
+rasping voice that cried out at every lurch of the ambulance. He fought
+against the desire to groan, but at last he gave in and lay lost in the
+monotonous singsong of his groans.
+
+The rain was in his face again for a moment, then his body was tilted.
+A row of houses and russet trees and chimney pots against a leaden sky
+swung suddenly up into sight and were instantly replaced by a ceiling
+and the coffred vault of a staircase. Andrews was still groaning softly,
+but his eyes fastened with sudden interest on the sculptured rosettes of
+the coffres and the coats of arms that made the center of each section
+of ceiling. Then he found himself staring in the face of the man who
+was carrying the lower end of the stretcher. It was a white face with
+pimples round the mouth and good-natured, watery blue eyes. Andrews
+looked at the eyes and tried to smile, but the man carrying the
+stretcher was not looking at him.
+
+Then after more endless hours of tossing about on the stretcher, lost in
+a groaning agony of pain, hands laid hold of him roughly and pulled his
+clothes off and lifted him on a cot where he lay gasping, breathing in
+the cool smell of disinfectant that hung about the bedclothes. He heard
+voices over his head.
+
+"Isn't bad at all... this leg wound.... I thought you said we'd have to
+amputate?"
+
+"Well, what's the matter with him, then?"
+
+"Maybe shell-shock...."
+
+A cold sweat of terror took hold of Andrews. He lay perfectly still with
+his eyes closed. Spasm after spasm of revolt went through him. No, they
+hadn't broken him yet; he still had hold of his nerves, he kept saying
+to himself. Still, he felt that his hands, clasped across his belly,
+were trembling. The pain in his legs disappeared in the fright in which
+he lay, trying desperately to concentrate his mind on something outside
+himself. He tried to think of a tune to hum to himself, but he only
+heard again shrieking in his ears the voice which, it seemed to him
+months and years ago, had sung:
+
+     "There's a girl in the heart of Maryland
+      With a heart that belo-ongs to me-e."
+
+The voice shrieking the blurred tune and the pain in his legs mingled
+themselves strangely, until they seemed one and the pain seemed merely a
+throbbing of the maddening tune.
+
+He opened his eyes. Darkness fading into a faint yellow glow. Hastily
+he took stock of himself, moved his head and his arms. He felt cool and
+very weak and quiet; he must have slept a long time. He passed his rough
+dirty, hand over his face. The skin felt soft and cool. He pressed his
+cheek on the pillow and felt himself smiling contentedly, he did not
+know why.
+
+The Queen of Sheba carried a parasol with little vermilion bells all
+round it that gave out a cool tinkle as she walked towards him. She wore
+her hair in a high headdress thickly powdered with blue iris powder, and
+on her long train, that a monkey held up at the end, were embroidered
+in gaudy colors the signs of the zodiac. She was not the Queen of Sheba,
+she was a nurse whose face he could not see in the obscurity, and,
+sticking an arm behind his head in a deft professional manner, she gave
+him something to drink from a glass without looking at him. He said
+"Thank you," in his natural voice, which surprised him in the silence;
+but she went off without replying and he saw that it was a trayful of
+glasses that had tinkled as she had come towards him.
+
+Dark as it was he noticed the self-conscious tilt of the nurse's body
+as she walked silently to the next cot, holding the tray of glasses
+in front of her. He twisted his head round on the pillow to watch how
+gingerly she put her arm under the next man's head to give him a drink.
+
+"A virgin," he said to himself, "very much a virgin," and he found
+himself giggling softly, notwithstanding the twinges of pain from his
+legs. He felt suddenly as if his spirit had awakened from a long torpor.
+The spell of dejection that had deadened him for months had slipped
+off. He was free. The thought came to him gleefully, that as long as he
+stayed in that cot in the hospital no one would shout orders at him. No
+one would tell him to clean his rifle. There would be no one to
+salute. He would not have to worry about making himself pleasant to the
+sergeant. He would lie there all day long, thinking his own thoughts.
+
+Perhaps he was badly enough wounded to be discharged from the army.
+The thought set his heart beating like mad. That meant that he, who
+had given himself up for lost, who had let himself be trampled down
+unresistingly into the mud of slavery, who had looked for no escape from
+the treadmill but death, would live. He, John Andrews, would live.
+
+And it seemed inconceivable that he had ever given himself up, that
+he had ever let the grinding discipline have its way with him. He saw
+himself vividly once more as he had seen himself before his life had
+suddenly blotted itself out, before he had become a slave among slaves.
+He renumbered the garden where, in his boyhood, he had sat dreaming
+through the droning summer afternoons under the crepe myrtle bushes,
+while the cornfields beyond rustled and shimmered in the heat. He
+remembered the day he had stood naked in the middle of a base room
+while the recruiting sergeant prodded him and measured him. He wondered
+suddenly what the date was. Could it be that it was only a year ago? Yet
+in that year all the other years of his life had been blotted out. But
+now he would begin living again. He would give up this cowardly cringing
+before external things. He would be recklessly himself.
+
+The pain in his legs was gradually localizing itself into the wounds.
+For a while he struggled against it to go on thinking, but its constant
+throb kept impinging in his mind until, although he wanted desperately
+to comb through his pale memories to remember, if ever so faintly,
+all that had been vivid and lusty in his life, to build himself a new
+foundation of resistance against the world from which he could start
+afresh to live, he became again the querulous piece of hurt flesh, the
+slave broken on the treadmill; he began to groan.
+
+Cold steel-gray light filtered into the ward, drowning the yellow glow
+which first turned ruddy and then disappeared. Andrews began to make out
+the row of cots opposite him, and the dark beams of the ceiling above
+his head. "This house must be very old," he said to himself, and the
+thought vaguely excited him. Funny that the Queen of Sheba had come to
+his head, it was ages since he'd thought of all that. From the girl at
+the cross-roads singing under her street-lamp to the patrician pulling
+roses to pieces from the height of her litter, all the aspects'
+half-guessed, all the imaginings of your desire... that was the Queen
+of Sheba. He whispered the words aloud, "la reine de Saba, la reine de
+Saba"; and, with a tremor of anticipation of the sort he used to feel
+when he was a small boy the night before Christmas, with a sense of
+new; things in store for him, he pillowed his head on his arm and went
+quietly to sleep.
+
+"Ain't it juss like them frawgs te make a place like this' into a
+hauspital?" said the orderly, standing with his feet wide apart and his
+hands on his hips, facing a row of cots and talking to anyone who felt
+well enough to listen. "Honest, I doan see why you fellers doan all cash
+in yer! checks in this hole.... There warn't even electric light till we
+put it in.... What d'you think o' that? That shows how much the goddam
+frawgs care...." The orderly was a short man with a sallow, lined face
+and large yellow teeth. When he smiled the horizontal lines in his
+forehead and the lines that ran from the sides of his nose to the ends
+of his mouth deepened so that his face looked as if it were made up to
+play a comic part in the movies.
+
+"It's kind of artistic, though, ain't it?" said Applebaum, whose cot
+was next Andrews's,--a skinny man with large, frightened eyes and an
+inordinately red face that looked as if the skin had been peeled off.
+"Look at the work there is on that ceiling. Must have cost some dough
+when it was noo."
+
+"Wouldn't be bad as a dance hall with a little fixin' up, but a
+hauspital; hell!"
+
+Andrews lay, comfortable in his cot, looking into the ward out of
+another world. He felt no connection with the talk about him, with the
+men who lay silent or tossed about groaning in the rows of narrow cots
+that filled the Renaissance hall. In the yellow glow of the electric
+lights, looking beyond the orderly's twisted face and narrow head, he
+could see very faintly, where the beams of the ceiling sprung from the
+wall, a row of half-obliterated shields supported by figures carved
+out of the grey stone of the wall, handed satyrs with horns and goats'
+beards and deep-set eyes, little squat figures of warriors and townsmen
+in square hats with swords between their bent knees, naked limbs twined
+in scrolls of spiked acanthus leaves, all seen very faintly, so that
+when the electric lights swung back and forth in the wind made by
+the orderly's hurried passing, they all seemed to wink and wriggle in
+shadowy mockery of the rows of prostrate bodies in the room beneath
+them. Yet they were familiar, friendly to Andrews. He kept feeling
+a half-formulated desire to be up there too, crowded under a beam,
+grimacing through heavy wreaths of pomegranates and acanthus leaves, the
+incarnation of old rich lusts, of clear fires that had sunk to dust ages
+since. He felt at home in that spacious hall, built for wide gestures
+and stately steps, in which all the little routine of the army seemed
+unreal, and the wounded men discarded automatons, broken toys laid away
+in rows.
+
+Andrews was snatched out of his thoughts. Applebaum was speaking to him;
+he turned his head.
+
+"How d'you loike it bein' wounded, buddy?"
+
+"Fine."
+
+"Foine, I should think it was.... Better than doin' squads right all
+day."
+
+"Where did you get yours?"
+
+"Ain't got only one arm now.... I don't give a damn.... I've driven my
+last fare, that's all."
+
+"How d'you mean?"
+
+"I used to drive a taxi."
+
+"That's a pretty good job, isn't it?"
+
+"You bet, big money in it, if yer in right."
+
+"So you used to be a taxi-driver, did you?" broke in the orderly.
+"That's a fine job.... When I was in the Providence Hospital half
+the fractures was caused by taxis. We had a little girl of six in the
+children's ward had her feet cut clean off at the ankles by a taxi.
+Pretty yellow hair she had, too. Gangrene.... Only lasted a day....
+Well, I'm going off, I guess you guys wish you was going to be where I'm
+goin' to be tonight.... That's one thing you guys are lucky in, don't
+have to worry about propho." The orderly wrinkled his face up and winked
+elaborately.
+
+"Say, will you do something for me?" asked Andrews.
+
+"Sure, if it ain't no trouble."
+
+"Will you buy me a book?"
+
+"Ain't ye got enough with all the books at the 'Y'?"
+
+"No.... This is a special book," said Andrews smiling, "a French book."
+
+"A French book, is it? Well, I'll see what I can do. What's it called?"
+
+"By Flaubert.... Look, if you've got a piece of paper and a pencil, I'll
+write it down."
+
+Andrews scrawled the title on the back of an order slip.
+
+"There."
+
+"What the hell? Who's Antoine? Gee whiz, I bet that's hot stuff. I wish
+I could read French. We'll have you breakin' loose out o' here an' going
+down to number four, roo Villiay, if you read that kind o' book."
+
+"Has it got pictures?" asked Applebaum. "One feller did break out o'
+here a month ago,... Couldn't stand it any longer, I guess. Well, his
+wound opened an' he had a hemorrhage, an' now he's planted out in the
+back lot.... But I'm goin'. Goodnight." The orderly bustled to the end
+of the ward and disappeared.
+
+The lights went out, except for the bulb over the nurse's desk at the
+end, beside the ornate doorway, with its wreathed pinnacles carved out
+of the grey stone, which could be seen above the white canvas screen
+that hid the door.
+
+"What's that book about, buddy?" asked Applebaum, twisting his head at
+the end of his lean neck so as to look Andrews full in the face.
+
+"Oh, it's about a man who wants everything so badly that he decides
+there's nothing worth wanting."
+
+"I guess youse had a college edication," said Applebaum sarcastically.
+
+ Andrews laughed.
+
+"Well, I was goin' to tell youse about when I used to drive a taxi. I
+was makin' big money when I enlisted. Was you drafted?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, so was I. I doan think nauthin o' them guys that are so stuck up
+'cause they enlisted, d'you?"
+
+"Not a hell of a lot."
+
+"Don't yer?" came a voice from the other side of Andrews, a thin voice
+that stuttered. "W-w-well, all I can say is, it'ld have sss-spoiled my
+business if I hadn't enlisted. No, sir, nobody can say I didn't enlist."
+
+"Well, that's your look-out," said Applebaum.
+
+"You're goddam right, it was."
+
+"Well, ain't your business spoiled anyway?"
+
+"No, sir. I can pick it right up where I left off. I've got an
+established reputation."
+
+"What at?"
+
+"I'm an undertaker by profession; my dad was before me."
+
+"Gee, you were right at home!" said Andrews.
+
+"You haven't any right to say that, young feller," said the undertaker
+angrily. "I'm a humane man. I won't never be at home in this dirty
+butchery."
+
+The nurse was walking by their cots.
+
+"How can you say such dreadful things?" she said. "But lights are
+out. You boys have got to keep quiet.... And you," she plucked at the
+undertaker's bedclothes, "just remember what the Huns did in Belgium....
+Poor Miss Cavell, a nurse just like I am."
+
+Andrews closed his eyes. The ward was quiet except for the rasping sound
+of the snores and heavy breathing of the shattered men all about him.
+"And I thought she was the Queen of Sheba," he said to himself, making a
+grimace in the dark. Then he began to think of the music he had intended
+to write about the Queen of Sheba before he had stripped his life off
+in the bare room where they had measured him and made a soldier of him.
+Standing in the dark in the desert of his despair, he would hear the
+sound of a caravan in the distance, tinkle of bridles, rasping of horns,
+braying of donkeys, and the throaty voices of men singing the songs of
+desolate roads. He would look up, and before him he would see, astride
+their foaming wild asses, the three green horsemen motionless, pointing
+at him with their long forefingers. Then the music would burst in a
+sudden hot whirlwind about him, full of flutes and kettledrums and
+braying horns and whining bagpipes, and torches would flare red and
+yellow, making a tent of light about him, on the edges of which would
+crowd the sumpter mules and the brown mule drivers, and the gaudily
+caparisoned camels, and the elephants glistening with jewelled harness.
+Naked slaves would bend their gleaming backs before him as they laid out
+a carpet at his feet; and, through the flare of torchlight, the Queen,
+of Sheba would advance towards him, covered with emeralds and dull-gold
+ornaments, with a monkey hopping behind holding up the end of her long
+train. She would put her hand with its slim fantastic nails on his
+shoulder; and, looking into her eyes, he would suddenly feel within
+reach all the fiery imaginings of his desire. Oh, if he could only be
+free to work. All the months he had wasted in his life seemed to be
+marching like a procession of ghosts before his eyes. And he lay in his
+cot, staring with wide open eyes at the ceiling, hoping desperately that
+his wounds would be long in healing.
+
+
+
+Applebaum sat on the edge of his cot, dressed in a clean new uniform, of
+which the left sleeve hung empty, still showing the creases in which it
+had been folded.
+
+"So you really are going," said Andrews, rolling his head over on his
+pillow to look at him.
+
+"You bet your pants I am, Andy.... An' so could you, poifectly well, if
+you'ld talk it up to 'em a little."
+
+"Oh, I wish to God I could. Not that I want to go home, now, but ... if I
+could get out of uniform."
+
+"I don't blame ye a bit, kid; well, next time, we'll know better....
+Local Board Chairman's going to be my job."
+
+Andrews laughed.
+
+"If I wasn't a sucker...."
+
+"You weren't the only wewe-one," came the undertaker's stuttering voice
+from behind Andrews.
+
+"Hell, I thought you enlisted, undertaker."
+
+"Well, I did, by God! but I didn't think it was going to be like this."
+
+"What did ye think it was goin' to be, a picnic?"
+
+"Hell, I doan care about that, or gettin' gassed, and smashed up, or
+anythin', but I thought we was goin' to put things to rights by comin'
+over here.... Look here, I had a lively business in the undertaking way,
+like my father had had before me.... We did all the swellest work in
+Tilletsville...."
+
+"Where?" interrupted Applebaum, laughing.
+
+"Tilletsville; don't you know any geography?"
+
+"Go ahead, tell us about Tilletsville," said Andrews soothingly.
+
+"Why, when Senator Wallace d-d-deceased there, who d'you think had
+charge of embalming the body and taking it to the station an' seeing
+everything was done fitting? We did.... And I was going to be married to
+a dandy girl, and I knowed I had enough pull to get fixed up, somehow,
+or to get a commission even, but there I went like a sucker an' enlisted
+in the infantry, too.... But, hell, everybody was saying that we was
+going to fight to make the world safe for democracy, and that, if a
+feller didn't go, no one'ld trade with him any more."
+
+He started coughing suddenly and seemed unable to stop. At last he said
+weakly, in a thin little voice between coughs:
+
+"Well, here I am. There ain't nothing to do about it."
+
+"Democracy.... That's democracy, ain't it: we eat stinkin' goolash
+an' that there fat 'Y' woman goes out with Colonels eatin' chawklate
+soufflay.... Poifect democracy!... But I tell you what: it don't do to
+be the goat."
+
+"But there's so damn many more goats than anything else," said Andrews.
+
+"There's a sucker born every minute, as Barnum said. You learn that
+drivin' a taxicab, if ye don't larn nothin' else.... No, sir, I'm goin'
+into politics. I've got good connections up Hundred and Twenty-fif'
+street way.... You see, I've got an aunt, Mrs. Sallie Schultz, owns a
+hotel on a Hundred and Tirty-tird street. Heard of Jim O'Ryan, ain't
+yer? Well, he's a good friend o' hers; see? Bein' as they're both
+Catholics... But I'm goin' out this afternoon, see what the town's
+like... an ole Ford says the skirts are just peaches an' cream."
+
+"He juss s-s-says that to torment a feller," stuttered the undertaker.
+
+"I wish I were going with you," said Andrews. "You'll get well plenty
+soon enough, Andy, and get yourself marked Class A, and get given a gun,
+an--'Over the top, boys!'... to see if the Fritzies won't make a better
+shot next time.... Talk about suckers! You're the most poifect sucker
+I ever met.... What did you want to tell the loot your legs didn't hurt
+bad for? They'll have you out o' here before you know it.... Well, I'm
+goin' out to see what the mamzelles look like."
+
+Applebaum, the uniform hanging in folds about his skinny body, swaggered
+to the door, followed by the envious glances of the whole ward.
+
+"Gee, guess he thinks he's goin' to get to be president," said the
+undertaker bitterly.
+
+"He probably will," said Andrews.
+
+He settled himself in his bed again, sinking back into the dull
+contemplation of the teasing, smarting pain where the torn ligaments
+of his thighs were slowly knitting themselves together. He tried
+desperately to forget the pain; there was so much he wanted to think
+out. If he could only lie perfectly quiet, and piece together the frayed
+ends of thoughts that kept flickering to the surface of his mind. He
+counted up the days he had been in the hospital; fifteen! Could it be
+that long? And he had not thought of anything yet. Soon, as Applebaum
+said, they'd be putting him in Class A and sending him back to the
+treadmill, and he would not have reconquered his courage, his dominion
+over himself. What a coward he had been anyway, to submit. The man
+beside him kept coughing. Andrews stared for a moment at the silhouette
+of the yellow face on the pillow, with its pointed nose and small greedy
+eyes. He thought of the swell undertaking establishment, of the black
+gloves and long faces and soft tactful voices. That man and his father
+before him lived by pretending things they didn't feel, by swathing
+reality with all manner of crepe and trumpery. For those people, no
+one ever died, they passed away, they deceased. Still, there had to be
+undertakers. There was no more stain about that than about any other
+trade. And it was so as not to spoil his trade that the undertaker had
+enlisted, and to make the world safe for democracy, too. The phrase
+came to Andrews's mind amid an avalanche of popular tunes; of visions of
+patriotic numbers on the vaudeville stage. He remembered the great
+flags waving triumphantly over Fifth Avenue, and the crowds dutifully
+cheering. But those were valid reasons for the undertaker; but for him,
+John Andrews, were they valid reasons? No. He had no trade, he had not
+been driven into the army by the force of public opinion, he had not
+been carried away by any wave of blind confidence in the phrases of
+bought propagandists. He had not had the strength to live. The thought
+came to him of all those who, down the long tragedy of history, had
+given themselves smilingly for the integrity of their thoughts. He had
+not had the courage to move a muscle for his freedom, but he had been
+fairly cheerful about risking his life as a soldier, in a cause he
+believed useless. What right had a man to exist who was too cowardly
+to stand up for what he thought and felt, for his whole makeup, for
+everything that made him an individual apart from his fellows, and not a
+slave to stand cap in hand waiting for someone of stronger will to tell
+him to act?
+
+Like a sudden nausea, disgust surged up in him. His mind ceased
+formulating phrases and thoughts. He gave himself over to disgust as
+a man who has drunk a great deal, holding on tight to the reins of his
+will, suddenly gives himself over pellmell to drunkenness.
+
+He lay very still, with his eyes closed, listening to the stir of the
+ward, the voices of men talking and the fits of coughing that shook the
+man next him. The smarting pain throbbed monotonously. He felt hungry
+and wondered vaguely if it were supper time. How little they gave you to
+eat in the hospital!
+
+He called over to the man in the opposite cot:
+
+"Hay, Stalky, what time is it?"
+
+"It's after messtime now. Got a good appetite for the steak and onions
+and French fried potatoes?"
+
+"Shut up."
+
+A rattling of tin dishes at the other end of the ward made Andrews
+wriggle up further on his pillow. Verses from the "Shropshire Lad"
+jingled mockingly through his head:
+
+     "The world, it was the old world yet,
+      I was I, my things were wet,
+      And nothing now remained to do
+      But begin the game anew."
+
+After he had eaten, he picked up the "Tentation de Saint Antoine," that
+lay on the cot beside his immovable legs, and buried himself in it,
+reading the gorgeously modulated sentences voraciously, as if the book
+were a drug in which he could drink deep forgetfulness of himself.
+
+He put the book down and closed his eyes. His mind was full of
+intangible floating glow, like the ocean on a warm night, when every
+wave breaks into pale flame, and mysterious milky lights keep rising to
+the surface out of the dark waters and gleaming and vanishing. He became
+absorbed in the strange fluid harmonies that permeated his whole body,
+as a grey sky at nightfall suddenly becomes filled with endlessly
+changing patterns of light and color and shadow.
+
+When he tried to seize hold of his thoughts, to give them definite
+musical expression in his mind, he found himself suddenly empty, the
+way a sandy inlet on the beach that has been full of shoals of silver
+fishes, becomes suddenly empty when a shadow crosses the water, and
+the man who is watching sees wanly his own reflection instead of the
+flickering of thousands of tiny silver bodies.
+
+
+
+John Andrews awoke to feel a cold hand on his head.
+
+"Feeling all right?" said a voice in his ear.
+
+He found himself looking in a puffy, middle-aged face, with a lean nose
+and grey eyes, with dark rings under them. Andrews felt the eyes looking
+him over inquisitively. He saw the red triangle on the man's khaki
+sleeve.
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"If you don't mind, I'd like to talk to you a little while, buddy."
+
+"Not a bit; have you got a chair?" said Andrews smiling.
+
+"I don't suppose it was just right of me to wake you up, but you see it
+was this way.... You were the next in line, an' I was afraid I'd forget
+you, if I skipped you."
+
+"I understand," said Andrews, with a sudden determination to take the
+initiative away from the "Y" man.
+
+"How long have you been in France? D'you like the war?" he asked
+hurriedly.
+
+The "Y" man smiled sadly.
+
+"You seem pretty spry," he said. "I guess you're in a hurry to get back
+at the front and get some more Huns." He smiled again, with an air of
+indulgence.
+
+Andrews did not answer.
+
+"No, sonny, I don't like it here," the "Y" man said, after a pause. "I
+wish I was home--but it's great to feel you're doing your duty."
+
+"It must be," said Andrews.
+
+"Have you heard about the great air raids our boys have pulled off?
+They've bombarded Frankfort; now if they could only wipe Berlin off the
+map."
+
+"Say, d'you hate 'em awful hard?" said Andrews in a low voice. "Because,
+if you do, I can tell you something will tickle you most to death....
+Lean over."
+
+The "Y" man leant over curiously. "Some German prisoners come to this
+hospital at six every night to get the garbage; now all you need to
+do if you really hate 'em so bad is borrow a revolver from one of your
+officer friends, and just shoot up the convoy...."
+
+"Say... where were you raised, boy?" The "Y" man sat up suddenly with a
+look of alarm on his face. "Don't you know that prisoners are sacred?"
+
+"D'you know what our colonel told us before going into the Argonne
+offensive? The more prisoners we took, the less grub there'ld be; and do
+you know what happened to the prisoners that were taken? Why do you hate
+the Huns?"
+
+"Because they are barbarians, enemies of civilization. You must have
+enough education to know that," said the "Y" man, raising his voice
+angrily. "What church do you belong to?"
+
+"None."
+
+"But you must have been connected with some church, boy. You can't
+have been raised a heathen in America. Every Christian belongs or has
+belonged to some church or other from baptism."
+
+"I make no pretensions to Christianity."
+
+Andrews closed his eyes and turned his head away. He could feel the "Y"
+man hovering over him irresolutely. After a while he opened his eyes.
+The "Y" man was leaning over the next bed.
+
+Through the window at the opposite side of the ward he could see a
+bit of blue sky among white scroll-like clouds, with mauve shadows. He
+stared at it until the clouds, beginning to grow golden into evening,
+covered it. Furious, hopeless irritation consumed him. How these people
+enjoyed hating! At that rate it was better to be at the front. Men
+were more humane when they were killing each other than when they were
+talking about it. So was civilization nothing but a vast edifice of
+sham, and the war, instead of its crumbling, was its fullest and most
+ultimate expression. Oh, but there must be something more in the world
+than greed and hatred and cruelty. Were they all shams, too, these
+gigantic phrases that floated like gaudy kites high above mankind?
+Kites, that was it, contraptions of tissue paper held at the end of a
+string, ornaments not to be taken seriously. He thought of all the long
+procession of men who had been touched by the unutterable futility of
+the lives of men, who had tried by phrases to make things otherwise, who
+had taught unworldliness. Dim enigmatic figures they were--Democritus,
+Socrates, Epicurus, Christ; so many of them, and so vague in the
+silvery mist of history that he hardly knew that they were not his own
+imagining; Lucretius, St. Francis, Voltaire, Rousseau, and how many
+others, known and unknown, through the tragic centuries; they had wept,
+some of them, and some of them had laughed, and their phrases had risen
+glittering, soap bubbles to dazzle men for a moment, and had shattered.
+And he felt a crazy desire to join the forlorn ones, to throw himself
+into inevitable defeat, to live his life as he saw it in spite of
+everything, to proclaim once more the falseness of the gospels under
+the cover of which greed and fear filled with more and yet more pain the
+already unbearable agony of human life.
+
+As soon as he got out of the hospital he would desert; the determination
+formed suddenly in his mind, making the excited blood surge gloriously
+through his body. There was nothing else to do; he would desert. He
+pictured himself hobbling away in the dark on his lame legs, stripping
+his uniform off, losing himself in some out of the way corner of France,
+or slipping by the sentries to Spain and freedom. He was ready to endure
+anything, to face any sort of death, for the sake of a few months of
+liberty in which to forget the degradation of this last year. This was
+his last run with the pack.
+
+An enormous exhilaration took hold of him. It seemed the first time in
+his life he had ever determined to act. All the rest had been
+aimless drifting. The blood sang m his ears. He fixed his eyes on the
+half-obliterated figures that supported the shields under the beams in
+the wall opposite. They seemed to be wriggling out of their contorted
+positions and smiling encouragement to him. He imagined them, warriors
+out of old tales, on their way to clay dragons in enchanted woods,
+clever-fingered guildsmen and artisans, cupids and satyrs and fauns,
+jumping from their niches and carrying him off with them in a headlong
+rout, to a sound of flutes, on a last forlorn assault on the citadels of
+pain.
+
+The lights went out, and an orderly came round with chocolate that
+poured with a pleasant soothing sound into the tin cups. With a
+greasiness of chocolate in his mouth and the warmth of it in his
+stomach, John Andrews went to sleep.
+
+
+
+There was a stir in the ward when he woke up. Reddish sunlight filtered
+in through the window opposite, and from outside came a confused noise,
+a sound of bells ringing and whistles blowing. Andrews looked past his
+feet towards Stalky's cot opposite. Stalky was sitting bolt upright in
+bed, with his eyes round as quarters.
+
+"Fellers, the war's over!"
+
+"Put him out."
+
+"Cut that."
+
+"Pull the chain."
+
+"Tie that bull outside," came from every side of the ward.
+
+"Fellers," shouted Stalky louder than ever, "it's straight dope, the
+war's over. I just dreamt the Kaiser came up to me on Fourteenth Street
+and bummed a nickel for a glass of beer. The war's over. Don't you hear
+the whistles?"
+
+"All right; let's go home."
+
+"Shut up, can't you let a feller sleep?"
+
+The ward quieted down again, but all eyes were wide open, men lay
+strangely still in their cots, waiting, wondering.
+
+"All I can say," shouted Stalky again, "is that she was some war while
+she lasted.... What did I tell yer?"
+
+As he spoke the canvas screen in front of the door collapsed and the
+major appeared with his cap askew over his red face and a brass bell in
+his hand, which he rang frantically as he advanced into the ward.
+
+"Men," he shouted in the deep roar of one announcing baseball scores,
+"the war ended at 4:03 A.M. this morning.... The Armistice is signed.
+To hell with the Kaiser!" Then he rang the dinner bell madly and danced
+along the aisle between the rows of cots, holding the head nurse by one
+hand, who held a little yellow-headed lieutenant by the other hand, who,
+in turn, held another nurse, and so on. The line advanced jerkily into
+the ward; the front part was singing "The Star Spangled Banner," and the
+rear the "Yanks are Coming," and through it all the major rang his brass
+bell. The men who were well enough sat up in bed and yelled. The others
+rolled restlessly about, sickened by the din.
+
+They made the circuit of the ward and filed out, leaving confusion
+behind them. The dinner bell could be heard faintly in the other parts
+of the building.
+
+"Well, what d'you think of it, undertaker?" said Andrews.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Why?"
+
+The undertaker turned his small black eyes on Andrews and looked him
+straight in the face.
+
+"You know what's the matter with me, don't yer, outside o' this wound?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Coughing like I am, I'd think you'd be more observant. I got t.b.,
+young feller."
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"They're going to move me out o' here to a t.b. ward tomorrow."
+
+"The hell they are!" Andrews's words were lost in the paroxysm of
+coughing that seized the man next to him.
+
+"Home, boys, home; it's home we want to be."
+
+Those well enough were singing, Stalky conducting, standing on the end
+of his cot in his pink Red Cross pajamas, that were too short and showed
+a long expanse of skinny leg, fuzzy with red hairs. He banged together
+two bed pans to beat time.
+
+"Home.... I won't never go home," said the undertaker when the noise had
+subsided a little. "D'you know what I wish? I wish the war'd gone on and
+on until everyone of them bastards had been killed in it."
+
+"Which bastards?"
+
+"The men who got us fellers over here." He began coughing again weakly.
+
+"But they'll be safe if every other human being...." began Andrews. He
+was interrupted by a thundering voice from the end of the ward.
+
+"Attention!"
+
+"Home, boys, home; it's home we want to be."
+
+went on the song. Stalky glanced towards the end of the ward, and seeing
+it was the major, dropped the bed pans that smashed at the foot of his
+cot, and got as far as possible under his blankets.
+
+"Attention!" thundered the major again. A sudden uncomfortable silence
+fell upon the ward; broken only by the coughing of the man next to
+Andrews.
+
+"If I hear any more noise from this ward, I'll chuck everyone of you men
+out of this hospital; if you can't walk you'll have to crawl.... The war
+may be over, but you men are in the Army, and don't you forget it."
+
+The major glared up and down the lines of cots. He turned on his heel
+and went out of the door, glancing angrily as he went at the overturned
+screen. The ward was still. Outside whistles blew and churchbells rang
+madly, and now and then there was a sound of singing.
+
+
+
+                               II
+
+The snow beat against the windows and pattered on the tin roof of the
+lean-to, built against the side of the hospital, that went by the name
+of sun parlor. It was a dingy place, decorated by strings of dusty
+little paper flags that one of the "Y" men had festooned about the
+slanting beams of the ceiling to celebrate Christmas. There were tables
+with torn magazines piled on them, and a counter where cracked white
+cups were ranged waiting for one of the rare occasions when cocoa could
+be bought. In the middle of the room, against the wall of the main
+building, a stove was burning, about which sat several men in hospital
+denims talking in drowsy voices. Andrews watched them from his seat by
+the window, looking at their broad backs bent over towards the stove and
+at the hands that hung over their knees, limp from boredom. The air was
+heavy with a smell of coal gas mixed with carbolic from men's clothes,
+and stale cigarette smoke. Behind the cups at the counter a "Y" man, a
+short, red-haired man with freckles, read the Paris edition of the New
+York Herald. Andrews, in his seat by the window, felt permeated by the
+stagnation about him: He had a sheaf of pencilled music-papers on his
+knees, that he rolled and unrolled nervously, staring at the stove and
+the motionless backs of the men about it. The stove roared a little,
+the "Y" man's paper rustled, men's voices came now and then in a drowsy
+whisper, and outside the snow beat evenly and monotonously against the
+window panes. Andrews pictured himself vaguely walking fast through the
+streets, with the snow stinging his face and the life of a city swirling
+about him, faces flushed by the cold, bright eyes under hatbrims,
+looking for a second into his and passing on; slim forms of women
+bundled in shawls that showed vaguely the outline of their breasts
+and hips. He wondered if he would ever be free again to walk at random
+through city streets. He stretched his legs out across the floor in
+front of him; strange, stiff, tremulous legs they were, but it was not
+the wounds that gave them their leaden weight. It was the stagnation
+of the life about him that he felt sinking into every crevice of his
+spirit, so that he could never shake it off, the stagnation of dusty
+ruined automatons that had lost all life of their own, whose limbs had
+practised the drill manual so long that they had no movements of their
+own left, who sat limply, sunk in boredom, waiting for orders.
+
+Andrews was roused suddenly from his thoughts; he had been watching the
+snowflakes in their glittering dance just outside the window pane, when
+the sound of someone rubbing his hands very close to him made him look
+up. A little man with chubby cheeks and steel-grey hair very neatly
+flattened against his skull, stood at the window rubbing his fat little
+white hands together and making a faint unctuous puffing with each
+breath. Andrews noticed that a white clerical collar enclosed the little
+man's pink neck, that starched cuffs peeped from under the well-tailored
+sleeves of his officer's uniform. Sam Brown belt and puttees, too,
+were highly polished. On his shoulder was a demure little silver cross.
+Andrews' glance had reached the pink cheeks again, when he suddenly
+found a pair of steely eyes looking sharply into his.
+
+"You look quite restored, my friend," said a chanting clerical voice.
+
+"I suppose I am."
+
+"Splendid, splendid.... But do you mind moving into the end of the
+room.... That's it." He followed Andrews, saying in a deprecatory tone:
+"We're going to have just a little bit of a prayer and then I have some
+interesting things to tell you boys."
+
+The red-headed "Y" man had left his seat and stood in the center of the
+room, his paper still dangling from his hand, saying in a bored voice:
+"Please fellows, move down to the end.... Quiet, please.... Quiet,
+please."
+
+The soldiers shambled meekly to the folding chairs at the end of the
+room and after some chattering were quiet. A couple of men left, and
+several tiptoed in and sat in the front row. Andrews sank into a chair
+with a despairing sort of resignation, and burying his face in his hands
+stared at the floor between his feet.
+
+"Fellers," went on the bored voice of the "Y" man, "let me introduce the
+Reverend Dr. Skinner, who--" the "Y" man's voice suddenly took on deep
+patriotic emotion--"who has just come back from the Army of Occupation
+in Germany."
+
+At the words "Army of Occupation," as if a spring had been touched,
+everybody clapped and cheered.
+
+The Reverend Dr. Skinner looked about his audience with smiling
+confidence and raised his hands for silence, so that the men could see
+the chubby pink palms.
+
+"First, boys, my dear friends, let us indulge in a few moments of silent
+prayer to our Great Creator," his voice rose and fell in the suave
+chant of one accustomed to going through the episcopal liturgy for the
+edification of well-dressed and well-fed congregations. "Inasmuch as He
+has vouchsafed us safety and a mitigation of our afflictions, and let us
+pray that in His good time He may see fit to return us whole in limb and
+pure in heart to our families, to the wives, mothers, and to those whom
+we will some day honor with the name of wife, who eagerly await our
+return; and that we may spend the remainder of our lives in useful
+service of the great country for whose safety and glory we have offered
+up our youth a willing sacrifice.... Let us pray!"
+
+Silence fell dully on the room. Andrews could hear the selfconscious
+breathing of the men about him, and the rustling of the snow against the
+tin roof. A few feet scraped. The voice began again after a long pause,
+chanting:
+
+"Our Father which art in Heaven..."
+
+At the "Amen" everyone lifted his head cheerfully. Throats were cleared,
+chairs scraped. Men settled themselves to listen.
+
+"Now, my friends, I am going to give you in a few brief words a little
+glimpse into Germany, so that you may be able to picture to yourselves
+the way your comrades of the Army of Occupation manage to make
+themselves comfortable among the Huns.... I ate my Christmas dinner in
+Coblenz. What do you think of that? Never had I thought that a Christmas
+would find me away from my home and loved ones. But what unexpected
+things happen to us in this world! Christmas in Coblenz under the
+American flag!"
+
+He paused a moment to allow a little scattered clapping to subside.
+
+"The turkey was fine, too, I can tell you.... Yes, our boys in Germany
+are very, very comfortable, and just waiting for the word, if necessary,
+to continue their glorious advance to Berlin. For I am sorry to say,
+boys, that the Germans have not undergone the change of heart for which
+we had hoped. They have, indeed, changed the name of their institutions,
+but their spirit they have not changed.... How grave a disappointment it
+must be to our great President, who has exerted himself so to bring the
+German people to reason, to make them understand the horror that they
+alone have brought deliberately upon the world! Alas! Far from it.
+Indeed, they have attempted with insidious propaganda to undermine
+the morale of our troops...." A little storm of muttered epithets went
+through the room. The Reverend Dr. Skinner elevated his chubby pink
+palms and smiled benignantly..."to undermine the morale of our troops;
+so that the most stringent regulations have had to be made by the
+commanding general to prevent it. Indeed, my friends, I very much fear
+that we stopped too soon in our victorious advance; that Germany should
+have been utterly crushed. But all we can do is watch and wait, and
+abide by the decision of those great men who in a short time will be
+gathered together at the Conference at Paris.... Let me, boys, my dear
+friends, express the hope that you may speedily be cured of your wounds,
+ready again to do willing service in the ranks of the glorious army that
+must be vigilant for some time yet, I fear, to defend, as Americans and
+Christians, the civilization you have so nobly saved from a ruthless
+foe.... Let us all join together in singing the hymn, 'Stand up, stand
+up for Jesus,' which I am sure you all know."
+
+The men got to their feet, except for a few who had lost their legs, and
+sang the first verse of the hymn unsteadily. The second verse petered
+out altogether, leaving only the "Y" man and the Reverend Dr. Skinner
+singing away at the top of their lungs.
+
+The Reverend Dr. Skinner pulled out his gold watch and looked at it
+frowning.
+
+"Oh, my, I shall miss the train," he muttered. The "Y" man helped him
+into his voluminous trench coat and they both hurried out of the door.
+
+"Those are some puttees he had on, I'll tell you," said the legless man
+who was propped in a chair near the stove.
+
+Andrews sat down beside him, laughing. He was a man with high cheekbones
+and powerful jaws to whose face the pale brown eyes and delicately
+pencilled lips gave a look of great gentleness. Andrews did not look at
+his body.
+
+"Somebody said he was a Red Cross man giving out cigarettes.... Fooled
+us that time," said Andrews.
+
+"Have a butt? I've got one," said the legless man. With a large shrunken
+hand that was the transparent color of alabaster he held out a box of
+cigarettes.
+
+"Thanks." When Andrews struck a match he had to lean over the legless
+man to light his cigarette for him. He could not help glancing down the
+man's tunic at the drab trousers that hung limply from the chair. A cold
+shudder went through him; he was thinking of the zigzag scars on his own
+thighs.
+
+"Did you get it in the legs, too, Buddy?" asked the legless man,
+quietly.
+
+"Yes, but I had luck.... How long have you been here?"
+
+"Since Christ was a corporal. Oh, I doan know. I've been here since two
+weeks after my outfit first went into the lines.... That was on November
+16th, 1917.... Didn't see much of the war, did I?... Still, I guess I
+didn't miss much."
+
+"No.... But you've seen enough of the army."
+
+"That's true.... I guess I wouldn't mind the war if it wasn't for the
+army."
+
+"They'll be sending you home soon, won't they?"
+
+"Guess so.... Where are you from?"
+
+"New York," said Andrews.
+
+"I'm from Cranston, Wisconsin. D'you know that country? It's a great
+country for lakes. You can canoe for days an' days without a portage.
+We have a camp on Big Loon Lake. We used to have some wonderful times
+there... lived like wild men. I went for a trip for three weeks once
+without seeing a house. Ever done much canoeing?"
+
+"Not so much as I'd like to."
+
+"That's the thing to make you feel fit. First thing you do when you
+shake out of your blankets is jump in an' have a swim. Gee, it's great
+to swim when the morning mist is still on the water an' the sun just
+strikes the tops of the birch trees. Ever smelt bacon cooking? I mean
+out in the woods, in a frying pan over some sticks of pine and beech
+wood.... Some great old smell, isn't it?... And after you've paddled all
+day, an' feel tired and sunburned right to the palms of your feet, to
+sit around the fire with some trout roastin' in the ashes and hear the
+sizzlin' the bacon makes in the pan.... O boy!" He stretched his arms
+wide.
+
+"God, I'd like to have wrung that damn little parson's neck," said
+Andrews suddenly.
+
+"Would you?" The legless man turned brown eyes on Andrews with a smile.
+"I guess he's about as much to blame as anybody is... guys like him.... I
+guess they have that kind in Germany, too."
+
+"You don't think we've made the world quite as safe for Democracy as it
+might be?" said Andrews in a low voice.
+
+"Hell, how should I know? I bet you never drove an ice wagon.... I did,
+all one summer down home.... It was some life. Get up at three o'clock
+in the morning an' carry a hundred or two hundred pounds of ice into
+everybody's ice box. That was the life to make a feller feel fit. I was
+goin' around with a big Norwegian named Olaf, who was the strongest man
+I ever knew. An' drink! He was the boy could drink. I once saw him put
+away twenty-five dry Martini cocktails an' swim across the lake on top
+of it.... I used to weigh a hundred and eighty pounds, and he could pick
+me up with one hand and put me across his shoulder.... That was the life
+to make a feller feel fit. Why, after bein' out late the night before,
+we'd jump up out of bed at three o'clock feeling springy as a cat."
+
+"What's he doing now?" asked Andrews.
+
+"He died on the transport coming 'cross here. Died of the flu.... I met
+a feller came over in his regiment. They dropped him overboard when
+they were in sight of the Azores.... Well, I didn't die of the flu. Have
+another butt?"
+
+"No, thanks," said Andrews.
+
+They were silent. The fire roared in the stove. No one was talking. The
+men lolled in chairs somnolently. Now and then someone spat. Outside of
+the window Andrews could see the soft white dancing of the snowflakes.
+His limbs felt very heavy; his mind was permeated with dusty stagnation
+like the stagnation of old garrets and lumber rooms, where, among
+superannuated bits of machinery and cracked grimy crockery, lie heaps of
+broken toys.
+
+
+
+John Andrews sat on a bench in a square full of linden trees, with the
+pale winter sunshine full on his face and hands. He had been looking up
+through his eyelashes at the sun, that was the color of honey, and he
+let his dazzled glance sink slowly through the black lacework of twigs,
+down the green trunks of the trees to the bench opposite where sat two
+nursemaids and, between them, a tiny girl with a face daintily colored
+and lifeless like a doll's face, and a frilled dress under which showed
+small ivory knees and legs encased in white socks and yellow sandals.
+Above the yellow halo of her hair floated, with the sun shining through
+it, as through a glass of claret, a bright carmine balloon which
+the child held by a string. Andrews looked at her for a long time,
+enraptured by the absurd daintiness of the figure between the big
+bundles of flesh of the nursemaids. The thought came to him suddenly
+that months had gone by,--was it only months?--since his hands had
+touched anything soft, since he had seen any flowers. The last was a
+flower an old woman had given him in a village in the Argonne, an orange
+marigold, and he remembered how soft the old woman's withered lips had
+been against his cheek when she had leaned over and kissed him. His
+mind suddenly lit up, as with a strain of music, with a sense of the
+sweetness of quiet lives worn away monotonously in the fields, in the
+grey little provincial towns, in old kitchens full of fragrance of
+herbs and tang of smoke from the hearth, where there are pots on the
+window-sill full of basil in flower.
+
+Something made him go up to the little girl and take her hand. The
+child, looking up suddenly and seeing a lanky soldier with pale lean
+face and light, straw-colored hair escaping from under a cap too small
+for him, shrieked and let go the string of the balloon, which soared
+slowly into the air trembling a little in the faint cool wind that
+blew. The child wailed dismally, and Andrews, quailing under the furious
+glances of the nursemaids, stood before her, flushed crimson, stammering
+apologies, not knowing what to do. The white caps of the nursemaids
+bent over and ribbons fluttered about the child's head as they tried to
+console her. Andrews walked away dejectedly, now and then looking up
+at the balloon, which soared, a black speck against the grey and
+topaz-colored clouds.
+
+"Sale Americain!" he heard one nursemaid exclaim to the other. But
+this was the first hour in months he had had free, the first moment of
+solitude; he must live; soon he would be sent back to his division. A
+wave of desire for furious fleshly enjoyments went through him, making
+him want steaming dishes of food drenched in rich, spice-flavored
+sauces; making him want to get drunk on strong wine; to roll on thick
+carpets in the arms of naked, libidinous women. He was walking down the
+quiet grey street of the provincial town, with its low houses with red
+chimney pots, and blue slate roofs and its irregular yellowish cobbles.
+A clock somewhere was striking four with deep booming strokes, Andrews
+laughed. He had to be in hospital at six. Already he was tired; his legs
+ached.
+
+The window of a pastry shop appeared invitingly before him, denuded as
+it was by wartime. A sign in English said: "Tea." Walking in, he sat
+down in a fussy little parlor where the tables had red cloths, and
+a print, in pinkish and greenish colors, hung in the middle of the
+imitation brocade paper of each wall. Under a print of a poster bed with
+curtains in front of which eighteen to twenty people bowed, with the
+title of "Secret d'Amour," sat three young officers, who cast cold,
+irritated glances at this private with a hospital badge on who invaded
+their tea shop. Andrews stared back at them, flaming with dull anger.
+
+Sipping the hot, fragrant tea, he sat with a blank sheet of music paper
+before him, listening in spite of himself to what the officers were
+saying. They were talking about Ronsard. It was with irritated surprise
+that Andrews heard the name. What right had they to be talking about
+Ronsard? He knew more about Ronsard than they did. Furious, conceited
+phrases kept surging up in his mind. He was as sensitive, as humane, as
+intelligent, as well-read as they were; what right had they to the cold
+suspicious glance with which they had put him in his place when he
+had come into the room? Yet that had probably been as unconscious, as
+unavoidable as was his own biting envy. The thought that if one of those
+men should come over to him, he would have to stand up and salute and
+answer humbly, not from civility, but from the fear of being punished,
+was bitter as wormwood, filled him with a childish desire--to prove his
+worth to them, as when older boys had illtreated him at school and he
+had prayed to have the house burn down so that he might heroically save
+them all. There was a piano in an inner room, where in the dark the
+chairs, upside down, perched dismally on the table tops. He almost
+obeyed an impulse to go in there and start playing, by the brilliance
+of his playing to force these men, who thought of him as a coarse
+automaton, something between a man and a dog, to recognize him as an
+equal, a superior.
+
+"But the war's over. I want to start living. Red wine, streets of the
+nightingale cries to the rose," said one of the officers.
+
+"What do you say we go A.W.O.L. to Paris?"
+
+"Dangerous."
+
+"Well, what can they do? We are not enlisted men; they can only send us
+home. That's just what I want."
+
+"I'll tell you what; we'll go to the Cochon Bleu and have a cocktail and
+think about it."
+
+"The lion and the lizard keep their courts where... what the devil was
+his name? Anyway, we'll glory and drink deep, while Major Peabody keeps
+his court in Dijon to his heart's content."
+
+Spurs jingled as the three officers went out. A fierce disgust took
+possession of John Andrews. He was ashamed of his spiteful irritation.
+If, when he had been playing the piano to a roomful of friends in New
+York, a man dressed as a laborer had shambled in, wouldn't he have felt
+a moment of involuntary scorn? It was inevitable that the fortunate
+should hate the unfortunate because they feared them. But he was so
+tired of all those thoughts. Drinking down the last of his tea at a
+gulp, he went into the shop to ask the old woman, with little black
+whiskers over her bloodless lips, who sat behind the white desk at the
+end of the counter, if she minded his playing the piano.
+
+In the deserted tea room, among the dismal upturned chairs, his
+crassened fingers moved stiffly over the keys. He forgot everything
+else. Locked doors in his mind were swinging wide, revealing forgotten
+sumptuous halls of his imagination. The Queen of Sheba, grotesque as a
+satyr, white and flaming with worlds of desire, as the great implacable
+Aphrodite, stood with her hand on his shoulder sending shivers of warm
+sweetness rippling through his body, while her voice intoned in his ears
+all the inexhaustible voluptuousness of life.
+
+An asthmatic clock struck somewhere in the obscurity of the room.
+"Seven!" John Andrews paid, said good-bye to the old woman with the
+mustache, and hurried out into the street. "Like Cinderella at the
+ball," he thought. As he went towards the hospital, down faintly lighted
+streets, his steps got slower and slower. "Why go back?" a voice kept
+saying inside him. "Anything is better than that." Better throw himself
+in the river, even, than go back. He could see the olive-drab clothes
+in a heap among the dry bullrushes on the river bank.... He thought
+of himself crashing naked through the film of ice into water black as
+Chinese lacquer. And when he climbed out numb and panting on the other
+side, wouldn't he be able to take up life again as if he had just been
+born? How strong he would be if he could begin life a second time! How
+madly, how joyously he would live now that there was no more war.... He
+had reached the door of the hospital. Furious shudders of disgust went
+through him.
+
+He was standing dumbly humble while a sergeant bawled him out for being
+late.
+
+
+
+Andrews stared for a long while at the line of shields that supported
+the dark ceiling beams on the wall opposite his cot. The emblems
+had been erased and the grey stone figures that crowded under the
+shields,--the satyr with his shaggy goat's legs, the townsman with
+his square hat, the warrior with the sword between his legs,--had been
+clipped and scratched long ago in other wars. In the strong afternoon
+light they were so dilapidated he could hardly make them out. He
+wondered how they had seemed so vivid to him when he had lain in his
+cot, comforted by their comradeship, while his healing wounds itched and
+tingled. Still he glanced tenderly at the grey stone figures as he left
+the ward.
+
+Downstairs in the office where the atmosphere was stuffy with a smell
+of varnish and dusty papers and cigarette smoke, he waited a long time,
+shifting his weight restlessly from one foot to the other.
+
+"What do you want?" said a red-haired sergeant, without looking up from
+the pile of papers on his desk.
+
+"Waiting for travel orders."
+
+"Aren't you the guy I told to come back at three?"
+
+"It is three."
+
+"H'm!" The sergeant kept his eyes fixed on the papers, which rustled
+as he moved them from one pile to another. In the end of the room a
+typewriter clicked slowly and jerkily. Andrews could see the dark back
+of a head between bored shoulders in a woolen shirt leaning over the
+machine. Beside the cylindrical black stove against the wall a man with
+large mustaches and the complicated stripes of a hospital sergeant was
+reading a novel in a red cover. After a long silence the red-headed
+sergeant looked up from his papers and said suddenly:
+
+"Ted."
+
+The man at the typewriter turned slowly round, showing a large red face
+and blue eyes.
+
+"We-ell," he drawled.
+
+"Go in an' see if the loot has signed them papers yet."
+
+The man got up, stretched himself deliberately, and slouched out through
+a door beside the stove. The red-haired sergeant leaned back in his
+swivel chair and lit a cigarette.
+
+"Hell," he said, yawning.
+
+The man with the mustache beside the stove let the book slip from his
+knees to the floor, and yawned too.
+
+"This goddam armistice sure does take the ambition out of a feller," he
+said.
+
+"Hell of a note," said the red-haired sergeant. "D'you know that they
+had my name in for an O.T.C.? Hell of a note goin' home without a Sam
+Browne."
+
+The other man came back and sank down into his chair in front of the
+typewriter again. The slow, jerky clicking recommenced.
+
+Andrews made a scraping noise with his foot on the ground.
+
+"Well, what about that travel order?" said the red-haired sergeant.
+
+"Loot's out," said the other man, still typewriting.
+
+"Well, didn't he leave it on his desk?" shouted the red-haired sergeant
+angrily.
+
+"Couldn't find it."
+
+"I suppose I've got to go look for it.... God!" The red-haired sergeant
+stamped out of the room. A moment later he came back with a bunch of
+papers in his hand.
+
+"Your name Jones?" he snapped to Andrews.
+
+"No."
+
+"Snivisky?"
+
+"No.... Andrews, John."
+
+"Why the hell couldn't you say so?"
+
+The man with the mustaches beside the stove got to his feet suddenly. An
+alert, smiling expression came over his face.
+
+"Good afternoon, Captain Higginsworth," he said cheerfully.
+
+An oval man with a cigar slanting out of his broad mouth came into the
+room. When he talked the cigar wobbled in his mouth. He wore greenish
+kid gloves, very tight for his large hands, and his puttees shone with a
+dark lustre like mahogany.
+
+The red-haired sergeant turned round and half-saluted.
+
+"Goin' to another swell party, Captain?" he asked.
+
+The Captain grinned.
+
+"Say, have you boys got any Red Cross cigarettes? I ain't only got
+cigars, an' you can't hand a cigar to a lady, can you?" The Captain
+grinned again. An appreciative giggle went round.
+
+"Will a couple of packages do you? Because I've got some here," said the
+red-haired sergeant reaching in the drawer of his desk.
+
+"Fine." The captain slipped them into his pocket and swaggered out doing
+up the buttons of his buff-colored coat.
+
+The sergeant settled himself at his desk again with an important smile.
+
+"Did you find the travel order?" asked Andrews timidly. "I'm supposed to
+take the train at four-two."
+
+"Can't make it.... Did you say your name was Anderson?"
+
+"Andrews.... John Andrews."
+
+"Here it is.... Why didn't you come earlier?"
+
+
+
+The sharp air of the ruddy winter evening, sparkling in John Andrews's
+nostrils, vastly refreshing after the stale odors of the hospital, gave
+him a sense of liberation. Walking with rapid steps through the grey
+streets of the town, where in windows lamps already glowed orange, he
+kept telling himself that another epoch was closed. It was with relief
+that he felt that he would never see the hospital again or any of the
+people in it. He thought of Chrisfield. It was weeks and weeks since
+Chrisfield had come to his mind at all. Now it was with a sudden clench
+of affection that the Indiana boy's face rose up before him. An oval,
+heavily-tanned face with a little of childish roundness about it yet,
+with black eyebrows and long black eyelashes. But he did not even know
+if Chrisfield were still alive. Furious joy took possession of him. He,
+John Andrews, was alive; what did it matter if everyone he knew died?
+There were jollier companions than ever he had known, to be found in the
+world, cleverer people to talk to, more vigorous people to learn from.
+The cold air circulated through his nose and lungs; his arms felt strong
+and supple; he could feel the muscles of his legs stretch and contract
+as he walked, while his feet beat jauntily on the irregular cobblestones
+of the street. The waiting room at the station was cold and stuffy, full
+of a smell of breathed air and unclean uniforms. French soldiers wrapped
+in their long blue coats, slept on the benches or stood about in groups,
+eating bread and drinking from their canteens. A gas lamp in the center
+gave dingy light. Andrews settled himself in a corner with despairing
+resignation. He had five hours to wait for a train, and already his
+legs ached and he had a side feeling of exhaustion. The exhilaration of
+leaving the hospital and walking free through wine-tinted streets in
+the sparkling evening air gave way gradually to despair. His life would
+continue to be this slavery of unclean bodies packed together in
+places where the air had been breathed over and over, cogs in the great
+slow-moving Juggernaut of armies. What did it matter if the fighting had
+stopped? The armies would go on grinding out lives with lives, crushing
+flesh with flesh. Would he ever again stand free and solitary to
+live out joyous hours which would make up for all the boredom of the
+treadmill? He had no hope. His life would continue like this dingy,
+ill-smelling waiting room where men in uniform slept in the fetid air
+until they should be ordered-out to march or to stand in motionless
+rows, endlessly, futilely, like toy soldiers a child has forgotten in an
+attic.
+
+Andrews got up suddenly and went out on the empty platform. A cold wind
+blew. Somewhere out in the freight yards an engine puffed loudly, and
+clouds of white steam drifted through the faintly lighted station. He
+was walking up and down with his chin sunk into his coat and his hands
+in his pockets, when somebody ran into him.
+
+"Damn," said a voice, and the figure darted through a grimy glass door
+that bore the sign: "Buvette." Andrews followed absent-mindedly.
+
+"I'm sorry I ran into you.... I thought you were an M.P., that's why I
+beat it." When he spoke, the man, an American private, turned and looked
+searchingly in Andrews's face. He had very red cheeks and an impudent
+little brown mustache. He spoke slowly with a faint Bostonian drawl.
+
+"That's nothing," said Andrews.
+
+"Let's have a drink," said the other man. "I'm A.W.O.L. Where are you
+going?"
+
+"To some place near Bar-le-Duc, back to my Division. Been in hospital."
+
+"Long?"
+
+"Since October."
+
+"Gee.... Have some Curacoa. It'll do you good. You look pale.... My
+name's Henslowe. Ambulance with the French Army."
+
+They sat down at an unwashed marble table where the soot from the trains
+made a pattern sticking to the rings left by wine and liqueur glasses.
+
+"I'm going to Paris," said Henslowe. "My leave expired three days
+ago. I'm going to Paris and get taken ill with peritonitis or double
+pneumonia, or maybe I'll have a cardiac lesion.... The army's a bore."
+
+"Hospital isn't any better," said Andrews with a sigh. "Though I shall
+never forget the night with which I realized I was wounded and out of
+it. I thought I was bad enough to be sent home."
+
+"Why, I wouldn't have missed a minute of the war.... But now that it's
+over...Hell! Travel is the password now. I've just had two weeks in
+the Pyrenees. Nimes, Arles, Les Baux, Carcassonne, Perpignan, Lourdes,
+Gavarnie, Toulouse! What do you think of that for a trip?... What were
+you in?"
+
+"Infantry."
+
+"Must have been hell."
+
+"Been! It is."
+
+"Why don't you come to Paris with me?"
+
+"I don't want to be picked up," stammered Andrews.
+
+"Not a chance.... I know the ropes.... All you have to do is keep away
+from the Olympia and the railway stations, walk fast and keep your shoes
+shined... and you've got wits, haven't you?"
+
+"Not many.... Let's drink a bottle of wine. Isn't there anything to eat
+to be got here?"
+
+"Not a damn thing, and I daren't go out of the station on account of the
+M.P. at the gate.... There'll be a diner on the Marseilles express."
+
+"But I can't go to Paris."
+
+"Sure.... Look, how do you call yourself?"
+
+"John Andrews."
+
+"Well, John Andrews, all I can say is that you've let 'em get your goat.
+Don't give in. Have a good time, in spite of 'em. To hell with 'em."
+He brought the bottle down so hard on the table that it broke and the
+purple wine flowed over the dirty marble and dripped gleaming on the
+floor.
+
+Some French soldiers who stood in a group round the bar turned round.
+
+"V'la un gars qui gaspille le bon vin," said a tall red-faced man, with
+long sloping whiskers.
+
+"Pour vingt sous j'mangerai la bouteille," cried a little man lurching
+forward and leaning drunkenly over the table.
+
+"Done," said Henslowe. "Say, Andrews, he says he'll eat the bottle for a
+franc."
+
+He placed a shining silver franc on the table beside the remnants of
+the broken bottle. The man seized the neck of the bottle in a black,
+claw-like hand and gave it a preparatory flourish. He was a cadaverous
+little man, incredibly dirty, with mustaches and beard of a moth-eaten
+tow-color, and a purple flush on his cheeks. His uniform was clotted
+with mud. When the others crowded round him and tried to dissuade him,
+he said: "M'en fous, c'est mon metier," and rolled his eyes so that the
+whites flashed in the dim light like the eyes of dead codfish.
+
+"Why, he's really going to do it," cried Henslowe.
+
+The man's teeth flashed and crunched down on the jagged edge of
+the glass. There was a terrific crackling noise. He flourished the
+bottle-end again.
+
+"My God, he's eating it," cried Henslowe, roaring with laughter, "and
+you're afraid to go to Paris."
+
+An engine rumbled into the station, with a great hiss of escaping steam.
+
+"Gee, that's the Paris train! Tiens!" He pressed the franc into the
+man's dirt-crusted hand.
+
+"Come along, Andrews."
+
+As they left the buvette they heard again the crunching crackling noise
+as the man bit another piece off the bottle.
+
+Andrews followed Henslowe across the steam-filled platform to the door
+of a first-class carriage. They climbed in. Henslowe immediately pulled
+down the black cloth over the half globe of the light. The compartment
+was empty. He threw himself down with a sigh of comfort on the soft
+buff-colored cushions of the seat.
+
+"But what on earth?" stammered Andrews.
+
+"M'en fous, c'est mon metier," interrupted Henslowe.
+
+The train pulled out of the station.
+
+
+
+                               III
+
+Henslowe poured wine from a brown earthen crock into the glasses, where
+it shimmered a bright thin red, the color of currants. Andrews leaned
+back in his chair and looked through half-closed eyes at the table with
+its white cloth and little burnt umber loaves of bread, and out of the
+window at the square dimly lit by lemon-yellow gas lamps and at the dark
+gables of the little houses that huddled round it.
+
+At a table against the wall opposite a lame boy, with white beardless
+face and gentle violet-colored eyes, sat very close to the bareheaded
+girl who was with him and who never took her eyes off his face, leaning
+on his crutch all the while. A stove hummed faintly in the middle of the
+room, and from the half-open kitchen door came ruddy light and the sound
+of something frying. On the wall, in brownish colors that seemed to have
+taken warmth from all the rich scents of food they had absorbed since
+the day of their painting, were scenes of the Butte as it was fancied to
+have once been, with windmills and wide fields.
+
+"I want to travel," Henslowe was saying, dragging out his words
+drowsily. "Abyssinia, Patagonia, Turkestan, the Caucasus, anywhere and
+everywhere. What do you say you and I go out to New Zealand and raise
+sheep?"
+
+"But why not stay here? There can't be anywhere as wonderful as this."
+
+"Then I'll put off starting for New Guinea for a week. But hell, I'd
+go crazy staying anywhere after this. It's got into my blood... all
+this murder. It's made a wanderer of me, that's what it's done. I'm an
+adventurer."
+
+"God, I wish it had made me into anything so interesting."
+
+"Tie a rock on to your scruples and throw 'em off the Pont Neuf and set
+out.... O boy, this is the golden age for living by your wits."
+
+"You're not out of the army yet."
+
+"I should worry.... I'll join the Red Cross."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I've got a tip about it."
+
+A girl with oval face and faint black down on her upper lip brought
+them soup, a thick greenish colored soup, that steamed richly into their
+faces.
+
+"If you tell me how I can get out of the army you'll probably save my
+life," said Andrews seriously.
+
+"There are two ways...Oh, but let me tell you later. Let's talk about
+something worth while...So you write music do you?"
+
+Andrews nodded.
+
+An omelet lay between them, pale golden-yellow with flecks of green; a
+few amber bubbles of burnt butter still clustered round the edges.
+
+"Talk about tone-poems," said Henslowe.
+
+"But, if you are an adventurer and have no scruples, how is it you are
+still a private?"
+
+Henslowe took a gulp of wine and laughed uproariously.
+
+"That's the joke."
+
+They ate in silence for a little while. They could hear the couple
+opposite them talking in low soft voices. The stove purred, and from the
+kitchen came a sound of something being beaten in a bowl. Andrews leaned
+back in his chair.
+
+"This is so wonderfully quiet and mellow," he said.... "It is so easy to
+forget that there's any joy at all in life."
+
+"Rot...It's a circus parade."
+
+"Have you ever seen anything drearier than a circus parade? One of those
+jokes that aren't funny."
+
+"Justine, encore du vin," called Henslowe.
+
+"So you know her name?"
+
+"I live here.... The Butte is the boss on the middle of the shield. It's
+the axle of the wheel. That's why it's so quiet, like the centre of a
+cyclone, of a vast whirling rotary circus parade!"
+
+Justine, with her red hands that had washed so many dishes off which
+other people had dined well, put down between them a scarlet langouste,
+of which claws and feelers sprawled over the tablecloth that already had
+a few purplish stains of wine. The sauce was yellow and fluffy like the
+breast of a canary bird.
+
+"D'you know," said Andrews suddenly talking fast and excitedly while
+he brushed the straggling yellow hair off his forehead, "I'd almost be
+willing to be shot at the end of a year if I could live up here all
+that time with a piano and a million sheets of music paper...It would be
+worth it."
+
+"But this is a place to come back to. Imagine coming back here after the
+highlands of Thibet, where you'd nearly got drowned and scalped and had
+made love to the daughter of an Afghan chief... who had red lips smeared
+with loukoumi so that the sweet taste stayed in your mouth." Henslowe
+stroked softly his little brown mustache.
+
+"But what's the use of just seeing and feeling things if you can't
+express them?"
+
+"What's the use of living at all? For the fun of it, man; damn ends."
+
+"But the only profound fun I ever have is that..." Andrews's voice
+broke. "O God, I would give up every joy in the world if I could turn
+out one page that I felt was adequate.... D'you know it's years since
+I've talked to anybody?"
+
+They both stared silently out of the window at the fog that was packed
+tightly against it like cotton wool, only softer, and a greenish-gold
+color.
+
+"The M.P.'s sure won't get us tonight," said Henslowe, banging his fist
+jauntily on the table. "I've a great mind to go to Rue St. Anne and
+leave my card on the Provost Marshal.... God damn! D'you remember that
+man who took the bite out of our wine-bottle...He didn't give a hoot in
+hell, did he? Talk about expression. Why don't you express that? I think
+that's the turning point of your career. That's what made you come to
+Paris; you can't deny it."
+
+They both laughed loudly rolling about on their chairs.
+
+Andrews caught glints of contagion in the pale violet eyes of the lame
+boy and in the dark eyes of the girl.
+
+"Let's tell them about it," he said still laughing, with his face,
+bloodless after the months in hospital, suddenly flushed.
+
+"Salut," said Henslowe turning round and elevating his glass. "Nous
+rions parceque nous sommes gris de vin gris." Then he told them about
+the man who ate glass. He got to his feet and recounted slowly in his
+drawling voice, with gestures. Justine stood by with a dish full of
+stuffed tomatoes of which the red skins showed vaguely through a mantle
+of dark brown sauce. When she smiled her cheeks puffed out and gave her
+face a little of the look of a white cat's.
+
+"And you live here?" asked Andrews after they had all laughed.
+
+"Always. It is not often that I go down to town.... It's so
+difficult.... I have a withered leg." He smiled brilliantly like a child
+telling about a new toy.
+
+"And you?"
+
+"How could I be anywhere else?" answered the girl. "It's a misfortune,
+but there it is." She tapped with the crutch on the floor, making a
+sound like someone walking with it. The boy laughed and tightened his
+arm round her shoulder.
+
+"I should like to live here," said Andrews simply.
+
+"Why don't you?"
+
+"But don't you see he's a soldier," whispered the girl hurriedly.
+
+A frown wrinkled the boy's forehead.
+
+"Well, it wasn't by choice, I suppose," he said.
+
+Andrews was silent. Unaccountable shame took possession of him before
+these people who had never been soldiers, who would never be soldiers.
+
+"The Greeks used to say," he said bitterly, using as phrase that had
+been a long time on his mind, "that when a man became a slave, on the
+first day he lost one-half of his virtue."
+
+"When a man becomes a slave," repeated the lame boy softly, "on the
+first day he loses one-half of his virtue."
+
+"What's the use of virtue? It is love you need," said the girl.
+
+"I've eaten your tomato, friend Andrews," said Henslowe. "Justine will
+get us some more." He poured out the last of the wine that half filled
+each of the glasses with its thin sparkle, the color of red currants.
+
+Outside the fog had blotted everything out in even darkness which grew
+vaguely yellow and red near the sparsely scattered street lamps. Andrews
+and Henslowe felt their way blindly down the long gleaming flights of
+steps that led from the quiet darkness of the Butte towards the confused
+lights and noises of more crowded streets. The fog caught in their
+throats and tingled in their noses and brushed against their cheeks like
+moist hands.
+
+"Why did we go away from that restaurant? I'd like to have talked to
+those people some more," said Andrews.
+
+"We haven't had any coffee either.... But, man, we're in Paris. We're
+not going to be here long. We can't afford to stay all the time in one
+place.... It's nearly closing time already...."
+
+"The boy was a painter. He said he lived by making toys; he whittles out
+wooden elephants and camels for Noah's Arks.... Did you hear that?"
+
+They were walking fast down a straight, sloping street. Below them
+already appeared the golden glare of a boulevard.
+
+Andrews went on talking, almost to himself. "What a wonderful life that
+would be to live up here in a small room that would overlook the great
+rosy grey expanse of the city, to have some absurd work like that
+to live on, and to spend all your spare time working and going to
+concerts.... A quiet mellow existence.... Think of my life beside it.
+Slaving in that iron, metallic, brazen New York to write ineptitudes
+about music in the Sunday paper. God! And this."
+
+They were sitting down at a table in a noisy cafe, full of yellow light
+flashing in eyes and on glasses and bottles, of red lips crushed against
+the thin hard rims of glasses.
+
+"Wouldn't you like to just rip it off?" Andrews jerked at his tunic with
+both hands where it bulged out over his chest. "Oh, I'd like to make the
+buttons fly all over the cafe, smashing the liqueur glasses, snapping
+in the faces of all those dandified French officers who look so proud of
+themselves that they survived long enough to be victorious."
+
+"The coffee's famous here," said Henslowe. "The only place I ever had it
+better was at a bistro in Nice on this last permission."
+
+"Somewhere else again!"
+
+"That's it.... For ever and ever, somewhere else! Let's have some
+prunelle. Before the war prunelle."
+
+The waiter was a solemn man, with a beard cut like a prime minister's.
+He came with the bottle held out before him, religiously lifted. His
+lips pursed with an air of intense application, while he poured the
+white glinting liquid into the glasses. When he had finished he held the
+bottle upside down with a tragic gesture; not a drop came out.
+
+"It is the end of the good old times," he said.
+
+"Damnation to the good old times," said Henslowe. "Here's to the good
+old new roughhousy circus parades."
+
+"I wonder how many people they are good for, those circus parades of
+yours," said Andrews.
+
+"Where are you going to spend the night?" said Henslowe.
+
+"I don't know.... I suppose I can find a hotel or something."
+
+"Why don't you come with me and see Berthe; she probably has friends."
+
+"I want to wander about alone, not that I scorn Berthe's friends," said
+Andrews...."But I am so greedy for solitude."
+
+
+
+John Andrews was walking alone down streets full of drifting fog. Now
+and then a taxi dashed past him and clattered off into the obscurity.
+Scattered groups of people, their footsteps hollow in the muffling fog,
+floated about him. He did not care which way he walked, but went on and
+on, crossing large crowded avenues where the lights embroidered patterns
+of gold and orange on the fog, rolling in wide deserted squares, diving
+into narrow streets where other steps sounded sharply for a second now
+and then and faded leaving nothing in his ears when he stopped still
+to listen but the city's distant muffled breathing. At last he came
+out along the river, where the fog was densest and coldest and where
+he could hear faintly the sound of water gurgling past the piers of
+bridges. The glow of the lights glared and dimmed, glared and dimmed,
+as he walked along, and sometimes he could make out the bare branches
+of trees blurred across the halos of the lamps. The fog caressed him
+soothingly and shadows kept flicking past him, giving him glimpses of
+smooth curves of cheeks and glints of eyes bright from the mist and
+darkness. Friendly, familiar people seemed to fill the fog just out of
+his sight. The muffled murmur of the city stirred him like the sound of
+the voices of friends.
+
+"From the girl at the cross-roads singing under her street-lamp to the
+patrician pulling roses to pieces from the height of her litter... all
+the imagining of your desire...."
+
+The murmur of life about him kept forming itself into long modulated
+sentences in his ears,--sentences that gave him by their form a sense
+of quiet well-being as if he were looking at a low relief of people
+dancing, carved out of Parian in some workshop in Attica.
+
+Once he stopped and leaned for a long while against the moisture-beaded
+stern of a street-lamp. Two shadows defined, as they strolled towards
+him, into the forms of a pale boy and a bareheaded girl, walking tightly
+laced in each other's arms. The boy limped a little and his violet eyes
+were contracted to wistfulness. John Andrews was suddenly filled with
+throbbing expectation, as if those two would come up to him and put
+their hands on his arms and make some revelation of vast import to his
+life. But when they reached the full glow of the lamp, Andrews saw that
+he was mistaken. They were not the boy and girl he had talked to on the
+Butte.
+
+He walked off hurriedly and plunged again into tortuous streets, where
+he strode over the cobblestone pavements, stopping now and then to peer
+through the window of a shop at the light in the rear where a group of
+people sat quietly about a table under a light, or into a bar where a
+tired little boy with heavy eyelids and sleeves rolled up from thin grey
+arms was washing glasses, or an old woman, a shapeless bundle of black
+clothes, was swabbing the floor. From doorways he heard talking and soft
+laughs. Upper windows sent yellow rays of light across the fog.
+
+In one doorway the vague light from a lamp bracketed in the wall showed
+two figures, pressed into one by their close embrace. As Andrews walked
+past, his heavy army boots clattering loud on the wet pavement, they
+lifted their heads slowly. The boy had violet eyes and pale beardless
+cheeks; the girl was bareheaded and kept her brown eyes fixed on the
+boy's face. Andrews's heart thumped within him. At last he had found
+them. He made a step towards them, and then strode on losing himself
+fast in the cool effacing fog. Again he had been mistaken. The fog
+swirled about him, hiding wistful friendly faces, hands ready to meet
+his hands, eyes ready to take fire with his glance, lips cold with the
+mist, to be crushed under his lips. "From the girl at the singing under
+her street-lamp..."
+
+And he walked on alone through the drifting fog.
+
+
+
+                              IV
+
+Andrews left the station reluctantly, shivering in the raw grey mist
+under which the houses of the village street and the rows of motor
+trucks and the few figures of French soldiers swathed in long formless
+coats, showed as vague dark blurs in the confused dawnlight. His body
+felt flushed and sticky from a night spent huddled in the warm fetid air
+of an overcrowded compartment. He yawned and stretched himself and stood
+irresolutely in the middle of the street with his pack biting into his
+shoulders. Out of sight, behind the dark mass, in which a few ruddy
+lights glowed, of the station buildings, the engine whistled and the
+train clanked off into the distance. Andrews listened to its faint
+reverberation through the mist with a sick feeling of despair. It was
+the train that had brought him from Paris back to his division.
+
+As he stood shivering in the grey mist he remembered the curious
+despairing reluctance he used to suffer when he went back to boarding
+school after a holiday. How he used to go from the station to the school
+by the longest road possible, taking frantic account of every moment of
+liberty left him. Today his feet had the same leaden reluctance as when
+they used to all but refuse to take him up the long sandy hill to the
+school.
+
+He wandered aimlessly for a while about the silent village hoping to
+find a cafe where he could sit for a few minutes to take a last look
+at himself before plunging again into the grovelling promiscuity of the
+army. Not a light showed. All the shutters of the shabby little brick
+and plaster houses were closed. With dull springless steps he walked
+down the road they had pointed out to him from the R. T. O.
+
+Overhead the sky was brightening giving the mist that clung to the earth
+in every direction ruddy billowing outlines. The frozen road gave out a
+faint hard resonance under his footsteps. Occasionally the silhouette
+of a tree by the roadside loomed up in the mist ahead, its uppermost
+branches clear and ruddy with sunlight.
+
+Andrews was telling himself that the war was over, and that in a few
+months he would be free in any case. What did a few months more or less
+matter? But the same thoughts were swept recklessly away in the blind
+panic that was like a stampede of wild steers within him. There was no
+arguing. His spirit was contorted with revolt so that his flesh twitched
+and dark splotches danced before his eyes. He wondered vaguely whether
+he had gone mad. Enormous plans kept rising up out of the tumult of his
+mind and dissolving suddenly like smoke in a high wind. He would run
+away and if they caught him, kill himself. He would start a mutiny in
+his company, he would lash all these men to frenzy by his words, so that
+they too should refuse to form into Guns, so that they should laugh when
+the officers got red in the face shouting orders at them, so that the
+whole division should march off over the frosty hills, without arms,
+without flags, calling all the men of all the armies to join them, to
+march on singing, to laugh the nightmare out of their blood. Would not
+some lightning flash of vision sear people's consciousness into life
+again? What was the good of stopping the war if the armies continued?
+
+But that was just rhetoric. His mind was flooding itself with rhetoric
+that it might keep its sanity. His mind was squeezing out rhetoric like
+a sponge that he might not see dry madness face to face.
+
+And all the while his hard footsteps along the frozen road beat in
+his ears bringing him nearer to the village where the division was
+quartered. He was climbing a long hill. The mist thinned about him and
+became brilliant with sunlight. Then he was walking in the full sun over
+the crest of a hill with pale blue sky above his head. Behind him and
+before him were mist-filled valleys and beyond other ranges of long
+hills, with reddish-violet patches of woodland, glowing faintly in the
+sunlight. In the valley at his feet he could see, in the shadow of the
+hill he stood on, a church tower and a few roofs rising out of the mist,
+as out of water.
+
+Among the houses bugles were blowing mess-call.
+
+The jauntiness of the brassy notes ringing up through the silence was
+agony to him. How long the day would be. He looked at his watch. It was
+seven thirty. How did they come to be having mess so late?
+
+The mist seemed doubly cold and dark when he was buried in it again
+after his moment of sunlight. The sweat was chilled on his face and
+streaks of cold went through his clothes, soaked from the effort of
+carrying the pack. In the village street Andrews met a man he did
+not know and asked him where the office was. The man, who was chewing
+something, pointed silently to a house with green shutters on the
+opposite side of the street.
+
+At a desk sat Chrisfield smoking a cigarette. When he jumped up Andrews
+noticed that he had a corporal's two stripes on his arm.
+
+"Hello, Andy."
+
+They shook hands warmly.
+
+"A' you all right now, ole boy?"
+
+"Sure, I'm fine," said Andrews. A sudden constraint fell upon them.
+
+"That's good," said Chrisfield.
+
+"You're a corporal now. Congratulations."
+
+"Um hum. Made me more'n a month ago."
+
+They were silent. Chrisfield sat down in his chair again.
+
+"What sort of a town is this?"
+
+"It's a hell-hole, this dump is, a hell-hole."
+
+"That's nice."
+
+"Goin' to move soon, tell me.... Army o' Occupation. But Ah hadn't ought
+to have told you that.... Don't tell any of the fellers."
+
+"Where's the outfit quartered?"
+
+"Ye won't know it; we've got fifteen new men. No account all of 'em.
+Second draft men."
+
+"Civilians in the town?"
+
+"You bet.... Come with me, Andy, an Ah'll tell 'em to give you some grub
+at the cookshack. No... wait a minute an' you'll miss the hike.... Hikes
+every day since the goddam armistice. They sent out a general order
+telling 'em to double up on the drill."
+
+They heard a voice shouting orders outside and the narrow street filled
+up suddenly with a sound of boots beating the ground in unison. Andrews
+kept his back to the window. Something in his legs seemed to be tramping
+in time with the other legs.
+
+"There they go," said Chrisfield. "Loot's with 'em today.... Want some
+grub? If it ain't been punk since the armistice."
+
+
+
+The "Y" hut was empty and dark; through the grimy windowpanes could be
+seen fields and a leaden sky full of heavy ocherous light, in which the
+leafless trees and the fields full of stubble were different shades of
+dead, greyish brown. Andrews sat at the piano without playing. He was
+thinking how once he had thought to express all the cramped boredom of
+this life; the thwarted limbs regimented together, lashed into straight
+lines, the monotony of servitude. Unconsciously as he thought of it,
+the fingers of one hand sought a chord, which jangled in the badly-tuned
+piano. "God, how silly!" he muttered aloud, pulling his hands away.
+Suddenly he began to play snatches of things he knew, distorting them,
+willfully mutilating the rhythm, mixing into them snatches of ragtime.
+The piano jangled under his hands, filling the empty hut with clamor.
+He stopped suddenly, letting his fingers slide from bass to treble, and
+began to play in earnest.
+
+There was a cough behind him that had an artificial, discreet ring to
+it. He went on playing without turning round. Then a voice said:
+
+"Beautiful, beautiful."
+
+Andrews turned to find himself staring into a face of vaguely triangular
+shape with a wide forehead and prominent eyelids over protruding brown
+eyes. The man wore a Y. M. C. A. uniform which was very tight for him,
+so that there were creases running from each button across the front of
+his tunic.
+
+"Oh, do go on playing. It's years since I heard any Debussy."
+
+"It wasn't Debussy."
+
+"Oh, wasn't it? Anyway it was just lovely. Do go on. I'll just stand
+here and listen."
+
+Andrews went on playing for a moment, made a mistake, started over,
+made the same mistake, banged on the keys with his fist and turned round
+again.
+
+"I can't play," he said peevishly.
+
+"Oh, you can, my boy, you can.... Where did you learn? I would give a
+million dollars to play like that, if I had it."
+
+Andrews glared at him silently.
+
+"You are one of the men just back from hospital, I presume."
+
+"Yes, worse luck."
+
+"Oh, I don't blame you. These French towns are the dullest places;
+though I just love France, don't you?" The "Y" man had a faintly whining
+voice.
+
+"Anywhere's dull in the army."
+
+"Look, we must get to know each other real well. My name's Spencer
+Sheffield...Spencer B. Sheffield.... And between you and me there's
+not a soul in the division you can talk to. It's dreadful not to have
+intellectual people about one. I suppose you're from New York."
+
+Andrews nodded.
+
+"Um hum, so am I. You're probably read some of my things in Vain
+Endeavor.... What, you've never read Vain Endeavor? I guess you didn't
+go round with the intellectual set.... Musical people often don't....
+Of course I don't mean the Village. All anarchists and society women
+there...."
+
+"I've never gone round with any set, and I never..."
+
+"Never mind, we'll fix that when we all get back to New York. And now
+you just sit down at that piano and play me Debussy's 'Arabesque.'... I
+know you love it just as much as I do. But first what's your name?"
+
+"Andrews."
+
+"Folks come from Virginia?"
+
+"Yes." Andrews got to his feet.
+
+"Then you're related to the Penneltons."
+
+"I may be related to the Kaiser for all I know."
+
+"The Penneltons... that's it. You see my mother was a Miss Spencer from
+Spencer Falls, Virginia, and her mother was a Miss Pennelton, so you and
+I are cousins. Now isn't that a coincidence?"
+
+"Distant cousins. But I must go back to the barracks."
+
+"Come in and see me any time," Spencer B. Sheffield shouted after him.
+"You know where; back of the shack; And knock twice so I'll know it's
+you."
+
+Outside the house where he was quartered Andrews met the new top
+sergeant, a lean man with spectacles and a little mustache of the color
+and texture of a scrubbing brush.
+
+"Here's a letter for you," the top sergeant said. "Better look at the
+new K. P. list I've just posted."
+
+The letter was from Henslowe. Andrews read it with a smile of pleasure
+in the faint afternoon light, remembering Henslowe's constant drawling
+talk about distant places he had never been to, and the man who had
+eaten glass, and the day and a half in Paris.
+
+"Andy," the letter began, "I've got the dope at last. Courses begin in
+Paris February fifteenth. Apply at once to your C. O. to study somethin'
+at University of Paris. Any amount of lies will go. Apply all
+pull possible via sergeants, lieutenants and their mistresses and
+laundresses. Yours, Henslowe."
+
+His heart thumping, Andrews ran after the sergeant, passing, in his
+excitement, a lieutenant without saluting him.
+
+"Look here," snarled the lieutenant.
+
+Andrews saluted, and stood stiffly at attention.
+
+"Why didn't you salute me?"
+
+"I was in a hurry, sir, and didn't see you. I was going on very urgent
+company business, sir."
+
+"Remember that just because the armistice is signed you needn't think
+you're out of the army; at ease."
+
+Andrews saluted. The lieutenant saluted, turned swiftly on his heel and
+walked away.
+
+Andrews caught up to the sergeant.
+
+"Sergeant Coffin. Can I speak to you a minute?"
+
+"I'm in a hell of a hurry."
+
+"Have you heard anything about this army students' corps to send men to
+universities here in France? Something the Y. M. C. A.'s getting up."
+
+"Can't be for enlisted men. No I ain't heard a word about it. D'you want
+to go to school again?"
+
+"If I get a chance. To finish my course."
+
+"College man, are ye? So am I. Well, I'll let you know if I get any
+general order about it. Can't do anything without getting a general
+order about it. Looks to me like it's all bushwa."
+
+"I guess you're right."
+
+The street was grey dark. Stung by a sense of impotence, surging with
+despairing rebelliousness, Andrews hurried back towards the buildings
+where the company was quartered. He would be late for mess. The grey
+street was deserted. From a window here and there ruddy light streamed
+out to make a glowing oblong on the wall of a house opposite.
+
+
+
+"Goddam it, if ye don't believe me, you go ask the lootenant....
+Look here, Toby, didn't our outfit see hotter work than any goddam
+engineers?"
+
+Toby had just stepped into the cafe, a tall man with a brown bulldog
+face and a scar on his left cheek. He spoke rarely and solemnly with a
+Maine coast Yankee twang.
+
+"I reckon so," was all he said. He sat down on the bench beside the
+other man who went on bitterly:
+
+"I guess you would reckon so.... Hell, man, you ditch diggers ain't in
+it."
+
+"Ditch diggers!" The engineer banged his fist down on the table. His
+lean pickled face was a furious red. "I guess we don't dig half so many
+ditches as the infantry does... an' when we've dug 'em we don't crawl
+into 'em an' stay there like goddam cottontailed jackrabbits."
+
+"You guys don't git near enough to the front...."
+
+"Like goddam cottontailed jackrabbits," shouted the pickle-faced
+engineer again, roaring with laughter. "Ain't that so?" He looked round
+the room for approval. The benches at the two long tables were filled
+with infantry men who looked at him angrily. Noticing suddenly that he
+had no support, he moderated his voice.
+
+"The infantry's damn necessary, I'll admit that; but where'd you fellers
+be without us guys to string the barbed wire for you?"
+
+"There warn't no barbed wire strung in the Oregon forest where we was,
+boy. What d'ye want barbed wire when you're advancin' for?"
+
+"Look here...I'll bet you a bottle of cognac my company had more losses
+than yourn did."
+
+"Tek him up, Joe," said Toby, suddenly showing an interest in the
+conversation.
+
+"All right, it's a go."
+
+"We had fifteen killed and twenty wounded," announced the engineer
+triumphantly.
+
+"How badly wounded?"
+
+"What's that to you? Hand over the cognac?"
+
+"Like hell. We had fifteen killed and twenty wounded too, didn't we,
+Toby?"
+
+"I reckon you're right," said Toby.
+
+"Ain't I right?" asked the other man, addressing the company generally.
+
+"Sure, goddam right," muttered voices.
+
+"Well, I guess it's all off, then," said the engineer.
+
+"No, it ain't," said Toby, "reckon up yer wounded. The feller who's got
+the worst wounded gets the cognac. Ain't that fair?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"We've had seven fellers sent home already," said the engineer.
+
+"We've had eight. Ain't we?"
+
+"Sure," growled everybody in the room.
+
+"How bad was they?"
+
+"Two of 'em was blind," said Toby.
+
+"Hell," said the engineer, jumping to his feet as if taking a trick at
+poker. "We had a guy who was sent home without arms nor legs, and three
+fellers got t.b. from bein' gassed."
+
+John Andrews had been sitting in a corner of the room. He got up.
+Something had made him think of the man he had known in the hospital
+who had said that was the life to make a feller feel fit. Getting up at
+three o'clock in the morning, you jumped out of bed just like a cat....
+He remembered how the olive-drab trousers had dangled, empty from the
+man's chair.
+
+"That's nothing; one of our sergeants had to have a new nose grafted
+on...."
+
+The village street was dark and deeply rutted with mud. Andrews wandered
+up and down aimlessly. There was only one other cafe. That would be just
+like this one. He couldn't go back to the desolate barn where he slept.
+It would be too early to go to sleep. A cold wind blew down the street
+and the sky was full of vague movement of dark clouds. The partly-frozen
+mud clotted about his feet as he walked along; he could feel the water
+penetrating his shoes. Opposite the Y. M. C. A. hut at the end of the
+street he stopped. After a moment's indecision he gave a little laugh,
+and walked round to the back where the door of the "Y" man's room was.
+
+He knocked twice, half hoping there would be no reply.
+
+Sheffield's whining high-pitched voice said: "Who is it?"
+
+"Andrews."
+
+"Come right in.... You're just the man I wanted to see." Andrews stood
+with his hand on the knob.
+
+"Do sit down and make yourself right at home."
+
+Spencer Sheffield was sitting at a little desk in a room with walls
+of unplaned boards and one small window. Behind the desk were piles of
+cracker boxes and cardboard cases of cigarettes and in the midst of
+them a little opening, like that of a railway ticket office, in the wall
+through which the "Y" man sold his commodities to the long lines of men
+who would stand for hours waiting meekly in the room beyond.
+
+Andrews was looking round for a chair.
+
+"Oh, I just forgot. I'm sitting in the only chair," said Spencer
+Sheffield, laughing, twisting his small mouth into a shape like a
+camel's mouth and rolling about his large protruding eyes.
+
+"Oh, that's all right. What I wanted to ask you was: do you know
+anything about...?"
+
+"Look, do come with me to my room," interrupted Sheffield. "I've got
+such a nice sitting-room with an open fire, just next to Lieutenant
+Bleezer.... An' there we'll talk... about everything. I'm just dying to
+talk to somebody about the things of the spirit."
+
+"Do you know anything about a scheme for sending enlisted men to French
+universities? Men who have not finished their courses."
+
+"Oh, wouldn't that be just fine. I tell you, boy, there's nothing like
+the U. S. government to think of things like that."
+
+"But have you heard anything about it?"
+
+"No; but I surely shall.... D'you mind switching the light off?...
+That's it. Now just follow me. Oh, I do need a rest. I've been working
+dreadfully hard since that Knights of Columbus man came down here. Isn't
+it hateful the way they try to run down the 'Y'?... Now we can have a
+nice long talk. You must tell me all about yourself."
+
+"But don't you really know anything about that university scheme? They
+say it begins February fifteenth," Andrews said in a low voice.
+
+"I'll ask Lieutenant Bleezer if he knows anything about it," said
+Sheffield soothingly, throwing an arm around Andrews's shoulder and
+pushing him in the door ahead of him.
+
+They went through a dark hall to a little room where a fire burned
+brilliantly in the hearth, lighting up with tongues of red and yellow a
+square black walnut table and two heavy armchairs with leather backs and
+bottoms that shone like lacquer.
+
+"This is wonderful," said Andrews involuntarily.
+
+"Romantic I call it. Makes you think of Dickens, doesn't it, and
+Locksley Hall."
+
+"Yes," said Andrews vaguely.
+
+"Have you been in France long?" asked Andrews settling himself in one
+of the chairs and looking into the dancing flames of the log fire. "Will
+you smoke?" He handed Sheffield a crumpled cigarette.
+
+"No, thanks, I only smoke special kinds. I have a weak heart. That's why
+I was rejected from the army.... Oh, but I think it was superb of you to
+join as a private; It was my dream to do that, to be one of the nameless
+marching throng."
+
+"I think it was damn foolish, not to say criminal," said Andrews
+sullenly, still staring into the fire.
+
+"You can't mean that. Or do you mean that you think you had abilities
+which would have been worth more to your country in another position?...
+I have many friends who felt that."
+
+"No.... I don't think it's right of a man to go back on himself.... I
+don't think butchering people ever does any good ...I have acted as if
+I did think it did good... out of carelessness or cowardice, one or the
+other; that I think bad."
+
+"You mustn't talk that way" said Sheffield hurriedly. "So you are a
+musician, are you?" He asked the question with a jaunty confidential
+air.
+
+"I used to play the piano a little, if that's what you mean," said
+Andrews.
+
+"Music has never been the art I had most interest in. But many things
+have moved me intensely.... Debussy and those beautiful little things
+of Nevin's. You must know them.... Poetry has been more my field. When I
+was young, younger than you are, quite a lad...Oh, if we could only stay
+young; I am thirty-two."
+
+"I don't see that youth by itself is worth much. It's the most superb
+medium there is, though, for other things," said Andrews. "Well, I must
+go," he said. "If you do hear anything about that university scheme, you
+will let me know, won't you?"
+
+"Indeed I shall, dear boy, indeed I shall."
+
+They shook hands in jerky dramatic fashion and Andrews stumbled down the
+dark hall to the door. When he stood out in the raw night air again
+he drew a deep breath. By the light that streamed out from a window
+he looked at his watch. There was time to go to the regimental
+sergeant-major's office before tattoo.
+
+At the opposite end of the village street from the Y. M. C. A. hut was
+a cube-shaped house set a little apart from the rest in the middle of a
+broad lawn which the constant crossing and recrossing of a staff of cars
+and trains of motor trucks had turned into a muddy morass in which the
+wheel tracks crisscrossed in every direction. A narrow board walk led
+from the main road to the door. In the middle of this walk Andrews met a
+captain and automatically got off into the mud and saluted.
+
+The regimental office was a large room that had once been decorated by
+wan and ill-drawn mural paintings in the manner of Puvis de Chavannes,
+but the walls had been so chipped and soiled by five years of military
+occupation that they were barely recognisable. Only a few bits of bare
+flesh and floating drapery showed here and there above the maps and
+notices that were tacked on the walls. At the end of the room a group of
+nymphs in Nile green and pastel blue could be seen emerging from under a
+French War Loan poster. The ceiling was adorned with an oval of flowers
+and little plaster cupids in low relief which had also suffered and in
+places showed the laths. The office was nearly empty. The littered desks
+and silent typewriters gave a strange air of desolation to the gutted
+drawing-room. Andrews walked boldly to the furthest desk, where a
+little red card leaning against the typewriter said "Regimental
+Sergeant-Major."
+
+Behind the desk, crouched over a heap of typewritten reports, sat a
+little man with scanty sandy hair, who screwed up his eyes and smiled
+when Andrews approached the desk.
+
+"Well, did you fix it up for me?" he asked.
+
+"Fix what?" said Andrews.
+
+"Oh, I thought you were someone else." The smile left the regimental
+sergeant-major's thin lips. "What do you want?"
+
+"Why, Regimental Sergeant-Major, can you tell me anything about a scheme
+to send enlisted men to colleges over here? Can you tell me who to apply
+to?"
+
+"According to what general orders? And who told you to come and see me
+about it, anyway?"
+
+"Have you heard anything about it?"
+
+"No, nothing definite. I'm busy now anyway. Ask one of your own non-coms
+to find out about it." He crouched once more over the papers.
+
+Andrews was walking towards the door, flushing with annoyance, when he
+saw that the man at the desk by the window was jerking his head in a
+peculiar manner, just in the direction of the regimental sergeant-major
+and then towards the door. Andrews smiled at him and nodded. Outside
+the door, where an orderly sat on a short bench reading a torn Saturday
+Evening Post, Andrews waited. The hall was part of what must have been
+a ballroom, for it had a much-scarred hardwood floor and big spaces of
+bare plaster framed by gilt-and lavender-colored mouldings, which had
+probably held tapestries. The partition of unplaned boards that formed
+other offices cut off the major part of a highly decorated ceiling where
+cupids with crimson-daubed bottoms swam in all attitudes in a sea of
+pink-and blue-and lavender-colored clouds, wreathing themselves coyly in
+heavy garlands of waxy hothouse flowers, while cornucopias spilling
+out squashy fruits gave Andrews a feeling of distinct insecurity as he
+looked up from below.
+
+"Say are you a Kappa Mu?"
+
+Andrews looked down suddenly and saw in front of him the man who had
+signalled to him in the regimental sergeant-major's office.
+
+"Are you a Kappa Mu?" he asked again.
+
+"No, not that I know of," stammered Andrews puzzled.
+
+"What school did you go to?"
+
+"Harvard."
+
+"Harvard.... Guess we haven't got a chapter there.... I'm from North
+Western. Anyway you want to go to school in France here if you can. So
+do I."
+
+"Don't you want to come and have a drink?"
+
+The man frowned, pulled his overseas cap down over his forehead, where
+the hair grew very low, and looked about him mysteriously. "Yes," he
+said.
+
+They splashed together down the muddy village street. "We've got
+thirteen minutes before tattoo.... My name's Walters, what's yours?" He
+spoke in a low voice in short staccato phrases.
+
+"Andrews."
+
+"Andrews, you've got to keep this dark. If everybody finds out about it
+we're through. It's a shame you're not a Kappa Mu, but college men have
+got to stick together, that's the way I look at it."
+
+"Oh, I'll keep it dark enough," said Andrews.
+
+"It's too good to be true. The general order isn't out yet, but I've
+seen a preliminary circular. What school d'you want to go to?"
+
+"Sorbonne, Paris."
+
+"That's the stuff. D'you know the back room at Baboon's?"
+
+Walters turned suddenly to the left up an alley, and broke through a
+hole in a hawthorn hedge.
+
+"A guy's got to keep his eyes and ears open if he wants to get anywhere
+in this army," he said.
+
+As they ducked in the back door of a cottage, Andrews caught a glimpse
+of the billowy line of a tile roof against the lighter darkness of the
+sky. They sat down on a bench built into a chimney where a few sticks
+made a splutter of flames.
+
+"Monsieur desire?" A red-faced girl with a baby in her arms came up to
+them.
+
+"That's Babette; Baboon I call her," said Walters with a laugh.
+
+"Chocolat," said Walters.
+
+"That'll suit me all right. It's my treat, remember."
+
+"I'm not forgetting it. Now let's get to business. What you do is this.
+You write an application. I'll make that out for you on the typewriter
+tomorrow and you meet me here at eight tomorrow night and I'll give it
+to you.... You sign it at once and hand it in to your sergeant. See?"
+
+"This'll just be a preliminary application; when the order's out you'll
+have to make another."
+
+The woman, this time without the baby, appeared out of the darkness
+of the room with a candle and two cracked bowls from which steam rose,
+faint primrose-color in the candle light. Walters drank his bowl down at
+a gulp, grunted and went on talking.
+
+"Give me a cigarette, will you?... You'll have to make it out darn soon
+too, because once the order's out every son of a gun in the division'll
+be making out to be a college man. How did you get your tip?"
+
+"From a fellow in Paris."
+
+"You've been to Paris, have you?" said Walters admiringly. "Is it the
+way they say it is? Gee, these French are immoral. Look at this woman
+here. She'll sleep with a feller soon as not. Got a baby too!"
+
+"But who do the applications go in to?"
+
+"To the colonel, or whoever he appoints to handle it. You a Catholic?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Neither am I. That's the hell of it. The regimental sergeant-major is."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I guess you haven't noticed the way things run up at divisional
+headquarters. It's a regular cathedral. Isn't a mason in it.... But I
+must beat it.... Better pretend you don't know me if you meet me on the
+street; see?"
+
+"All right."
+
+Walters hurried out of the door. Andrews sat alone looking at the
+flutter of little flames about the pile of sticks on the hearth, while
+he sipped chocolate from the warm bowl held between the palms of both
+hands.
+
+He remembered a speech out of some very bad romantic play he had heard
+when he was very small.
+
+"About your head I fling... the curse of Rome."
+
+He started to laugh, sliding back and forth on the smooth bench which
+had been polished by the breeches of generations warming their feet at
+the fire. The red-faced woman stood with her hands on her hips looking
+at him in astonishment, while he laughed and laughed.
+
+"Mais quelle gaite, quelle gaite," she kept saying.
+
+
+
+The straw under him rustled faintly with every sleepy movement Andrews
+made in his blankets. In a minute the bugle was going to blow and he was
+going to jump out of his blankets, throw on his clothes and fall into
+line for roll call in the black mud of the village street. It couldn't
+be that only a month had gone by since he had got back from hospital.
+No, he had spent a lifetime in this village being dragged out of his
+warm blankets every morning by the bugle, shivering as he stood in line
+for roll call, shuffling in a line that moved slowly past the cookshack,
+shuffling along in another line to throw what was left of his food into
+garbage cans, to wash his mess kit in the greasy water a hundred other
+men had washed their mess kits in; lining up to drill, to march on along
+muddy roads, splattered by the endless trains of motor trucks; lining up
+twice more for mess, and at last being forced by another bugle into his
+blankets again to sleep heavily while a smell hung in his nostrils of
+sweating woolen clothing and breathed-out air and dusty blankets. In
+a minute the bugle was going to blow, to snatch him out of even these
+miserable thoughts, and throw him into an automaton under other men's
+orders. Childish spiteful desires surged into his mind. If the bugler
+would only die. He could picture him, a little man with a broad face and
+putty-colored cheeks, a small rusty mustache and bow-legs lying like a
+calf on a marble slab in a butcher's shop on top of his blankets. What
+nonsense! There were other buglers. He wondered how many buglers there
+were in the army. He could picture them all, in dirty little villages,
+in stone barracks, in towns, in great camps that served the country
+for miles with rows of black warehouses and narrow barrack buildings
+standing with their feet a little apart; giving their little brass
+bugles a preliminary tap before putting out their cheeks and blowing in
+them and stealing a million and a half (or was it two million or three
+million) lives, and throwing the warm sentient bodies into coarse
+automatons who must be kept busy, lest they grow restive, till killing
+time began again.
+
+The bugle blew with the last jaunty notes, a stir went through the barn.
+
+Corporal Chrisfield stood on the ladder that led up from the yard, his
+head on a level with the floor shouting:
+
+"Shake it up, fellers! If a guy's late to roll call, it's K. P. for a
+week."
+
+As Andrews, while buttoning his tunic, passed him on the ladder, he
+whispered:
+
+"Tell me we're going to see service again, Andy... Army o' Occupation."
+
+While he stood stiffly at attention waiting to answer when the sergeant
+called his name, Andrews's mind was whirling in crazy circles of
+anxiety. What if they should leave before the General Order came on
+the University plan? The application would certainly be lost in the
+confusion of moving the Division, and he would be condemned to keep up
+this life for more dreary weeks and months. Would any years of work and
+happiness in some future existence make up for the humiliating agony of
+this servitude?
+
+"Dismissed!"
+
+He ran up the ladder to fetch his mess kit and in a few minutes was in
+line again in the rutted village street where the grey houses were just
+forming outlines as light crept slowly into the leaden sky, while a
+faint odor of bacon and coffee came to him, making him eager for food,
+eager to drown his thoughts in the heaviness of swiftly-eaten greasy
+food and in the warmth of watery coffee gulped down out of a tin-curved
+cup. He was telling himself desperately that he must do something--that
+he must make an effort to save himself, that he must fight against the
+deadening routine that numbed him.
+
+Later, while he was sweeping the rough board floor of the company's
+quarters, the theme came to him which had come to him long ago, in a
+former incarnation it seemed, when he was smearing windows with soap
+from a gritty sponge along the endless side of the barracks in the
+training camp. Time and time again in the past year he had thought of
+it, and dreamed of weaving it into a fabric of sound which would express
+the trudging monotony of days bowed under the yoke. "Under the
+Yoke"; that would be a title for it. He imagined the sharp tap of
+the conductor's baton, the silence of a crowded hall, the first notes
+rasping bitterly upon the tense ears of men and women. But as he tried
+to concentrate his mind on the music, other things intruded upon it,
+blurred it. He kept feeling the rhythm of the Queen of Sheba slipping
+from the shoulders of her gaudily caparisoned elephant, advancing
+towards him through the torchlight, putting her hand, fantastic with
+rings and long gilded fingernails, upon his shoulders so that ripples
+of delight, at all the voluptuous images of his desire, went through his
+whole body, making it quiver like a flame with yearning for unimaginable
+things. It all muddled into fantastic gibberish--into sounds of horns
+and trombones and double basses blown off key while a piccolo shrilled
+the first bars of "The Star Spangled Banner."
+
+He had stopped sweeping and looked about him dazedly. He was alone.
+Outside, he heard a sharp voice call "Atten-shun!" He ran down the
+ladder and fell in at the end of the line under the angry glare of the
+lieutenant's small eyes, which were placed very close together on either
+side of a lean nose, black and hard, like the eyes of a crab.
+
+The company marched off through the mud to the drill field.
+
+
+
+After retreat Andrews knocked at the door at the back of the Y. M. C.
+A., but as there was no reply, he strode off with a long, determined
+stride to Sheffield's room.
+
+In the moment that elapsed between his knock and an answer, he could
+feel his heart thumping. A little sweat broke out on his temples.
+
+"Why, what's the matter, boy? You look all wrought up," said Sheffield,
+holding the door half open, and blocking, with his lean form, entrance
+to the room.
+
+"May I come in? I want to talk to you," said Andrews.
+
+"Oh, I suppose it'll be all right.... You see I have an officer with
+me..." then there was a flutter in Sheffield's voice. "Oh, do come in";
+he went on, with sudden enthusiasm. "Lieutenant Bleezer is fond of music
+too.... Lieutenant, this is the boy I was telling you about. We must
+get him to play for us. If he had the opportunities, I am sure he'd be a
+famous musician."
+
+Lieutenant Bleezer was a dark youth with a hooked nose and pincenez. His
+tunic was unbuttoned and he held a cigar in his hand. He smiled in an
+evident attempt to put this enlisted man at his ease.
+
+"Yes, I am very fond of music, modern music," he said, leaning against
+the mantelpiece. "Are you a musician by profession?"
+
+"Not exactly... nearly." Andrews thrust his hands into the bottoms of
+his trouser pockets and looked from one to the other with a certain
+defiance.
+
+"I suppose you've played in some orchestra? How is it you are not in the
+regimental band?"
+
+"No, except the Pierian."
+
+"The Pierian? Were you at Harvard?"
+
+Andrews nodded.
+
+"So was I."
+
+"Isn't that a coincidence?" said Sheffield. "I'm so glad I just insisted
+on your coming in."
+
+"What year were you?" asked Lieutenant Bleezer, with a faint change of
+tone, drawing a finger along his scant black moustache.
+
+"Fifteen."
+
+"I haven't graduated yet," said the lieutenant with a laugh.
+
+"What I wanted to ask you, Mr. Sheffield...."
+
+"Oh, my boy; my boy, you know you've known me long enough to call me
+Spence," broke in Sheffield.
+
+"I want to know," went on Andrews speaking slowly, "can you help me to
+get put on the list to be sent to the University of Paris?... I know
+that a list has been made out, although the General Order has not come
+yet. I am disliked by most of the noncoms and I don't see how I can get
+on without somebody's help...I simply can't go this life any longer."
+Andrews closed his lips firmly and looked at the ground, his face
+flushing.
+
+"Well, a man of your attainments certainly ought to go," said Lieutenant
+Bleezer, with a faint tremor of hesitation in his voice. "I'm going to
+Oxford myself."
+
+"Trust me, my boy," said Sheffield. "I'll fix it up for you, I promise.
+Let's shake hands on it." He seized Andrews's hand and pressed it warmly
+in a moist palm. "If it's within human power, within human power," he
+added.
+
+"Well, I must go," said Lieutenant Bleezer, suddenly striding to the
+door. "I promised the Marquise I'd drop in. Good-bye.... Take a cigar,
+won't you?" He held out three cigars in the direction of Andrews.
+
+"No, thank you."
+
+"Oh, don't you think the old aristocracy of France is just too
+wonderful? Lieutenant Bleezer goes almost every evening to call on
+the Marquise de Rompemouville. He says she is just too spirituelle for
+words.... He often meets the Commanding Officer there."
+
+Andrews had dropped into a chair and sat with his face buried in his
+hands, looking through his fingers at the fire, where a few white
+fingers of flame were clutching intermittently at a grey beech log. His
+mind was searching desperately for expedients.
+
+He got to his feet and shouted shrilly:
+
+"I can't go this life any more, do you hear that? No possible future is
+worth all this. If I can get to Paris, all right. If not, I'll desert
+and damn the consequences."
+
+"But I've already promised I'll do all I can...."
+
+"Well, do it now," interrupted Andrews brutally.
+
+"All right, I'll go and see the colonel and tell him what a great
+musician you are."
+
+"Let's go together, now."
+
+"But that'll look queer, dear boy."
+
+"I don't give a damn, come along.... You can talk to him. You seem to be
+thick with all the officers."
+
+"You must wait till I tidy up," said Sheffield.
+
+"All right."
+
+Andrews strode up and down in the mud in front of the house, snapping
+his fingers with impatience, until Sheffield came out, then they walked
+off in silence.
+
+"Now wait outside a minute," whispered Sheffield when they came to
+the white house with bare grapevines over the front, where the colonel
+lived.
+
+After a wait, Andrews found himself at the door of a brilliantly-lighted
+drawing room. There was a dense smell of cigar smoke. The colonel, an
+elderly man with a benevolent beard, stood before him with a coffee cup
+in his hand. Andrews saluted punctiliously.
+
+"They tell me you are quite a pianist.... Sorry I didn't know it
+before," said the colonel in a kindly tone. "You want to go to Paris to
+study under this new scheme?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What a shame I didn't know before. The list of the men going is all
+made out.... Of course perhaps at the last minute... if somebody else
+doesn't go... your name can go in."
+
+The colonel smiled graciously and turned back into the room.
+
+"Thank you, Colonel," said Andrews, saluting.
+
+Without a word to Sheffield, he strode off down the dark village street
+towards his quarters.
+
+
+
+Andrews stood on the broad village street, where the mud was nearly dry,
+and a wind streaked with warmth ruffled the few puddles; he was looking
+into the window of the cafe to see if there was anyone he knew inside
+from whom he could borrow money for a drink. It was two months since he
+had had any pay, and his pockets were empty. The sun had just set on a
+premature spring afternoon, flooding the sky and the grey houses and the
+tumultuous tiled roofs with warm violet light. The faint premonition of
+the stirring of life in the cold earth, that came to Andrews with every
+breath he drew of the sparkling wind, stung his dull boredom to fury. It
+was the first of March, he was telling himself over and over again.
+The fifteenth of February, he had expected to be in Paris, free, or
+half-free; at least able to work. It was the first of March and here
+he was still helpless, still tied to the monotonous wheel of routine,
+incapable of any real effort, spending his spare time wandering like a
+lost dog up and down this muddy street, from the Y. M. C. A. hut at one
+end of the village to the church and the fountain in the middle, and to
+the Divisional Headquarters at the other end, then back again, looking
+listlessly into windows, staring in people's faces without seeing
+them. He had given up all hope of being sent to Paris. He had given up
+thinking about it or about anything; the same dull irritation of despair
+droned constantly in his head, grinding round and round like a broken
+phonograph record.
+
+After looking a long while in the window of the cafe of the Braves
+Allies, he walked a little down the street and stood in the same
+position staring into the Repos du Poilu, where a large sign "American
+spoken" blocked up half the window. Two officers passed. His hand
+snapped up to the salute automatically, like a mechanical signal. It
+was nearly dark. After a while he began to feel serious coolness in the
+wind, shivered and started to wander aimlessly down the street.
+
+He recognised Walters coming towards him and was going to pass him
+without speaking when Walters bumped into him, muttered in his ear
+"Come to Baboon's," and hurried off with his swift business-like stride.
+Andrews, stood irresolutely for a while with his head bent, then went
+with unresilient steps up the alley, through the hole in the hedge and
+into Babette's kitchen. There was no fire. He stared morosely at the
+grey ashes until he heard Walters's voice beside him:
+
+"I've got you all fixed up."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Mean... are you asleep, Andrews? They've cut a name off the school list,
+that's all. Now if you shake a leg and somebody doesn't get in ahead of
+you, you'll be in Paris before you know it."
+
+"That's damn decent of you to come and tell me."
+
+"Here's your application," said Walters, drawing a paper out of his
+pocket. "Take it to the colonel; get him to O. K. it and then rush it
+up to the sergeant-major's office yourself. They are making out travel
+orders now. So long."
+
+Walters had vanished. Andrews was alone again, staring at the
+grey ashes. Suddenly he jumped to his feet and hurried off towards
+headquarters. In the anteroom to the colonel's office he waited a long
+while, looking at his boots that were thickly coated with mud.
+"Those boots will make a bad impression; those boots will make a bad
+impression," a voice was saying over and over again inside of him. A
+lieutenant was also waiting to see the colonel, a young man with pink
+cheeks and a milky-white forehead, who held his hat in one hand with a
+pair of khaki-colored kid gloves, and kept passing a hand over his
+light well-brushed hair. Andrews felt dirty and ill-smelling in his
+badly-fitting uniform. The sight of this perfect young man in his
+whipcord breeches, with his manicured nails and immaculately polished
+puttees exasperated him. He would have liked to fight him, to prove that
+he was the better man, to outwit him, to make him forget his rank and
+his important air.... The lieutenant had gone in to see the colonel.
+Andrews found himself reading a chart of some sort tacked up on the
+wall. There were names and dates and figures, but he could not make out
+what it was about.
+
+"All right! Go ahead," whispered the orderly to him; and he was standing
+with his cap in his hand before the colonel who was looking at him
+severely, fingering the papers he had on the desk with a heavily veined
+hand.
+
+Andrews saluted. The colonel made an impatient gesture.
+
+"May I speak to you, Colonel, about the school scheme?"
+
+"I suppose you've got permission from somebody to come to me."
+
+"No, sir." Andrews's mind was struggling to find something to say.
+
+"Well, you'd better go and get it."
+
+"But, Colonel, there isn't time; the travel orders are being made out
+at this minute. I've heard that there's been a name crossed out on the
+list."
+
+"Too late."
+
+"But, Colonel, you don't know how important it is. I am a musician by
+trade; if I can't get into practice again before being demobilized,
+I shan't be able to get a job.... I have a mother and an old aunt
+dependent on me. My family has seen better days, you see, sir. It's only
+by being high up in my profession that I can earn enough to give them
+what they are accustomed to. And a man in your position in the world,
+Colonel, must know what even a few months of study in Paris mean to a
+pianist."
+
+The colonel smiled.
+
+"Let's see your application," he said.
+
+Andrews handed it to him with a trembling hand. The colonel made a few
+marks on one corner with a pencil.
+
+"Now if you can get that to the sergeant-major in time to have your name
+included in the orders, well and good."
+
+Andrews saluted, and hurried out. A sudden feeling of nausea had come
+over him. He was hardly able to control a mad desire to tear the paper
+up. "The sons of bitches... the sons of bitches," he muttered to himself.
+Still he ran all the way to the square, isolated building where the
+regimental office was.
+
+He stopped panting in front of the desk that bore the little red card,
+Regimental Sergeant-Major. The regimental sergeant-major looked up at
+him enquiringly.
+
+"Here's an application for School at the Sorbonne, Sergeant. Colonel
+Wilkins told me to run up to you with it, said he was very anxious to
+have it go in at once."
+
+"Too late," said the regimental sergeant-major.
+
+"But the colonel said it had to go in."
+
+"Can't help it.... Too late," said the regimental sergeant-major.
+
+Andrews felt the room and the men in their olive-drab shirt sleeves at
+the typewriters and the three nymphs creeping from behind the French War
+Loan poster whirl round his head. Suddenly he heard a voice behind him:
+
+"Is the name Andrews, John, Sarge?"
+
+"How the hell should I know?" said the regimental sergeant-major.
+
+"Because I've got it in the orders already.... I don't know how it got
+in." The voice was Walters's voice, staccatto and businesslike.
+
+"Well, then, why d'you want to bother me about it? Give me that paper."
+The regimental sergeant-major jerked the paper out of Andrews's hand and
+looked at it savagely.
+
+"All right, you leave tomorrow. A copy of the orders'll go to your
+company in the morning," growled the regimental sergeant-major.
+
+Andrews looked hard at Walters as he went out, but got no glance in
+return. When he stood in the air again, disgust surged up within him,
+bitterer than before. The fury of his humiliation made tears start in
+his eyes. He walked away from the village down the main road, splashing
+carelessly through the puddles, slipping in the wet clay of the ditches.
+Something within him, like the voice of a wounded man swearing, was
+whining in his head long strings of filthy names. After walking a long
+while he stopped suddenly with his fists clenched. It was completely
+dark, the sky was faintly marbled by a moon behind the clouds. On both
+sides of the road rose the tall grey skeletons of poplars. When the
+sound of his footsteps stopped, he heard a faint lisp of running water.
+Standing still in the middle of the road, he felt his feelings gradually
+relax. He said aloud in a low voice several times: "You are a damn fool,
+John Andrews," and started walking slowly and thoughtfully back to the
+village.
+
+
+
+                              V
+
+Andrews felt an arm put round his shoulder.
+
+"Ah've been to hell an' gone lookin' for you, Andy," said Chrisfield's
+voice in his ear, jerking him out of the reverie he walked in. He could
+feel in his face Chrisfield's breath, heavy with cognac.
+
+"I'm going to Paris tomorrow, Chris," said Andrews.
+
+"Ah know it, boy. Ah know it. That's why I was that right smart to
+talk to you.... You doan want to go to Paris.... Why doan ye come up to
+Germany with us? Tell me they live like kings up there."
+
+"All right," said Andrews, "let's go to the back room at Babette's."
+
+Chrisfield hung on his shoulder, walking unsteadily beside him. At the
+hole in the hedge Chrisfield stumbled and nearly pulled them both down.
+They laughed, and still laughing staggered into the dark kitchen, where
+they found the red-faced woman with her baby sitting beside the fire
+with no other light than the flicker of the rare flames that shot up
+from a little mass of wood embers. The baby started crying shrilly when
+the two soldiers stamped in. The woman got up and, talking automatically
+to the baby all the while, went off to get a light and wine.
+
+Andrews looked at Chrisfield's face by the firelight. His cheeks had
+lost the faint childish roundness they had had when Andrews had first
+talked to him, sweeping up cigarette butts off the walk in front of the
+barracks at the training camp.
+
+"Ah tell you, boy, you ought to come with us to Germany... nauthin' but
+whores in Paris."
+
+"The trouble is, Chris, that I don't want to live like a king, or a
+sergeant or a major-general.... I want to live like John Andrews."
+
+"What yer goin' to do in Paris, Andy?"
+
+"Study music."
+
+"Ah guess some day Ah'll go into a movie show an' when they turn on the
+lights, who'll Ah see but ma ole frien' Andy raggin' the scales on the
+pyaner."
+
+"Something like that.... How d'you like being a corporal, Chris?"
+
+"O, Ah doan know." Chrisfield spat on the floor between his feet. "It's
+funny, ain't it? You an' me was right smart friends onct.... Guess it's
+bein' a non-com."
+
+Andrews did not answer.
+
+Chrisfield sat silent with his eyes on the fire.
+
+"Well, Ah got him.... Gawd, it was easy," he said suddenly.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Ah got him, that's all."
+
+"You mean...?"
+
+Chrisfield nodded.
+
+"Um-hum, in the Oregon forest," he said.
+
+Andrews said nothing. He felt suddenly very tired. He thought of men he
+had seen in attitudes of death.
+
+"Ah wouldn't ha' thought it had been so easy," said Chrisfield.
+
+The woman came through the door at the end of the kitchen with a candle
+in her hand. Chrisfield stopped speaking suddenly.
+
+"Tomorrow I'm going to Paris," cried Andrews boisterously. "It's the end
+of soldiering for me."
+
+"Ah bet it'll be some sport in Germany, Andy.... Sarge says we'll be
+goin' up to Coab... what's its name?"
+
+"Coblenz."
+
+Chrisfield poured a glass of wine out and drank it off, smacking his
+lips after it and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.
+
+"D'ye remember, Andy, we was both of us brushin' cigarette butts at that
+bloody trainin' camp when we first met up with each other?"
+
+"Considerable water has run under the bridge since then."
+
+"Ah reckon we won't meet up again, mos' likely."
+
+"Hell, why not?"
+
+They were silent again, staring at the fading embers of the fire. In the
+dim edge of the candlelight the woman stood with her hands on her hips,
+looking at them fixedly.
+
+"Reckon a feller wouldn't know what to do with himself if he did get out
+of the army... now, would he, Andy?"
+
+"So long, Chris. I'm beating it," said Andrews in a harsh voice, jumping
+to his feet.
+
+"So long, Andy, ole man.... Ah'll pay for the drinks." Chrisfield was
+beckoning with his hand to the red-faced woman, who advanced slowly
+through the candlelight.
+
+"Thanks, Chris."
+
+Andrews strode away from the door. A cold, needle-like rain was falling.
+He pulled up his coat collar and ran down the muddy village street
+towards his quarters.
+
+
+
+
+                              VI
+
+In the opposite corner of the compartment Andrews could see Walters
+hunched up in an attitude of sleep, with his cap pulled down far over
+his eyes. His mouth was open, and his head wagged with the jolting of
+the train. The shade over the light plunged the compartment in dark-blue
+obscurity, which made the night sky outside the window and the shapes of
+trees and houses, evolving and pirouetting as they glided by, seem very
+near. Andrews felt no desire to sleep; he had sat a long time leaning
+his head against the frame of the window, looking out at the fleeing
+shadows and the occasional little red-green lights that darted by and
+the glow of the stations that flared for a moment and were lost in dark
+silhouettes of unlighted houses and skeleton trees and black hillsides.
+He was thinking how all the epochs in his life seemed to have been
+marked out by railway rides at night. The jolting rumble of the wheels
+made the blood go faster through his veins; made him feel acutely the
+clattering of the train along the gleaming rails, spurning fields and
+trees and houses, piling up miles and miles between the past and future.
+The gusts of cold night air when he opened the window and the faint
+whiffs of steam and coal gas that tingled in his nostrils excited him
+like a smile on a strange face seen for a moment in a crowded street.
+He did not think of what he had left behind. He was straining his eyes
+eagerly through the darkness towards the vivid life he was going to
+live. Boredom and abasement were over. He was free to work and hear
+music and make friends. He drew deep breaths; warm waves of vigor seemed
+flowing constantly from his lungs and throat to his finger tips and down
+through his body and the muscles of his legs. He looked at his watch:
+"One." In six hours he would be in Paris. For six hours he would sit
+there looking out at the fleeting shadows of the countryside, feeling
+in his blood the eager throb of the train, rejoicing in every mile the
+train carried him away from things past.
+
+Walters still slept, half slipping off the seat, with his mouth open and
+his overcoat bundled round his head. Andrews looked out of the window,
+feeling in his nostrils the tingle of steam and coal gas. A phrase out
+of some translation of the Iliad came to his head: "Ambrosial night,
+Night ambrosial unending." But better than sitting round a camp
+fire drinking wine and water and listening to the boastful yarns of
+long-haired Achaeans, was this hustling through the countryside away
+from the monotonous whine of past unhappiness, towards joyousness and
+life.
+
+Andrews began to think of the men he had left behind. They were asleep
+at this time of night, in barns and barracks, or else standing on guard
+with cold damp feet, and cold hands which the icy rifle barrel burned
+when they tended it. He might go far away out of sound of the tramp of
+marching, away from the smell of overcrowded barracks where men slept in
+rows like cattle, but he would still be one of them. He would not see an
+officer pass him without an unconscious movement of servility, he would
+not hear a bugle without feeling sick with hatred. If he could only
+express these thwarted lives, the miserable dullness of industrialized
+slaughter, it might have been almost worth while--for him; for the
+others, it would never be worth while. "But you're talking as if you
+were out of the woods; you're a soldier still, John Andrews." The words
+formed themselves in his mind as vividly as if he had spoken them. He
+smiled bitterly and settled himself again to watch silhouettes of trees
+and hedges and houses and hillsides fleeing against the dark sky.
+
+When he awoke the sky was grey. The train was moving slowly, clattering
+loudly over switches, through a town of wet slate roofs that rose in
+fantastic patterns of shadow above the blue mist. Walters was smoking a
+cigarette.
+
+"God! These French trains are rotten," he said when he noticed that
+Andrews was awake. "The most inefficient country I ever was in anyway."
+
+"Inefficiency be damned," broke in Andrews, jumping up and stretching
+himself. He opened the window. "The heating's too damned efficient.... I
+think we're near Paris."
+
+The cold air, with a flavor of mist in it, poured into the stuffy
+compartment. Every breath was joy. Andrews felt a crazy buoyancy
+bubbling up in him. The rumbling clatter of the train wheels sang in his
+ears. He threw himself on his back on the dusty blue seat and kicked his
+heels in the air like a colt.
+
+"Liven up, for God's sake, man," he shouted. "We're getting near Paris."
+
+"We are lucky bastards," said Walters, grinning, with the cigarette
+hanging out of the corner of his mouth. "I'm going to see if I can find
+the rest of the gang."
+
+Andrews, alone in the compartment, found himself singing at the top of
+his lungs.
+
+As the day brightened the mist lifted off the flat linden-green fields
+intersected by rows of leafless poplars. Salmon-colored houses with blue
+roofs wore already a faintly citified air. They passed brick-kilns and
+clay-quarries, with reddish puddles of water in the bottom of them;
+crossed a jade-green river where a long file of canal boats with bright
+paint on their prows moved slowly. The engine whistled shrilly. They
+clattered through a small freight yard, and rows of suburban houses
+began to form, at first chaotically in broad patches of garden-land, and
+then in orderly ranks with streets between and shops at the corners. A
+dark-grey dripping wall rose up suddenly and blotted out the view. The
+train slowed down and went through several stations crowded with people
+on their way to work,--ordinary people in varied clothes with only here
+and there a blue or khaki uniform. Then there was more dark-grey wall,
+and the obscurity of wide bridges under which dusty oil lamps burned
+orange and red, making a gleam on the wet wall above them, and where the
+wheels clanged loudly. More freight yards and the train pulled slowly
+past other trains full of faces and silhouettes of people, to stop
+with a jerk in a station. And Andrews was standing on the grey cement
+platform, sniffing smells of lumber and merchandise and steam. His
+ungainly pack and blanket-roll he carried on his shoulder like a cross.
+He had left his rifle and cartridge belt carefully tucked out of sight
+under the seat.
+
+Walters and five other men straggled along the platform towards him,
+carrying or dragging their packs.
+
+There was a look of apprehension on Walters's face.
+
+"Well, what do we do now?" he said.
+
+"Do!" cried Andrews, and he burst out laughing.
+
+
+
+Prostrate bodies in olive drab hid the patch of tender green grass
+by the roadside. The company was resting. Chrisfield sat on a stump
+morosely whittling at a stick with a pocket knife. Judkins was stretched
+out beside him.
+
+"What the hell do they make us do this damn hikin' for, Corp?"
+
+"Guess they're askeered we'll forgit how to walk."
+
+"Well, ain't it better than loafin' around yer billets all day, thinkin'
+an' cursin' an' wishin' ye was home?" spoke up the man who sat the other
+side, pounding down the tobacco in his pipe with a thick forefinger.
+
+"It makes me sick, trampin' round this way in ranks all day with the
+goddam frawgs starin' at us an'..."
+
+"They're laughin' at us, I bet," broke in another voice.
+
+"We'll be movin' soon to the Army o' Occupation," said Chrisfield
+cheerfully. "In Germany it'll be a reglar picnic."
+
+"An' d'you know what that means?" burst out Judkins, sitting bolt
+upright. "D'you know how long the troops is goin' to stay in Germany?
+Fifteen years."
+
+"Gawd, they couldn't keep us there that long, man."
+
+"They can do anythin' they goddam please with us. We're the guys as is
+gettin' the raw end of this deal. It ain't the same with an' edicated
+guy like Andrews or Sergeant Coffin or them. They can suck around after
+'Y' men, an' officers an' get on the inside track, an' all we can do is
+stand up an' salute an' say 'Yes, lootenant' an' 'No, lootenant' an' let
+'em ride us all they goddam please. Ain't that gospel truth, corporal?"
+
+"Ah guess you're right, Judkie; we gits the raw end of the stick."
+
+"That damn yellar dawg Andrews goes to Paris an' gets schoolin' free an'
+all that."
+
+"Hell, Andy waren't yellar, Judkins."
+
+"Well, why did he go bellyachin' around all the time like he knew more'n
+the lootenant did?"
+
+"Ah reckon he did," said Chrisfield.
+
+"Anyway, you can't say that those guys who went to Paris did a goddam
+thing more'n any the rest of us did.... Gawd, I ain't even had a leave
+yet."
+
+"Well, it ain't no use crabbin'."
+
+"No, onct we git home an' folks know the way we've been treated,
+there'll be a great ole investigation. I can tell you that," said one of
+the new men.
+
+"It makes you mad, though, to have something like that put over on
+ye.... Think of them guys in Paris, havin' a hell of a time with wine
+an' women, an' we stay out here an' clean our guns an' drill.... God,
+I'd like to get even with some of them guys."
+
+The whistle blew. The patch of grass became unbroken green again as the
+men lined up along the side of the road.
+
+"Fall in!" called the Sergeant.
+
+"Atten-shun!"
+
+"Right dress!"
+
+"Front! God, you guys haven't got no snap in yer.... Stick yer belly in,
+you. You know better than to stand like that."
+
+"Squads, right! March! Hep, hep, hep!"
+
+The Company tramped off along the muddy road. Their steps were all the
+same length. Their arms swung in the same rhythm. Their faces were cowed
+into the same expression, their thoughts were the same. The tramp, tramp
+of their steps died away along the road.
+
+Birds were singing among the budding trees. The young grass by the
+roadside kept the marks of the soldiers' bodies.
+
+
+
+
+PART FIVE: THE WORLD OUTSIDE
+
+
+Andrews, and six other men from his division, sat at a table outside the
+cafe opposite the Gare de l'Est. He leaned back in his chair with a
+cup of coffee lifted, looking across it at the stone houses with many
+balconies. Steam, scented of milk and coffee, rose from the cup as he
+sipped from it. His ears were full of a rumble of traffic and a clacking
+of heels as people walked briskly by along the damp pavements. For a
+while he did not hear what the men he was sitting with were saying. They
+talked and laughed, but he looked beyond their khaki uniforms and their
+boat-shaped caps unconsciously. He was taken up with the smell of the
+coffee and of the mist. A little rusty sunshine shone on the table of
+the cafe and on the thin varnish of wet mud that covered the asphalt
+pavement. Looking down the Avenue, away from the station, the houses,
+dark grey tending to greenish in the shadow and to violet in the sun,
+faded into a soft haze of distance. Dull gilt lettering glittered along
+black balconies. In the foreground were men and women walking briskly,
+their cheeks whipped a little into color by the rawness of the morning.
+The sky was a faintly roseate grey.
+
+Walters was speaking:
+
+"The first thing I want to see is the Eiffel Tower."
+
+"Why d'you want to see that?" said the small sergeant with a black
+mustache and rings round his eyes like a monkey.
+
+"Why, man, don't you know that everything begins from the Eiffel
+Tower? If it weren't for the Eiffel Tower, there wouldn't be any
+sky-scrapers...."
+
+"How about the Flatiron Building and Brooklyn Bridge? They were built
+before the Eiffel Tower, weren't they?" interrupted the man from New
+York.
+
+"The Eiffel Tower's the first piece of complete girder construction in
+the whole world," reiterated Walters dogmatically.
+
+"First thing I'm going to do's go to the Folies Berd-jairs; me for the
+w.w.'s."
+
+"Better lay off the wild women, Bill," said Walters.
+
+"I ain't goin' to look at a woman," said the sergeant with the black
+mustache. "I guess I seen enough women in my time, anyway.... The war's
+over, anyway."
+
+"You just wait, kid, till you fasten your lamps on a real Parizianne,"
+said a burly, unshaven man with a corporal's stripes on his arm, roaring
+with laughter.
+
+Andrews lost track of the talk again, staring dreamily through
+half-closed eyes down the long straight street, where greens and violets
+and browns merged into a bluish grey monochrome at a little distance.
+He wanted to be alone, to wander at random through the city, to stare
+dreamily at people and things, to talk by chance to men and women, to
+sink his life into the misty sparkling life of the streets. The smell
+of the mist brought a memory to his mind. For a long while he groped for
+it, until suddenly he remembered his dinner with Henslowe and the faces
+of the boy and girl he had talked to on the Butte. He must find Henslowe
+at once. A second's fierce resentment went through him against all these
+people about him. Christ! He must get away from them all; his freedom
+had been hard enough won; he must enjoy it to the uttermost.
+
+"Say, I'm going to stick to you, Andy." Walters's voice broke into his
+reverie. "I'm going to appoint you the corps of interpreters."
+
+Andrews laughed.
+
+"D'you know the way to the School Headquarters?"
+
+"The R. T. O. said take the subway."
+
+"I'm going to walk," said Andrews.
+
+"You'll get lost, won't you?"
+
+"No danger, worse luck," said Andrews, getting to his feet. "I'll see
+you fellows at the School Headquarters, whatever those are.... So long."
+
+"Say, Andy, I'll wait for you there," Walters called after him.
+
+Andrews darted down a side street. He could hardly keep from shouting
+aloud when he found himself alone, free, with days and days ahead of him
+to work and think, gradually to rid his limbs of the stiff attitudes
+of the automaton. The smell of the streets, and the mist, indefinably
+poignant, rose like incense smoke in fantastic spirals through his
+brain, making him hungry and dazzled, making his arms and legs feel
+lithe and as ready for delight as a crouching cat for a spring. His
+heavy shoes beat out a dance as they clattered on the wet pavements
+under his springy steps. He was walking very fast, stopping suddenly now
+and then to look at the greens and oranges and crimsons of vegetables in
+a push cart, to catch a vista down intricate streets, to look into the
+rich brown obscurity of a small wine shop where workmen stood at the
+counter sipping white wine. Oval, delicate faces, bearded faces of men,
+slightly gaunt faces of young women, red cheeks of boys, wrinkled faces
+of old women, whose ugliness seemed to have hidden in it, stirringly,
+all the beauty of youth and the tragedy of lives that had been
+lived; the faces of the people he passed moved him like rhythms of an
+orchestra. After much walking, turning always down the street which
+looked pleasantest, he came to an oval with a statue of a pompous
+personage on a ramping horse. "Place des Victoires," he read the name,
+which gave him a faint tinge of amusement. He looked quizzically at the
+heroic features of the sun king and walked off laughing. "I suppose they
+did it better in those days, the grand manner," he muttered. And his
+delight redoubled in rubbing shoulders with the people whose effigies
+would never appear astride ramping-eared horses in squares built to
+commemorate victories. He came out on a broad straight avenue, where
+there were many American officers he had to salute, and M. P.'s and
+shops with wide plate-glass windows, full of objects that had a shiny,
+expensive look. "Another case of victories," he thought, as he went off
+into a side street, taking with him a glimpse of the bluish-grey pile of
+the Opera, with its pompous windows and its naked bronze ladies holding
+lamps.
+
+He was in a narrow street full of hotels and fashionable barber shops,
+from which came an odor of cosmopolitan perfumery, of casinos and
+ballrooms and diplomatic receptions, when he noticed an American officer
+coming towards him, reeling a little,--a tall, elderly man with a red
+face and a bottle nose. He saluted.
+
+The officer stopped still, swaying from side to side, and said in a
+whining voice:
+
+"Shonny, d'you know where Henry'sh Bar is?"
+
+"No, I don't, Major," said Andrews, who felt himself enveloped in an
+odor of cocktails.
+
+"You'll help me to find it, shonny, won't you?... It's dreadful not to
+be able to find it.... I've got to meet Lootenant Trevors in Henry'sh
+Bar." The major steadied himself by putting a hand on Andrews' shoulder.
+A civilian passed them.
+
+"Dee-donc," shouted the major after him, "Dee-donc, Monshier, ou ay
+Henry'sh Bar?"
+
+The man walked on without answering.
+
+"Now isn't that like a frog, not to understand his own language?" said
+the major.
+
+"But there's Henry's Bar, right across the street," said Andrews
+suddenly.
+
+"Bon, bon," said the major.
+
+They crossed the street and went in. At the bar the major, still
+clinging to Andrews' shoulder, whispered in his ear: "I'm A. W. O. L.,
+shee?... Shee?.... Whole damn Air Service is A. W. O. L. Have a
+drink with me.... You enlisted man? Nobody cares here.... Warsh over,
+Sonny.... Democracy is shafe for the world."
+
+Andrews was just raising a champagne cocktail to his lips, looking with
+amusement at the crowd of American officers and civilians who crowded
+into the small mahogany barroom, when a voice behind him drawled out:
+
+"I'll be damned!"
+
+Andrews turned and saw Henslowe's brown face and small silky mustache.
+He abandoned his major to his fate.
+
+"God, I'm glad to see you.... I was afraid you hadn't been able to work
+it."...Said Henslowe slowly, stuttering a little.
+
+"I'm about crazy, Henny, with delight. I just got in a couple of hours
+ago...." Laughing, interrupting each other, they chattered in broken
+sentences.
+
+"But how in the name of everything did you get here?"
+
+"With the major?" said Andrews, laughing.
+
+"What the devil?"
+
+"Yes; that major," whispered Andrews in his friend's ear, "rather the
+worse for wear, asked me to lead him to Henry's Bar and just fed me a
+cocktail in the memory of Democracy, late defunct.... But what are you
+doing here? It's not exactly... exotic."
+
+"I came to see a man who was going to tell me how I could get to Rumania
+with the Red Cross.... But that can wait.... Let's get out of here. God,
+I was afraid you hadn't made it."
+
+"I had to crawl on my belly and lick people's boots to do it.... God, it
+was low!... But here I am."
+
+They were out in the street again, walking and gesticulating.
+
+"But 'Libertad, Libertad, allons, ma femme!' as Walt Whitman would have
+said," shouted Andrews.
+
+"It's one grand and glorious feeling.... I've been here three days. My
+section's gone home; God bless them."
+
+"But what do you have to do?"
+
+"Do? Nothing," cried Henslowe. "Not a blooming bloody goddam thing! In
+fact, it's no use trying... the whole thing is such a mess you couldn't
+do anything if you wanted to."
+
+"I want to go and talk to people at the Schola Cantorum."
+
+"There'll be time for that. You'll never make anything out of music if
+you get serious-minded about it."
+
+"Then, last but not least, I've got to get some money from somewhere."
+
+"Now you're talking!" Henslowe pulled a burnt leather pocket book out
+of the inside of his tunic. "Monaco," he said, tapping the pocket book,
+which was engraved with a pattern of dull red flowers. He pursed up
+his lips and pulled out some hundred franc notes, which he pushed into
+Andrews's hand.
+
+"Give me one of them," said Andrews.
+
+"All or none.... They last about five minutes each."
+
+"But it's so damn much to pay back."
+
+"Pay it back--heavens!... Here take it and stop your talking. I probably
+won't have it again, so you'd better make hay this time. I warn you
+it'll be spent by the end of the week."
+
+"All right. I'm dead with hunger."
+
+"Let's sit down on the Boulevard and think about where we'll have lunch
+to celebrate Miss Libertad.... But let's not call her that, sounds like
+Liverpool, Andy, a horrid place."
+
+"How about Freiheit?" said Andrews, as they sat down in basket chairs in
+the reddish yellow sunlight.
+
+"Treasonable... off with your head."
+
+"But think of it, man," said Andrews, "the butchery's over, and you and
+I and everybody else will soon be human beings again. Human; all too
+human!"
+
+"No more than eighteen wars going," muttered Henslowe.
+
+"I haven't seen any papers for an age.... How do you mean?"
+
+"People are fighting to beat the cats everywhere except on the' western
+front," said Henslowe. "But that's where I come in. The Red Cross sends
+supply trains to keep them at it.... I'm going to Russia if I can work
+it."
+
+"But what about the Sorbonne?"
+
+"The Sorbonne can go to Ballyhack."
+
+"But, Henny, I'm going to croak on your hands if you don't take me
+somewhere to get some food."
+
+"Do you want a solemn place with red plush or with salmon pink brocade?"
+
+"Why have a solemn place at all?"
+
+"Because solemnity and good food go together. It's only a religious
+restaurant that has a proper devotion to the belly. O, I know, we'll go
+over to Brooklyn."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"To the Rive Gauche. I know a man who insists on calling it Brooklyn.
+Awfully funny man... never been sober in his life. You must meet him."
+
+"Oh, I want to.... It's a dog's age since I met anyone new, except you.
+I can't live without having a variegated crowd about, can you?"
+
+"You've got that right on this boulevard. Serbs, French, English,
+Americans, Australians, Rumanians, Tcheco-Slovaks; God, is there any
+uniform that isn't here?... I tell you, Andy, the war's been a great
+thing for the people who knew how to take advantage of it. Just look at
+their puttees."
+
+"I guess they'll know how to make a good thing of the Peace too."
+
+"Oh, that's going to be the best yet.... Come along. Let's be little
+devils and take a taxi."
+
+"This certainly is the main street of Cosmopolis."
+
+They threaded their way through the crowd, full of uniforms and glitter
+and bright colors, that moved in two streams up and down the wide
+sidewalk between the cafes and the boles of the bare trees. They climbed
+into a taxi, and lurched fast through streets where, in the misty
+sunlight, grey-green and grey-violet mingled with blues and pale lights
+as the colors mingle in a pigeon's breast feathers. They passed the
+leafless gardens of the Tuileries on one side, and the great inner
+Courts of the Louvre, with their purple mansard roofs and their high
+chimneys on the other, and saw for a second the river, dull jade green,
+and the plane trees splotched with brown and cream color along the
+quais, before they were lost in the narrow brownish-grey streets of the
+old quarters.
+
+"This is Paris; that was Cosmopolis," said Henslowe.
+
+"I'm not particular, just at present," cried Andrews gaily.
+
+The square in front of the Odeon was a splash of white and the collonade
+a blur of darkness as the cab swerved round the corner and along the
+edge of the Luxembourg, where, through the black iron fence, many brown
+and reddish colors in the intricate patterns of leafless twigs opened
+here and there on statues and balustrades and vistas of misty distances.
+The cab stopped with a jerk.
+
+"This is the Place des Medicis," said Henslowe.
+
+At the end of a slanting street looking very flat, through the haze, was
+the dome of the Pantheon. In the middle of the square between the yellow
+trams and the green low busses, was a quiet pool, where the shadow of
+horizontals of the house fronts was reflected.
+
+They sat beside the window looking out at the square.
+
+Henslowe ordered.
+
+"Remember how sentimental history books used to talk about prisoners who
+were let out after years in dungeons, not being able to stand it, and
+going back to their cells?"
+
+"D'you like sole meuniere?"
+
+"Anything, or rather everything! But take it from me, that's all
+rubbish. Honestly I don't think I've ever been happier in my life....
+D'you know, Henslowe, there's something in you that is afraid to be
+happy."
+
+"Don't be morbid.... There's only one real evil in the world: being
+somewhere without being able to get away;... I ordered beer. This is the
+only place in Paris where it's fit to drink."
+
+"And I'm going to every blooming concert...Colonne-Lamoureux on Sunday,
+I know that.... The only evil in the world is not to be able to hear
+music or to make it.... These oysters are fit for Lucullus."
+
+"Why not say fit for John Andrews and Bob Henslowe, damn it?... Why the
+ghosts of poor old dead Romans should be dragged in every time a man
+eats an oyster, I don't see. We're as fine specimens as they were. I
+swear I shan't let any old turned-toclay Lucullus outlive me, even if
+I've never eaten a lamprey."
+
+"And why should you eat a lamp--chimney, Bob?" came a hoarse voice
+beside them.
+
+Andrews looked up into a round, white face with large grey eyes hidden
+behind thick steel-rimmed spectacles. Except for the eyes, the face had
+a vaguely Chinese air.
+
+"Hello, Heinz! Mr. Andrews, Mr. Heineman," said Henslowe.
+
+"Glad to meet you," said Heineman in a jovially hoarse voice. "You guys
+seem to be overeating, to reckon by the way things are piled up on the
+table." Through the hoarseness Andrews could detect a faint Yankee tang
+in Heineman's voice.
+
+"You'd better sit down and help us," said Henslowe.
+
+"Sure....D'you know my name for this guy?" He turned to Andrews....
+"Sinbad!"
+
+"Sinbad was in bad in Tokio and Rome, In bad in Trinidad
+ And twice as bad at home."
+
+He sang the words loudly, waving a bread stick to keep time.
+
+"Shut up, Heinz, or you'll get us run out of here the way you got us run
+out of the Olympia that night."
+
+They both laughed.
+
+"An' d'you remember Monsieur Le Guy with his coat?
+
+"Do I? God!" They laughed till the tears ran down their cheeks. Heineman
+took off his glasses and wiped them. He turned to Andrews.
+
+"Oh, Paris is the best yet. First absurdity: the Peace Conference and
+its nine hundred and ninety-nine branches. Second absurdity: spies.
+Third: American officers A.W.O.L. Fourth: The seven sisters sworn to
+slay." He broke out laughing again, his chunky body rolling about on the
+chair.
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"Three of them have sworn to slay Sinbad, and four of them have sworn to
+slay me.... But that's too complicated to tell at lunch time....
+Eighth: there are the lady relievers, Sinbad's specialty. Ninth: there's
+Sinbad...."
+
+"Shut up, Heinz, you're getting me maudlin," spluttered Henslowe.
+
+"O Sinbad was in bad all around," chanted Heineman. "But no one's given
+me anything to drink," he said suddenly in a petulant voice. "Garcon,
+une bouteille de Macon, pour un Cadet de Gascogne.... What's the next?
+It ends with vergogne. You've seen the play, haven't you? Greatest play
+going.... Seen it twice sober and seven other times."
+
+"Cyrano de Bergerac?"
+
+"That's it. Nous sommes les Cadets de Gasgogne, rhymes with ivrogne and
+sans vergogne.... You see I work in the Red Cross.... You know Sinbad,
+old Peterson's a brick.... I'm supposed to be taking photographs of
+tubercular children at this minute.... The noblest of my professions
+is that of artistic photographer.... Borrowed the photographs from the
+rickets man. So I have nothing to do for three months and five hundred
+francs travelling expenses. Oh, children, my only prayer is 'give us
+this day our red worker's permit' and the Red Cross does the rest."
+Heineman laughed till the glasses rang on the table. He took off his
+glasses and wiped them with a rueful air.
+
+"So now I call the Red Cross the Cadets!" cried Heineman, his voice a
+thin shriek from laughter.
+
+Andrews was drinking his coffee in little sips, looking out of the
+window at the people that passed. An old woman with a stand of flowers
+sat on a small cane chair at the corner. The pink and yellow and
+blue-violet shades of the flowers seemed to intensify the misty straw
+color and azured grey of the wintry sun and shadow of the streets. A
+girl in a tight-fitting black dress and black hat stopped at the stand
+to buy a bunch of pale yellow daisies, and then walked slowly past the
+window of the restaurant in the direction of the gardens. Her ivory
+face and slender body and her very dark eyes sent a sudden flush through
+Andrews's whole frame as he looked at her. The black erect figure
+disappeared in the gate of the gardens.
+
+Andrews got to his feet suddenly.
+
+"I've got to go," he said in a strange voice.... "I just remember a man
+was waiting for me at the School Headquarters."
+
+"Let him wait."
+
+"Why, you haven't had a liqueur yet," cried Heineman.
+
+"No... but where can I meet you people later?"
+
+"Cafe de Rohan at five... opposite the Palais Royal."
+
+"You'll never find it."
+
+"Yes I will," said Andrews.
+
+"Palais Royal metro station," they shouted after him as he dashed out of
+the door.
+
+He hurried into the gardens. Many people sat on benches in the frail
+sunlight. Children in bright-colored clothes ran about chasing hoops. A
+woman paraded a bunch of toy balloons in carmine and green and purple,
+like a huge bunch of parti-colored grapes inverted above her head.
+Andrews walked up and down the alleys, scanning faces. The girl had
+disappeared. He leaned against a grey balustrade and looked down
+into the empty pond where traces of the explosion of a Bertha still
+subsisted. He was telling himself that he was a fool. That even if he
+had found her he could not have spoken to her; just because he was free
+for a day or two from the army he needn't think the age of gold had come
+back to earth. Smiling at the thought, he walked across the gardens,
+wandered through some streets of old houses in grey and white stucco
+with slate mansard roofs and fantastic complications of chimney-pots
+till he came out in front of a church with a new classic facade of huge
+columns that seemed toppling by their own weight.
+
+He asked a woman selling newspapers what the church's name was. "Mais,
+Monsieur, c'est Saint Sulpice," said the woman in a surprised tone.
+
+Saint Sulpice. Manon's songs came to his head, and the sentimental
+melancholy of eighteenth century Paris with its gambling houses in the
+Palais Royal where people dishonored themselves in the presence of their
+stern Catonian fathers, and its billets doux written at little gilt
+tables, and its coaches lumbering in covered with mud from the provinces
+through the Porte d'Orleans and the Porte de Versailles; the Paris of
+Diderot and Voltaire and Jean-Jacques, with its muddy streets and its
+ordinaries where one ate bisques and larded pullets and souffles; a
+Paris full of mouldy gilt magnificence, full of pompous ennui of the
+past and insane hope of the future.
+
+He walked down a narrow, smoky street full of antique shops and old
+bookshops and came out unexpectedly on the river opposite the statue of
+Voltaire. The name on the corner was quai Malaquais. Andrews crossed and
+looked down for a long time at the river. Opposite, behind a lace-work
+of leafless trees, were the purplish roofs of the Louvre with their high
+peaks and their ranks and ranks of chimneys; behind him the old houses
+of the quai and the wing, topped by a balustrade with great grey stone
+urns of a domed building of which he did not know the name. Barges were
+coming upstream, the dense green water spuming under their blunt bows,
+towed by a little black tugboat with its chimney bent back to pass under
+the bridges. The tug gave a thin shrill whistle. Andrews started walking
+downstream. He crossed by the bridge at the corner of the Louvre, turned
+his back on the arch Napoleon built to receive the famous horses from
+St. Marc's,--a pinkish pastry-like affair--and walked through the
+Tuileries which were full of people strolling about or sitting in the
+sun, of doll-like children and nursemaids with elaborate white caps, of
+fluffy little dogs straining at the ends of leashes. Suddenly a peaceful
+sleepiness came over him. He sat down in the sun on a bench, watching,
+hardly seeing them, the people who passed to and fro casting long
+shadows. Voices and laughter came very softly to his ears above the
+distant stridency of traffic. From far away he heard for a few moments
+notes of a military band playing a march. The shadows of the trees
+were faint blue-grey in the ruddy yellow gravel. Shadows of people kept
+passing and repassing across them. He felt very languid and happy.
+
+Suddenly he started up; he had been dozing. He asked an old man with a
+beautifully pointed white beard the way to rue du Faubourg St. Honore.
+
+After losing his way a couple of times, he walked listlessly up some
+marble steps where a great many men in khaki were talking. Leaning
+against the doorpost was Walters. As he drew near Andrews heard him
+saying to the man next to him:
+
+"Why, the Eiffel tower was the first piece of complete girder
+construction ever built.... That's the first thing a feller who's wide
+awake ought to see."
+
+"Tell me the Opery's the grandest thing to look at," said the man next
+it.
+
+"If there's wine an' women there, me for it."
+
+"An' don't forget the song."
+
+"But that isn't interesting like the Eiffel tower is," persisted
+Walters.
+
+"Say, Walters, I hope you haven't been waiting for me," stammered
+Andrews.
+
+"No, I've been waiting in line to see the guy about courses.... I want
+to start this thing right."
+
+"I guess I'll see them tomorrow," said Andrews.
+
+"Say have you done anything about a room, Andy? Let's you and me be
+bunkies."
+
+"All right.... But maybe you won't want to room where I do, Walters."
+
+"Where's that? In the Latin Quarter?... You bet. I want to see some
+French life while I am about it."
+
+"Well, it's too late to get a room to-day."
+
+"I'm going to the 'Y' tonight anyway."
+
+"I'll get a fellow I know to put me up.... Then tomorrow, we'll see.
+Well, so long," said Andrews, moving away.
+
+"Wait. I'm coming with you.... We'll walk around town together."
+
+"All right," said Andrews.
+
+
+
+The rabbit was rather formless, very fluffy and had a glance of madness
+in its pink eye with a black center. It hopped like a sparrow along the
+pavement, emitting a rubber tube from its back, which went up to a bulb
+in a man's hand which the man pressed to make the rabbit hop. Yet the
+rabbit had an air of organic completeness. Andrews laughed inordinately
+when he first saw it. The vendor, who had a basket full of other such
+rabbits on his arm, saw Andrews laughing and drew timidly near to the
+table; he had a pink face with little, sensitive lips rather like a real
+rabbit's, and large frightened eyes of a wan brown.
+
+"Do you make them yourself?" asked Andrews, smiling.
+
+The man dropped his rabbit on the table with a negligent air.
+
+"Oh, oui, Monsieur, d'apres la nature."
+
+He made the rabbit turn a somersault by suddenly pressing the bulb hard.
+Andrews laughed and the rabbit man laughed.
+
+"Think of a big strong man making his living that way," said Walters,
+disgusted.
+
+"I do it all... de matiere premiere au profit de l'accapareur," said the
+rabbit man.
+
+"Hello, Andy... late as hell.... I'm sorry," said Henslowe, dropping down
+into a chair beside them. Andrews introduced Walters, the rabbit man
+took off his hat, bowed to the company and went off, making the rabbit
+hop before him along the edge of the curbstone.
+
+"What's happened to Heineman?"
+
+"Here he comes now," said Henslowe.
+
+An open cab had driven up to the curb in front of the cafe. In it sat
+Heineman with a broad grin on his face and beside him a woman in a
+salmon-colored dress, ermine furs and an emerald-green hat. The cab
+drove off and Heineman, still grinning, walked up to the table.
+
+"Where's the lion cub?" asked Henslowe.
+
+"They say it's got pneumonia."
+
+"Mr. Heineman. Mr. Walters."
+
+The grin left Heineman's face; he said: "How do you do?" curtly, cast a
+furious glance at Andrews and settled himself in a chair.
+
+The sun had set. The sky was full of lilac and bright purple
+and carmine. Among the deep blue shadows lights were coming on,
+primrose-colored street lamps, violet arc lights, ruddy sheets of light
+poured out of shop windows.
+
+"Let's go inside. I'm cold as hell," said Heineman crossly, and they
+filed in through the revolving door, followed by a waiter with their
+drinks.
+
+"I've been in the Red Cross all afternoon, Andy.... I think I am going
+to work that Roumania business.... Want to come?" said Henslowe in
+Andrews' ear.
+
+"If I can get hold of a piano and some lessons and the concerts keep up
+you won't be able to get me away from Paris with wild horses. No, sir,
+I want to see what Paris is like.... It's going to my head so it'll be
+weeks before I know what I think about it."
+
+"Don't think about it.... Drink," growled Heineman, scowling savagely.
+
+"That's two things I'm going to keep away from in Paris; drink and
+women.... And you can't have one without the other," said Walters.
+
+"True enough.... You sure do need them both," said Heineman.
+
+Andrews was not listening to their talk; twirling the stem of his
+glass of vermouth in his fingers, he was thinking of the Queen of
+Sheba slipping down from off the shoulders of her elephant, glistening
+fantastically with jewels in the light of crackling, resinous torches.
+Music was seeping up through his mind as the water seeps into a hole
+dug in the sand of the seashore. He could feel all through his body the
+tension of rhythms and phrases taking form, not quite to be seized as
+yet, still hovering on the borderland of consciousness. "From the
+girl at the cross-roads singing under her street-lamp to the patrician
+pulling roses to pieces from the height of her litter....All the
+imaginings of your desire...." He thought of the girl with skin like old
+ivory he had seen in the Place de Medicis. The Queen of Sheba's face
+was like that now in his imaginings, quiet and inscrutable. A sudden
+cymbal-clanging of joy made his heart thump hard. He was free now of the
+imaginings of his desire, to loll all day at cafe tables watching the
+tables move in changing patterns before him, to fill his mind and body
+with a reverberation of all the rhythms of men and women moving in the
+frieze of life before his eyes; no more like wooden automatons knowing
+only the motions of the drill manual, but supple and varied, full of
+force and tragedy.
+
+"For Heaven's sake let's beat it from here.... Gives me a pain this
+place does." Heineman beat his fist on the table.
+
+"All right," said Andrews, getting up with a yawn.
+
+Henslowe and Andrews walked off, leaving Walters to follow them with
+Heineman.
+
+"We're going to dine at Le Rat qui Danse," said Henslowe, "an awfully
+funny place.... We just have time to walk there comfortably with an
+appetite."
+
+They followed the long dimly-lighted Rue de Richelieu to the Boulevards,
+where they drifted a little while with the crowd. The glaring lights
+seemed to powder the air with gold. Cafes and the tables outside were
+crowded. There was an odor of vermouth and coffee and perfume and
+cigarette smoke mixed with the fumes of burnt gasoline from taxicabs.
+
+"Isn't this mad?" said Andrews.
+
+"It's always carnival at seven on the Grands Boulevards."
+
+They started climbing the steep streets to Montmartre. At a corner
+they passed a hard-faced girl with rouge-smeared lips and overpowdered
+cheeks, laughing on the arm of an American soldier, who had a sallow
+face and dull-green eyes that glittered in the slanting light of a
+street-lamp.
+
+"Hello, Stein," said Andrews.
+
+"Who's that?"
+
+"A fellow from our division, got here with me this morning."
+
+"He's got curious lips for a Jew," said Henslowe.
+
+At the fork of two slanting streets, they went into a restaurant that
+had small windows pasted over with red paper, through which the light
+came dimly. Inside were crowded oak tables and oak wainscoting with
+a shelf round the top, on which were shell-cans, a couple of skulls,
+several cracked majolica plates and a number of stuffed rats. The only
+people there were a fat woman and a man with long grey hair and beard
+who sat talking earnestly over two small glasses in the center of the
+room. A husky-looking waitress with a Dutch cap and apron hovered near
+the inner door from which came a great smell of fish frying in olive
+oil.
+
+"The cook here's from Marseilles," said Henslowe, as they settled
+themselves at a table for four.
+
+"I wonder if the rest of them lost the way," said Andrews.
+
+"More likely old Heinz stopped to have a drink," said Henslowe. "Let's
+have some hors d'oeuvre while we are waiting."
+
+The waitress brought a collection of boat-shaped plates of red salads
+and yellow salads and green salads and two little wooden tubs with
+herrings and anchovies.
+
+Henslowe stopped her as she was going, saying: "Rien de plus?"
+
+The waitress contemplated the array with a tragic air, her arms folded
+over her ample bosom. "Que voulez-vous, Monsieur, c'est l'armistice."
+
+"The greatest fake about all this war business is the peace. I tell you,
+not till the hors d'oeuvre has been restored to its proper abundance and
+variety will I admit that the war's over."
+
+The waitress tittered.
+
+"Things aren't what they used to be," she said, going back to the
+kitchen.
+
+Heineman burst into the restaurant at that moment, slamming the door
+behind him so that the glass rang, and the fat woman and the hairy man
+started violently in their chairs. He tumbled into a place, grinning
+broadly.
+
+"And what have you done to Walters?"
+
+Heineman wiped his glasses meticulously.
+
+"Oh, he died of drinking raspberry shrub," he said.... "Dee-dong peteet
+du ving de Bourgogne," he shouted towards the waitress in his nasal
+French. Then he added: "Le Guy is coming in a minute, I just met him."
+
+The restaurant was gradually filling up with men and women of very
+various costumes, with a good sprinkling of Americans in uniform and
+out.
+
+"God I hate people who don't drink," cried Heineman, pouring out wine.
+"A man who don't drink just cumbers the earth."
+
+"How are you going to take it in America when they have prohibition?"
+
+"Don't talk about it; here's le Guy. I wouldn't have him know I belong
+to a nation that prohibits good liquor.... Monsieur le Guy, Monsieur
+Henslowe et Monsieur Andrews," he continued getting up ceremoniously. A
+little man with twirled mustaches and a small vandyke beard sat down at
+the fourth place. He had a faintly red nose and little twinkling eyes.
+
+"How glad I am," he said, exposing his starched cuffs with a curious
+gesture, "to have some one to dine with! When one begins to get
+old loneliness is impossible. It is only youth that dares think....
+Afterwards one has only one thing to think about: old age."
+
+"There's always work," said Andrews.
+
+"Slavery. Any work is slavery. What is the use of freeing your intellect
+if you sell yourself again to the first bidder?"
+
+"Rot!" said Heineman, pouring out from a new bottle.
+
+Andrews had begun to notice the girl who sat at the next table, in
+front of a pale young soldier in French-blue who resembled her
+extraordinarily. She had high cheek bones and a forehead in which the
+modelling of the skull showed through the transparent, faintly-olive
+skin. Her heavy chestnut hair was coiled carelessly at the back of her
+head. She spoke very quietly, and pressed her lips together when she
+smiled. She ate quickly and neatly, like a cat.
+
+The restaurant had gradually filled up with people. The waitress and the
+patron, a fat man with a wide red sash coiled tightly round his waist,
+moved with difficulty among the crowded tables. A woman at a table in
+the corner, with dead white skin and drugged staring eyes, kept laughing
+hoarsely, leaning her head, in a hat with bedraggled white plumes,
+against the wall. There was a constant jingle of plates and glasses, and
+an oily fume of food and women's clothes and wine.
+
+"D'you want to know what I really did with your friend?" said Heineman,
+leaning towards Andrews.
+
+"I hope you didn't push him into the Seine."
+
+"It was damn impolite.... But hell, it was damn impolite of him not to
+drink.... No use wasting time with a man who don't drink. I took him
+into a cafe and asked him to wait while I telephoned. I guess he's still
+waiting. One of the whoreiest cafes on the whole Boulevard Clichy."
+Heineman laughed uproariously and started explaining it in nasal French
+to M. le Guy.
+
+Andrews flushed with annoyance for a moment, but soon started laughing.
+Heineman had started singing again.
+
+     "O, Sinbad was in bad in Tokio and Rome,
+      In bad in Trinidad
+      And twice as bad at home,
+      O, Sinbad was in bad all around!"
+
+Everybody clapped. The white-faced woman in the corner cried "Bravo,
+Bravo," in a shrill nightmare voice.
+
+Heineman bowed, his big grinning face bobbing up and down like the face
+of a Chinese figure in porcelain.
+
+"Lui est Sinbad," he cried, pointing with a wide gesture towards
+Henslowe.
+
+"Give 'em some more, Heinz. Give them some more," said Henslowe,
+laughing.
+
+     "Big brunettes with long stelets
+      On the shores of Italee,
+      Dutch girls with golden curls
+      Beside the Zuyder Zee..."
+
+Everybody cheered again; Andrews kept looking at the girl at the next
+table, whose face was red from laughter. She had a handkerchief pressed
+to her mouth, and kept saying in a low voice:
+
+"O qu'il est drole, celui-la.... O qu'il est drole."
+
+Heineman picked up a glass and waved it in the air before drinking it
+off. Several people got up and filled it up from their bottles with
+white wine and red. The French soldier at the next table pulled an army
+canteen from under his chair and hung it round Heineman's neck.
+
+Heineman, his face crimson, bowed to all sides, more like a Chinese
+porcelain figure than ever, and started singing in all solemnity this
+time.
+
+     "Hulas and hulas would pucker up their lips,
+      He fell for their ball-bearing hips
+      For they were pips..."
+
+His chunky body swayed to the ragtime. The woman in the corner kept time
+with long white arms raised above her head.
+
+"Bet she's a snake charmer," said Henslowe.
+
+     "O, wild woman loved that child
+      He would drive ten women wild!
+      O, Sinbad was in bad all around!"
+
+Heineman waved his arms, pointed again to Henslowe, and sank into his
+chair saying in the tones of a Shakespearean actor:
+
+"C'est lui Sinbad."
+
+The girl hid her face on the tablecloth, shaken with laughter. Andrews
+could hear a convulsed little voice saying:
+
+"O qu'il est rigolo...."
+
+Heineman took off the canteen and handed it back to the French soldier.
+
+"Merci, Camarade," he said solemnly.
+
+"Eh bien, Jeanne, c'est temps de ficher le camp," said the French
+soldier to the girl. They got up. He shook hands with the Americans.
+Andrews caught the girl's eye and they both started laughing
+convulsively again. Andrews noticed how erect and supple she walked as
+his eyes followed her to the door.
+
+Andrews's party followed soon after.
+
+"We've got to hurry if we want to get to the Lapin Agile before
+closing... and I've got to have a drink," said Heineman, still talking in
+his stagey Shakespearean voice.
+
+"Have you ever been on the stage?" asked Andrews.
+
+"What stage, sir? I'm in the last stages now, sir.... I am an artistic
+photographer and none other.... Moki and I are going into the movies
+together when they decide to have peace."
+
+"Who's Moki?"
+
+"Moki Hadj is the lady in the salmon-colored dress," said Henslowe, in a
+loud stage whisper in Andrews's ear. "They have a lion cub named Bubu."
+
+"Our first born," said Heineman with a wave of the hand.
+
+The streets were deserted. A thin ray of moonlight, bursting now and
+then through the heavy clouds, lit up low houses and roughly-cobbled
+streets and the flights of steps with rare dim lamps bracketed in house
+walls that led up to the Butte.
+
+There was a gendarme in front of the door of the Lapin Agile. The street
+was still full of groups that had just come out, American officers and
+Y.M.C.A, women with a sprinkling of the inhabitants of the region.
+
+"Now look, we're late," groaned Heineman in a tearful voice.
+
+"Never mind, Heinz," said Henslowe, "le Guy'll take us to see de
+Clocheville like he did last time, n'est pas, le Guy?" Then Andrews
+heard him add, talking to a man he had not seen before, "Come along
+Aubrey, I'll introduce you later."
+
+They climbed further up the hill. There was a scent of wet gardens in
+the air, entirely silent except for the clatter of their feet on
+the cobbles. Heineman was dancing a sort of a jig at the head of the
+procession. They stopped before a tall cadaverous house and started
+climbing a rickety wooden stairway.
+
+"Talk about inside dope.... I got this from a man who's actually in the
+room when the Peace Conference meets." Andrews heard Aubrey's voice with
+a Chicago burr in the r's behind him in the stairs.
+
+"Fine, let's hear it," said Henslowe.
+
+"Did you say the Peace Conference took dope?" shouted Heineman, whose
+puffing could be heard as he climbed the dark stairs ahead of them.
+
+"Shut up, Heinz."
+
+They stumbled over a raised doorstep into a large garret room with a
+tile floor, where a tall lean man in a monastic-looking dressing gown
+of some brown material received them. The only candle made all their
+shadows dance fantastically on the slanting white walls as they moved
+about. One side of the room had three big windows, with an occasional
+cracked pane mended with newspaper, stretching from floor to ceiling. In
+front of them were two couches with rugs piled on them. On the opposite
+wall was a confused mass of canvases piled one against the other,
+leaning helter skelter against the slanting wall of the room.
+
+     "C'est le bon vin, le bon vin,
+      C'est la chanson du vin."
+
+chanted Heineman. Everybody settled themselves on couches. The lanky man
+in the brown dressing gown brought a table out of the shadow, put some
+black bottles and heavy glasses on it, and drew up a camp stool for
+himself.
+
+"He lives that way.... They say he never goes out. Stays here and
+paints, and when friends come in, he feeds them wine and charges them
+double," said Henslowe. "That's how he lives."
+
+The lanky man began taking bits of candle out of a drawer of the table
+and lighting them. Andrews saw that his feet and legs were bare below
+the frayed edge of the dressing gown. The candle light lit up the men's
+flushed faces and the crude banana yellows and arsenic greens of the
+canvases along the walls, against which jars full of paint brushes cast
+blurred shadows.
+
+"I was going to tell you, Henny," said Aubrey, "the dope is that the
+President's going to leave the conference, going to call them all damn
+blackguards to their faces and walk out, with the band playing the
+'Internationale.'"
+
+"God, that's news," cried Andrews.
+
+"If he does that he'll recognize the Soviets," said Henslowe. "Me for
+the first Red Cross Mission that goes to save starving Russia.... Gee,
+that's great. I'll write you a postal from Moscow, Andy, if they haven't
+been abolished as delusions of the bourgeoisie."
+
+"Hell, no.... I've got five hundred dollars' worth of Russian bonds that
+girl Vera gave me.... But worth five million, ten million, fifty million
+if the Czar gets back.... I'm backing the little white father," cried
+Heineman. "Anyway Moki says he's alive; that Savaroffs got him locked up
+in a suite in the Ritz.... And Moki knows."
+
+"Moki knows a damn lot, I'll admit that," said Henslowe.
+
+"But just think of it," said Aubrey, "that means world revolution with
+the United States at the head of it. What do you think of that?"
+
+"Moki doesn't think so," said Heineman. "And Moki knows."
+
+"She just knows what a lot of reactionary warlords tell her," said
+Aubrey. "This man I was talking with at the Crillon--I wish I could tell
+you his name--heard it directly from...Well, you know who." He turned
+to Henslowe, who smiled knowingly. "There's a mission in Russia at this
+minute making peace with Lenin."
+
+"A goddam outrage!" cried Heineman, knocking a bottle off the table. The
+lanky man picked up the pieces patiently, without comment.
+
+"The new era is opening, men, I swear it is..." began Aubrey. "The
+old order is dissolving. It is going down under a weight of misery
+and crime.... This will be the first great gesture towards a newer and
+better world. There is no alternative. The chance will never come
+back. It is either for us to step courageously forward, or sink into
+unbelievable horrors of anarchy and civil war.... Peace or the dark ages
+again."
+
+Andrews had felt for some time an uncontrollable sleepiness coming over
+him. He rolled himself on a rug and stretched out on the empty couch.
+The voices arguing, wrangling, enunciating emphatic phrases, dinned for
+a minute in his ears. He went to sleep.
+
+When Andrews woke up he found himself staring at the cracked plaster of
+an unfamiliar ceiling. For some moments he could not guess where he was.
+Henslowe was sleeping, wrapped in another rug, on the couch beside him.
+Except for Henslowe's breathing, there was complete silence. Floods
+of silvery-grey light poured in through the wide windows, behind which
+Andrews could see a sky full of bright dove-colored clouds. He sat up
+carefully. Some time in the night he must have taken off his tunic and
+boots and puttees, which were on the floor beside the couch. The tables
+with the bottles had gone and the lanky man was nowhere to be seen.
+
+Andrews went to the window in his stockinged feet. Paris way a
+slate-grey and dove-color lay spread out like a Turkish carpet, with a
+silvery band of mist where the river was, out of which the Eiffel
+Tower stood up like a man wading. Here and there blue smoke and brown
+spiralled up to lose itself in the faint canopy of brown fog that hung
+high above the houses. Andrews stood a long while leaning against the
+window frame, until he heard Henslowe's voice behind him:
+
+"Depuis le jour ou je me suis donnee."
+
+"You look like 'Louise.'"
+
+Andrews turned round.
+
+Henslowe was sitting on the edge of the bed with his hair in disorder,
+combing his little silky mustache with a pocket comb.
+
+"Gee, I have a head," he said. "My tongue feels like a nutmeg grater....
+Doesn't yours?"
+
+"No. I feel like a fighting cock."
+
+"What do you say we go down to the Seine and have a bath in Benny
+Franklin's bathtub?"
+
+"Where's that? It sounds grand."
+
+"Then we'll have the biggest breakfast ever."
+
+"That's the right spirit.... Where's everybody gone to?"
+
+"Old Heinz has gone to his Moki, I guess, and Aubrey's gone to collect
+more dope at the Crillon. He says four in the morning when the drunks
+come home is the prime time for a newspaper man."
+
+"And the Monkish man?"
+
+"Search me."
+
+The streets were full of men and girls hurrying to work. Everything
+sparkled, had an air of being just scrubbed. They passed bakeries from
+which came a rich smell of fresh-baked bread. From cafes came whiffs
+of roasting coffee. They crossed through the markets that were full
+of heavy carts lumbering to and fro, and women with net bags full of
+vegetables. There was a pungent scent of crushed cabbage leaves and
+carrots and wet clay. The mist was raw and biting along the quais, and
+made the blood come into their cheeks and their hands stiff with cold.
+
+The bathhouse was a huge barge with a house built on it in a lozenge
+shape. They crossed to it by a little gangplank on which were a few
+geraniums in pots. The attendant gave them two rooms side by side on
+the lower deck, painted grey, with steamed over windows, through which
+Andrews caught glimpses of hurrying green water. He stripped his clothes
+off quickly. The tub was of copper varnished with some white metal
+inside. The water flowed in through two copper swans' necks. When
+Andrews stepped into the hot green water, a little window in the
+partition flew open and Henslowe shouted in to him:
+
+"Talk about modern conveniences. You can converse while you bathe!"
+
+Andrews scrubbed himself jauntily with a square piece of pink soap,
+splashing the water about like a small boy. He stood up and lathered
+himself all over and then let himself slide into the water, which
+splashed out over the floor.
+
+"Do you think you're a performing seal?" shouted Henslowe.
+
+"It's all so preposterous," cried Andrews, going off into convulsions of
+laughter. "She has a lion cub named Bubu and Nicolas Romanoff lives
+in the Ritz, and the Revolution is scheduled for day after tomorrow at
+twelve noon."
+
+"I'd put it about the first of May," answered Henslowe, amid a sound of
+splashing. "Gee, it'd be great to be a people's Commissary.... You could
+go and revolute the grand Llama of Thibet."
+
+"O, it's too deliciously preposterous," cried Andrews, letting himself
+slide a second time into the bathtub.
+
+
+
+                              II
+
+Two M.P.'s passed outside the window. Andrews watched the yellow pigskin
+revolver cases until they were out of sight. He felt joyfully secure
+from them. The waiter, standing by the door with a napkin on his arm,
+gave him a sense of security so intense it made him laugh. On the marble
+table before him were a small glass of beer, a notebook full of ruled
+sheets of paper and a couple of yellow pencils. The beer, the color of
+topaz in the clear grey light that streamed in through the window, threw
+a pale yellow glow with a bright center on the table. Outside was the
+boulevard with a few people walking hurriedly. An empty market wagon
+passed now and then, rumbling loud. On a bench a woman in a black
+knitted shawl, with a bundle of newspapers in her knees, was counting
+sous with loving concentration.
+
+Andrews looked at his watch. He had an hour before going to the Schola
+Cantorum.
+
+He got to his feet, paid the waiter and strolled down the center of the
+boulevard, thinking smilingly of pages he had written, of pages he was
+going to write, filled with a sense of leisurely well-being. It was a
+grey morning with a little yellowish fog in the air. The pavements were
+damp, reflected women's dresses and men's legs and the angular
+outlines of taxicabs. From a flower stand with violets and red and pink
+carnations irregular blotches of color ran down into the brownish grey
+of the pavement. Andrews caught a faint smell of violets in the smell
+of the fog as he passed the flower stand and remembered suddenly that
+spring was coming. He would not miss a moment of this spring, he told
+himself; he would follow it step by step, from the first violets. Oh,
+how fully he must live now to make up for all the years he had wasted in
+his life.
+
+He kept on walking along the boulevard. He was remembering how he
+and the girl the soldier had called Jeanne had both kindled with
+uncontrollable laughter when their eyes had met that night in the
+restaurant. He wished he could go down the boulevard with a girl like
+that, laughing through the foggy morning.
+
+He wondered vaguely what part of Paris he was getting to, but was too
+happy to care. How beautifully long the hours were in the early morning!
+
+At a concert at the Salle Gaveau the day before he had heard Debussy's
+Nocturnes and Les Sirenes. Rhythms from them were the warp of all his
+thoughts. Against the background of the grey street and the brownish fog
+that hung a veil at the end of every vista he began to imagine rhythms
+of his own, modulations and phrases that grew brilliant and faded,
+that flapped for a while like gaudy banners above his head through the
+clatter of the street.
+
+He noticed that he was passing a long building with blank rows of
+windows, at the central door of which stood groups of American soldiers
+smoking. Unconsciously he hastened his steps, for fear of meeting an
+officer he would have to salute. He passed the men without looking at
+them.
+
+A voice detained him. "Say, Andrews."
+
+When he turned he saw that a short man with curly hair, whose face,
+though familiar, he could not place, had left the group at the door and
+was coming towards him. "Hello, Andrews.... Your name's Andrews, ain't
+it?"
+
+"Yes." Andrews shook his hand, trying to remember.
+
+"I'm Fuselli.... Remember? Last time I saw you you was goin' up to the
+lines on a train with Chrisfield.... Chris we used to call him.... At
+Cosne, don't you remember?"
+
+"Of course I do."
+
+"Well, what's happened to Chris?"
+
+"He's a corporal now," said Andrews.
+
+"Gee he is.... I'll be goddamned.... They was goin' to make me a
+corporal once."
+
+Fuselli wore stained olive-drab breeches and badly rolled puttees; his
+shirt was open at the neck. From his blue denim jacket came a smell of
+stale grease that Andrews recognised; the smell of army kitchens. He had
+a momentary recollection of standing in line cold dark mornings and of
+the sound the food made slopping into mess kits.
+
+"Why didn't they make you a corporal, Fuselli?" Andrcws said, after a
+pause, in a constrained voice.
+
+"Hell, I got in wrong, I suppose."
+
+They were leaning against the dusty house wall. Andrews looked at his
+feet. The mud of the pavement, splashing up on the wall, made an even
+dado along the bottom, on which Andrews scraped the toe of his shoe up
+and down.
+
+"Well, how's everything?" Andrews asked looking up suddenly.
+
+"I've been in a labor battalion. That's how everything is."
+
+"God, that's tough luck!"
+
+Andrews wanted to go on. He had a sudden fear that he would be late. But
+he did not know how to break away.
+
+"I got sick," said Fuselli grinning. "I guess I am yet, G. O. 42. It's a
+hell of a note the way they treat a feller... like he was lower than the
+dirt."
+
+"Were you at Cosne all the time? That's damned rough luck, Fuselli."
+
+"Cosne sure is a hell of a hole.... I guess you saw a lot of fighting.
+God! you must have been glad not to be in the goddam medics."
+
+"I don't know that I'm glad I saw fighting.... Oh, yes, I suppose I am."
+
+"You see, I had it a hell of a time before they found out. Courtmartial
+was damn stiff... after the armistice too.... Oh, God! why can't they let
+a feller go home?"
+
+A woman in a bright blue hat passed them. Andrews caught a glimpse of
+a white over-powdered face; her hips trembled like jelly under the blue
+skirt with each hard clack of her high heels on the pavement.
+
+"Gee, that looks like Jenny.... I'm glad she didn't see me...." Fuselli
+laughed. "Ought to 'a seen her one night last week. We were so dead
+drunk we just couldn't move."
+
+"Isn't that bad for what's the matter with you?"
+
+"I don't give a damn now; what's the use?"
+
+"But God; man!" Andrews stopped himself suddenly. Then he said in a
+different voice, "What outfit are you in now?"
+
+"I'm on the permanent K.P. here," Fuselli jerked his thumb towards the
+door of the building. "Not a bad job, off two days a week; no drill,
+good eats.... At least you get all you want.... But it surely has been
+hell emptying ash cans and shovelling coal an' now all they've done is
+dry me up."
+
+"But you'll be goin' home soon now, won't you? They can't discharge you
+till they cure you."
+
+"Damned if I know.... Some guys say a guy never can be cured...."
+
+"Don't you find K.P. work pretty damn dull?"
+
+"No worse than anything else. What are you doin' in Paris?"
+
+"School detachment."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Men who wanted to study in the university, who managed to work it."
+
+"Gee, I'm glad I ain't goin' to school again."
+
+"Well, so long, Fuselli."
+
+"So long, Andrews."
+
+Fuselli turned and slouched back to the group of men at the door.
+Andrews hurried away. As he turned the corner he had a glimpse of
+Fuselli with his hands in his pockets and his legs crossed leaning
+against the wall behind the door of the barracks.
+
+
+
+                              III
+
+The darkness, where the rain fell through the vague halos of light round
+the street lamps, glittered with streaks of pale gold. Andrews's ears
+were full of the sound of racing gutters and spattering waterspouts, and
+of the hard unceasing beat of the rain on the pavements. It was after
+closing time. The corrugated shutters were drawn down, in front of cafe
+windows. Andrews's cap was wet; water trickled down his forehead and the
+sides of his nose, running into his eyes. His feet were soaked and he
+could feel the wet patches growing on his knees where they received the
+water running off his overcoat. The street stretched wide and dark ahead
+of him, with an occasional glimmer of greenish reflection from a lamp.
+As he walked, splashing with long strides through the rain, he noticed
+that he was keeping pace with a woman under an umbrella, a slender
+person who was hurrying with small resolute steps up the boulevard.
+When he saw her, a mad hope flamed suddenly through him. He remembered
+a vulgar little theatre and the crude light of a spot light. Through
+the paint and powder a girl's golden-brown skin had shone with a firm
+brilliance that made him think of wide sun-scorched uplands, and dancing
+figures on Greek vases. Since he had seen her two nights ago, he had
+thought of nothing else. He had feverishly found out her name. "Naya
+Selikoff!" A mad hope flared through him that this girl he was walking
+beside was the girl whose slender limbs moved in an endless frieze
+through his thoughts. He peered at her with eyes blurred with rain. What
+an ass he was! Of course it couldn't be; it was too early. She was
+on the stage at this minute. Other hungry eyes were staring at her
+slenderness, other hands were twitching to stroke her golden-brown skin.
+Walking under the steady downpour that stung his face and ears and sent
+a tiny cold trickle down his back, he felt a sudden dizziness of desire
+come over him. His hands, thrust to the bottom of his coat pockets,
+clutched convulsively. He felt that he would die, that his pounding
+blood vessels would burst. The bead curtains of rain rustled and tinkled
+about him, awakening his nerves, making his skin flash and tingle. In
+the gurgle of water in gutters and water spouts he could imagine he
+heard orchestras droning libidinous music. The feverish excitement of
+his senses began to create frenzied rhythms in his ears:
+
+"O ce pauvre poilu! Qu'il doit etre mouille" said a small tremulous
+voice beside him.
+
+He turned.
+
+The girl was offering him part of her umbrella.
+
+"O c'est un Americain!" she said again, still speaking as if to herself.
+
+"Mais ca ne vaut pas la peine."
+
+"Mais oui, mais oui."
+
+He stepped under the umbrella beside her.
+
+"But you must let me hold it."
+
+"Bien."
+
+As he took the umbrella he caught her eye. He stopped still in his
+tracks.
+
+"But you're the girl at the Rat qui Danse."
+
+"And you were at the next table with the man who sang?"
+
+"How amusing!"
+
+"Et celui-la! O il etait rigolo...." She burst out laughing; her head,
+encased in a little round black hat, bobbed up and down under the
+umbrella. Andrews laughed too. Crossing the Boulevard St. Germain, a
+taxi nearly ran them down and splashed a great wave of mud over them.
+She clutched his arm and then stood roaring with laughter.
+
+"O quelle horreur! Quelle horreur!" she kept exclaiming.
+
+Andrews laughed and laughed.
+
+"But hold the umbrella over us.... You're letting the rain in on my best
+hat," she said again.
+
+"Your name is Jeanne," said Andrews.
+
+"Impertinent! You heard my brother call me that.... He went back to the
+front that night, poor little chap.... He's only nineteen ... he's very
+clever.... O, how happy I am now that the war's over."
+
+"You are older than he?"
+
+"Two years.... I am the head of the family.... It is a dignified
+position."
+
+"Have you always lived in Paris?"
+
+"No, we are from Laon.... It's the war."
+
+"Refugees?"
+
+"Don't call us that.... We work."
+
+Andrews laughed.
+
+"Are you going far?" she asked peering in his face.
+
+"No, I live up here.... My name is the same as yours."
+
+"Jean? How funny!"
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"Rue Descartes.... Behind St. Etienne."
+
+"I live near you."
+
+"But you mustn't come. The concierge is a tigress.... Etienne calls her
+Mme. Clemenceau."
+
+"Who? The saint?"
+
+"No, you silly--my brother. He is a socialist. He's a typesetter at
+l'Humanite."
+
+"Really? I often read l'Humanite."
+
+"Poor boy, he used to swear he'd never go in the army. He thought of
+going to America."
+
+"That wouldn't do him any good now," said Andrews bitterly. "What do you
+do?"
+
+"I?" a gruff bitterness came into her voice. "Why should I tell you? I
+work at a dressmaker's."
+
+"Like Louise?"
+
+"You've heard Louise? Oh, how I cried."
+
+"Why did it make you sad?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know.... But I'm learning stenography.... But here we are!"
+
+The great bulk of the Pantheon stood up dimly through the rain beside
+them. In front the tower of St. Etienne-du-Mont was just visible. The
+rain roared about them.
+
+"Oh, how wet I am!" said Jeanne.
+
+"Look, they are giving Louise day after tomorrow at the Opera
+Comique.... Won't you come; with me?"
+
+"No, I should cry too much."
+
+"I'll cry too."
+
+"But it's not..."
+
+"Cest l'armistice," interrupted Andrews.
+
+They both laughed!
+
+"All right! Meet me at the cafe at the end of the Boul' Mich' at a
+quarter past seven.... But you probably won't come."
+
+"I swear I will," cried Andrews eagerly.
+
+"We'll see!" She darted away down the street beside St. Etienne-du-Mont.
+Andrews was left alone amid the seethe of the rain and the tumultuous
+gurgle of water-spouts. He felt calm and tired.
+
+When he got to his room, he found he had no matches in his pocket.
+No light came from the window through which he could hear the hissing
+clamor of the rain in the court. He stumbled over a chair.
+
+"Are you drunk?" came Walters's voice swathed in bedclothes. "There are
+matches on the table."
+
+"But where the hell's the table?"
+
+At last his hand, groping over the table, closed on the matchbox.
+
+The match's red and white flicker dazzled him. He blinked his eyes; the
+lashes were still full of raindrops. When he had lit a candle and set
+it amongst the music papers upon the table, he tore off his dripping
+clothes.
+
+"I just met the most charming girl, Walters," Andrews stood naked beside
+the pile of his clothes, rubbing himself with a towel. "Gee! I was
+wet.... But she was the most charming person I've met since I've been in
+Paris."
+
+"I thought you said you let the girls alone."
+
+"Whores, I must have said."
+
+"Well! Any girl you could pick up on the street...."
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"I guess they are all that way in this damned country.... God, it will
+do me good to see a nice sweet wholesome American girl."
+
+Andrews did not answer. He blew out the light and got into bed.
+
+"But I've got a new job," Walters went on. "I'm working in the school
+detachment office."
+
+"Why the hell do that? You came here to take courses in the Sorbonne,
+didn't you?"
+
+"Sure. I go to most of them now. But in this army I like to be in the
+middle of things, see? Just so they can't put anything over on me."
+
+"There's something in that."
+
+"There's a damn lot in it, boy. The only way is to keep in right and not
+let the man higher up forget you.... Why, we may start fighting again.
+These damn Germans ain't showin' the right spirit at all... after all
+the President's done for them. I expect to get my sergeantcy out of it
+anyway."
+
+"Well, I'm going to sleep," said Andrews sulkily.
+
+
+
+John Andrews sat at a table outside the cafe de Rohan. The sun had just
+set on a ruddy afternoon, flooding everything with violet-blue light and
+cold greenish shadow. The sky was bright lilac color, streaked with a
+few amber clouds. The lights were on in all the windows of the Magazin
+du Louvre opposite, so that the windows seemed bits of polished glass
+in the afterglow. In the colonnade of the Palais Royal the shadows were
+deepening and growing colder. A steady stream of people poured in and
+out of the Metro. Green buses stuffed with people kept passing. The roar
+of the traffic and the clatter of footsteps and the grumble of voices
+swirled like dance music about Andrews's head. He noticed all at once
+that the rabbit man stood in front of him, a rabbit dangling forgotten
+at the end of its rubber tube.
+
+"Et ca va bien? le commerce," said Andrews.
+
+"Quietly, quietly," said the rabbit man, distractedly making the rabbit
+turn a somersault at his feet. Andrews watched the people going into the
+Metro.
+
+"The gentleman amuses himself in Paris?" asked the rabbit man timidly.
+
+"Oh, yes; and you?"
+
+"Quietly," the rabbit man smiled. "Women are very beautiful at this hour
+of the evening," he said again in his very timid tone.
+
+"There is nothing more beautiful than this moment of the evening... in
+Paris."
+
+"Or Parisian women." The eyes of the rabbit man glittered. "Excuse me,
+sir," he went on. "I must try and sell some rabbits."
+
+"Au revoir," said Andrews holding out his hand.
+
+The rabbit man shook it with sudden vigor and went off, making a rabbit
+hop before him along the curbstone. He was hidden by the swiftly moving
+crowds.
+
+In the square, flaring violet arclights were flickering on, lighting up
+their net-covered globes that hung like harsh moons above the pavement.
+
+Henslowe sat down on a chair beside Andrews.
+
+"How's Sinbad?"
+
+"Sinbad, old boy, is functioning.... Aren't you frozen?"
+
+"How do you mean, Henslowe?"
+
+"Overheated, you chump, sitting out here in polar weather."
+
+"No, but I mean.... How are you functioning?" said Andrews laughing.
+
+"I'm going to Poland tomorrow."
+
+"How?"
+
+"As guard on a Red Cross supply train. I think you might make it if you
+want to come, if we beat it right over to the Red Cross before Major
+Smithers goes. Or we might take him out to dinner."
+
+"But, Henny, I'm staying."
+
+"Why the hell stay in this hole?"
+
+"I like it. I'm getting a better course in orchestration than I imagined
+existed, and I met a girl the other day, and I'm crazy over Paris."
+
+"If you go and get entangled, I swear I'll beat your head in with a
+Polish shillaughly.... Of course you've met a girl--so have I--lots. We
+can meet some more in Poland and dance polonaises with them."
+
+"No, but this girl's charming.... You've seen her. She's the girl who
+was with the poilu at the Rat qui Danse the first night I was in Paris.
+We went to Louise together."
+
+"Must have been a grand sentimental party.... I swear.... I may run
+after a Jane now and again but I never let them interfere with the
+business of existence," muttered Henslowe crossly.
+
+They were both silent.
+
+"You'll be as bad as Heinz with his Moki and the lion cub named Bubu....
+By the way, it's dead.... Well, where shall we have dinner?"
+
+"I'm dining with Jeanne.... I'm going to meet her in half an hour....
+I'm awfully sorry, Henny. We might all dine together."
+
+"A fat chance! No, I'll have to go and find that ass Aubrey, and hear
+all about the Peace Conference.... Heinz can't leave Moki because she's
+having hysterics on account of Bubu. I'll probably be driven to going to
+see Berthe in the end.... You're a nice one."
+
+"We'll have a grand seeing-off party for you tomorrow, Henny."
+
+"Look! I forgot! You're to meet Aubrey at the Crillon at five tomorrow,
+and he's going to take you to see Genevieve Rod?"
+
+"Who the hell's Genevieve Rod?"
+
+"Darned if I know. But Aubrey said you'd got to come. She is an
+intellectual, so Aubrey says."
+
+"That's the last thing I want to meet."
+
+"Well, you can't help yourself. So long!"
+
+Andrews sat a while more at the table outside the cafe. A cold wind was
+blowing. The sky was blue-black and the ashen white arc lamps cast a
+mortuary light over everything. In the Colonnade of the Palais Royal
+the shadows were harsh and inky. In the square the people were gradually
+thinning. The lights in the Magazin du Louvre had gone out. From the
+cafe behind him, a faint smell of fresh-cooked food began to saturate
+the cold air of the street.
+
+Then he saw Jeanne advancing across the ash-grey pavement of the square,
+slim and black under the arc lights. He ran to meet her.
+
+
+
+The cylindrical stove in the middle of the floor roared softly. In front
+of it the white cat was rolled into a fluffy ball in which ears and
+nose made tiny splashes of pink like those at the tips of the petals
+of certain white roses. One side of the stove at the table against the
+window, sat an old brown man with a bright red stain on each cheek bone,
+who wore formless corduroy clothes, the color of his skin. Holding the
+small spoon in a knotted hand he was stirring slowly and continuously a
+liquid that was yellow and steamed in a glass. Behind him was the window
+with sleet beating against it in the leaden light of a wintry afternoon.
+The other side of the stove was a zinc bar with yellow bottles and green
+bottles and a water spigot with a neck like a giraffe's that rose out of
+the bar beside a varnished wood pillar that made the decoration of the
+corner, with a terra cotta pot of ferns on top of it. From where Andrews
+sat on the padded bench at the back of the room the fern fronds made a
+black lacework against the lefthand side of the window, while against
+the other was the brown silhouette of the old man's head, and the
+slant of his cap. The stove hid the door and the white cat, round and
+symmetrical, formed the center of the visible universe. On the marble
+table beside Andrews were some pieces of crisp bread with butter on
+them, a saucer of damson jam and a bowl with coffee and hot milk from
+which the steam rose in a faint spiral. His tunic was unbuttoned and he
+rested his head on his two hands, staring through his fingers at a thick
+pile of ruled paper full of hastily drawn signs, some in ink and some
+in pencil, where now and then he made a mark with a pencil. At the other
+edge of the pile of papers were two books, one yellow and one white with
+coffee stains on it.
+
+The fire roared and the cat slept and the old brown man stirred and
+stirred, rarely stopping for a moment to lift the glass to his lips.
+Occasionally the scratching of sleet upon the windows became audible, or
+there was a distant sound of dish pans through the door in the back.
+
+The sallow-faced clock that hung above the mirror that backed the bar,
+jerked out one jingly strike, a half hour. Andrews did not look up.
+The cat still slept in front of the stove which roared with a gentle
+singsong. The old brown man still stirred the yellow liquid in his
+glass. The clock was ticking uphill towards the hour.
+
+Andrews's hands were cold. There was a nervous flutter in his wrists and
+in his chest. Inside of him was a great rift of light, infinitely vast
+and infinitely distant. Through it sounds poured from somewhere, so that
+he trembled with them to his finger tips, sounds modulated into rhythms
+that washed back and forth and crossed each other like sea waves in a
+cove, sounds clotted into harmonies.
+
+Behind everything the Queen of Sheba, out of Flaubert, held her
+fantastic hand with its long, gilded finger nails on his shoulder; and
+he was leaning forward over the brink of life. But the image was vague,
+like a shadow cast on the brilliance of his mind.
+
+The clock struck four.
+
+The white fluffy ball of the cat unrolled very slowly. Its eyes were
+very round and yellow. It put first one leg and then the other out
+before it on the tiled floor, spreading wide the pinkey-grey claws.
+Its tail rose up behind it straight as the mast of a ship. With slow
+processional steps the cat walked towards the door.
+
+The old brown man drank down the yellow liquid and smacked his lips
+twice, loudly, meditatively.
+
+Andrews raised his head, his blue eyes looking straight before him
+without seeing anything. Dropping the pencil, he leaned back against the
+wall and stretched his arms out. Taking the coffee bowl between his two
+hands, he drank s little. It was cold. He piled some jam on a piece of
+bread and ate it, licking a little off his fingers afterwards. Then he
+looked towards the old brown man and said:
+
+"On est bien ici, n'est ce pas, Monsieur Morue?"
+
+"Oui, on est bien ici," said the old brown man in a voice so gruff it
+seemed to rattle. Very slowly he got to his feet.
+
+"Good. I am going to the barge," he said. Then he called, "Chipette!"
+
+"Oui, m'sieu."
+
+A little girl in a black apron with her hair in two tight pigtails that
+stood out behind her tiny bullet head as she ran, came through the door
+from the back part of the house.
+
+"There, give that to your mother," said the old brown man, putting some
+coppers in her hand.
+
+"Oui, m'sieu."
+
+"You'd better stay here where it's warm," said Andrews yawning.
+
+"I have to work. It's only soldiers don't have to work," rattled the old
+brown man.
+
+When the door opened a gust of raw air circled about the wine shop,
+and a roar of wind and hiss of sleet came from the slush-covered quai
+outside. The cat took refuge beside the stove, with its back up and its
+tail waving. The door closed and the old brown man's silhouette, slanted
+against the wind, crossed the grey oblong of the window.
+
+Andrews settled down to work again.
+
+"But you work a lot a lot, don't you; M'sieu Jean?" said Chipette,
+putting her chin on the table beside the books and looking up into his
+eyes with little eyes like black beads.
+
+"I wonder if I do."
+
+"When I'm grown up I shan't work a bit. I'll drive round in a carriage."
+
+Andrews laughed. Chipette looked at him for a minute and then went into
+the other room carrying away the empty coffee bowl.
+
+In front of the stove the cat sat on its haunches, licking a paw
+rhythmically with a pink curling tongue like a rose petal.
+
+Andrews whistled a few bars, staring at the cat.
+
+"What d'you think of that, Minet? That's la reine de Saba... la reine de
+Saba."
+
+The cat curled into a ball again with great deliberation and went to
+sleep.
+
+Andrews began thinking of Jeanne and the thought gave him a sense of
+quiet well-being. Strolling with her in the evening through the streets
+full of men and women walking significantly together sent a languid calm
+through his jangling nerves which he had never known in his life before.
+It excited him to be with her, but very suavely, so that he forgot that
+his limbs were swathed stiffly in an uncomfortable uniform, so that his
+feverish desire seemed to fly out of him until with her body beside him,
+he seemed to drift effortlessly in the stream of the lives of all the
+people he passed, so languid, from the quiet loves that streamed up
+about him that the hard walls of his personality seemed to have melted
+entirely into the mistiness of twilight streets. And for a moment as he
+thought of it a scent of flowers, heavy with pollen, and sprouting
+grass and damp moss and swelling sap, seemed to tingle in his nostrils.
+Sometimes, swimming in the ocean on a rough day, he had felt that same
+reckless exhilaration when, towards the shore, a huge seething wave had
+caught him up and sped him forward on its crest. Sitting quietly in the
+empty wine shop that grey afternoon, he felt his blood grumble and swell
+in his veins as the new life was grumbling and swelling in the sticky
+buds of the trees, in the tender green quick under their rough bark, in
+the little furry animals of the woods and in the sweet-smelling cattle
+that tramped into mud the lush meadows. In the premonition of spring
+was a resistless wave of force that carried him and all of them with it
+tumultuously.
+
+The clock struck five.
+
+Andrews jumped to his feet and still struggling into his overcoat darted
+out of the door.
+
+A raw wind blew on the square. The river was a muddy grey-green, swollen
+and rapid. A hoarse triumphant roaring came from it. The sleet had
+stopped; but the pavements were covered with slush and in the gutters
+were large puddles which the wind ruffled. Everything,--houses, bridges,
+river and sky,--was in shades of cold grey-green, broken by one jagged
+ochre-colored rift across the sky against which the bulk of Notre Dame
+and the slender spire of the crossing rose dark and purplish. Andrews
+walked with long strides, splashing through the puddles, until, opposite
+the low building of the Morgue, he caught a crowded green bus.
+
+Outside the Hotel Crillon were many limousines, painted olive-drab,
+with numbers in white letters on the doors; the drivers, men with their
+olive-drab coat collars turned up round their red faces, stood in
+groups under the portico. Andrews passed the sentry and went through the
+revolving doors into the lobby, which was vividly familiar. It had the
+smell he remembered having smelt in the lobbies of New York hotels,--a
+smell of cigar smoke and furniture polish. On one side a door led to
+a big dining room where many men and women were having tea, from which
+came a smell of pastry and rich food. On the expanse of red carpet
+in front of him officers and civilians stood in groups talking in low
+voices. There was a sound of jingling spurs and jingling dishes from the
+restaurant, and near where Andrews stood shifting his weight from one
+foot to the other, sprawled in a leather chair a fat man with a black
+felt hat over his eyes and a large watch chain dangling limply over his
+bulbous paunch. He cleared his throat occasionally with a rasping noise
+and spat loudly into the spittoon beside him.
+
+At last Andrews caught sight of Aubrey, who was dapper with white cheeks
+and tortoise shell glasses.
+
+"Come along," he said, seizing Andrews by the arm.
+
+"You are late." Then, he went on, whispering in Andrews's ear as they
+went out through the revolving doors: "Great things happened in the
+Conference today.... I can tell you that, old man."
+
+They crossed the bridge towards the portico of the Chamber of Deputies
+with its high pediment and its grey columns. Down the river they could
+see faintly the Eiffel Tower with a drift of mist athwart it, like a
+section of spider web spun between the city and the clouds.
+
+"Do we have to go to see these people, Aubrey?"
+
+"Yes, you can't back out now. Genevieve Rod wants to know about American
+music."
+
+"But what on earth can I tell her about American music?"
+
+"Wasn't there a man named MacDowell who went mad or something?" Andrews
+laughed.
+
+"But you know I haven't any social graces.... I suppose I'll have to say
+I think Foch is a little tin god."
+
+"You needn't say anything if you don't want to.... They're very
+advanced, anyway."
+
+"Oh, rats!"
+
+They were going up a brown-carpeted stair that had engravings on the
+landings, where there was a faint smell of stale food and dustpans. At
+the top landing Aubrey rang the bell at a varnished door. In a moment a
+girl opened it. She had a cigarette in her hand, her face was pale under
+a mass of reddish-chestnut hair, her eyes very large, a pale brown,
+as large as the eyes of women in those paintings of Artemisias and
+Berenikes found in tombs in the Fayum. She wore a plain black dress.
+
+"Enfin!" she said, and held out her hand to Aubrey.
+
+"There's my friend Andrews."
+
+She held out her hand to him absently, still looking at Aubrey.
+
+"Does he speak French?... Good.... This way." They went into a large
+room with a piano where an elderly woman, with grey hair and yellow
+teeth and the same large eyes as her daughter, stood before the
+fireplace.
+
+"Maman... enfin ils arrivent, ces messieurs."
+
+"Genevieve was afraid you weren't coming," Mme. Rod said to Andrews,
+smiling. "Monsieur Aubrey gave us such a picture of your playing that we
+have been excited all day.... We adore music."
+
+"I wish I could do something more to the point with it than adore
+it," said Genevieve Rod hastily, then she went on with a laugh: "But I
+forget..... Monsieur Andreffs.... Monsieur Ronsard." She made a gesture
+with her hand from Andrews to a young Frenchman in a cut-away coat, with
+small mustaches and a very tight vest, who bowed towards Andrews.
+
+"Now we'll have tea," said Genevieve Rod. "Everybody talks sense until
+they've had tea.... It's only after tea that anyone is ever amusing."
+She pulled open some curtains that covered the door into the adjoining
+room.
+
+"I understand why Sarah Bernhardt is so fond of curtains," she said.
+"They give an air of drama to existence.... There is nothing more heroic
+than curtains."
+
+She sat at the head of an oak table where were china platters with
+vari-colored pastries, an old pewter kettle under which an alcohol lamp
+burned, a Dresden china teapot in pale yellows and greens, and cups and
+saucers and plates with a double-headed eagle design in dull vermilion.
+"Tout ca," said Genevieve, waving her hand across the table, "c'est
+Boche.... But we haven't any others, so they'll have to do."
+
+The older woman, who sat beside her, whispered something in her ear and
+laughed.
+
+Genevieve put on a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles and starting
+pouring out tea.
+
+"Debussy once drank out of that cup..... It's cracked," she said,
+handing a cup to John Andrews. "Do you know anything of Moussorgski's
+you can play to us after tea?"
+
+"I can't play anything any more.... Ask me three months from now."
+
+"Oh, yes; but nobody expects you to do any tricks with it. You can
+certainly make it intelligible. That's all I want."
+
+"I have my doubts."
+
+Andrews sipped his tea slowly, looking now and then at Genevieve Rod who
+had suddenly begun talking very fast to Ronsard. She held a cigarette
+between the fingers of a long thin hand. Her large pale-brown eyes kept
+their startled look of having just opened on the world; a little smile
+appeared and disappeared maliciously in the curve of her cheek away from
+her small firm lips. The older woman beside her kept looking round the
+table with a jolly air of hospitality, and showing her yellow teeth in a
+smile.
+
+Afterwards they went back to the sitting room and Andrews sat down
+at the piano. The girl sat very straight on a little chair beside the
+piano. Andrews ran his fingers up and down the keys.
+
+"Did you say you knew Debussy?" he said suddenly. "I? No; but he used to
+come to see my father when I was a little girl.... I have been brought
+up in the middle of music.... That shows how silly it is to be a woman.
+There is no music in my head. Of course I am sensitive to it, but so are
+the tables and chairs in this apartment, after all they've heard."
+
+ Andrews started playing Schumann. He stopped suddenly.
+
+"Can you sing?" he said.
+
+"No."
+
+"I'd like to do the Proses Lyriques.... I've never heard them."
+
+"I once tried to sing Le Soir," she said.
+
+"Wonderful. Do bring it out."
+
+"But, good Lord, it's too difficult."
+
+"What is the use of being fond of music if you aren't willing to mangle
+it for the sake of producing it?... I swear I'd rather hear a man
+picking out Aupres de ma Blonde on a trombone that Kreisler playing
+Paganini impeccably enough to make you ill."
+
+"But there is a middle ground."
+
+He interrupted her by starting to play again. As he played without
+looking at her, he felt that her eyes were fixed on him, that she was
+standing tensely behind him. Her hand touched his shoulder. He stopped
+playing.
+
+"Oh, I am dreadfully sorry," she said.
+
+"Nothing. I am finished."
+
+"You were playing something of your own?"
+
+"Have you ever read La Tentation de Saint Antoine?" he asked in a low
+voice.
+
+"Flaubert's?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It's not his best work. A very interesting failure though," she said.
+
+Andrews got up from the piano with difficulty, controlling a sudden
+growing irritation.
+
+"They seem to teach everybody to say that," he muttered.
+
+Suddenly he realized that other people were in the room. He went up to
+Mme. Rod.
+
+"You must excuse me," he said, "I have an engagement.... Aubrey, don't
+let me drag you away. I am late, I've got to run."
+
+"You must come to see us again."
+
+"Thank you," mumbled Andrews.
+
+Genevieve Rod went with him to the door. "We must know each other
+better," she said. "I like you for going off in a huff."
+
+Andrews flushed.
+
+"I was badly brought up," he said, pressing her thin cold hand. "And
+you French must always remember that we are barbarians.... Some are
+repentant barbarians.... I am not."
+
+She laughed, and John Andrews ran down the stairs and out into the
+grey-blue streets, where the lamps were blooming into primrose color.
+He had a confused feeling that he had made a fool of himself, which made
+him writhe with helpless anger. He walked with long strides through the
+streets of the Rive Gauche full of people going home from work, towards
+the little wine shop on the Quai de la Tournelle.
+
+
+
+It was a Paris Sunday morning. Old women in black shawls were going into
+the church of St. Etienne-du-Mont. Each time the leather doors opened
+it let a little whiff of incense out into the smoky morning air. Three
+pigeons walked about the cobblestones, putting their coral feet one
+before the other with an air of importance. The pointed facade of the
+church and its slender tower and cupola cast a bluish shadow on the
+square in front of it, into which the shadows the old women trailed
+behind them vanished as they hobbled towards the church. The opposite
+side of the square and the railing of the Pantheon and its tall
+brownish-gray flank were flooded with dull orange-colored sunlight.
+
+Andrews walked back and forth in front of the church, looking at the sky
+and the pigeons and the facade of the Library of Ste. Genevieve, and at
+the rare people who passed across the end of the square, noting forms
+and colors and small comical aspects of things with calm delight,
+savoring everything almost with complacency. His music, he felt, was
+progressing now that, undisturbed, he lived all day long in the rhythm
+of it; his mind and his fingers were growing supple. The hard moulds
+that had grown up about his spirit were softening. As he walked back and
+forth in front of the church waiting for Jeanne, he took an inventory of
+his state of mind; he was very happy.
+
+"Eh bien?"
+
+Jeanne had come up behind him. They ran like children hand in hand
+across the sunny square.
+
+"I have not had any coffee yet," said Andrews.
+
+"How late you must get up!... But you can't have any till we get to the
+Porte Maillot, Jean."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I say you can't."
+
+"But that's cruelty."
+
+"It won't be long."
+
+"But I am dying with hunger. I will die in your hands."
+
+"Can't you understand? Once we get to the Porte Maillot we'll be far
+from your life and my life. The day will be ours. One must not tempt
+fate."
+
+"You funny girl."
+
+The Metro was not crowded, Andrews and Jeanne sat opposite each other
+without talking. Andrews was looking at the girl's hands, limp on her
+lap, small overworked hands with places at the tips of the fingers where
+the skin was broken and scarred, with chipped uneven nails. Suddenly she
+caught his glance. He flushed, and she said jauntily:
+
+"Well, we'll all be rich some day, like princes and princesses in fairy
+tales." They both laughed.
+
+As they were leaving the train at the terminus, he put his arm timidly
+round her waist. She wore no corsets. His fingers trembled at the
+litheness of the flesh under her clothes. Feeling a sort of terror go
+through him he took away his arm.
+
+"Now," she said quietly as they emerged into the sunlight and the bare
+trees of the broad avenue, "you can have all the cafe-au-lait you want."
+
+"You'll have some too."
+
+"Why be extravagant? I've had my petit dejeuner."
+
+"But I'm going to be extravagant all day.... We might as well start now.
+I don't know exactly why, but I am very happy. We'll eat brioches."
+
+"But, my dear, it's only profiteers who can eat brioches now-a-days."
+
+"You just watch us."
+
+They went into a patisserie. An elderly woman with a lean yellow face
+and thin hair waited on them, casting envious glances up through her
+eyelashes as she piled the rich brown brioches on a piece of tissue
+paper.
+
+"You'll pass the day in the country?" she asked in a little wistful
+voice as she handed Andrews the change.
+
+"Yes," he said, "how well you guessed."
+
+As they went out of the door they heard her muttering, "O la jeunesse,
+la jeunesse."
+
+They found a table in the sun at a cafe opposite the gate from which
+they could watch people and automobiles and carriages coming in and out.
+Beyond, a grass-grown bit of fortifications gave an 1870 look to things.
+
+"How jolly it is at the Porte Maillot!" cried Andrews.
+
+She looked at him and laughed.
+
+"But how gay he is to-day."
+
+"No. I always like it here. It's the spot in Paris where you always feel
+well.... When you go out you have all the fun of leaving town, when you
+go in you have all the fun of coming back to town.... But you aren't
+eating any brioches?"
+
+"I've eaten one. You eat them. You are hungry."
+
+"Jeanne, I don't think I have ever been so happy in my life.... It's
+almost worth having been in the army for the joy your freedom gives you.
+That frightful life.... How is Etienne?"
+
+"He is in Mayence. He's bored."
+
+"Jeanne, we must live very much, we who are free to make up for all the
+people who are still... bored."
+
+"A lot of good it'll do them," she cried laughing.
+
+"It's funny, Jeanne, I threw myself into the army. I was so sick of
+being free and not getting anywhere. Now I have learnt that life is to
+be used, not just held in the hand like a box of bonbons that nobody
+eats."
+
+She looked at him blankly.
+
+"I mean, I don't think I get enough out of life," he said. "Let's go."
+
+They got to their feet.
+
+"What do you mean?" she said slowly. "One takes what life gives, that is
+all, there's no choice.... But look, there's the Malmaison train.... We
+must run."
+
+Giggling and breathless they climbed on the trailer, squeezing
+themselves on the back platform where everyone was pushing and
+exclaiming. The car began to joggle its way through Neuilly. Their
+bodies were pressed together by the men and women about them. Andrews
+put his arm firmly round Jeanne's waist and looked down at her pale
+cheek that was pressed against his chest. Her little round black straw
+hat with a bit of a red flower on it was just under his chin.
+
+"I can't see a thing," she gasped, still giggling.
+
+"I'll describe the landscape," said Andrews. "Why, we are crossing the
+Seine already."
+
+"Oh, how pretty it must be!"
+
+An old gentleman with a pointed white beard who stood beside them
+laughed benevolently.
+
+"But don't you think the Seine's pretty?" Jeanne looked up at him
+impudently.
+
+"Without a doubt, without a doubt.... It was the way you said it," said
+the old gentleman.... "You are going to St. Germain?" he asked Andrews.
+
+"No, to Malmaison."
+
+"Oh, you should go to St. Germain. M. Reinach's prehistoric museum is
+there. It is very beautiful. You should not go home to your country
+without seeing it."
+
+"Are there monkeys in it?" asked Jeanne.
+
+"No," said the old gentleman turning away.
+
+"I adore monkeys," said Jeanne.
+
+The car was going along a broad empty boulevard with trees and grass
+plots and rows of low store-houses and little dilapidated rooming houses
+along either side. Many people had got out and there was plenty of room,
+but Andrews kept his arm round the girl's waist. The constant contact
+with her body made him feel very languid.
+
+"How good it smells!" said Jeanne.
+
+"It's the spring."
+
+"I want to lie on the grass and eat violets.... Oh, how good you were
+to bring me out like this, Jean. You must know lots of fine ladies you
+could have brought out, because you are so well educated. How is it you
+are only an ordinary soldier?"
+
+"Good God! I wouldn't be an officer."
+
+"Why? It must be rather nice to be an officer."
+
+"Does Etienne want to be an officer?"
+
+"But he's a socialist, that's different."
+
+"Well, I suppose I must be a socialist too, but let's talk of something
+else."
+
+Andrews moved over to the other side of the platform. They were passing
+little villas with gardens on the road where yellow and pale-purple
+crocuses bloomed. Now and then there was a scent of violets in the moist
+air. The sun had disappeared under soft purplish-grey clouds. There was
+occasionally a rainy chill in the wind.
+
+Andrews suddenly thought of Genevieve Rod. Curious how vividly he
+remembered her face, her wide, open eyes and her way of smiling without
+moving her firm lips. A feeling of annoyance went through him. How silly
+of him to go off rudely like that! And he became very anxious to talk to
+her again; things he wanted to say to her came to his mind.
+
+"Well, are you asleep?" said Jeanne tugging at his arm. "Here we are."
+
+Andrews flushed furiously.
+
+"Oh, how nice it is here, how nice it is here!" Jeanne was saying.
+
+"Why, it is eleven o'clock," said Andrews.
+
+"We must see the palace before lunch," cried Jeanne, and she started
+running up a lane of linden trees, where the fat buds were just bursting
+into little crinkling fans of green. New grass was sprouting in the wet
+ditches on either side. Andrews ran after her, his feet pounding hard in
+the moist gravel road. When he caught up to her he threw his arms round
+her recklessly and kissed her panting mouth. She broke away from him and
+strode demurely arranging her hat.
+
+"Monster," she said, "I trimmed this hat specially to come out with you
+and you do your best to wreck it."
+
+"Poor little hat," said Andrews, "but it is so beautiful today, and you
+are very lovely, Jeanne."
+
+"The great Napoleon must have said that to the Empress Josephine and you
+know what he did to her," said Jeanne almost solemnly.
+
+"But she must have been awfully bored with him long before."
+
+"No," said Jeanne, "that's how women are."
+
+They went through big iron gates into the palace grounds.
+
+Later they sat at a table in the garden of a little restaurant. The sun,
+very pale, had just showed itself, making the knives and forks and the
+white wine in their glasses gleam faintly. Lunch had not come yet. They
+sat looking at each other silently. Andrews felt weary and melancholy.
+He could think of nothing to say. Jeanne was playing with some tiny
+white daisies with pink tips to their petals, arranging them in circles
+and crosses on the tablecloth.
+
+"Aren't they slow?" said Andrews.
+
+"But it's nice here, isn't it?" Jeanne smiled brilliantly. "But how glum
+he looks now." She threw some daisies at him. Then, after a pause, she
+added mockingly: "It's hunger, my dear. Good Lord, how dependent men are
+on food!"
+
+Andrews drank down his wine at a gulp. He felt that if he could only
+make an effort he could lift off the stifling melancholy that was
+settling down on him like a weight that kept growing heavier.
+
+A man in khaki, with his face and neck scarlet, staggered into the
+garden dragging beside him a mud-encrusted bicycle. He sank into an iron
+chair, letting the bicycle fall with a clatter at his feet.
+
+"Hi, hi," he called in a hoarse voice.
+
+A waiter appeared and contemplated him suspiciously. The man in khaki
+had hair as red as his face, which was glistening with sweat. His shirt
+was torn, and he had no coat. His breeches and puttees were invisible
+for mud.
+
+"Gimme a beer," croaked the man in khaki.
+
+The waiter shrugged his shoulders and walked away.
+
+"Il demande une biere," said Andrews.
+
+"Mais Monsieur...."
+
+"I'll pay. Get it for him."
+
+The waiter disappeared.
+
+"Thankee, Yank," roared the man in khaki.
+
+The waiter brought a tall narrow yellow glass. The man in khaki took
+it from his hand, drank it down at a draught and handed back the empty
+glass. Then he spat, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, got with
+difficulty to his feet and shambled towards Andrews's table.
+
+"Oi presoom the loidy and you don't mind, Yank, if Oi parley wi' yez a
+bit. Do yez?"
+
+"No, come along; where did you come from?"
+
+The man in khaki dragged an iron chair behind him to a spot near the
+table. Before sitting down he bobbed his head in the direction of Jeanne
+with an air of solemnity tugging at the same time at a lock of his red
+hair. After some fumbling he got a red-bordered handkerchief out of
+his pocket and wiped his face with it, leaving a long black smudge of
+machine oil on his forehead.
+
+"Oi'm a bearer of important secret messages, Yank," he said, leaning
+back in the little iron chair. "Oi'm a despatch-rider."
+
+"You look all in."
+
+"Not a bit of it. Oi just had a little hold up, that's all, in a
+woodland lane. Some buggers tried to do me in."
+
+"What d'you mean?"
+
+"Oi guess they had a little information... that's all. Oi'm carryin'
+important messages from our headquarters in Rouen to your president. Oi
+was goin' through a bloody thicket past this side. Oi don't know how you
+pronounce the bloody town.... Oi was on my bike making about thoity for
+the road was all a-murk when Oi saw four buggers standing acrost the
+road... lookter me suspiciouslike, so Oi jus' jammed the juice into
+the boike and made for the middle 'un. He dodged all right. Then they
+started shootin' and a bloody bullet buggered the boike.... It was bein'
+born with a caul that saved me.... Oi picked myself up outer the
+ditch an lost 'em in the woods. Then Oi got to another bloody town and
+commandeered this old sweatin' machine.... How many kills is there to
+Paris, Yank?"
+
+"Fifteen or sixteen, I think."
+
+"What's he saying, Jean?"
+
+"Some men tried to stop him on the road. He's a despatch-rider."
+
+"Isn't he ugly? Is he English?"
+
+"Irish."
+
+"You bet you, miss; Hirlanday; that's me.... You picked a good looker
+this toime, Yank. But wait till Oi git to Paree. Oi clane up a good
+hundre' pound on this job in bonuses. What part d'ye come from, Yank?"
+
+"Virginia. I live in New York."
+
+"Oi been in Detroit; goin' back there to git in the automoebile business
+soon as Oi clane up a few more bonuses. Europe's dead an stinkin', Yank.
+Ain't no place for a young fellow. It's dead an stinkin', that's what it
+is."
+
+"It's pleasanter to live here than in America.... Say, d'you often get
+held up that way?"
+
+"Ain't happened to me before, but it has to pals o' moine."
+
+"Who d'you think it was?
+
+"Oi dunno; 'Unns or some of these bloody secret agents round the Peace
+Conference.... But Oi got to go; that despatch won't keep."
+
+"All right. The beer's on me."
+
+"Thank ye, Yank." The man got to his feet, shook hands with Andrews and
+Jeanne, jumped on the bicycle and rode out of the garden to the road,
+threading his way through the iron chairs and tables.
+
+"Wasn't he a funny customer?" cried Andrews, laughing. "What a wonderful
+joke things are!"
+
+The waiter arrived with the omelette that began their lunch.
+
+"Gives you an idea of how the old lava's bubbling in the volcano.
+There's nowhere on earth a man can dance so well as on a volcano."
+
+"But don't talk that way," said Jeanne laying down her knife and fork.
+"It's terrible. We will waste our youth to no purpose. Our fathers
+enjoyed themselves when they were young.... And if there had been no
+war we should have been so happy, Etienne and I. My father was a small
+manufacturer of soap and perfumery. Etienne would have had a splendid
+situation. I should never have had to work. We had a nice house. I
+should have been married...."
+
+"But this way, Jeanne, haven't you more freedom?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders. Later she burst out: "But what's the good
+of freedom? What can you do with it? What one wants is to live well and
+have a beautiful house and be respected by people. Oh, life was so sweet
+in France before the war."
+
+"In that case it's not worth living," said Andrews in a savage voice,
+holding himself in.
+
+They went on eating silently. The sky became overcast. A few drops
+splashed on the table-cloth.
+
+"We'll have to take coffee inside," said Andrews.
+
+"And you think it is funny that people shoot at a man on a motorcycle
+going through a wood. All that seems to me terrible, terrible," said
+Jeanne.
+
+"Look out. Here comes the rain!"
+
+They ran into the restaurant through the first hissing sheet of the
+shower and sat at a table near a window watching the rain drops dance
+and flicker on the green iron tables. A scent of wet earth and the
+mushroom-like odor of sodden leaves came in borne on damp gusts through
+the open door. A waiter closed the glass doors and bolted them.
+
+"He wants to keep out the spring. He can't," said Andrews.
+
+They smiled at each other over their coffee cups. They were in sympathy
+again.
+
+When the rain stopped they walked across wet fields by a foot path full
+of little clear puddles that reflected the blue sky and the white-and
+amber-tinged clouds where the shadows were light purplish-grey. They
+walked slowly arm in arm, pressing their bodies together. They were very
+tired, they did not know why and stopped often to rest leaning against
+the damp boles of trees. Beside a pond pale blue and amber and silver
+from the reflected sky, they found under a big beech tree a patch of
+wild violets, which Jeanne picked greedily, mixing them with the little
+crimson-tipped daisies in the tight bouquet. At the suburban railway
+station, they sat silent, side by side on a bench, sniffing the flowers
+now and then, so sunk in languid weariness that they could hardly summon
+strength to climb into a seat on top of a third class coach, which was
+crowded with people coming home from a day in the country. Everybody
+had violets and crocuses and twigs with buds on them. In people's stiff,
+citified clothes lingered a smell of wet fields and sprouting woods.
+All the girls shrieked and threw their arms round the men when the train
+went through a tunnel or under a bridge. Whatever happened, everybody
+laughed. When the train arrived in the station, it was almost with
+reluctance that they left it, as if they felt that from that moment
+their work-a-day lives began again. Andrews and Jeanne walked down the
+platform without touching each other. Their fingers were stained and
+sticky from touching buds and crushing young sappy leaves and grass
+stalks. The air of the city seemed dense and unbreathable after the
+scented moisture of the fields.
+
+They dined at a little restaurant on the Quai Voltaire and afterwards
+walked slowly towards the Place St. Michel, feeling the wine and the
+warmth of the food sending new vigor into their tired bodies. Andrews
+had his arm round her shoulder and they talked in low intimate voices,
+hardly moving their lips, looking long at the men and women they saw
+sitting twined in each other's arms on benches, at the couples of boys
+and girls that kept passing them, talking slowly and quietly, as they
+were, bodies pressed together as theirs were.
+
+"How many lovers there are," said Andrews.
+
+"Are we lovers?" asked Jeanne with a curious little laugh.
+
+"I wonder.... Have you ever been crazily in love, Jeanne?"
+
+"I don't know. There was a boy in Laon named Marcelin. But I was a
+little fool then. The last news of him was from Verdun."
+
+"Have you had many... like I am?"
+
+"How sentimental we are," she cried laughing.
+
+"No. I wanted to know. I know so little of life," said Andrews.
+
+"I have amused myself, as best I could," said Jeanne in a serious
+tone. "But I am not frivolous.... There have been very few men I have
+liked.... So I have had few friends... do you want to call them lovers?
+But lovers are what married women have on the stage.... All that sort of
+thing is very silly."
+
+"Not so very long ago," said Andrews, "I used to dream of being
+romantically in love, with people climbing up the ivy on castle walls,
+and fiery kisses on balconies in the moonlight."
+
+"Like at the Opera Comique," cried Jeanne laughing.
+
+"That was all very silly. But even now, I want so much more of life than
+life can give."
+
+They leaned over the parapet and listened to the hurrying swish of the
+river, now soft and now loud, where the reflections of the lights on the
+opposite bank writhed like golden snakes.
+
+Andrews noticed that there was someone beside them. The faint, greenish
+glow from the lamp on the quai enabled him to recognize the lame boy he
+had talked to months ago on the Butte.
+
+"I wonder if you'll remember me," he said.
+
+"You are the American who was in the Restaurant, Place du Terte, I don't
+remember when, but it was long ago."
+
+They shook hands.
+
+"But you are alone," said Andrews.
+
+"Yes, I am always alone," said the lame boy firmly. He held out his hand
+again.
+
+"Au revoir," said Andrews.
+
+"Good luck!" said the lame boy. Andrews heard his crutch tapping on the
+pavement as he went away along the quai.
+
+"Jeanne," said Andrews, suddenly, "you'll come home with me, won't you?"
+
+"But you have a friend living with you."
+
+"He's gone to Brussels. He won't be back till tomorrow."
+
+"I suppose one must pay for one's dinner," said Jeanne maliciously.
+
+"Good God, no." Andrews buried his face in his hands. The singsong
+of the river pouring through the bridges, filled his ears. He wanted
+desperately to cry. Bitter desire that was like hatred made his flesh
+tingle, made his hands ache to crush her hands in them.
+
+"Come along," he said gruffly.
+
+"I didn't mean to say that," she said in a gentle, tired voice. "You
+know, I'm not a very nice person." The greenish glow of the lamp lit
+up the contour of one of her cheeks as she tilted her head up, and
+glimmered in her eyes. A soft sentimental sadness suddenly took hold
+of Andrews; he felt as he used to feel when, as a very small child, his
+mother used to tell him Br' Rabbit stories, and he would feel himself
+drifting helplessly on the stream of her soft voice, narrating, drifting
+towards something unknown and very sad, which he could not help.
+
+They started walking again, past the Pont Neuf, towards the glare of the
+Place St. Michel. Three names had come into Andrews's head, "Arsinoe,
+Berenike, Artemisia." For a little while he puzzled over them, and then
+he remembered that Genevieve Rod had the large eyes and the wide, smooth
+forehead and the firm little lips the women had in the portraits that
+were sewn on the mummy cases in the Fayum. But those patrician women of
+Alexandria had not had chestnut hair with a glimpse of burnished copper
+in it; they might have dyed it, though!
+
+"Why are you laughing?" asked Jeanne.
+
+"Because things are so silly."
+
+"Perhaps you mean people are silly," she said, looking up at him out of
+the corners of her eyes.
+
+"You're right."
+
+They walked in silence till they reached Andrews's door.
+
+"You go up first and see that there's no one there," said Jeanne in a
+business-like tone.
+
+Andrews's hands were cold. He felt his heart thumping while he climbed
+the stairs.
+
+The room was empty. A fire was ready to light in the small fireplace.
+Andrews hastily tidied up the table and kicked under the bed some soiled
+clothes that lay in a heap in a corner. A thought came to him: how
+like his performances in his room at college when he had heard that a
+relative was coming to see him.
+
+He tiptoed downstairs.
+
+"Bien. Tu peux venir, Jeanne," he said.
+
+She sat down rather stiffly in the straight-backed armchair beside the
+fire.
+
+"How pretty the fire is," she said.
+
+"Jeanne, I think I'm crazily in love with you," said Andrews in an
+excited voice.
+
+"Like at the Opera Comique." She shrugged her shoulders. "The room's
+nice," she said. "Oh, but, what a big bed!"
+
+"You're the first woman who's been up here in my time, Jeanne.... Oh,
+but this uniform is frightful."
+
+Andrews thought suddenly of all the tingling bodies constrained into
+the rigid attitudes of automatons in uniforms like this one; of all the
+hideous farce of making men into machines. Oh, if some gesture of his
+could only free them all for life and freedom and joy. The thought
+drowned everything else for the moment.
+
+"But you pulled a button off," cried Jeanne laughing hysterically. "I'll
+just have to sew it on again."
+
+"Never mind. If you knew how I hated them."
+
+"What white skin you have, like a woman's. I suppose that's because you
+are blond," said Jeanne.
+
+
+
+The sound of the door being shaken vigorously woke Andrews. He got up
+and stood in the middle of the floor for a moment without being able
+to collect his wits. The shaking of the door continued, and he heard
+Walters's voice crying "Andy, Andy." Andrews felt shame creeping up
+through him like nausea. He felt a passionate disgust towards himself
+and Jeanne and Walters. He had an impulse to move furtively as if he had
+stolen something. He went to the door and opened it a little.
+
+"Say, Walters, old man," he said, "I can't let you in.... I've got
+a girl with me. I'm sorry.... I thought you wouldn't get back till
+tomorrow."
+
+"You're kidding, aren't you?" came Walters's voice out of the dark hall.
+
+"No." Andrews shut the door decisively and bolted it again.
+
+Jeanne was still asleep. Her black hair had come undone and spread over
+the pillow. Andrews pulled the covers up about her carefully.
+
+Then he got into the other bed, where he lay awake a long time, staring
+at the ceiling.
+
+
+
+                                                IV
+
+People walking along the boulevard looked curiously through the railing
+at the line of men in olive-drab that straggled round the edge of the
+courtyard. The line moved slowly, past a table where an officer and
+two enlisted men sat poring over big lists of names and piles of palely
+tinted banknotes and silver francs that glittered white. Above the men's
+heads a thin haze of cigarette smoke rose into the sunlight. There was
+a sound of voices and of feet shuffling on the gravel. The men who had
+been paid went off jauntily, the money jingling in their pockets.
+
+The men at the table had red faces and tense, serious expressions.
+They pushed the money into the soldiers' hands with a rough jerk and
+pronounced the names as if they were machines clicking.
+
+Andrews saw that one of the men at the table was Walters; he smiled and
+whispered "Hello" as he came up to him. Walters kept his eyes fixed on
+the list.
+
+While Andrews was waiting for the man ahead of him to be paid, he heard
+two men in the line talking.
+
+"Wasn't that a hell of a place? D'you remember the lad that died in the
+barracks one day?"
+
+"Sure, I was in the medicks there too. There was a hell of a sergeant
+in that company tried to make the kid get up, and the loot came and said
+he'd court-martial him, an' then they found out that he'd cashed in his
+checks."
+
+"What'd 'ee die of?"
+
+"Heart failure, I guess. I dunno, though, he never did take to the
+life."
+
+"No. That place Cosne was enough to make any guy cash in his checks."
+
+Andrews got his money. As he was walking away, he strolled up to the two
+men he had heard talking.
+
+"Were you fellows in Cosne?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"Did you know a fellow named Fuselli?"
+
+"I dunno...."
+
+"Sure, you do," said the other man. "You remember Dan Fuselli, the
+little wop thought he was goin' to be corporal."
+
+"He had another think comin'." They both laughed.
+
+Andrews walked off, vaguely angry. There were many soldiers on the
+Boulevard Montparnasse. He turned into a side street, feeling suddenly
+furtive and humble, as if he would hear any minute the harsh voice of a
+sergeant shouting orders at him.
+
+The silver in his breeches pocket jingled with every step.
+
+
+
+Andrews leaned on the balustrade of the balcony, looking down into the
+square in front of the Opera Comique. He was dizzy with the beauty of
+the music he had been hearing. He had a sense somewhere in the distances
+of his mind of the great rhythm of the sea. People chattered all about
+him on the wide, crowded balcony, but he was only conscious of the
+blue-grey mistiness of the night where the lights made patterns in
+green-gold and red-gold. And compelling his attention from everything
+else, the rhythm swept through him like sea waves.
+
+"I thought you'd be here," said Genevieve Rod in a quiet voice beside
+him.
+
+Andrews felt strangely tongue-tied.
+
+"It's nice to see you," he blurted out, after looking at her silently
+for a moment.
+
+"Of course you love Pelleas."
+
+"It is the first time I've heard it."
+
+"Why haven't you been to see us? It's two weeks.... We've been expecting
+you."
+
+"I didn't know...Oh, I'll certainly come. I don't know anyone at present
+I can talk music to."
+
+"You know me."
+
+"Anyone else, I should have said."
+
+"Are you working?"
+
+"Yes.... But this hinders frightfully." Andrews yanked at the front
+of his tunic. "Still, I expect to be free very soon. I'm putting in an
+application for discharge."
+
+"I suppose you will feel you can do so much better.... You will be much
+stronger now that you have done your duty."
+
+"No... by no means."
+
+"Tell me, what was that you played at our house?"
+
+"'The Three Green Riders on Wild Asses,'" said Andrews smiling.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"It's a prelude to the 'Queen of Sheba,'" said Andrews. "If you didn't
+think the same as M. Emile Faguet and everyone else about St. Antoine,
+I'd tell you what I mean."
+
+"That was very silly of me.... But if you pick up all the silly things
+people say accidentally... well, you must be angry most of the time."
+
+In the dim light he could not see her eyes. There was a little glow
+on the curve of her cheek coming from under the dark of her hat to her
+rather pointed chin. Behind it he could see other faces of men and women
+crowded on the balcony talking, lit up crudely by the gold glare that
+came out through the French windows from the lobby.
+
+"I have always been tremendously fascinated by the place in La Tentation
+where the Queen of Sheba visited Antoine, that's all," said Andrews
+gruffly.
+
+"Is that the first thing you've done? It made me think a little of
+Borodine."
+
+"The first that's at all pretentious. It's probably just a steal from
+everything I've ever heard."
+
+"No, it's good. I suppose you had it in your head all through those
+dreadful and glorious days at the front.... Is it for piano or
+orchestra?"
+
+"All that's finished is for piano. I hope to orchestrate it
+eventually.... Oh, but it's really silly to talk this way. I don't know
+enough.... I need years of hard work before I can do anything.... And I
+have wasted so much time.... That is the most frightful thing. One has
+so few years of youth!"
+
+"There's the bell, we must scuttle back to our seats. Till the next
+intermission." She slipped through the glass doors and disappeared.
+Andrews went back to his seat very excited, full of unquiet exultation.
+The first strains of the orchestra were pain, he felt them so acutely.
+
+After the last act they walked in silence down a dark street, hurrying
+to get away from the crowds of the Boulevards.
+
+When they reached the Avenue de l'Opera, she said: "Did you say you were
+going to stay in France?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, if I can. I am going tomorrow to put in an application for
+discharge in France."
+
+"What will you do then?"
+
+"I shall have to find a job of some sort that will let me study at the
+Schola Cantorum. But I have enough money to last a little while."
+
+"You are courageous."
+
+"I forgot to ask you if you would rather take the Metro."
+
+"No; let's walk."
+
+They went under the arch of the Louvre. The air was full of a fine wet
+mist, so that every street lamp was surrounded by a blur of light.
+
+"My blood is full of the music of Debussy," said Genevieve Rod,
+spreading out her arms.
+
+"It's no use trying to say what one feels about it. Words aren't much
+good, anyway, are they?"
+
+"That depends."
+
+They walked silently along the quais. The mist was so thick they could
+not see the Seine, but whenever they came near a bridge they could hear
+the water rustling through the arches.
+
+"France is stifling," said Andrews, all of a sudden. "It stifles you
+very slowly, with beautiful silk bands.... America beats your brains out
+with a policeman's billy."
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked, letting pique chill her voice.
+
+"You know so much in France. You have made the world so neat...."
+
+"But you seem to want to stay here," she said with a laugh.
+
+"It's that there's nowhere else. There is nowhere except Paris where one
+can find out things about music, particularly.... But I am one of those
+people who was not made to be contented."
+
+"Only sheep are contented."
+
+"I think I have been happier this month in Paris than ever before in my
+life. It seems six, so much has happened in it."
+
+"Poissac is where I am happiest."
+
+"Where is that?"
+
+"We have a country house there, very old and very tumbledown. They say
+that Rabelais used to come to the village. But our house is from later,
+from the time of Henri Quatre. Poissac is not far from Tours. An ugly
+name, isn't it? But to me it is very beautiful. The house has orchards
+all round it, and yellow roses with flushed centers poke themselves in
+my window, and there is a little tower like Montaigne's."
+
+"When I get out of the army, I shall go somewhere in the country and
+work and work."
+
+"Music should be made in the country, when the sap is rising in the
+trees."
+
+"'D'apres nature,' as the rabbit man said."
+
+"Who's the rabbit man?"
+
+"A very pleasant person," said Andrews, bubbling with laughter. "You
+shall meet him some day. He sells little stuffed rabbits that jump,
+outside the Cafe de Rohan."
+
+"Here we are.... Thank you for coming home with me."
+
+"But how soon. Are you sure it is the house? We can't have got there as
+soon as this."
+
+"Yes, it's my house," said Genevieve Rod laughing. She held out her hand
+to him and he shook it eagerly. The latchkey clicked in the door.
+
+"Why don't you have a cup of tea with us here tomorrow?" she said.
+
+"With pleasure."
+
+The big varnished door with its knocker in the shape of a ring closed
+behind her. Andrews walked away with a light step, feeling jolly and
+exhilarated.
+
+As he walked down the mist-filled quai towards the Place St. Michel, his
+ears were filled with the lisping gurgle of the river past the piers of
+the bridges.
+
+Walters was asleep. On the table in his room was a card from Jeanne.
+Andrews read the card holding it close to the candle.
+
+"How long it is since I saw you!" it read. "I shall pass the Cafe de
+Rohan Wednesday at seven, along the pavement opposite the Magazin du
+Louvre."
+
+It was a card of Malmaison.
+
+Andrews flushed. Bitter melancholy throbbed through him. He walked
+languidly to the window and looked out into the dark court. A window
+below his spilled a warm golden haze into the misty night, through
+which he could make out vaguely some pots of ferns standing on the wet
+flagstones. From somewhere came a dense smell of hyacinths. Fragments
+of thought slipped one after another through his mind. He thought of
+himself washing windows long ago at training camp, and remembered the
+way the gritty sponge scraped his hands. He could not help feeling shame
+when he thought of those days. "Well, that's all over now," he told
+himself. He wondered, in a half-irritated way, about Genevieve Rod. What
+sort of a person was she? Her face, with its wide eyes and pointed chin
+and the reddish-chestnut hair, unpretentiously coiled above the white
+forehead, was very vivid in his mind, though when he tried to remember
+what it was like in profile, he could not. She had thin hands, with long
+fingers that ought to play the piano well. When she grew old would she
+be yellow-toothed and jolly, like her mother? He could not think of
+her old; she was too vigorous; there was too much malice in her
+passionately-restrained gestures. The memory of her faded, and there
+came to his mind Jeanne's overworked little hands, with callous places,
+and the tips of the fingers grimy and scarred from needlework. But the
+smell of hyacinths that came up from the mist-filled courtyard was like
+a sponge wiping all impressions from his brain. The dense sweet smell in
+the damp air made him feel languid and melancholy.
+
+He took off his clothes slowly and got into bed. The smell of the
+hyacinths came to him very faintly, so that he did not know whether or
+not he was imagining it.
+
+
+
+The major's office was a large white-painted room, with elaborate
+mouldings and mirrors in all four walls, so that while Andrews waited,
+cap in hand, to go up to the desk, he could see the small round major
+with his pink face and bald head repeated to infinity in two directions
+in the grey brilliance of the mirrors.
+
+"What do you want?" said the major, looking up from some papers he was
+signing.
+
+Andrews stepped up to the desk. On both sides of the room a skinny
+figure in olive-drab, repeated endlessly, stepped up to endless mahogany
+desks, which faded into each other in an endless dusty perspective.
+
+"Would you mind O.K.-ing this application for discharge, Major?"
+
+"How many dependents?" muttered the major through his teeth, poring over
+the application.
+
+"None. It's for discharge in France to study music."
+
+"Won't do. You need an affidavit that you can support yourself, that you
+have enough money to continue your studies. You want to study music,
+eh? D'you think you've got talent? Needs a very great deal of talent to
+study music."
+
+"Yes, sir.... But is there anything else I need except the affidavit?"
+
+"No.... It'll go through in short order. We're glad to release men....
+We're glad to release any man with a good military record.... Williams!"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+A sergeant came over from a small table by the door.
+
+"Show this man what he needs to do to get discharged in France."
+
+Andrews saluted. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the figures in the
+mirror, saluting down an endless corridor.
+
+When he got out on the street in front of the great white building where
+the major's office was, a morose feeling of helplessness came over him.
+There were many automobiles of different sizes and shapes, limousines,
+runabouts, touring cars, lined up along the curb, all painted olive-drab
+and neatly stenciled with numbers in white. Now and then a personage
+came out of the white marble building, puttees and Sam Browne belt
+gleaming, and darted into an automobile, or a noisy motorcycle stopped
+with a jerk in front of the wide door to let out an officer in goggles
+and mud-splattered trench coat, who disappeared immediately through
+revolving doors. Andrews could imagine him striding along halls, where
+from every door came an imperious clicking of typewriters, where papers
+were piled high on yellow varnished desks, where sallow-faced clerks in
+uniform loafed in rooms, where the four walls were covered from floor
+to ceiling with card catalogues. And every day they were adding to the
+paper, piling up more little drawers with index cards. It seemed to
+Andrews that the shiny white marble building would have to burst with
+all the paper stored up within it, and would flood the broad avenue with
+avalanches of index cards.
+
+"Button yer coat," snarled a voice in his ear.
+
+Andrews looked up suddenly. An M. P. with a raw-looking face in which
+was a long sharp nose, had come up to him.
+
+Andrews buttoned up his overcoat and said nothing.
+
+"Ye can't hang around here this way," the M. P. called after him.
+
+Andrews flushed and walked away without turning his head. He was
+stinging with humiliation; an angry voice inside him kept telling
+him that he was a coward, that he should make some futile gesture of
+protest. Grotesque pictures of revolt flamed through his mind, until he
+remembered that when he was very small, the same tumultuous pride had
+seethed and ached in him whenever he had been reproved by an older
+person. Helpless despair fluttered about within him like a bird
+beating against the wires of a cage. Was there no outlet, no gesture of
+expression, would he have to go on this way day after day, swallowing
+the bitter gall of indignation, that every new symbol of his slavery
+brought to his lips?
+
+He was walking in an agitated way across the Jardin des Tuileries, full
+of little children and women with dogs on leashes and nursemaids with
+starched white caps, when he met Genevieve Rod and her mother. Genevieve
+was dressed in pearl grey, with an elegance a little too fashionable to
+please Andrews. Mme. Rod wore black. In front of them a black and tan
+terrier ran from one side to the other, on nervous little legs that
+trembled like steel springs.
+
+"Isn't it lovely this morning?" cried Genevieve.
+
+"I didn't know you had a dog."
+
+"Oh, we never go out without Santo, a protection to two lone women, you
+know," said Mme. Rod, laughing. "Viens, Santo, dis bonjour au Monsieur."
+
+"He usually lives at Poissac," said Genevieve.
+
+The little dog barked furiously at Andrews, a shrill bark like a child
+squalling.
+
+"He knows he ought to be suspicious of soldiers.... I imagine most
+soldiers would change with him if they had a chance.... Viens Santo,
+viens Santo.... Will you change lives with me, Santo?"
+
+"You look as if you'd been quarrelling with somebody," said Genevieve
+Rod lightly.
+
+"I have, with myself.... I'm going to write a book on slave psychology.
+It would be very amusing," said Andrews in a gruff, breathless voice.
+
+"But we must hurry, dear, or we'll be late to the tailor's," said Mme.
+Rod. She held out her black-gloved hand to Andrews.
+
+"We'll be in at tea time this afternoon. You might play me some more of
+the 'Queen of Sheba,'" said Genevieve.
+
+"I'm afraid I shan't be able to, but you never can tell.... Thank you."
+
+He was relieved to have left them. He had been afraid he would burst out
+into some childish tirade. What a shame old Henslowe hadn't come back
+yet. He could have poured out all his despair to him; he had often
+enough before; and Henslowe was out of the army now. Wearily Andrews
+decided that he would have to start scheming and intriguing again as
+he had schemed and intrigued to come to Paris in the first place. He
+thought of the white marble building and the officers with shiny puttees
+going in and out, and the typewriters clicking in every room, and the
+understanding of his helplessness before all that complication made him
+shiver.
+
+An idea came to him. He ran down the steps of a metro station. Aubrey
+would know someone at the Crillon who could help him.
+
+But when the train reached the Concorde station, he could not summon the
+will power to get out. He felt a harsh repugnance to any effort. What
+was the use of humiliating himself and begging favors of people? It was
+hopeless anyway. In a fierce burst of pride a voice inside of him was
+shouting that he, John Andrews, should have no shame, that he should
+force people to do things for him, that he, who lived more acutely than
+the rest, suffering more pain and more joy, who had the power to express
+his pain and his joy so that it would impose itself on others, should
+force his will on those around him. "More of the psychology of slavery,"
+said Andrews to himself, suddenly smashing the soap-bubble of his
+egoism.
+
+The train had reached the Porte Maillot.
+
+Andrews stood in the sunny boulevard in front of the metro station,
+where the plane trees were showing tiny gold-brown leaves, sniffing the
+smell of a flower-stall in front of which a woman stood, with a deft
+abstracted gesture tying up bunch after bunch of violets. He felt a
+desire to be out in the country, to be away from houses and people.
+There was a line of men and women buying tickets for St. Germain; still
+indecisive, he joined it, and at last, almost without intending it,
+found himself jolting through Neuilly in the green trailer of the
+electric car, that waggled like a duck's tail when the car went fast.
+
+He remembered his last trip on that same car with Jeanne, and wished
+mournfully that he might have fallen in love with her, that he might
+have forgotten himself and the army and everything in crazy, romantic
+love.
+
+When he got off the car at St. Germain, he had stopped formulating his
+thoughts; soggy despair throbbed in him like an infected wound.
+
+He sat for a while at the cafe opposite the Chateau looking at the light
+red walls and the strong stone-bordered windows and the jaunty turrets
+and chimneys that rose above the classic balustrade with its big urns on
+the edge of the roof. The park, through the tall iron railings, was full
+of russet and pale lines, all mist of new leaves. Had they really lived
+more vividly, the people of the Renaissance? Andrews could almost see
+men with plumed hats and short cloaks and elaborate brocaded tunics
+swaggering with a hand at the sword hilt, about the quiet square in
+front of the gate of the Chateau. And he thought of the great, sudden
+wind of freedom that had blown out of Italy, before which dogmas and
+slaveries had crumbled to dust. In contrast, the world today seemed
+pitifully arid. Men seemed to have shrunk in stature before the vastness
+of the mechanical contrivances they had invented. Michael Angelo,
+da Vinci, Aretino, Cellini; would the strong figures of men ever so
+dominate the world again? Today everything was congestion, the scurrying
+of crowds; men had become ant-like. Perhaps it was inevitable that the
+crowds should sink deeper and deeper in slavery. Whichever won, tyranny
+from above, or spontaneous organization from below, there could be no
+individuals.
+
+He went through the gates into the park, laid out with a few flower
+beds where pansies bloomed; through the dark ranks of elm trunks, was
+brilliant sky, with here and there a moss-green statue standing out
+against it. At the head of an alley he came out on a terrace. Beyond the
+strong curves of the pattern of the iron balustrade was an expanse of
+country, pale green, falling to blue towards the horizon, patched with
+pink and slate-colored houses and carved with railway tracks. At his
+feet the Seine shone like a curved sword blade.
+
+He walked with long strides along the terrace, and followed a road that
+turned into the forest, forgetting the monotonous tread mill of his
+thoughts, in the flush that the fast walking sent through his whole
+body, in the rustling silence of the woods, where the moss on the north
+side of the boles of the trees was emerald, and where the sky was soft
+grey through a lavender lacework of branches. The green gnarled woods
+made him think of the first act of Pelleas. With his tunic unbuttoned
+and his shirt open at the neck and his hands stuck deep in his pockets,
+he went along whistling like a school boy.
+
+After an hour he came out of the woods on a highroad, where he found
+himself walking beside a two-wheeled cart, that kept pace with him
+exactly, try as he would to get ahead of it. After a while, a boy leaned
+out:
+
+"Hey, l'Americain, vous voulez monter?"
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"Conflans-Ste.-Honorine."
+
+"Where's that?"
+
+The boy flourished his whip vaguely towards the horse's head.
+
+"All right," said Andrews.
+
+"These are potatoes," said the boy, "make yourself comfortable.''
+Andrews offered him a cigarette, which he took with muddy fingers. He
+had a broad face, red cheeks and chunky features. Reddish-brown hair
+escaped spikily from under a mud-spattered beret.
+
+"Where did you say you were going?"
+
+"Conflans-Ste.-Honorine. Silly all these saints, aren't they?"
+
+Andrews laughed.
+
+"Where are you going?" the boy asked.
+
+"I don't know. I was taking a walk."
+
+The boy leaned over to Andrews and whispered in his car: "Deserter?"
+
+"No.... I had a day off and wanted to see the country."
+
+"I just thought, if you were a deserter, I might be able to help you.
+Must be silly to be a soldier. Dirty life.... But you like the country.
+So do I. You can't call this country. I'm not from this part; I'm from
+Brittany. There we have real country. It's stifling near Paris here, so
+many people, so many houses."
+
+"It seems mighty fine to me."
+
+"That's because you're a soldier, better than barracks, hein? Dirty life
+that. I'll never be a soldier. I'm going into the navy. Merchant marine,
+and then if I have to do service I'll do it on the sea."
+
+"I suppose it is pleasanter."
+
+"There's more freedom. And the sea.... We Bretons, you know, we all die
+of the sea or of liquor."
+
+They laughed.
+
+"Have you been long in this part of the country?" asked Andrews.
+
+"Six months. It's very dull, this farming work. I'm head of a gang in a
+fruit orchard, but not for long. I have a brother shipped on a sailing
+vessel. When he comes back to Bordeaux, I'll ship on the same boat."
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"South America, Peru; how should I know?"
+
+"I'd like to ship on a sailing vessel," said Andrews.
+
+"You would? It seems very fine to me to travel, and see new countries.
+And perhaps I shall stay over there."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"How should I know? If I like it, that is.... Life is very bad in
+Europe."
+
+"It is stifling, I suppose," said Andrews slowly, "all these nations,
+all these hatreds, but still... it is very beautiful. Life is very ugly
+in America."
+
+"Let's have something to drink. There's a bistro!"
+
+The boy jumped down from the cart and tied the horse to a tree. They
+went into a small wine shop with a counter and one square oak table.
+
+"But won't you be late?" said Andrews.
+
+"I don't care. I like talking, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, indeed."
+
+They ordered wine of an old woman in a green apron, who had three yellow
+teeth that protruded from her mouth when she spoke.
+
+"I haven't had anything to eat," said Andrews.
+
+"Wait a minute." The boy ran out to the cart and came back with a canvas
+bag, from which he took half a loaf of bread and some cheese.
+
+"My name's Marcel," the boy said when they had sat for a while sipping
+wine.
+
+"Mine is Jean...Jean Andre."
+
+"I have a brother named Jean, and my father's name is Andre. That's
+pleasant, isn't it?"
+
+"But it must be a splendid job, working in a fruit orchard," said
+Andrews, munching bread and cheese.
+
+"It's well paid; but you get tired of being in one place all the time.
+It's not as it is in Brittany...." Marcel paused. He sat, rocking a
+little on the stool, holding on to the seat between his legs. A curious
+brilliance came into his grey eyes. "There," he went on in a soft voice,
+"it is so quiet in the fields, and from every hill you look at the
+sea.... I like that, don't you?" he turned to Andrews, with a smile.
+
+"You are lucky to be free," said Andrews bitterly. He felt as if he
+would burst into tears.
+
+"But you will be demobilized soon; the butchery is over. You will go
+home to your family. That will be good, hein?"
+
+"I wonder. It's not far enough away. Restless!"
+
+"What do you expect?"
+
+A fine rain was falling. They climbed in on the potato sacks and the
+horse started a jog trot; its lanky brown shanks glistened a little from
+the rain.
+
+"Do you come out this way often?" asked Marcel.
+
+"I shall. It's the nicest place near Paris."
+
+"Some Sunday you must come and I'll take you round. The Castle is very
+fine. And then there is Malmaison, where the great Emperor lived with
+the Empress Josephine."
+
+Andrews suddenly remembered Jeanne's card. This was Wednesday. He
+pictured her dark figure among the crowd of the pavement in front of the
+Cafe de Rohan. Of course it had to be that way. Despair, so helpless as
+to be almost sweet, came over him.
+
+"And girls," he said suddenly to Marcel, "are they pretty round here?"
+
+Marcel shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"It's not women that we lack, if a fellow has money," he said.
+
+Andrews felt a sense of shame, he did not exactly know why.
+
+"My brother writes that in South America the women are very brown and
+very passionate," added Marcel with a wistful smile. "But travelling and
+reading books, that's what I like.... But look, if you want to take the
+train back to Paris...." Marcel pulled up the horse to a standstill. "If
+you want to take the train, cross that field by the foot path and keep
+right along the road to the left till you come to the river. There's a
+ferryman. The town's Herblay, and there's a station.... And any Sunday
+before noon I'll be at 3 rue des Eveques, Reuil. You must come and we'll
+take a walk together."
+
+They shook hands, and Andrews strode off across the wet fields.
+Something strangely sweet and wistful that he could not analyse lingered
+in his mind from Marcel's talk. Somewhere, beyond everything, he was
+conscious of the great free rhythm of the sea.
+
+Then he thought of the Major's office that morning, and of his own
+skinny figure in the mirrors, repeated endlessly, standing helpless and
+humble before the shining mahogany desk. Even out here in these fields
+where the wet earth seemed to heave with the sprouting of new growth, he
+was not free. In those office buildings, with white marble halls full
+of the clank of officers' heels, in index cards and piles of typewritten
+papers, his real self, which they had power to kill if they wanted to,
+was in his name and his number, on lists with millions of other names
+and other numbers. This sentient body of his, full of possibilities
+and hopes and desires, was only a pale ghost that depended on the other
+self, that suffered for it and cringed for it. He could not drive out
+of his head the picture of himself, skinny, in an illfitting uniform,
+repeated endlessly in the two mirrors of the Major's white-painted
+office.
+
+All of a sudden, through bare poplar trees, he saw the Seine.
+
+He hurried along the road, splashing now and then in a shining puddle,
+until he came to a landing place. The river was very wide, silvery,
+streaked with pale-green and violet, and straw-color from the evening
+sky. Opposite were bare poplars and behind them clusters of buff-colored
+houses climbing up a green hill to a church, all repeated upside down in
+the color-streaked river. The river was very full, and welled up above
+its banks, the way the water stands up above the rim of a glass filled
+too full. From the water came an indefinable rustling, flowing sound
+that rose and fell with quiet rhythm in Andrews's ears.
+
+Andrews forgot everything in the great wave of music that rose
+impetuously through him, poured with the hot blood through his veins,
+with the streaked colors of the river and the sky through his eyes, with
+the rhythm of the flowing river through his ears.
+
+
+
+                              V
+
+"So I came without," said Andrews, laughing.
+
+"What fun!" cried Genevieve. "But anyway they couldn't do anything to
+you. Chartres is so near. It's at the gates of Paris."
+
+They were alone in the compartment. The train had pulled out of the
+station and was going through suburbs where the trees were in leaf in
+the gardens, and fruit trees foamed above the red brick walls, among the
+box-like villas.
+
+"Anyway," said Andrews, "it was an opportunity not to be missed."
+
+"That must be one of the most amusing things about being a soldier,
+avoiding regulations. I wonder whether Damocles didn't really enjoy his
+sword, don't you think so?"
+
+They laughed.
+
+"But mother was very doubtful about my coming with you this way. She's
+such a dear, she wants to be very modern and liberal, but she always
+gets frightened at the last minute. And my aunt will think the world's
+end has come when we appear."
+
+They went through some tunnels, and when the train stopped at Sevres,
+had a glimpse of the Seine valley, where the blue mist made a patina
+over the soft pea-green of new leaves. Then the train came out on wide
+plains, full of the glaucous shimmer of young oats and the golden-green
+of fresh-sprinkled wheat fields, where the mist on the horizon was
+purplish. The train's shadow, blue, sped along beside them over the
+grass and fences.
+
+"How beautiful it is to go out of the city this way in the early
+morning!... Has your aunt a piano?"
+
+"Yes, a very old and tinkly one."
+
+"It would be amusing to play you all I have done at the 'Queen of
+Sheba.' You say the most helpful things."
+
+"It is that I am interested. I think you will do something some day."
+
+Andrews shrugged his shoulders.
+
+They sat silent, their ears filled up by the jerking rhythm of wheels
+over rails, now and then looking at each other, almost furtively.
+Outside, fields and hedges and patches of blossom, and poplar trees
+faintly powdered with green, unrolled, like a scroll before them, behind
+the nicker of telegraph poles and the festooned wires on which the
+sun gave glints of red copper. Andrews discovered all at once that
+the coppery glint on the telegraph wires was the same as the glint in
+Genevieve's hair. "Berenike, Artemisia, Arsinoe," the names lingered in
+his mind. So that as he looked out of the window at the long curves of
+the telegraph wires that seemed to rise and fall as they glided past,
+he could imagine her face, with its large, pale brown eyes and its small
+mouth and broad smooth forehead, suddenly stilled into the encaustic
+painting on the mummy case of some Alexandrian girl.
+
+"Tell me," she said, "when did you begin to write music?"
+
+Andrews brushed the light, disordered hair off his forehead.
+
+"Why, I think I forgot to brush my hair this morning," he said. "You
+see, I was so excited by the idea of coming to Chartres with you."
+
+They laughed.
+
+"But my mother taught me to play the piano when I was very small," he
+went on seriously. "She and I lived alone in an old house belonging to
+her family in Virginia. How different all that was from anything you
+have ever lived. It would not be possible in Europe to be as isolated
+as we were in Virginia.... Mother was very unhappy. She had led a
+dreadfully thwarted life... that unrelieved hopeless misery that only
+a woman can suffer. She used to tell me stories, and I used to make
+up little tunes about them, and about anything. The great success," he
+laughed, "was, I remember, to a dandelion.... I can remember so well the
+way Mother pursed up her lips as she leaned over the writing desk....
+She was very tall, and as it was dark in our old sitting room, had to
+lean far over to see.... She used to spend hours making beautiful copies
+of tunes I made up. My mother is the only person who has ever really had
+any importance in my life.... But I lack technical training terribly."
+
+"Do you think it is so important?" said Genevieve, leaning towards him
+to make herself heard above the clatter of the train.
+
+"Perhaps it isn't. I don't know."
+
+"I think it always comes sooner or later, if you feel intensely enough."
+
+"But it is so frightful to feel all you want to express getting away
+beyond you. An idea comes into your head, and you feel it grow stronger
+and stronger and you can't grasp it; you have no means to express it.
+It's like standing on a street corner and seeing a gorgeous procession
+go by without being able to join it, or like opening a bottle of beer
+and having it foam all over you without having a glass to pour it into."
+
+Genevieve burst out laughing.
+
+"But you can drink from the bottle, can't you?" she said, her eyes
+sparkling.
+
+"I'm trying to," said Andrews.
+
+"Here we are. There's the cathedral. No, it's hidden," cried Genevieve.
+
+They got to their feet. As they left the station, Andrews said: "But
+after all, it's only freedom that matters. When I'm out of the army!..."
+
+"Yes, I suppose you are right... for you that is. The artist should be
+free from any sort of entanglement."
+
+"I don't see what difference there is between an artist and any other
+sort of workman," said Andrews savagely.
+
+"No, but look."
+
+From the square where they stood, above the green blur of a little park,
+they could see the cathedral, creamy yellow and rust color, with the
+sober tower and the gaudy tower, and the great rose window between, the
+whole pile standing nonchalantly, knee deep in the packed roofs of the
+town.
+
+They stood shoulder to shoulder, looking at it without speaking.
+
+In the afternoon they walked down the hill towards the river, that
+flowed through a quarter of tottering, peak-gabled houses and mills,
+from which came a sound of grinding wheels. Above them, towering over
+gardens full of pear trees in bloom, the apse of the cathedral bulged
+against the pale sky. On a narrow and very ancient bridge they stopped
+and looked at the water, full of a shimmer of blue and green and grey
+from the sky and from the vivid new leaves of the willow trees along the
+bank.
+
+Their senses glutted with the beauty of the day and the intricate
+magnificence of the cathedral, languid with all they had seen and said,
+they were talking of the future with quiet voices.
+
+"It's all in forming a habit of work," Andrews was saying. "You have to
+be a slave to get anything done. It's all a question of choosing your
+master, don't you think so?"
+
+"Yes. I suppose all the men who have left their imprint on people's
+lives have been slaves in a sense," said Genevieve slowly. "Everyone has
+to give up a great deal of life to live anything deeply. But it's worth,
+it." She looked Andrews full in the eyes.
+
+"Yes, I think it's worth it," said Andrews. "But you must help me. Now
+I am like a man who has come up out of a dark cellar. I'm almost too
+dazzled by the gorgeousness of everything. But at least I am out of the
+cellar."
+
+"Look, a fish jumped," cried Genevieve. "I wonder if we could hire a
+boat anywhere.... Don't you think it'd be fun to go out in a boat?"
+
+A voice broke in on Genevieve's answer: "Let's see your pass, will you?"
+
+Andrews turned round. A soldier with a round brown face and red cheeks
+stood beside him on the bridge. Andrews looked at him fixedly. A little
+zigzag scar above his left eye showed white on his heavily tanned skin.
+
+"Let's see your pass," the man said again; he had a high pitched,
+squeaky voice.
+
+Andrews felt the blood thumping in his ears. "Are you an M. P.?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well I'm in the Sorbonne Detachment."
+
+"What the hell's that?" said the M. P., laughing thinly.
+
+"What does he say?" asked Genevieve, smiling.
+
+"Nothing. I'll have to go see the officer and explain," said Andrews in
+a breathless voice. "You go back to your Aunt's and I'll come as soon as
+I've arranged it."
+
+"No, I'll come with you."
+
+"Please go back. It may be serious. I'll come as soon as I can," said
+Andrews harshly.
+
+She walked up the hill with swift decisive steps, without turning round.
+
+"Tough luck, buddy," said the M. P. "She's a good-looker. I'd like to
+have a half-hour with her myself."
+
+"Look here. I'm in the Sorbonne School Detachment in Paris, and I came
+down here without a pass. Is there anything I can do about it?"
+
+"They'll fix you up, don't worry," cried the M. P. shrilly. "You ain't a
+member of the General Staff in disguise, are ye? School Detachment! Gee,
+won't Bill Huggis laugh when he hears that? You pulled the best one yet,
+buddy.... But come along," he added in a confidential tone. "If you come
+quiet I won't put the handcuffs on ye."
+
+"How do I know you're an M. P.?"
+
+"You'll know soon enough."
+
+They turned down a narrow street between grey stucco walls leprous with
+moss and water stains.
+
+At a chair inside the window of a small wine shop a man with a red M. P.
+badge sat smoking. He got up when he saw them pass and opened the door
+with one hand on his pistol holster.
+
+"I got one bird, Bill," said the man, shoving Andrews roughly in the
+door.
+
+"Good for you, Handsome; is he quiet?"
+
+"Um." Handsome grunted.
+
+"Sit down there. If you move you'll git a bullet in your guts."
+
+The M. P. stuck out a square jaw; he had a sallow skin, puffy under the
+eyes that were grey and lustreless.
+
+"He says he's in some goddam School Detachment. First time that's been
+pulled, ain't it?"
+
+"School Detachment. D'you mean an O. T. C?" Bill sank laughing into his
+chair by the window, spreading his legs out over the floor.
+
+"Ain't that rich?" said Handsome, laughing shrilly again.
+
+"Got any papers on ye? Ye must have some sort of papers."
+
+Andrews searched his pockets. He flushed.
+
+"I ought to have a school pass."
+
+"You sure ought. Gee, this guy's simple," said Bill, leaning far back in
+the chair and blowing smoke through his nose.
+
+"Look at his dawg-tag, Handsome."
+
+The man strode over to Andrews and jerked open the top of his tunic.
+Andrews pulled his body away.
+
+"I haven't got any on. I forgot to put any on this morning."
+
+"No tag, no insignia."
+
+"Yes, I have, infantry."
+
+"No papers.... I bet he's been out a hell of a time," said Handsome
+meditatively.
+
+"Better put the cuffs on him," said Bill in the middle of a yawn.
+
+"Let's wait a while. When's the loot coming?"
+
+"Not till night."
+
+"Sure?"
+
+"Yes. Ain't no train."
+
+"How about a side car?"
+
+"No, I know he ain't comin'," snarled Bill.
+
+"What d'you say we have a little liquor, Bill? Bet this bloke's
+got money. You'll set us up to a glass o' cognac, won't you, School
+Detachment?"
+
+Andrews sat very stiff in his chair, staring at them.
+
+"Yes," he said, "order up what you like."
+
+"Keep an eye on him, Handsome. You never can tell what this quiet kind's
+likely to pull off on you."
+
+Bill Huggis strode out of the room with heavy steps. In a moment he came
+back swinging a bottle of cognac in his hand.
+
+"Tole the Madame you'd pay, Skinny," said the man as he passed Andrews's
+chair. Andrews nodded.
+
+The two M. P.'s drew up to the table beside which Andrews sat. Andrews
+could not keep his eyes off them. Bill Huggis hummed as he pulled the
+cork out of the bottle.
+
+"It's the smile that makes you happy, It's the smile that makes you sad."
+
+Handsome watched him, grinning.
+
+Suddenly they both burst out laughing.
+
+"An' the damn fool thinks he's in a school battalion," said Handsome in
+his shrill voice.
+
+"It'll be another kind of a battalion you'll be in, Skinny," cried Bill
+Huggis. He stifled his laughter with a long drink from the bottle.
+
+He smacked his lips.
+
+"Not so goddam bad," he said. Then he started humming again:
+
+"It's the smile that makes you happy, It's the smile that makes you sad."
+
+"Have some, Skinny?" said Handsome, pushing the bottle towards Andrews.
+
+"No, thanks," said Andrews.
+
+"Ye won't be gettin' good cognac where yer goin', Skinny, not by a damn
+sight," growled Bill Huggis in the middle of a laugh.
+
+"All right, I'll take a swig." An idea had suddenly come into Andrews's
+head.
+
+"Gee, the bastard kin drink cognac," cried Handsome.
+
+"Got enough money to buy us another bottle?"
+
+Andrews nodded. He wiped his mouth absently with his handkerchief; he
+had drunk the raw cognac without tasting it.
+
+"Get another bottle, Handsome," said Bill Huggis carelessly. A purplish
+flush had appeared in the lower part of his cheeks. When the other man
+came back, he burst out laughing.
+
+"The last cognac this Skinny guy from the school detachment'll get for
+many a day. Better drink up strong, Skinny.... They don't have that
+stuff down on the farm.... School Detachment; I'll be goddamned!" He
+leaned back in his chair, shaking with laughter.
+
+Handsome's face was crimson. Only the zigzag scar over his eye remained
+white. He was swearing in a low voice as he worked the cork out of the
+bottle.
+
+Andrews could not keep his eyes off the men's faces. They went from one
+to the other, in spite of him. Now and then, for an instant, he caught
+a glimpse of the yellow and brown squares of the wall paper and the bar
+with a few empty bottles behind it. He tried to count the bottles; "one,
+two, three..." but he was staring in the lustreless grey eyes of Bill
+Huggis, who lay back in his chair, blowing smoke out of his nose, now
+and then reaching for the cognac bottle, all the while humming faintly,
+under his breath:
+
+"It's the smile that makes you happy, It's the smile that makes you sad."
+
+Handsome sat with his elbows on the table, and his chin in his beefy
+hands. His face was flushed crimson, but the skin was softly moulded,
+like a woman's.
+
+The light in the room was beginning to grow grey.
+
+Handsome and Bill Huggis stood up. A young officer, with clearly-marked
+features and a campaign hat worn a little on one side, came in, stood
+with his feet wide apart in the middle of the floor.
+
+Andrews went up to him.
+
+"I'm in the Sorbonne Detachment, Lieutenant, stationed in Paris."
+
+"Don't you know enough to salute?" said the officer, looking him up and
+down. "One of you men teach him to salute," he said slowly.
+
+Handsome made a step towards Andrews and hit him with his fist between
+the eyes. There was a flash of light and the room swung round, and there
+was a splitting crash as his head struck the floor. He got to his feet.
+The fist hit him in the same place, blinding him, the three figures and
+the bright oblong of the window swung round. A chair crashed down
+with him, and a hard rap in the back of his skull brought momentary
+blackness.
+
+"That's enough, let him be," he heard a voice far away at the end of a
+black tunnel.
+
+A great weight seemed to be holding him down as he struggled to get up,
+blinded by tears and blood. Rending pains darted like arrows through his
+head. There were handcuffs on his wrists.
+
+"Git up," snarled a voice.
+
+He got to his feet, faint light came through the streaming tears in his
+eyes. His forehead flamed as if hot coals were being pressed against it.
+
+"Prisoner, attention!" shouted the officer's voice. "March!"
+
+Automatically, Andrews lifted one foot and then the other. He felt in
+his face the cool air of the street. On either side of him were the
+hard steps of the M. P.'s. Within him a nightmare voice was shrieking,
+shrieking.
+
+
+
+
+PART SIX: UNDER THE WHEELS
+
+
+                              I
+
+The uncovered garbage cans clattered as they were thrown one by one into
+the truck. Dust, and a smell of putrid things, hung in the air about the
+men as they worked. A guard stood by with his legs wide apart, and his
+rifle-butt on the pavement between them. The early mist hung low,
+hiding the upper windows of the hospital. From the door beside which the
+garbage cans were ranged came a thick odor of carbolic. The last garbage
+can rattled into place on the truck, the four prisoners and the guard
+clambered on, finding room as best they could among the cans, from which
+dripped bloody bandages, ashes, and bits of decaying food, and the truck
+rumbled off towards the incinerator, through the streets of Paris that
+sparkled with the gaiety of early morning.
+
+The prisoners wore no tunics; their shirts and breeches had dark stains
+of grease and dirt; on their hands were torn canvas gloves. The guard
+was a sheepish, pink-faced youth, who kept grinning apologetically, and
+had trouble keeping his balance when the truck went round corners.
+
+"How many days do they keep a guy on this job, Happy?" asked a boy with
+mild blue eyes and a creamy complexion, and reddish curly hair.
+
+"Damned if I know, kid; as long as they please, I guess," said the
+bull-necked man next him, who had a lined prize fighter's face, with a
+heavy protruding jaw.
+
+Then, after looking at the boy for a minute, with his face twisted into
+an astonished sort of grin, he went on: "Say, kid, how in hell did you
+git here? Robbin' the cradle, Oi call it, to send you here, kid."
+
+"I stole a Ford," the boy answered cheerfully.
+
+"Like hell you did!"
+
+"Sold it for five hundred francs."
+
+Happy laughed, and caught hold of an ash can to keep from being thrown
+out of the jolting truck.
+
+"Kin ye beat that, guard?" he cried. "Ain't that somethin'?"
+
+The guard sniggered.
+
+"Didn't send me to Leavenworth 'cause I was so young," went on the kid
+placidly.
+
+"How old are you, kid?" asked Andrews, who was leaning against the
+driver's seat.
+
+"Seventeen," said the boy, blushing and casting his eyes down.
+
+"He must have lied like hell to git in this goddam army," boomed the
+deep voice of the truck driver, who had leaned over to spit s long
+squirt of tobacco juice.
+
+The truck driver jammed the brakes on. The garbage cans banged against
+each other.
+
+The Kid cried out in pain: "Hold your horses, can't you? You nearly
+broke my leg."
+
+The truck driver was swearing in a long string of words.
+
+"Goddam these dreamin', skygazin' sons of French bastards. Why don't
+they get out of your way? Git out an' crank her up, Happy."
+
+"Guess a feller'd be lucky if he'd break his leg or somethin'; don't you
+think so, Skinny?" said the fourth prisoner in a low voice.
+
+"It'll take mor'n a broken leg to git you out o' this labor battalion,
+Hoggenback. Won't it, guard?" said Happy, as he climbed on again.
+
+The truck jolted away, trailing a haze of cinder dust and a sour stench
+of garbage behind it. Andrews noticed all at once that they were
+going down the quais along the river. Notre Dame was rosy in the misty
+sunlight, the color of lilacs in full bloom. He looked at it fixedly
+a moment, and then looked away. He felt very far from it, like a man
+looking at the stars from the bottom of a pit.
+
+"My mate, he's gone to Leavenworth for five years," said the Kid when
+they had been silent some time listening to the rattle of the garbage
+cans as the trucks jolted over the cobbles.
+
+"Helped yer steal the Ford, did he?" asked Happy.
+
+"Ford nothin'! He sold an ammunition train. He was a railroad man. He
+was a mason, that's why he only got five years."
+
+"I guess five years in Leavenworth's enough for anybody," muttered
+Hoggenback, scowling. He was a square-shouldered dark man, who always
+hung his head when he worked.
+
+"We didn't meet up till we got to Paris; we was on a hell of a party
+together at the Olympia. That's where they picked us up. Took us to the
+Bastille. Ever been in the Bastille?"
+
+"I have," said Hoggenback.
+
+"Ain't no joke, is it?"
+
+"Christ!" said Hoggenback. His face flushed a furious red. He turned
+away and looked at the civilians walking briskly along the early morning
+streets, at the waiters in shirt sleeves swabbing off the cafe tables,
+at the women pushing handcarts full of bright-colored vegetables over
+the cobblestones.
+
+"I guess they ain't nobody gone through what we guys go through with,"
+said Happy. "It'd be better if the ole war was still a' goin', to my
+way o' thinkin'. They'd chuck us into the trenches then. Ain't so low as
+this."
+
+"Look lively," shouted the truck driver, as the truck stopped in a dirty
+yard full of cinder piles. "Ain't got all day. Five more loads to get
+yet."
+
+The guard stood by with angry face and stiff limbs; for he feared there
+were officers about, and the prisoners started unloading the garbage
+cans; their nostrils were full of the stench of putrescence; between
+their lips was a gritty taste of cinders.
+
+
+
+The air in the dark mess shack was thick with steam from the kitchen at
+one end. The men filed past the counter, holding out their mess kits,
+into which the K. P.'s splashed the food. Occasionally someone stopped
+to ask for a larger helping in an ingratiating voice. They ate packed
+together at long tables of roughly planed boards, stained from the
+constant spilling of grease and coffee and still wet from a perfunctory
+scrubbing. Andrews sat at the end of a bench, near the door through
+which came the glimmer of twilight, eating slowly, surprised at
+the relish with which he ate the greasy food, and at the exhausted
+contentment that had come over him almost in spite of himself.
+Hoggenback sat opposite him.
+
+"Funny," he said to Hoggenback, "it's not really as bad as I thought it
+would be."
+
+"What d'you mean, this labor battalion? Hell, a feller can put up with
+anything; that's one thing you learn in the army."
+
+"I guess people would rather put up with things than make an effort to
+change them."
+
+"You're goddam right. Got a butt?"
+
+Andrews handed him a cigarette. They got to their feet and walked out
+into the twilight, holding their mess kits in front of them. As they
+were washing their mess kits in a tub of greasy water, where bits of
+food floated in a thick scum, Hoggenback suddenly said in a low voice:
+
+"But it all piles up, Buddy; some day there'll be an accountin'. D'you
+believe in religion?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Neither do I. I come of folks as done their own accountin'. My father
+an' my gran'father before him. A feller can't eat his bile day after
+day, day after day."
+
+"I'm afraid he can, Hoggenback," broke in Andrews. They walked towards
+the barracks.
+
+"Goddam it, no," cried Hoggenback aloud. "There comes a point where you
+can't eat yer bile any more, where it don't do no good to cuss. Then you
+runs amuck." Hanging his head he went slowly into the barracks.
+
+Andrews leaned against the outside of the building, staring up at the
+sky. He was trying desperately to think, to pull together a few threads
+of his life in this moment of respite from the nightmare. In five
+minutes the bugle would din in his ears, and he would be driven into
+the barracks. A tune came to his head that he played with eagerly for a
+moment, and then, as memory came to him, tried to efface with a shudder
+of disgust.
+
+     "There's the smile that makes you happy,
+     There's the smile that makes you sad."
+
+It was almost dark. Two men walked slowly by in front of him.
+
+"Sarge, may I speak to you?" came a voice in a whisper.
+
+The sergeant grunted.
+
+"I think there's two guys trying to break loose out of here."
+
+"Who? If you're wrong it'll be the worse for you, remember that."
+
+"Surley an' Watson. I heard 'em talkin' about it behind the latrine."
+
+"Damn fools."
+
+"They was sayin' they'd rather be dead than keep up this life."
+
+"They did, did they?"
+
+"Don't talk so loud, Sarge. It wouldn't do for any of the fellers to
+know I was talkin' to yer. Say, Sarge..." the voice became whining,
+"don't you think I've nearly served my time down here?"
+
+"What do I know about that? 'Tain't my job."
+
+"But, Sarge, I used to be company clerk with my old outfit. Don't
+ye need a guy round the office?" Andrews strode past them into the
+barracks. Dull fury possessed him. He took off his clothes and got
+silently into his blankets.
+
+Hoggenback and Happy were talking beside his bunk.
+
+"Never you mind," said Hoggenback, "somebody'll get that guy sooner or
+later."
+
+"Git him, nauthin'! The fellers in that camp was so damn skeered they
+jumped if you snapped yer fingers at 'em. It's the discipline. I'm
+tellin' yer, it gits a feller in the end," said Happy.
+
+Andrews lay without speaking, listening to their talk, aching in every
+muscle from the crushing work of the day.
+
+"They court-martialled that guy, a feller told me," went on Hoggenback.
+"An' what d'ye think they did to him? Retired on half pay. He was a
+major."
+
+"Gawd, if I iver git out o' this army, I'll be so goddam glad," began
+Happy. Hoggenback interrupted:
+
+"That you'll forgit all about the raw deal they gave you, an' tell
+everybody how fine ye liked it."
+
+Andrews felt the mocking notes of the bugle outside stabbing his ears.
+A non-com's voice roared: "Quiet," from the end of the building, and the
+lights went out. Already Andrews could hear the deep breathing of men
+asleep. He lay awake, staring into the darkness, his body throbbing with
+the monotonous rhythms of the work of the day. He seemed still to hear
+the sickening whine in the man's voice as he talked to the sergeant
+outside in the twilight. "And shall I be reduced to that?" he was asking
+himself.
+
+
+
+Andrews was leaving the latrine when he heard a voice call softly,
+"Skinny."
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"Come here, I want to talk to you." It was the Kid's voice. There was no
+light in the ill-smelling shack that served for a latrine. Outside they
+could hear the guard humming softly to himself as he went back and forth
+before the barracks door.
+
+"Let's you and me be buddies, Skinny."
+
+"Sure," said Andrews.
+
+"Say, what d'you think the chance is o' cuttin' loose?"
+
+"Pretty damn poor," said Andrews.
+
+"Couldn't you just make a noise like a hoop an' roll away?"
+
+They giggled softly.
+
+Andrews put his hand on the boy's arm.
+
+"But, Kid, it's too risky. I got in this fix by taking a risk. I don't
+feel like beginning over again, and if they catch you, it's desertion.
+Leavenworth for twenty years, or life. That'd be the end of everything."
+
+"Well, what the hell's this?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know; they've got to let us out some day."
+
+"Sh... sh...."
+
+Kid put his hand suddenly over Andrews's mouth. They stood rigid, so
+that they could hear their hearts pounding.
+
+Outside there was a brisk step on the gravel. The sentry halted and
+saluted. The steps faded into the distance, and the sentry's humming
+began again.
+
+"They put two fellers in the jug for a month for talking like we are....
+In solitary," whispered Kid.
+
+"But, Kid, I haven't got the guts to try anything now."
+
+"Sure you have, Skinny. You an' me's got more guts than all the rest of
+'em put together. God, if people had guts, you couldn't treat 'em like
+they were curs. Look, if I can ever get out o' this, I've got a hunch I
+can make a good thing writing movie scenarios. I want to get on in the
+world, Skinny."
+
+"But, Kid, you won't be able to go back to the States."
+
+"I don't care. New Rochelle's not the whole world. They got the movies
+in Italy, ain't they?"
+
+"Sure. Let's go to bed."
+
+"All right. Look, you an' me are buddies from now on, Skinny."
+
+Andrews felt the Kid's hand press his arm.
+
+In his dark, airless bunk, in the lowest of three tiers, Andrews lay
+awake a long time, listening to the snores and the heavy breathing
+about him. Thoughts fluttered restlessly in his head, but in his blank
+hopelessness he could only frown and bite his lips, and roll his head
+from side to side on the rolled-up tunic he used for a pillow, listening
+with desperate attention to the heavy breathing of the men who slept
+above him and beside him.
+
+When he fell asleep he dreamed that he was alone with Genevieve Rod
+in the concert hall of the Schola Cantorum, and that he was trying
+desperately hard to play some tune for her on the violin, a tune he kept
+forgetting, and in the agony of trying to remember, the tears streamed
+down his cheeks. Then he had his arms round Genevieve's shoulders and
+was kissing her, kissing her, until he found that it was a wooden board
+he was kissing, a wooden board on which was painted a face with broad
+forehead and great pale brown eyes, and small tight lips, and all the
+while a boy who seemed to be both Chrisfield and the Kid kept telling
+him to run or the M.P.'s would get him. Then he sat frozen in icy terror
+with a bottle in his hand, while a frightful voice behind him sang very
+loud:
+
+     "There's the smile that makes you happy,
+     There's the smile that makes you sad."
+
+The bugle woke him, and he sat up with such a start that he hit his head
+hard against the bunk above him. He lay back cringing from the pain like
+a child. But he had to hurry desperately to get his clothes on in time
+for roll call. It was with a feeling of relief that he found that mess
+was not ready, and that men were waiting in line outside the kitchen
+shack, stamping their feet and clattering their mess kits as they moved
+about through the chilly twilight of the spring morning. Andrews found
+he was standing behind Hoggenback.
+
+"How's she comin', Skinny?" whispered Hoggenback, in his low mysterious
+voice.
+
+"Oh, we're all in the same boat," said Andrews with a laugh.
+
+"Wish it'd sink," muttered the other man. "D'ye know," he went on after
+a pause, "I kinder thought an edicated guy like you'd be able to keep
+out of a mess like this. I wasn't brought up without edication, but I
+guess I didn't have enough."
+
+"I guess most of 'em can; I don't sec that it's much to the point. A man
+suffers as much if he doesn't know how to read and write as if he had a
+college education."
+
+"I dunno, Skinny. A feller who's led a rough life can put up with an
+awful lot. The thing is, Skinny, I might have had a commission if I
+hadn't been so damned impatient.... I'm a lumberman by trade, and my
+dad's cleaned up a pretty thing in war contracts jus' a short time
+ago. He could have got me in the engineers if I hadn't gone off an'
+enlisted."
+
+"Why did you?"
+
+"I was restless-like. I guess I wanted to see the world. I didn't care
+about the goddam war, but I wanted to see what things was like over
+here."
+
+"Well, you've seen," said Andrews, smiling.
+
+"In the neck," said Hoggenback, as he pushed out his cup for coffee.
+
+
+
+In the truck that was taking them to work, Andrews and the Kid sat side
+by side on the jouncing backboard and tried to talk above the rumble of
+the exhaust.
+
+"Like Paris?" asked the Kid.
+
+"Not this way," said Andrews.
+
+"Say, one of the guys said you could parlay French real well. I want
+you to teach me. A guy's got to know languages to get along in this
+country."
+
+"But you must know some."
+
+"Bedroom French," said the Kid, laughing.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"But if I want to write a movie scenario for an Eytalian firm, I can't
+just write 'voulay-vous couchezavecmoa' over and over again."
+
+"But you'll have to learn Italian, Kid."
+
+"I'm goin' to. Say, ain't they taking us a hell of a ways today,
+Skinny?"
+
+"We're goin' to Passy Wharf to unload rock," said somebody in a
+grumbling voice.
+
+"No, it's a cement... cement for the stadium we're presentin' the French
+Nation. Ain't you read in the 'Stars and Stripes' about it?"
+
+"I'd present 'em with a swift kick, and a hell of a lot of other people,
+too."
+
+"So we have to sweat unloadin' cement all day," muttered Hoggenback, "to
+give these goddam frawgs a stadium."
+
+"If it weren't that it'd be somethin' else."
+
+"But, ain't we got folks at home to work for?" cried Hoggenback.
+"Mightn't all this sweat be doin' some good for us? Building a stadium!
+My gawd!"
+
+"Pile out there.... Quick!" rasped a voice from the driver's seat.
+
+Through the haze of choking white dust, Andrews got now and then a
+glimpse of the grey-green river, with its tugboats sporting their white
+cockades of steam and their long trailing plumes of smoke, and its
+blunt-nosed barges and its bridges, where people walked jauntily back
+and forth, going about their business, going where they wanted to go.
+The bags of cement were very heavy, and the unaccustomed work sent
+racking pains through his back. The biting dust stung under his finger
+nails, and in his mouth and eyes. All the morning a sort of refrain
+went through his head: "People have spent their lives... doing only
+this. People have spent their lives doing only this." As he crossed and
+recrossed the narrow plank from the barge to the shore, he looked at the
+black water speeding seawards and took extraordinary care not to let
+his foot slip. He did not know why, for one-half of him was thinking how
+wonderful it would be to drown, to forget in eternal black silence the
+hopeless struggle. Once he saw the Kid standing before the sergeant in
+charge in an attitude of complete exhaustion, and caught a glint of his
+blue eyes as he looked up appealingly, looking like a child begging out
+of a spanking. The sight amused him, and he said to himself: "If I had
+pink cheeks and cupid's bow lips, I might be able to go through life
+on my blue eyes"; and he pictured the Kid, a fat, cherubic old man,
+stepping out of a white limousine, the way people do in the movies, and
+looking about him with those same mild blue eyes. But soon he forgot
+everything in the agony of the heavy cement bags bearing down on his
+back and hips.
+
+In the truck on the way back to the mess the Kid, looking fresh and
+smiling among the sweating men, like ghosts from the white dust,
+talking hoarsely above the clatter of the truck, sidled up very close to
+Andrews.
+
+"D'you like swimmin', Skinny?"
+
+"Yes. I'd give a lot to get some of this cement dust off me," said
+Andrews, without interest.
+
+"I once won a boy's swimmin' race at Coney," said the Kid. Andrews did
+not answer.
+
+"Were you in the swimmin' team or anything like that, Skinny, when you
+went to school?"
+
+"No.... It would be wonderful to be in the water, though. I used to swim
+way out in Chesapeake Bay at night when the water was phosphorescent."
+
+Andrews suddenly found the Kid's blue eyes, bright as flames from
+excitement, staring into his.
+
+"God, I'm an ass," he muttered.
+
+He felt the Kid's fist punch him softly in the back. "Sergeant said they
+was goin' to work us late as hell tonight," the Kid was saying aloud to
+the men round him.
+
+"I'll be dead if they do," muttered Hoggenback.
+
+"An' you a lumberjack!"
+
+"It ain't that. I could carry their bloody bags two at a time if I
+wanted ter. A feller gets so goddam mad, that's all; so goddam mad.
+Don't he, Skinny?" Hoggenback turned to Andrews and smiled.
+
+Andrews nodded his head.
+
+After the first two or three bags Andrews carried in the afternoon, it
+seemed as if every one would be the last he could possibly lift. His
+back and thighs throbbed with exhaustion; his face and the tips of his
+fingers felt raw from the biting cement dust.
+
+When the river began to grow purple with evening, he noticed that two
+civilians, young men with buff-colored coats and canes, were watching
+the gang at work.
+
+"They says they's newspaper reporters, writing up how fast the army's
+being demobilized," said one man in an awed voice.
+
+"They come to the right place."
+
+"Tell 'em we're leavin' for home now. Loadin' our barracks bags on the
+steamer."
+
+The newspaper men were giving out cigarettes. Several men grouped round
+them. One shouted out:
+
+"We're the guys does the light work. Blackjack Pershing's own pet labor
+battalion."
+
+"They like us so well they just can't let us go."
+
+"Damn jackasses," muttered Hoggenback, as, with his eyes to the ground,
+he passed Andrews. "I could tell 'em some things'd make their goddam
+ears buzz."
+
+"Why don't you?"
+
+"What the hell's the use? I ain't got the edication to talk up to guys
+like that."
+
+The sergeant, a short, red-faced man with a mustache clipped very short,
+went up to the group round the newspaper men.
+
+"Come on, fellers, we've got a hell of a lot of this cement to get in
+before it rains," he said in a kindly voice; "the sooner we get it in,
+the sooner we get off."
+
+"Listen to that bastard, ain't he juss too sweet for pie when there's
+company?" muttered Hoggenback on his way from the barge with a bag of
+cement.
+
+The Kid brushed past Andrews without looking at him.
+
+"Do what I do, Skinny," he said.
+
+Andrews did not turn round, but his heart started thumping very fast.
+A dull sort of terror took possession of him. He tried desperately to
+summon his will power, to keep from cringing, but he kept remembering
+the way the room had swung round when the M.P. had hit him, and heard
+again the cold voice of the lieutenant saying: "One of you men teach him
+how to salute." Time dragged out interminably.
+
+At last, coming back to the edge of the wharf, Andrews saw that there
+were no more bags in the barge. He sat down on the plank, too exhausted
+to think. Blue-grey dusk was closing down on everything. The Passy
+bridge stood out, purple against a great crimson afterglow.
+
+The Kid sat down beside him, and threw an arm trembling with excitement
+round his shoulders.
+
+"The guard's lookin' the other way. They won't miss us till they get to
+the truck.... Come on, Skinny," he said in a low, quiet voice.
+
+Holding on to the plank, he let himself down into the speeding water.
+Andrews slipped after him, hardly knowing what he was doing. The icy
+water closing about his body made him suddenly feel awake and vigorous.
+As he was swept by the big rudder of the barge, he caught hold of
+the Kid, who was holding on to a rope. They worked their way without
+speaking round to the outer side of the rudder. The swift river tugging
+savagely at them made it hard to hold on.
+
+"Now they can't see us," said the Kid between clenched teeth. "Can you
+work your shoes an' pants off?"'
+
+Andrews started struggling with one boot, the Kid helping to hold him up
+with his free hand.
+
+"Mine are off," he said. "I was all fixed." He laughed, though his teeth
+were chattering.
+
+"All right. I've broken the laces," said Andrews.
+
+"Can you swim under water?"
+
+Andrews nodded.
+
+"We want to make for that bunch of barges the other side of the bridge.
+The barge people'll hide us."
+
+"How d'ye know they will?"
+
+The Kid had disappeared.
+
+Andrews hesitated a moment, then let go his hold and started swimming
+with the current for all his might.
+
+At first he felt strong and exultant, but very soon he began to feel
+the icy grip of the water bearing him down; his arms and legs seemed
+to stiffen. More than against the water, he was struggling against
+paralysis within him, so that he thought that every moment his limbs
+would go rigid. He came to the surface and gasped for air. He had a
+second's glimpse of figures, tiny like toy soldiers, gesticulating
+wildly on the deck of the barge. The report of a rifle snapped through
+the air. He dove again, without thinking, as if his body were working
+independently of his mind.
+
+The next time he came up, his eyes were blurred from the cold. There was
+a taste of blood in his mouth. The shadow of the bridge was just above
+him. He turned on his back for a second. There were lights on the
+bridge. A current swept him past one barge and then another. Certainty
+possessed him that he was going to be drowned. A voice seemed to sob
+in his ears grotesquely: "And so John Andrews was drowned in the Seine,
+drowned in the Seine, in the Seine."
+
+Then he was kicking and fighting in a furious rage against the coils
+about him that wanted to drag him down and away. The black side of a
+barge was slipping up stream beside him with lightning speed. How fast
+those barges go, he thought. Then suddenly he found that he had hold of
+a rope, that his shoulders were banging against the bow of a small boat,
+while in front of him, against the dull purple sky, towered the rudder
+of the barge. A strong warm hand grasped his shoulder from behind, and
+he was being drawn up and up, over the bow of the boat that hurt his
+numbed body like blows, out of the clutching coils of the water.
+
+"Hide me, I'm a deserter," he said over and over again in French. A
+brown and red face with a bristly white beard, a bulbous, mullioned sort
+of face, hovered over him in the middle of a pinkish mist.
+
+
+
+                             II
+
+"Oh, qu'il est propre! Oh, qu'il a la peau blanche!" Women's voices were
+shrilling behind the mist. A coverlet that felt soft and fuzzy against
+his skin was being put about him. He was very warm and torpid. But
+somewhere in his thoughts a black crawling thing like a spider was
+trying to reach him, trying to work its way through the pinkish veils
+of torpor. After a long while he managed to roll over, and looked about
+him.
+
+"Mais reste tranquille," came the woman's shrill voice again.
+
+"And the other one? Did you see the other one?" he asked in a choked
+whisper.
+
+"Yes, it's all right. I'm drying it by the stove," came another woman's
+voice, deep and growling, almost like a man's.
+
+"Maman's drying your money by the stove. It's all safe. How rich they
+are, these Americans!"
+
+"And to think that I nearly threw it overboard with the trousers," said
+the other woman again.
+
+John Andrews began to look about him. He was in a dark low cabin. Behind
+him, in the direction of the voices, a yellow light flickered. Great
+dishevelled shadows of heads moved about on the ceiling. Through the
+close smell of the cabin came a warmth of food cooking. He could hear
+the soothing hiss of frying grease.
+
+"But didn't you see the Kid?" he asked in English, dazedly trying to
+pull himself together, to think coherently. Then he went on in French in
+a more natural voice:
+
+"There was another one with me."
+
+"We saw no one. Rosaline, ask the old man," said the older woman.
+
+"No, he didn't see anyone," came the girl's shrill voice. She walked
+over to the bed and pulled the coverlet round Andrews with an awkward
+gesture. Looking up at her, he had a glimpse of the bulge of her breasts
+and her large teeth that glinted in the lamplight, and very vague in the
+shadow, a mop of snaky, disordered hair.
+
+"Qu'il parle bien francais," she said, beaming at him. Heavy steps
+shuffled across the cabin as the older woman came up to the bed and
+peered in his face.
+
+"Il va mieux," she said, with a knowing air.
+
+She was a broad woman with a broad flat face and a swollen body swathed
+in shawls. Her eyebrows were very bushy, and she had thick grey whiskers
+that came down to a point on either side of her mouth, as well as a few
+bristling hairs on her chin. Her voice was deep and growling, and seemed
+to come from far down inside her huge body.
+
+Steps creaked somewhere, and the old man looked at him through
+spectacles placed on the end of his nose. Andrews recognized the
+irregular face full of red knobs and protrusions.
+
+"Thanks very much," he said.
+
+All three looked at him silently for some time. Then the old man pulled
+a newspaper out of his pocket, unfolded it carefully, and fluttered
+it above Andrews's eyes. In the scant light Andrews made out the name:
+"Libertaire."
+
+"That's why," said the old man, looking at Andrews fixedly, through his
+spectacles.
+
+"I'm a sort of a socialist," said Andrews.
+
+"Socialists are good-for-nothings," snarled the old man, every red
+protrusion on his face seeming to get redder.
+
+"But I have great sympathy for anarchist comrades," went on Andrews,
+feeling a certain liveliness of amusement go through him and fade again.
+
+"Lucky you caught hold of my rope, instead of getting on to the next
+barge. He'd have given you up for sure. Sont des royalistes, ces
+salauds-la."
+
+"We must give him something to eat; hurry, Maman.... Don't worry, he'll
+pay, won't you, my little American?"
+
+Andrews nodded his head.
+
+"All you want," he said.
+
+"No, if he says he's a comrade, he shan't pay, not a sou," growled the
+old man.
+
+"We'll see about that," cried the old woman, drawing her breath in with
+an angry whistling sound.
+
+"It's only that living's so dear nowadays," came the girl's voice.
+
+"Oh, I'll pay anything I've got," said Andrews peevishly, closing his
+eyes again.
+
+He lay a long while on his back without moving.
+
+A hand shoved in between his back and the pillow roused him. He sat up.
+Rosaline was holding a bowl of broth in front of him that steamed in his
+face.
+
+"Mange ca," she said.
+
+He looked into her eyes, smiling. Her rusty hair was neatly combed. A
+bright green parrot with a scarlet splash in its wings, balanced itself
+unsteadily on her shoulder, looking at Andrews out of angry eyes, hard
+as gems.
+
+"Il est jaloux, Coco," said Rosaline, with a shrill little giggle.
+
+Andrews took the bowl in his two hands and drank some of the scalding
+broth.
+
+"It's too hot," he said, leaning back against the girl's arm.
+
+The parrot squawked out a sentence that Andrews did not understand.
+
+Andrews heard the old man's voice answer from somewhere behind him:
+
+"Nom de Dieu!"
+
+The parrot squawked again.
+
+Rosaline laughed.
+
+"It's the old man who taught him that," she said. "Poor Coco, he doesn't
+know what he's saying."
+
+"What does he say?" asked Andrews.
+
+"'Les bourgeois a la lanterne, nom de dieu!' It's from a song," said
+Rosaline. "Oh, qu'il est malin, ce Coco!"
+
+Rosaline was standing with her arms folded beside the bunk. The parrot
+stretched out his neck and rubbed it against her cheek, closing and
+unclosing his gem-like eyes. The girl formed her lips into a kiss, and
+murmured in a drowsy voice:
+
+"Tu m'aimes, Coco, n'est-ce pas, Coco? Bon Coco."
+
+"Could I have something more, I'm awfully hungry," said Andrews.
+
+"Oh, I was forgetting," cried Rosaline, running off with the empty bowl.
+
+In a moment she came back without the parrot, with the bowl in her hand
+full of a brown stew of potatoes and meat.
+
+Andrews ate it mechanically, and handed back the bowl.
+
+"Thank you," he said, "I am going to sleep."
+
+He settled himself into the bunk. Rosaline drew the covers up about
+him and tucked them in round his shoulders. Her hand seemed to linger a
+moment as it brushed past his cheek. But Andrews had already sunk into a
+torpor again, feeling nothing but the warmth of the food within him and
+a great stiffness in his legs and arms.
+
+When he woke up the light was grey instead of yellow, and a swishing
+sound puzzled him. He lay listening to it for a long time, wondering
+what it was. At last the thought came with a sudden warm spurt of joy
+that the barge must be moving.
+
+He lay very quietly on his back, looking up at the faint silvery light
+on the ceiling of the bunk, thinking of nothing, with only a vague dread
+in the back of his head that someone would come to speak to him, to
+question him.
+
+After a long time he began to think of Genevieve Rod. He was having a
+long conversation with her about his music, and in his imagination she
+kept telling him that he must finish the "Queen of Sheba," and that she
+would show it to Monsieur Gibier, who was a great friend of a certain
+concert director, who might get it played. How long ago it must be
+since they had talked about that. A picture floated through his mind
+of himself and Genevieve standing shoulder to shoulder looking at the
+Cathedral at Chartres, which stood up nonchalantly, above the tumultuous
+roofs of the town, with its sober tower and its gaudy towers and the
+great rose windows between. Inexorably his memory carried him forward,
+moment by moment, over that day, until he writhed with shame and revolt.
+Good god! Would he have to go on all his life remembering that? "Teach
+him how to salute," the officer had said, and Handsome had stepped up to
+him and hit him. Would he have to go on all his life remembering that?
+
+"We tied up the uniform with some stones, and threw it overboard," said
+Rosaline, jabbing him in the shoulder to draw his attention.
+
+"That was a good idea."
+
+"Are you going to get up? It's nearly time to eat. How you have slept."
+
+"But I haven't anything to put on," said Andrews, laughing, and waved a
+bare arm above the bedclothes.
+
+"Wait, I'll find something of the old man's. Say, do all Americans have
+skin so white as that? Look."
+
+She put her brown hand, with its grimed and broken nails, on Andrews's
+arm, that was white with a few silky yellow hairs.
+
+"It's because I'm blond," said Andrews. "There are plenty of blond
+Frenchmen, aren't there?"
+
+Rosaline ran off giggling, and came back in a moment with a pair of
+corduroy trousers and a torn flannel shirt that smelt of pipe tobacco.
+
+"That'll do for now," she said. "It's warm today for April. Tonight
+we'll buy you some clothes and shoes. Where are you going?"
+
+"By God, I don't know."
+
+"We're going to Havre for cargo." She put both hands to her head and
+began rearranging her straggling rusty-colored hair. "Oh, my hair," she
+said, "it's the water, you know. You can't keep respectable-looking on
+these filthy barges. Say, American, why don't you stay with us a while?
+You can help the old man run the boat."
+
+He found suddenly that her eyes were looking into his with trembling
+eagerness.
+
+"I don't know what to do," he said carelessly. "I wonder if it's safe to
+go on deck."
+
+She turned away from him petulantly and led the way up the ladder.
+
+"Oh, v'la le camarade," cried the old man who was leaning with all his
+might against the long tiller of the barge. "Come and help me."
+
+The barge was the last of a string of four that were describing a
+wide curve in the midst of a reach of silvery river full of glittering
+patches of pale, pea-green lavender, hemmed in on either side by
+frail blue roots of poplars. The sky was a mottled luminous grey with
+occasional patches, the color of robins' eggs. Andrews breathed in the
+dank smell of the river and leaned against the tiller when he was told
+to, answering the old man's curt questions.
+
+He stayed with the tiller when the rest of them went down to the cabin
+to eat. The pale colors and the swishing sound of the water and the
+blue-green banks slipping by and unfolding on either hand, were as
+soothing as his deep sleep had been. Yet they seemed only a veil
+covering other realities, where men stood interminably in line and
+marched with legs made all the same length on the drill field, and wore
+the same clothes and cringed before the same hierarchy of polished belts
+and polished puttees and stiff-visored caps, that had its homes in vast
+offices crammed with index cards and card catalogues; a world full of
+the tramp of marching, where cold voices kept saying:--"Teach him how to
+salute." Like a bird in a net, Andrews's mind struggled to free itself
+from the obsession.
+
+Then he thought of his table in his room in Paris, with its piled sheets
+of ruled paper, and he felt he wanted nothing in the world except to
+work. It would not matter what happened to him if he could only have
+time to weave into designs the tangled skein of music that seethed
+through him as the blood seethed through his veins.
+
+There he stood, leaning against the long tiller, watching the blue-green
+poplars glide by, here and there reflected in the etched silver mirror
+of the river, feeling the moist river wind flutter his ragged shirt,
+thinking of nothing.
+
+After a while the old man came up out of the cabin, his face purplish,
+puffing clouds of smoke out of his pipe.
+
+"All right, young fellow, go down and eat," he said.
+
+
+
+Andrews lay flat on his belly on the deck, with his chin resting on the
+back of his two hands. The barge was tied up along the river bank among
+many other barges. Beside him, a small fuzzy dog barked furiously at a
+yellow mongrel on the shore. It was nearly dark, and through the pearly
+mist of the river came red oblongs of light from the taverns along the
+bank. A slip of a new moon, shrouded in haze, was setting behind the
+poplar trees. Amid the round of despairing thoughts, the memory of the
+Kid intruded itself. He had sold a Ford for five hundred francs, and
+gone on a party with a man who'd stolen an ammunition train, and he
+wanted to write for the Italian movies. No war could down people like
+that. Andrews smiled, looking into the black water. Funny, the Kid was
+dead, probably, and he, John Andrews, was alive and free. And he lay
+there moping, still whimpering over old wrongs. "For God's sake be a
+man!" he said to himself. He got to his feet.
+
+At the cabin door, Rosaline was playing with the parrot.
+
+"Give me a kiss, Coco," she was saying in a drowsy voice, "just a little
+kiss. Just a little kiss for Rosaline, poor little Rosaline."
+
+The parrot, which Andrews could hardly see in the dusk, leaned towards
+her, fluttering his feathers, making little clucking noises.
+
+Rosaline caught sight of Andrews.
+
+"Oh, I thought you'd gone to have a drink with the old man," she cried.
+
+"No. I stayed here."
+
+"D'you like it, this life?"
+
+Rosaline put the parrot back on his perch, where he swayed from side to
+side, squawking in protest: "Les bourgeois a la lanterne, nom de dieu!"
+
+They both laughed.
+
+"Oh, it must be a wonderful life. This barge seems like heaven after the
+army."
+
+"But they pay you well, you Americans."
+
+"Seven francs a day."
+
+"That's luxury, that."
+
+"And be ordered around all day long!"
+
+"But you have no expenses.... It's clear gain.... You men are funny. The
+old man's like that too.... It's nice here all by ourselves, isn't it,
+Jean?"
+
+Andrews did not answer. He was wondering what Genevieve Rod would say
+when she found out he was a deserter.
+
+"I hate it.... It's dirty and cold and miserable in winter," went on
+Rosaline. "I'd like to see them at the bottom of the river, all these
+barges.... And Paris women, did you have a good time with them?"
+
+"I only knew one. I go very little with women."
+
+"All the same, love's nice, isn't it?"
+
+They were sitting on the rail at the bow of the barge. Rosaline had
+sidled up so that her leg touched Andrews's leg along its whole length.
+
+The memory of Genevieve Rod became more and more vivid in his mind. He
+kept thinking of things she had said, of the intonations of her voice,
+of the blundering way she poured tea, and of her pale-brown eyes wide
+open on the world, like the eyes of a woman in an encaustic painting
+from a tomb in the Fayoum.
+
+"Mother's talking to the old woman at the Creamery. They're great
+friends. She won't be home for two hours yet," said Rosaline.
+
+"She's bringing my clothes, isn't she?"
+
+"But you're all right as you are."
+
+"But they're your father's."
+
+"What does that matter?"
+
+"I must go back to Paris soon. There is somebody I must see in Paris."
+
+"A woman?"
+
+Andrews nodded.
+
+"But it's not so bad, this life on the barge. I'm just lonesome and sick
+of the old people. That's why I talk nastily about it.... We could have
+good times together if you stayed with us a little."
+
+She leaned her head on his shoulder and put a hand awkwardly on his bare
+forearm.
+
+"How cold these Americans are!" she muttered, giggling drowsily.
+
+Andrews felt her hair tickle his cheek.
+
+"No, it's not a bad life on the barge, honestly. The only thing is,
+there's nothing but old people on the river. It isn't life to be always
+with old people.... I want to have a good time."
+
+She pressed her cheek against his. He could feel her breath heavy in his
+face.
+
+"After all, it's lovely in summer to drowse on the deck that's all warm
+with the sun, and see the trees and the fields and the little houses
+slipping by on either side.... If there weren't so many old people....
+All the boys go away to the cities.... I hate old people; they're so
+dirty and slow. We mustn't waste our youth, must we?"
+
+Andrews got to his feet.
+
+"What's the matter?" she cried sharply.
+
+"Rosaline," Andrews said in a low, soft voice, "I can only think of
+going to Paris."
+
+"Oh, the Paris woman," said Rosaline scornfully. "But what does that
+matter? She isn't here now."
+
+"I don't know.... Perhaps I shall never see her again anyway," said
+Andrews.
+
+"You're a fool. You must amuse yourself when you can in this life. And
+you a deserter.... Why, they may catch you and shoot you any time."
+
+"Oh, I know, you're right. You're right. But I'm not made like that,
+that's all."
+
+"She must be very good to you, your little Paris girl."
+
+"I've never touched her."
+
+Rosaline threw her head back and laughed raspingly.
+
+"But you aren't sick, are you?" she cried.
+
+"Probably I remember too vividly, that's all.... Anyway, I'm a fool,
+Rosaline, because you're a nice girl."
+
+There were steps on the plank that led to the shore. A shawl over her
+head and a big bundle under her arm, the old woman came up to them,
+panting wheezily. She looked from one to the other, trying to make out
+their faces in the dark.
+
+"It's a danger... like that... youth," she muttered between hard short
+breaths.
+
+"Did you find the clothes?" asked Andrews in a casual voice.
+
+"Yes. That leaves you forty-five francs out of your money, when I've
+taken out for your food and all that. Does that suit you?"
+
+"Thank you very much for your trouble."
+
+"You paid for it. Don't worry about that," said the old woman. She gave
+him the bundle. "Here are your clothes and the forty-five francs. If you
+want, I'll tell you exactly what each thing cost."
+
+"I'll put them on first," he said, with a laugh.
+
+He climbed down the ladder into the cabin.
+
+Putting on new, unfamiliar-shaped clothes made him suddenly feel strong
+and joyous. The old woman had bought him corduroy trousers, cheap cloth
+shoes, a blue cotton shirt, woollen socks, and a second-hand black serge
+jacket. When he came on deck she held up a lantern to look at him.
+
+"Doesn't he look fine, altogether French?" she said.
+
+Rosaline turned away without answering. A little later she picked up the
+perch and carried the parrot, that swayed sleepily on the crosspiece,
+down the ladder.
+
+"Les bourgeois a la lanterne, nom de dieu!" came the old man's voice
+singing on the shore.
+
+"He's drunk as a pig," muttered the old woman. "If only he doesn't fall
+off the gang plank."
+
+A swaying shadow appeared at the end of the plank, standing out against
+the haze of light from the houses behind the poplar trees.
+
+Andrews put out a hand to catch him, as he reached the side of the
+barge. The old man sprawled against the cabin.
+
+"Don't bawl me out, dearie," he said, dangling an arm round Andrews's
+neck, and a hand beckoning vaguely towards his wife.
+
+"I've found a comrade for the little American."
+
+"What's that?" said Andrews sharply. His mouth suddenly went dry with
+terror. He felt his nails pressing into the palms of his cold-hands.
+
+"I've found another American for you," said the old man in an important
+voice. "Here he comes." Another shadow appeared at the end of the
+gangplank.
+
+"Les bourgeois a la lanterne, nom de dieu!" shouted the old man.
+
+Andrews backed away cautiously towards the other side of the barge. All
+the little muscles of his thighs were trembling. A hard voice was saying
+in his head: "Drown yourself, drown yourself. Then they won't get you."
+
+The man was standing on the end of the plank. Andrews could see the
+contour of the uniform against the haze of light behind the poplar
+trees.
+
+"God, if I only had a pistol," he thought.
+
+"Say, Buddy, where are you?" came an American voice.
+
+The man advanced towards him across the deck.
+
+Andrews stood with every muscle taut.
+
+"Gee! You've taken off your uniform.... Say, I'm not an M.P. I'm
+A.W.O.L. too. Shake." He held out his hand.
+
+Andrews took the hand doubtfully, without moving from the edge of the
+barge.
+
+"Say, Buddy, it's a damn fool thing to take off your uniform. Ain't you
+got any? If they pick you up like that it's life, kid."
+
+"I can't help it. It's done now."
+
+"Gawd, you still think I'm an M.P., don't yer?... I swear I ain't. Maybe
+you are. Gawd, it's hell, this life. A feller can't put his trust in
+nobody."
+
+"What division are you from?"
+
+"Hell, I came to warn you this bastard frawg's got soused an' has been
+blabbin' in the gin mill there how he was an anarchist an' all that, an'
+how he had an American deserter who was an anarchist an' all that, an'
+I said to myself: 'That guy'll git nabbed if he ain't careful,' so
+I cottoned up to the old frawg an' said I'd go with him to see the
+camarade, an' I think we'd better both of us make tracks out o' this
+burg."
+
+"It's damn decent. I'm sorry I was so suspicious. I was scared green
+when I first saw you."
+
+"You were goddam right to be. But why did yous take yer uniform off?"
+
+"Come along, let's beat it. I'll tell you about that."
+
+Andrews shook hands with the old man and the old woman. Rosaline had
+disappeared.
+
+"Goodnight...Thank you," he said, and followed the other man across the
+gangplank.
+
+As they walked away along the road they heard the old man's voice
+roaring:
+
+"Les bourgeois a la lanterne, nom de dieu!"
+
+"My name's Eddy Chambers," said the American.
+
+"Mine's John Andrews."
+
+"How long've you been out?"
+
+"Two days."
+
+Eddy let the air out through his teeth in a whistle.
+
+"I got away from a labor battalion in Paris. They'd picked me up in
+Chartres without a pass."
+
+"Gee, I've been out a month an' more. Was you infantry too?"
+
+"Yes. I was in the School Detachment in Paris when I was picked up.
+But I never could get word to them. They just put me to work without a
+trial. Ever been in a labor battalion?"
+
+"No, thank Gawd, they ain't got my number yet."
+
+They were walking fast along a straight road across a plain under a
+clear star-powdered sky.
+
+"I been out eight weeks yesterday. What'd you think o' that?" said Eddy.
+
+"Must have had plenty of money to go on."
+
+"I've been flat fifteen days."
+
+"How d'you work it?"
+
+"I dunno. I juss work it though.... Ye see, it was this way. The gang I
+was with went home when I was in hauspital, and the damn skunks put me
+in class A and was goin' to send me to the Army of Occupation. Gawd, it
+made me sick, goin' out to a new outfit where I didn't know anybody, an'
+all the rest of my bunch home walkin' down Water Street with brass bands
+an' reception committees an' girls throwing kisses at 'em an' all that.
+Where are yous goin'?"
+
+"Paris."
+
+"Gee, I wouldn't. Risky."
+
+"But I've got friends there. I can get hold of some money."
+
+"Looks like I hadn't got a friend in the world. I wish I'd gone to that
+goddam outfit now.... I ought to have been in the engineers all the
+time, anyway."
+
+"What did you do at home?"
+
+"Carpenter."
+
+"But gosh, man, with a trade like that you can always make a living
+anywhere."
+
+"You're goddam right, I could, but a guy has to live underground, like
+a rabbit, at this game. If I could git to a country where I could walk
+around like a man, I wouldn't give a damn what happened. If the army
+ever moves out of here an' the goddam M.P.'s, I'll set up in business
+in one of these here little towns. I can parlee pretty well. I'd juss as
+soon marry a French girl an' git to be a regular frawg myself. After the
+raw deal they've given me in the army, I don't want to have nothin' more
+to do with their damn country. Democracy!"
+
+He cleared his throat and spat angrily on the road before him. They
+walked on silently. Andrews was looking at the sky, picking out
+constellations he knew among the glittering masses of stars.
+
+"Why don't you try Spain or Italy?" he said after a while.
+
+"Don't know the lingo. No, I'm going to Scotland."
+
+"But how can you get there?"
+
+"Crossing on the car ferries to England from Havre. I've talked to guys
+has done it."
+
+"But what'll you do when you do get there?"
+
+"How should I know? Live around best I can. What can a feller do when he
+don't dare show his face in the street?"
+
+"Anyway, it makes you feel as if you had some guts in you to be out on
+your own this way," cried Andrews boisterously.
+
+"Wait till you've been at it two months, boy, and you'll think what I'm
+tellin' yer.... The army's hell when you're in it; but it's a hell of a
+lot worse when you're out of it, at the wrong end."
+
+"It's a great night, anyway," said Andrews.
+
+"Looks like we ought to be findin' a haystack to sleep in."
+
+"It'd be different," burst out Andrews, suddenly, "if I didn't have
+friends here."
+
+"O, you've met up with a girl, have you?" asked Eddy ironically.
+
+"Yes. The thing is we really get along together, besides all the rest."
+
+Eddy snorted.
+
+"I bet you ain't ever even kissed her," he said. "Gee, I've had buddies
+has met up with that friendly kind. I know a guy married one, an' found
+out after two weeks."
+
+"It's silly to talk about it. I can't explain it.... It gives you
+confidence in anything to feel there's someone who'll always understand
+anything you do."
+
+"I s'pose you're goin' to git married."
+
+"I don't see why. That would spoil everything."
+
+Eddy whistled softly.
+
+They walked along briskly without speaking for a long time, their steps
+ringing on the hard road, while the dome of the sky shimmered above
+their heads. And from the ditches came the singsong shrilling of toads.
+For the first time in months Andrews felt himself bubbling with a spirit
+of joyous adventure. The rhythm of the three green horsemen that was to
+have been the prelude to the Queen of Sheba began rollicking through his
+head.
+
+"But, Eddy, this is wonderful. It's us against the universe," he said in
+a boisterous voice.
+
+"You wait," said Eddy.
+
+
+
+When Andrews walked by the M.P. at the Gare-St. Lazare, his hands were
+cold with fear. The M.P. did not look at him. He stopped on the crowded
+pavement a little way from the station and stared into a mirror in a
+shop window. Unshaven, with a check cap on the side of his head and his
+corduroy trousers, he looked like a young workman who had been out of
+work for a month.
+
+"Gee, clothes do make a difference," he said to himself. He smiled when
+he thought how shocked Walters would be when he turned up in that rig,
+and started walking with leisurely stride across Paris, where everything
+bustled and jingled with early morning, where from every cafe came a hot
+smell of coffee, and fresh bread steamed in the windows of the bakeries.
+He still had three francs in his pocket. On a side street the fumes of
+coffee roasting attracted him into a small bar. Several men were
+arguing boisterously at the end of the bar. One of them turned a ruddy,
+tow-whiskered face to Andrews, and said:
+
+"Et toi, tu vas chomer le premier mai?"
+
+"I'm on strike already," answered Andrews laughing.
+
+The man noticed his accent, looked at him sharply a second, and turned
+back to the conversation, lowering his voice as he did so. Andrews drank
+down his coffee and left the bar, his heart pounding. He could not help
+glancing back over his shoulder now and then to see if he was being
+followed. At a corner he stopped with his fists clenched and leaned a
+second against a house wall.
+
+"Where's your nerve. Where's your nerve?" He was saying to himself.
+
+He strode off suddenly, full of bitter determination not to turn round
+again. He tried to occupy his mind with plans. Let's see, what should he
+do? First he'd go to his room and look up old Henslowe and Walters. Then
+he would go to see Genevieve. Then he'd work, work, forget everything in
+his work, until the army should go back to America and there should be
+no more uniforms on the streets. And as for the future, what did he care
+about the future?
+
+When he turned the corner into the familiar street where his room was,
+a thought came to him. Suppose he should find M.P.'s waiting for him
+there? He brushed it aside angrily and strode fast up the sidewalk,
+catching up to a soldier who was slouching along in the same direction,
+with his hands in his pockets and eyes on the ground. Andrews stopped
+suddenly as he was about to pass the soldier and turned. The man looked
+up. It was Chrisfield.
+
+Andrews held out his hand.
+
+Chrisfield seized it eagerly and shook it for a long time. "Jesus
+Christ! Ah thought you was a Frenchman, Andy.... Ah guess you got yer
+dis-charge then. God, Ah'm glad."
+
+"I'm glad I look like a Frenchman, anyway.... Been on leave long,
+Chris?"
+
+Two buttons were off the front of Chrisfield's uniform; there were
+streaks of dirt on his face, and his puttees were clothed with mud. He
+looked Andrews seriously in the eyes, and shook his head.
+
+"No. Ah done flew the coop, Andy," he said in a low voice.
+
+"Since when?"
+
+"Ah been out a couple o' weeks. Ah'll tell you about it, Andy. Ah was
+comin' to see you now. Ah'm broke."
+
+"Well look, I'll be able to get hold of some money tomorrow.... I'm out
+too."
+
+"What d'ye mean?"
+
+"I haven't got a discharge. I'm through with it all. I've deserted."
+
+"God damn! That's funny that you an' me should both do it, Andy. But why
+the hell did you do it?"
+
+"Oh, it's too long to tell here. Come up to my room."
+
+"There may be fellers there. Ever been at the Chink's?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I'm stayin' there. There're other fellers who's A.W. O.L. too. The
+Chink's got a gin mill."
+
+"Where is it."
+
+"Eight, rew day Petee Jardings."
+
+"Where's that?"
+
+"Way back of that garden where the animals are."
+
+"Look, I can find you there tomorrow morning, and I'll bring some
+money."
+
+"Ah'll wait for ye, Andy, at nine. It's a bar. Ye won't be able to git
+in without me, the kids is pretty scared of plainclothes men."
+
+"I think it'll be perfectly safe to come up to my place now."
+
+"Now, Ah'm goin' to git the hell out of here."
+
+"But Chris, why did you go A.W.O.L.?"
+
+"Oh, Ah doan know.... A guy who's in the Paris detachment got yer
+address for me."
+
+"But, Chris, did they say anything to him about me?"
+
+"No, nauthin'."
+
+"That's funny.... Well, Chris, I'll be there tomorrow, if I can find the
+place."
+
+"Man, you've got to be there."
+
+"Oh, I'll turn up," said Andrews with a smile.
+
+They shook hands nervously.
+
+"Say, Andy," said Chrisfield, still holding on to Andrews's hand, "Ah
+went A.W.O.L. 'cause a sergeant...God damn it; it's weighin' on ma mind
+awful these days.... There's a sergeant that knows."
+
+"What you mean?"
+
+"Ah told ye about Anderson...Ah know you ain't tole anybody, Andy."
+Chrisfield dropped Andrews's hand and looked at him in the face with an
+unexpected sideways glance. Then he went on through clenched teeth: "Ah
+swear to Gawd Ah ain't tole another livin' soul.... An' the sergeant in
+Company D knows."
+
+"For God's sake, Chris, don't lose your nerve like that."
+
+"Ah ain't lost ma nerve. Ah tell you that guy knows."
+
+Chrisfield's voice rose, suddenly shrill.
+
+"Look, Chris, we can't stand talking out here in the street like this.
+It isn't safe."
+
+"But mebbe you'll be able to tell me what to do. You think, Andy. Mebbe,
+tomorrow, you'll have thought up somethin' we can do...So long."
+
+Chrisfield walked away hurriedly. Andrews looked after him a moment, and
+then went in through the court to the house where his room was.
+
+At the foot of the stairs an old woman's voice startled him.
+
+"Mais, Monsieur Andre, que vous avez l'air etrange; how funny you look
+dressed like that."
+
+The concierge was smiling at him from her cubbyhole beside the stairs.
+She sat knitting with a black shawl round her head, a tiny old woman
+with a hooked bird-like nose and eyes sunk in depressions full of little
+wrinkles, like a monkey's eyes.
+
+"Yes, at the town where I was demobilized, I couldn't get anything
+else," stammered Andrews.
+
+"Oh, you're demobilized, are you? That's why you've been away so long.
+Monsieur Valters said he didn't know where you were.... It's better that
+way, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes," said Andrews, starting up the stairs.
+
+"Monsieur Valters is in now," went on the old woman, talking after him.
+"And you've got in just in time for the first of May."
+
+"Oh, yes, the strike," said Andrews, stopping half-way up the flight.
+
+"It'll be dreadful," said the old woman. "I hope you won't go out. Young
+folks are so likely to get into trouble...Oh, but all your friends have
+been worried about your being away so long."
+
+"Have they?'" said Andrews. He continued up the stairs.
+
+"Au revoir, Monsieur."
+
+"Au revoir, Madame."
+
+
+
+                              III
+
+"No, nothing can make me go back now. It's no use talking about it."
+
+"But you're crazy, man. You're crazy. One man alone can't buck the
+system like that, can he, Henslowe?"
+
+Walters was talking earnestly, leaning across the table beside the
+lamp. Henslowe, who sat very stiff on the edge of a chair, nodded with
+compressed lips. Andrews lay at full length on the bed, out of the
+circle of light.
+
+"Honestly, Andy," said Henslowe with tears in his voice, "I think you'd
+better do what Walters says. It's no use being heroic about it."
+
+"I'm not being heroic, Henny," cried Andrews, sitting up on the bed.
+He drew his feet under him, tailor fashion, and went on talking very
+quietly. "Look.. It's a purely personal matter. I've got to a point
+where I don't give a damn what happens to me. I don't care if I'm shot,
+or if I live to be eighty...I'm sick of being ordered round. One more
+order shouted at my head is not worth living to be eighty... to me.
+That's all. For God's sake let's talk about something else."
+
+"But how many orders have you had shouted at your head since you got
+in this School Detachment? Not one. You can put through your discharge
+application probably...." Walters got to his feet, letting the chair
+crash to the floor behind him. He stopped to pick it up. "Look here;
+here's my proposition," he went on. "I don't think you are marked
+A.W.O.L. in the School office. Things are so damn badly run there.
+You can turn up and say you've been sick and draw your back pay. And
+nobody'll say a thing. Or else I'll put it right up to the guy who's top
+sergeant. He's a good friend of mine. We can fix it up on the records
+some way. But for God's sake don't ruin your whole life on account of
+a little stubbornness, and some damn fool anarchistic ideas or other a
+feller like you ought to have had more sense than to pick up...."
+
+"He's right, Andy," said Henslowe in a low voice.
+
+"Please don't talk any more about it. You've told me all that before,"
+said Andrews sharply. He threw himself back on the bed and rolled over
+towards the wall.
+
+They were silent a long time. A sound of voices and footsteps drifted up
+from the courtyard.
+
+"But, look here, Andy," said Henslowe nervously stroking his moustache.
+"You care much more about your work than any abstract idea of asserting
+your right of individual liberty. Even if you don't get caught.... I
+think the chances of getting caught are mighty slim if you use your
+head.... But even if you don't, you haven't enough money to live for
+long over here, you haven't...."
+
+"Don't you think I've thought of all that? I'm not crazy, you know. I've
+figured up the balance perfectly sanely. The only thing is, you fellows
+can't understand. Have you ever been in a labor battalion? Have you
+ever had a man you'd been chatting with five minutes before deliberately
+knock you down? Good God, you don't know what you are talking about,
+you two.... I've got to be free, now. I don't care at what cost. Being
+free's the only thing that matters."
+
+Andrews lay on his back talking towards the ceiling.
+
+Henslowe was on his feet, striding nervously about the room.
+
+"As if anyone was ever free," he muttered.
+
+"All right, quibble, quibble. You can argue anything away if you want
+to. Of course, cowardice is the best policy, necessary for survival. The
+man who's got most will to live is the most cowardly... go on." Andrews's
+voice was shrill and excited, breaking occasionally like a half-grown
+boy's voice.
+
+"Andy, what on earth's got hold of you?... God, I hate to go away this
+way," added Henslowe after a pause.
+
+"I'll pull through all right, Henny. I'll probably come to see you in
+Syria, disguised as an Arab sheik." Andrews laughed excitedly.
+
+"If I thought I'd do any good, I'd stay.... But there's nothing I can
+do. Everybody's got to settle their own affairs, in their own damn fool
+way. So long, Walters."
+
+Walters and Henslowe shook hands absently.
+
+Henslowe came over to the bed and held out his hand to Andrews.
+
+"Look, old man, you will be as careful as you can, won't you? And
+write me care American Red Cross, Jerusalem. I'll be damned anxious,
+honestly."
+
+"Don't you worry, we'll go travelling together yet," said Andrews,
+sitting up and taking Henslowe's hand.
+
+They heard Henslowe's steps fade down the stairs and then ring for a
+moment on the pavings of the courtyard.
+
+Walters moved his chair over beside Andrews's bed.
+
+"Now, look, let's have a man-to-man talk, Andrews. Even if you want to
+ruin your life, you haven't a right to. There's your family, and haven't
+you any patriotism?... Remember, there is such a thing as duty in the
+world."
+
+Andrews sat up and said in a low, furious voice, pausing between each
+word:
+
+"I can't explain it.... But I shall never put a uniform on again.... So
+for Christ's sake shut up."
+
+"All right, do what you goddam please; I'm through with you."
+
+Walters suddenly flashed into a rage. He began undressing silently.
+Andrews lay a long while flat on his back in the bed, staring at the
+ceiling, then he too undressed, put the light out, and got into bed.
+
+
+
+The rue des Petits-Jardins was a short street in a district of
+warehouses. A grey, windowless wall shut out the light along all of one
+side. Opposite was a cluster of three old houses leaning together as if
+the outer ones were trying to support the beetling mansard roof of the
+center house. Behind them rose a huge building with rows and rows of
+black windows. When Andrews stopped to look about him, he found the
+street completely deserted. The ominous stillness that had brooded over
+the city during all the walk from his room near the Pantheon seemed here
+to culminate in sheer desolation. In the silence he could hear the light
+padding noise made by the feet of a dog that trotted across the end of
+the street. The house with the mansard roof was number eight. The front
+of the lower storey had once been painted in chocolate-color, across the
+top of which was still decipherable the sign: "Charbon, Bois. Lhomond."
+On the grimed window beside the door, was painted in white: "Debit de
+Boissons."
+
+Andrews pushed on the door, which opened easily. Somewhere in the
+interior a bell jangled, startlingly loud after the silence of the
+street. On the wall opposite the door was a speckled mirror with a crack
+in it, the shape of a star, and under it a bench with three marble-top
+tables. The zinc bar filled up the third wall. In the fourth was a glass
+door pasted up with newspapers. Andrews walked over to the bar. The
+jangling of the bell faded to silence. He waited, a curious uneasiness
+gradually taking possession of him. Anyways, he thought, he was wasting
+his time; he ought to be doing something to arrange his future. He
+walked over to the street door. The bell jangled again when he opened
+it. At the same moment a man came out through the door the newspapers
+were pasted over. He was a stout man in a dirty white shirt stained to a
+brownish color round the armpits and caught in very tightly at the waist
+by the broad elastic belt that held up his yellow corduroy trousers.
+His face was flabby, of a greenish color; black eyes looked at Andrews
+fixedly through barely open lids, so that they seemed long slits above
+the cheekbones.
+
+"That's the Chink," thought Andrews.
+
+"Well," said the man, taking his place behind the bar with his legs far
+apart.
+
+"A beer, please," said Andrews.
+
+"There isn't any."
+
+"A glass of wine then."
+
+The man nodded his head, and keeping his eyes fastened on Andrews all
+the while, strode out of the door again.
+
+A moment later, Chrisfield came out, with rumpled hair, yawning, rubbing
+an eye with the knuckles of one fist.
+
+"Lawsie, Ah juss woke up, Andy. Come along in back."
+
+Andrews followed him through a small room with tables and benches,
+down a corridor where the reek of ammonia bit into his eyes, and up
+a staircase littered with dirt and garbage. Chrisfield opened a door
+directly on the stairs, and they stumbled into a large room with a
+window that gave on the court. Chrisfield closed the door carefully, and
+turned to Andrews with a smile.
+
+"Ah was right smart 'askeered ye wouldn't find it, Andy."
+
+"So this is where you live?"
+
+"Um hum, a bunch of us lives here."
+
+A wide bed without coverings, where a man in olive-drab slept rolled in
+a blanket, was the only furniture of the room.
+
+"Three of us sleeps in that bed," said Chrisfield.
+
+"Who's that?" cried the man in the bed, sitting up suddenly.
+
+"All right, Al, he's a buddy o' mine," said Chrisfield. "He's taken off
+his uniform."
+
+"Jesus, you got guts," said the man in the bed.
+
+Andrews looked at him sharply. A piece of towelling, splotched here and
+there with dried blood, was wrapped round his head, and a hand, swathed
+in bandages, was drawn up to his body. The man's mouth took on a twisted
+expression of pain as he let his head gradually down to the bed again.
+
+"Gosh, what did you do to yourself?" cried Andrews.
+
+"I tried to hop a freight at Marseilles."
+
+"Needs practice to do that sort o' thing," said Chrisfield, who sat on
+the bed, pulling his shoes off. "Ah'm go-in' to git back to bed, Andy.
+Ah'm juss dead tired. Ah chucked cabbages all night at the market. They
+give ye a job there without askin' no questions."
+
+"Have a cigarette." Andrews sat down on the foot of the bed and threw a
+cigarette towards Chrisfield. "Have one?" he asked Al.
+
+"No. I couldn't smoke. I'm almost crazy with this hand. One of the
+wheels went over it.... I cut what was left of the little finger off
+with a razor." Andrews could see the sweat rolling down his cheek as he
+spoke.
+
+"Christ, that poor beggar's been havin' a time, Andy. We was 'askeert to
+get a doctor, and we all didn't know what to do."
+
+"I got some pure alcohol an' washed it in that. It's not infected. I
+guess it'll be all right."
+
+"Where are you from, Al?" asked Andrews.
+
+"'Frisco. Oh, I'm goin' to try to sleep. I haven't slept a wink for four
+nights."
+
+"Why don't you get some dope?"
+
+"Oh, we all ain't had a cent to spare for anythin', Andy."
+
+"Oh, if we had kale we could live like kings--not," said Al in the
+middle of a nervous little giggle.
+
+"Look, Chris," said Andrews, "I'll halve with you. I've got five hundred
+francs."
+
+"Jesus Gawd, man, don't kid about anything like that."
+
+"Here's two hundred and fifty.... It's not so much as it sounds."
+
+Andrews handed him five fifty-franc notes.
+
+"Say, how did you come to bust loose?" said Al, turning his head towards
+Andrews.
+
+"I got away from a labor battalion one night. That's all."
+
+"Tell me about it, buddy. I don't feel my hand so much when I'm talking
+to somebody.... I'd be home now if it wasn't for a gin mill in Alsace.
+Say, don't ye think that big headgear they sport up there is awful good
+looking? Got my goat every time I saw one.... I was comin' back from
+leave at Grenoble, an' I went through Strasburg. Some town. My outfit
+was in Coblenz. That's where I met up with Chris here. Anyway, we was
+raisin' hell round Strasburg, an' I went into a gin mill down a flight
+of steps. Gee, everything in that town's plumb picturesque, just like a
+kid I used to know at home whose folks were Eytalian used to talk about
+when he said how he wanted to come overseas. Well, I met up with a girl
+down there, who said she'd just come down to a place like that to look
+for her brother who was in the foreign legion."
+
+Andrews and Chrisfield laughed.
+
+"What you laughin' at?" went on Al in an eager taut voice. "Honest to
+Gawd. I'm goin' to marry her if I ever get out of this. She's the best
+little girl I ever met up with. She was waitress in a restaurant, an'
+when she was off duty she used to wear that there Alsatian costume....
+Hell, I just stayed on. Every day, I thought I'd go away the next
+day.... Anyway, the war was over. I warn't a damn bit of use.... Hasn't
+a fellow got any rights at all? Then the M.P.'s started cleanin' up
+Strasburg after A.W.O.L.'s, an' I beat it out of there, an' Christ, it
+don't look as if I'd ever be able to get back."
+
+"Say, Andy," said Chrisfield, suddenly, "let's go down after some
+booze."
+
+"All right."
+
+"Say, Al, do you want me to get you anything at the drug store?"
+
+"No. I won't do anythin' but lay low and bathe it with alcohol now and
+then, against infection. Anyways, it's the first of May. You'll be crazy
+to go out. You might get pulled. They say there's riots going on."
+
+"Gosh, I forgot it was the first of May," cried Andrews. "They're
+running a general strike to protest against the war with Russia and...."
+
+"A guy told me," interrupted Al, in a shrill voice, "there might be a
+revolution."
+
+"Come along, Andy," said Chris from the door.
+
+On the stairs Andrews felt Chrisfield's hand squeezing his arm hard.
+
+"Say, Andy," Chris put his lips close to Andrews's ear and spoke in a
+rasping whisper. "You're the only one that knows... you know what. You
+an' that sergeant. Doan you say anythin' so that the guys here kin ketch
+on, d'ye hear?"
+
+"All right, Chris, I won't, but man alive, you oughtn't to lose your
+nerve about it. You aren't the only one who ever shot an..."
+
+"Shut yer face, d'ye hear?" muttered Chrisfield savagely.
+
+They went down the stairs in silence. In the room next, to the bar they
+found the Chink reading a newspaper.
+
+"Is he French?" whispered Andrews.
+
+"Ah doan know what he is. He ain't a white man, Ah'll wager that," said
+Chris, "but he's square."
+
+"D'you know anything about what's going on?" asked Andrews in French,
+going up to the Chink.
+
+"Where?" The Chink got up, flashing a glance at Andrews out of the
+corners of his slit-like eyes.
+
+"Outside, in the streets, in Paris, anywhere where people are out in the
+open and can do things. What do you think about the revolution?"
+
+The Chink shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Anything's possible," he said.
+
+"D'you think they really can overthrow the army and the government in
+one day, like that?"
+
+"Who?" broke in Chrisfield.
+
+"Why, the people, Chris, the ordinary people like you and me, who are
+tired of being ordered round, who are tired of being trampled down by
+other people just like them, who've had the luck to get in right with
+the system."
+
+"D'you know what I'll do when the revolution comes?" broke in the Chink
+with sudden intensity, slapping himself on the chest with one hand.
+"I'll go straight to one of those jewelry stores, rue Royale, and fill
+my pockets and come home with my hands full of diamonds."
+
+"What good'll that do you?"
+
+"What good? I'll bury them back there in the court and wait. I'll need
+them in the end. D'you know what it'll mean, your revolution? Another
+system! When there's a system there are always men to be bought with
+diamonds. That's what the world's like."
+
+"But they won't be worth anything. It'll only be work that is worth
+anything."
+
+"We'll see," said the Chink.
+
+"D'you think it could happen, Andy, that there'd be a revolution, an'
+there wouldn't be any more armies, an' we'd be able to go round like we
+are civilians? Ah doan think so. Fellers like us ain't got it in 'em to
+buck the system, Andy."
+
+"Many a system's gone down before; it will happen again."
+
+"They're fighting the Garde Republicaine now before the Gare de l'Est,"
+said the Chink in an expressionless voice. "What do you want down here?
+You'd better stay in the back. You never know what the police may put
+over on us."
+
+"Give us two bottles of vin blank, Chink," said Chrisfield.
+
+"When'll you pay?"
+
+"Right now. This guy's given me fifty francs."
+
+"Rich, are you?" said the Chink with hatred in his voice, turning to
+Andrews. "Won't last long at that rate. Wait here."
+
+He strode into the bar, closing the door carefully after him. A sudden
+jangling of the bell was followed by a sound of loud voices and stamping
+feet. Andrews and Chrisfield tiptoed into the dark corridor, where they
+stood a long time, waiting, breathing the foul air that stung their
+nostrils with the stench of plaster-damp and rotting wine. At last the
+Chink came back with three bottles of wine.
+
+"Well, you're right," he said to Andrews. "They are putting up
+barricades on the Avenue Magenta."
+
+On the stairs they met a girl sweeping. She had untidy hair that
+straggled out from under a blue handkerchief tied under her chin, and a
+pretty-colored fleshy face. Chrisfield caught her up to him and kissed
+her, as he passed.
+
+"We all calls her the dawg-faced girl," he said to Andrews in
+explanation. "She does our work. Ah like to had a fight with Slippery
+over her yisterday.... Didn't Ah, Slippery?"
+
+When he followed Chrisfield into the room, Andrews saw a man sitting
+on the window ledge smoking. He was dressed as a second lieutenant, his
+puttees were brilliantly polished, and he smoked through a long, amber
+cigarette-holder. His pink nails were carefully manicured.
+
+"This is Slippery, Andy," said Chrisfield. "This guy's an ole buddy o'
+mine. We was bunkies together a hell of a time, wasn't we, Andy?"
+
+"You bet we were."
+
+"So you've taken your uniform off, have you? Mighty foolish," said
+Slippery. "Suppose they nab you?"
+
+"It's all up now anyway. I don't intend to get nabbed," said Andrews.
+
+"We got booze," said Chrisfield.
+
+Slippery had taken dice from his pocket and was throwing them
+meditatively on the floor between his feet, snapping his fingers with
+each throw.
+
+"I'll shoot you one of them bottles, Chris," he said.
+
+Andrews walked over to the bed. Al was stirring uneasily, his face
+flushed and his mouth twitching.
+
+"Hello," he said. "What's the news?"
+
+"They say they're putting up barricades near the Gare de l'Est. It may
+be something."
+
+"God, I hope so. God, I wish they'd do everything here like they did
+in Russia; then we'd be free. We couldn't go back to the States for
+a while, but there wouldn't be no M.P.'s to hunt us like we were
+criminals.... I'm going to sit up a while and talk." Al giggled
+hysterically for a moment.
+
+"Have a swig of wine?" asked Andrews.
+
+"Sure, it may set me up a bit; thanks." He drank greedily from the
+bottle, spilling a little over his chin.
+
+"Say, is your face badly cut up, Al?"
+
+"No, it's just scotched, skin's off; looks like beefsteak, I reckon....
+Ever been to Strasburg?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Man, that's the town. And the girls in that costume.... Whee!"
+
+"Say, you're from San Francisco, aren't you?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"Well, I wonder if you knew a fellow I knew at training camp, a kid
+named Fuselli from 'Frisco?"
+
+"Knew him! Jesus, man, he's the best friend I've got.... Ye don't know
+where he is now, do you?"
+
+"I saw him here in Paris two months ago."
+
+"Well, I'll be damned.... God, that's great!" Al's voice was staccato
+from excitement. "So you knew Dan at training camp? The last letter from
+him was 'bout a year ago. Dan'd just got to be corporal. He's a damn
+clever kid, Dan is, an' ambitious too, one of the guys always makes
+good.... Gawd, I'd hate to see him this way. D'you know, we used to see
+a hell of a lot of each other in 'Frisco, an' he always used to tell me
+how he'd make good before I did. He was goddam right, too. Said I was
+too soft about girls.... Did ye know him real well?"
+
+"Yes. I even remember that he used to tell me about a fellow he knew who
+was called Al.... He used to tell me about how you two used to go down
+to the harbor and watch the big liners come in at night, all aflare with
+lights through the Golden Gate. And he used to tell you he'd go over to
+Europe in one, when he'd made his pile."
+
+"That's why Strasburg made me think of him," broke in Al, tremendously
+excited. "'Cause it was so picturesque like.... But honest, I've tried
+hard to make good in this army. I've done everything a feller could. An'
+all I did was to get into a cushy job in the regimental office.... But
+Dan, Gawd, he may even be an officer by this time."
+
+"No, he's not that," said Andrews. "Look here, you ought to keep quiet
+with that hand of yours."
+
+"Damn my hand. Oh, it'll heal all right if I forget about it. You
+see, my foot slipped when they shunted a car I was just climbing into,
+an'...I guess I ought to be glad I wasn't killed. But, gee, when I think
+that if I hadn't been a fool about that girl I might have been home by
+now...."
+
+"The Chink says they're putting up barricades on the Avenue Magenta."
+
+"That means business, kid!"
+
+"Business nothin'," shouted Slippery from where he and Chrisfield leaned
+over the dice on the tile floor in front of the window. "One tank an'
+a few husky Senegalese'll make your goddam socialists run so fast
+they won't stop till they get to Dijon.... You guys ought to have more
+sense." Slippery got to his feet and came over to the bed, jingling the
+dice in his hand. "It'll take more'n a handful o' socialists paid by the
+Boches to break the army. If it could be broke, don't ye think people
+would have done it long ago?"
+
+"Shut up a minute. Ah thought Ah heard somethin'," said Chrisfield
+suddenly, going to the window.
+
+They held their breath. The bed creaked as Al stirred uneasily in it.
+
+"No, warn't anythin'; Ah'd thought Ah'd heard people singin'."
+
+"The Internationale," cried Al.
+
+"Shut up," said Chrisfield in a low gruff voice.
+
+Through the silence of the room they heard steps on the stairs.
+
+"All right, it's only Smiddy," said Slippery, and he threw the dice down
+on the tiles again.
+
+The door opened slowly to let in a tall, stoop-shouldered man with a
+long face and long teeth.
+
+"Who's the frawg?" he asked in a startled way, with one hand on the door
+knob.
+
+"All right, Smiddy; it ain't a frawg; it's a guy Chris knows. He's taken
+his uniform off."
+
+"'Lo, buddy," said Smiddy, shaking Andrews's hand. "Gawd, you look like
+a frawg."
+
+"That's good," said Andrews.
+
+"There's hell to pay," broke out Smiddy breathlessly. "You know Gus
+Evans and the little black-haired guy goes 'round with him? They been
+picked up. I seen 'em myself with some M. P.'s at Place de la Bastille.
+An' a guy I talked to under the bridge where I slep' last night said a
+guy'd tole him they were goin' to clean the A. W. O. L.'s out o' Paris
+if they had to search through every house in the place."
+
+"If they come here they'll git somethin' they ain't lookin' for,"
+muttered Chrisfield.
+
+"I'm goin' down to Nice; getting too hot around here," said Slippery.
+"I've got travel orders in my pocket now."
+
+"How did you get 'em?"
+
+"Easy as pie," said Slippery, lighting a cigarette and puffing
+affectedly towards the ceiling. "I met up with a guy, a second loot, in
+the Knickerbocker Bar. We gets drunk together, an' goes on a party with
+two girls I know. In the morning I get up bright an' early, and now I've
+got five thousand francs, a leave slip and a silver cigarette case, an'
+Lootenant J. B. Franklin's runnin' around sayin' how he was robbed by
+a Paris whore, or more likely keepin' damn quiet about it. That's my
+system."
+
+"But, gosh darn it, I don't see how you can go around with a guy an'
+drink with him, an' then rob him," cried Al from the bed.
+
+"No different from cleaning a guy up at craps."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"An' suppose that feller knew that I was only a bloody private. Don't
+you think he'd have turned me over to the M. P.'s like winkin'?"
+
+"No, I don't think so," said Al. "They're juss like you an me, skeered
+to death they'll get in wrong, but they won't light on a feller unless
+they have to."
+
+"That's a goddam lie," cried Chrisfield. "They like ridin' yer. A
+doughboy's less'n a dawg to 'em. Ah'd shoot anyone of 'em lake Ah'd
+shoot a nigger."
+
+Andrews was watching Chrisfield's face; it suddenly flushed red. He was
+silent abruptly. His eyes met Andrews's eyes with a flash of fear.
+
+"They're all sorts of officers, like they're all sorts of us," Al was
+insisting.
+
+"But you damn fools, quit arguing," cried Smiddy. "What the hell are we
+goin' to do? It ain't safe here no more, that's how I look at it."
+
+They were silent.
+
+At last Chrisfield said:
+
+"What you goin' to do, Andy?"
+
+"I hardly know. I think I'll go out to St. Germain to see a boy I know
+there who works on a farm to see if it's safe to take a job there. I
+won't stay in Paris. Then there's a girl here I want to look up. I must
+see her." Andrews broke off suddenly, and started walking back and forth
+across the end of the room.
+
+"You'd better be damn careful; they'll probably shoot you if they catch
+you," said Slippery.
+
+Andrews shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Well, I'd rather be shot than go to Leavenworth for twenty years, Gawd!
+I would," cried Al.
+
+"How do you fellers eat here?" asked Slippery.
+
+"We buy stuff an' the dawg-faced girl cooks it for us."
+
+"Got anything for this noon?"
+
+"I'll go see if I can buy some stuff," said Andrews. "It's safer for me
+to go out than for you."
+
+"All right, here's twenty francs," said Slippery, handing Andrews a bill
+with an offhand gesture.
+
+Chrisfield followed Andrews down the stairs. When they reached the
+passage at the foot of the stairs, he put his hand on Andrews's shoulder
+and whispered:
+
+"Say, Andy, d'you think there's anything in that revolution business? Ah
+hadn't never thought they could buck the system thataway."
+
+"They did in Russia."
+
+"Then we'd be free, civilians, like we all was before the draft. But
+that ain't possible, Andy; that ain't possible, Andy."
+
+"We'll see," said Andrews, as, he opened the door to the bar.
+
+He went up excitedly to the Chink, who sat behind the row of bottles
+along the bar.
+
+"Well, what's happening?"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"By the Gare de l'Est, where they were putting up barricades?"
+
+"Barricades!" shouted a young man in a red sash who was drinking at a
+table. "Why, they tore down some of the iron guards round the trees, if
+you call that barricades. But they're cowards. Whenever the cops charge
+they run. They're dirty cowards."
+
+"D'you think anything's going to happen?"
+
+"What can happen when you've got nothing but a bunch of dirty cowards?"
+
+"What d'you think about it?" said Andrews, turning to the Chink.
+
+The Chink shook his head without answering. Andrews went out.
+
+When he cams back he found Al and Chrisfield alone in their room.
+Chrisfield was walking up and down, biting his finger nails. On the wall
+opposite the window was a square of sunshine reflected from the opposite
+wall of the Court.
+
+"For God's sake beat it, Chris. I'm all right," Al was saying in a weak,
+whining voice, his face twisted up by pain.
+
+"What's the matter?" cried Andrews, putting down a large bundle.
+
+"Slippery's seen a M. P. nosin' around in front of the gin mill."
+
+"Good God!"
+
+"They've beat it.... The trouble is Al's too sick.... Honest to gawd,
+Ah'll stay with you, Al."
+
+"No. If you know somewhere to go, beat it, Chris. I'll stay here with
+Al and talk French to the M. P.'s if they come. We'll fool 'em somehow."
+Andrews felt suddenly amused and joyous.
+
+"Honest to gawd, Andy, Ah'd stay if it warn't that that sergeant knows,"
+said Chrisfield in a jerky voice.
+
+"Beat it, Chris. There may be no time to waste."
+
+"So long, Andy." Chrisfield slipped out of the door.
+
+"It's funny, Al," said Andrews, sitting on the edge of the bed and
+unwrapping the package of food, "I'm not a damn bit scared any more. I
+think I'm free of the army, Al.... How's your hand?"
+
+"I dunno. Oh, how I wish I was in my old bunk at Coblenz. I warn't made
+for buckin' against the world this way.... If we had old Dan with us....
+Funny that you know Dan.... He'd have a million ideas for gettin' out
+of this fix. But I'm glad he's not here. He'd bawl me out so, for not
+havin' made good. He's a powerful ambitious kid, is Dan."
+
+"But it's not the sort of thing a man can make good in, Al," said
+Andrews slowly. They were silent. There was no sound in the courtyard,
+only very far away the clatter of a patrol of cavalry over cobblestones.
+The sky had become overcast and the room was very dark. The mouldy
+plaster peeling off the walls had streaks of green in it. The light from
+the courtyard had a greenish tinge that made their faces look pale and
+dead, like the faces of men that have long been shut up between damp
+prison walls.
+
+"And Fuselli had a girl named Mabe," said Andrews.
+
+"Oh, she married a guy in the Naval Reserve. They had a grand wedding,"
+said Al.
+
+
+
+                             IV
+
+"At last I've got to you!"
+
+John Andrews had caught sight of Genevieve on a bench at the end of the
+garden under an arbor of vines. Her hair flamed bright in a splotch of
+sun as she got to her feet. She held out both hands to him.
+
+"How good-looking you are like that," she cried.
+
+He was conscious only of her hands in his hands and of her pale-brown
+eyes and of the bright sun-splotches and the green shadows fluttering
+all about them.
+
+"So you are out of prison," she said, "and demobilized. How wonderful!
+Why didn't you write? I have been very uneasy about you. How did you
+find me here?"
+
+"Your mother said you were here."
+
+"And how do you like it, my Poissac?"
+
+She made a wide gesture with her hand. They stood silent a moment, side
+by side, looking about them. In front of the arbor was a parterre of
+rounded box-bushes edging beds where disorderly roses hung in clusters
+of pink and purple and apricot-color. And beyond it a brilliant emerald
+lawn full of daisies sloped down to an old grey house with, at one end,
+a squat round tower that had an extinguisher-shaped roof. Beyond the
+house were tall, lush-green poplars, through which glittered patches of
+silver-grey river and of yellow sand banks. From somewhere came a drowsy
+scent of mown grass.
+
+"How brown you are!" she said again. "I thought I had lost you.... You
+might kiss me, Jean."
+
+The muscles of his arms tightened about her shoulders. Her hair flamed
+in his eyes. The wind that rustled through broad grape-leaves made a
+flutter of dancing light and shadow about them.
+
+"How hot you are with the sun!" she said. "I love the smell of the sweat
+of your body. You must have run very hard, coming here."
+
+"Do you remember one night in the spring we walked home from Pelleas and
+Melisande? How I should have liked to have kissed you then, like this!"
+Andrews's voice was strange, hoarse, as if he spoke with difficulty.
+
+"There is the chateau tres froid et tres profond," she said with a
+little laugh.
+
+"And your hair. 'Je les tiens dans les doits, je les tiens dans la
+bouche.... Toute ta chevelure, toute ta chevelure, Melisande, est tombee
+de la tour.... D'you remember?"
+
+"How wonderful you are."
+
+They sat side by side on the stone bench without touching each other.
+
+"It's silly," burst out Andrews excitedly. "We should have faith in our
+own selves. We can't live a little rag of romance without dragging in
+literature. We are drugged with literature so that we can never live at
+all, of ourselves."
+
+"Jean, how did you come down here? Have you been demobilized long?"'
+
+"I walked almost all the way from Paris. You see, I am very dirty."
+
+"How wonderful! But I'll be quiet. You must tell me everything from the
+moment you left me in Chartres."
+
+"I'll tell you about Chartres later," said Andrews gruffly. "It has been
+superb, one of the biggest weeks in my life, walking all day under the
+sun, with the road like a white ribbon in the sun over the hills and
+along river banks, where there were yellow irises blooming, and through
+woods full of blackbirds, and with the dust in a little white cloud
+round my feet, and all the time walking towards you, walking towards
+you."
+
+"And la Reine de Saba, how is it coming?"
+
+"I don't know. It's a long time since I thought of it.... You have been
+here long?"
+
+"Hardly a week. But what are you going to do?"
+
+"I have a room overlooking the river in a house owned by a very fat
+woman with a very red face and a tuft of hair on her chin...."
+
+"Madame Boncour."
+
+"Of course. You must know everybody.... It's so small."
+
+"And you're going to stay here a long time?"
+
+"Almost forever, and work, and talk to you; may I use your piano now and
+then?"
+
+"How wonderful!"
+
+Genevieve Rod jumped to her feet. Then she stood looking at him, leaning
+against one of the twisted stems of the vines, so that the broad leaves
+fluttered about her face, A white cloud, bright as silver, covered the
+sun, so that the hairy young leaves and the wind-blown grass of the lawn
+took on a silvery sheen. Two white butterflies fluttered for a second
+about the arbor.
+
+"You must always dress like that," she said after a while.
+
+Andrews laughed.
+
+"A little cleaner, I hope," he said. "But there can't be much change. I
+have no other clothes and ridiculously little money."
+
+"Who cares for money?" cried Genevieve. Andrews fancied he detected
+a slight affectation in her tone, but he drove the idea from his mind
+immediately.
+
+"I wonder if there is a farm round here where I could get work."
+
+"But you couldn't do the work of a farm labourer," cried Genevieve,
+laughing.
+
+"You just watch me."
+
+"It'll spoil your hands for the piano."
+
+"I don't care about that; but all that's later, much later. Before
+anything else I must finish a thing I am working on. There is a theme
+that came to me when I was first in the army, when I was washing windows
+at the training camp."
+
+"How funny you are, Jean! Oh, it's lovely to have you about again. But
+you're awfully solemn today. Perhaps it's because I made you kiss me."
+
+"But, Genevieve, it's not in one day that you can unbend a slave's back,
+but with you, in this wonderful place.... Oh, I've never seen such sappy
+richness of vegetation! And think of it, a week's walking first across
+those grey rolling uplands, and then at Blois down into the haze of
+richness of the Loire.... D'you know Vendome? I came by a funny little
+town from Vendome to Blois. You see, my feet.... And what wonderful cold
+baths I've had on the sand banks of the Loire.... No, after a while
+the rhythm of legs all being made the same length on drill fields, the
+hopeless caged dullness will be buried deep in me by the gorgeousness of
+this world of yours!"
+
+He got to his feet and crushed a leaf softly between his fingers.
+
+"You see, the little grapes are already forming.... Look up there," she
+said as she brushed the leaves aside just above his head. "These grapes
+here are the earliest; but I must show you my domain, and my cousins and
+the hen yard and everything."
+
+She took his hand and pulled him out of the arbor. They ran like
+children, hand in hand, round the box-bordered paths.
+
+"What I mean is this," he stammered, following her across the lawn. "If
+I could once manage to express all that misery in music, I could shove
+it far down into my memory. I should be free to live my own existence,
+in the midst of this carnival of summer."
+
+At the house she turned to him; "You see the very battered ladies over
+the door," she said. "They are said to be by a pupil of Jean Goujon."
+
+"They fit wonderfully in the landscape, don't they? Did I ever tell you
+about the sculptures in the hospital where I was when I was wounded?"
+
+"No, but I want you to look at the house now. See, that's the tower; all
+that's left of the old building. I live there, and right under the roof
+there's a haunted room I used to be terribly afraid of. I'm still afraid
+of it.... You see this Henri Quatre part of the house was just a fourth
+of the house as planned. This lawn would have been the court. We dug up
+foundations where the roses are. There are all sorts of traditions as to
+why the house was never finished."
+
+"You must tell me them."
+
+"I shall later; but now you must come and meet my aunt and my cousins."
+
+"Please, not just now, Genevieve.... I don't feel like talking to anyone
+except you. I have so much to talk to you about."
+
+"But it's nearly lunch time, Jean. We can have all that after lunch."
+
+"No, I can't talk to anyone else now. I must go and clean myself up a
+little anyway."
+
+"Just as you like.... But you must come this afternoon and play to us.
+Two or three people are coming to tea.... It would be very sweet of you,
+if you'd play to us, Jean."
+
+"But can't you understand? I can't see you with other people now."
+
+"Just as you like," said Genevieve, flushing, her hand on the iron latch
+of the door.
+
+"Can't I come to see you tomorrow morning? Then I shall feel more like
+meeting people, after talking to you a long while. You see, I...."
+He paused, with his eyes on the ground. Then he burst out in a low,
+passionate voice: "Oh, if I could only get it out of my mind... those
+tramping feet, those voices shouting orders."
+
+His hand trembled when he put it in Genevieve's hand. She looked in his
+eyes calmly with her wide brown eyes.
+
+"How strange you are today, Jean! Anyway, come back early tomorrow."
+
+She went in the door. He walked round the house, through the carriage
+gate, and went off with long strides down the road along the river that
+led under linden trees to the village.
+
+Thoughts swarmed teasingly through his head, like wasps about a rotting
+fruit. So at last he had seen Genevieve, and had held her in his arms
+and kissed her. And that was all. His plans for the future had never
+gone beyond that point. He hardly knew what he had expected, but in
+all the sunny days of walking, in all the furtive days in Paris, he had
+thought of nothing else. He would see Genevieve and tell her all
+about himself; he would unroll his life like a scroll before her eyes.
+Together they would piece together the future. A sudden terror took
+possession of him. She had failed him. Floods of denial seethed through
+his mind. It was that he had expected so much; he had expected her
+to understand him without explanation, instinctively. He had told her
+nothing. He had not even told her he was a deserter. What was it
+that had kept him from telling her? Puzzle as he would, he could not
+formulate it. Only, far within him, the certainty lay like an icy
+weight: she had failed him. He was alone. What a fool he had been to
+build his whole life on a chance of sympathy? No. It was rather this
+morbid playing at phrases that was at fault. He was like a touchy old
+maid, thinking imaginary results. "Take life at its face value," he
+kept telling himself. They loved each other anyway, somehow; it did not
+matter how. And he was free to work. Wasn't that enough?
+
+But how could he wait until tomorrow to see her, to tell her everything,
+to break down all the silly little barriers between them, so that they
+might look directly into each other's lives?
+
+The road turned inland from the river between garden walls at the
+entrance to the village. Through half-open doors Andrews got glimpses
+of neatly-cultivated kitchen-gardens and orchards where silver-leaved
+boughs swayed against the sky. Then the road swerved again into
+the village, crowded into a narrow paved street by the white and
+cream-colored houses with green or grey shutters and pale, red-tiled
+roofs. At the end, stained golden with lichen, the mauve-grey tower
+of the church held up its bells against the sky in a belfry of broad
+pointed arches. In front of the church Andrews turned down a little lane
+towards the river again, to come out in a moment on a quay shaded by
+skinny acacia trees. On the corner house, a ramshackle house with roofs
+and gables projecting in all directions, was a sign: "Rendezvous de la
+Marine." The room he stepped into was so low, Andrews had to stoop
+under the heavy brown beams as he crossed it. Stairs went up from a door
+behind a worn billiard table in the corner. Mme. Boncour stood between
+Andrews and the stairs. She was a flabby, elderly woman with round eyes
+and a round, very red face and a curious smirk about the lips.
+
+"Monsieur payera un petit peu d'advance, n'est-ce pas, Monsieur?"
+
+"All right," said Andrews, reaching for his pocketbook. "Shall I pay you
+a week in advance?"
+
+The woman smiled broadly.
+
+"Si Monsieur desire.... It's that life is so dear nowadays. Poor people
+like us can barely get along."
+
+"I know that only too well," said Andrews.
+
+"Monsieur est etranger...." began the woman in a wheedling tone, when
+she had received the money.
+
+"Yes. I was only demobilized a short time ago."
+
+"Aha! Monsieur est demobilise. Monsieur remplira la petite feuille pour
+la police, n'est-ce pas?"
+
+The woman brought from behind her back a hand that held a narrow printed
+slip.
+
+"All right. I'll fill it out now," said Andrews, his heart thumping.
+
+Without thinking what he was doing, he put the paper on the edge of
+the billiard table and wrote: "John Brown, aged 23. Chicago Ill.,
+Etats-Unis. Musician. Holder of passport No. 1,432,286."
+
+"Merci, Monsieur. A bientot, Monsieur. Au revoir, Monsieur."
+
+The woman's singing voice followed him up the rickety stairs to his
+room. It was only when he had closed the door that he remembered that he
+had put down for a passport number his army number. "And why did I write
+John Brown as a name?" he asked himself.
+
+     "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
+      But his soul goes marching on.
+      Glory, glory, hallelujah!
+      But his soul goes marching on."
+
+He heard the song so vividly that he thought for an instant someone must
+be standing beside him singing it. He went to the window and ran his
+hand through his hair. Outside the Loire rambled in great loops towards
+the blue distance, silvery reach upon silvery reach, with here and there
+the broad gleam of a sand bank. Opposite were poplars and fields patched
+in various greens rising to hills tufted with dense shadowy groves. On
+the bare summit of the highest hill a windmill waved lazy arms against
+the marbled sky.
+
+Gradually John Andrews felt the silvery quiet settle about him. He
+pulled a sausage and a piece of bread out of the pocket of his coat,
+took a long swig of water from the pitcher on his washstand, and settled
+himself at the table before the window in front of a pile of ruled
+sheets of music paper. He nibbled the bread and the sausage meditatively
+for a long while, then wrote "Arbeit und Rhythmus" in a large careful
+hand at the top of the paper. After that he looked out of the window
+without moving, watching the plumed clouds sail like huge slow ships
+against the slate-blue sky. Suddenly he scratched out what he had
+written and scrawled above it: "The Body and Soul of John Brown." He got
+to his feet and walked about the room with clenched hands.
+
+"How curious that I should have written that name. How curious that I
+should have written that name!" he said aloud.
+
+He sat down at the table again and forgot everything in the music that
+possessed him.
+
+
+
+The next morning he walked out early along the river, trying to occupy
+himself until it should be time to go to see Genevieve. The memory of
+his first days in the army, spent washing windows at the training camp,
+was very vivid in his mind. He saw himself again standing naked in the
+middle of a wide, bare room, while the recruiting sergeant measured and
+prodded him. And now he was a deserter. Was there any sense to it all?
+Had his life led in any particular direction, since he had been caught
+haphazard in the treadmill, or was it all chance? A toad hopping across
+a road in front of a steam roller.
+
+He stood still, and looked about him. Beyond a clover field was the
+river with its sand banks and its broad silver reaches. A boy was wading
+far out in the river catching minnows with a net. Andrews watched his
+quick movements as he jerked the net through the water. And that boy,
+too, would be a soldier; the lithe body would be thrown into a mould
+to be made the same as other bodies, the quick movements would be
+standardized into the manual at arms, the inquisitive, petulant mind
+would be battered into servility. The stockade was built; not one of the
+sheep would escape. And those that were not sheep? They were deserters;
+every rifle muzzle held death for them; they would not live long. And
+yet other nightmares had been thrown off the shoulders of men. Every man
+who stood up courageously to die loosened the grip of the nightmare.
+
+Andrews walked slowly along the road, kicking his feet into the dust
+like a schoolboy. At a turning he threw himself down on the grass
+under some locust trees. The heavy fragrance of their flowers and the
+grumbling of the bees that hung drunkenly on the white racemes made him
+feel very drowsy. A cart passed, pulled by heavy white horses; an old
+man with his back curved like the top of a sunflower stalk hobbled
+after, using the whip as a walking stick. Andrews saw the old man's eyes
+turned on him suspiciously. A faint pang of fright went through him; did
+the old man know he was a deserter? The cart and the old man had
+already disappeared round the bend in the road. Andrews lay a long while
+listening to the jingle of the harness thin into the distance, leaving
+him again to the sound of the drowsy bees among the locust blossoms.
+
+When he sat up, he noticed that through a break in the hedge beyond the
+slender black trunks of the locusts, he could see rising above the trees
+the extinguisher-shaped roof of the tower of Genevieve Rod's house.
+He remembered the day he had first seen Genevieve, and the boyish
+awkwardness with which she poured tea. Would he and Genevieve ever find
+a moment of real contact? All at once a bitter thought came to him. "Or
+is it that she wants a tame pianist as an ornament to a clever young
+woman's drawing room?" He jumped to his feet and started walking fast
+towards the town again. He would go to see her at once and settle all
+that forever. The village clock had begun to strike; the clear notes
+vibrated crisply across the fields: ten.
+
+Walking back to the village he began to think of money. His room was
+twenty francs a week. He had in his purse a hundred and twenty-four
+francs. After fishing in all his pockets for silver, he found three
+francs and a half more. A hundred and twenty-seven francs fifty. If he
+could live on forty francs a week, he would have three weeks in which to
+work on the "Body and Soul of John Brown." Only three weeks; and then he
+must find work. In any case he would write Henslowe to send him money
+if he had any; this was no time for delicacy; everything depended on
+his having money. And he swore to himself that he would work for three
+weeks, that he would throw the idea that flamed within him into shape
+on paper, whatever happened. He racked his brains to think of someone
+in America he could write to for money, A ghastly sense of solitude
+possessed him. And would Genevieve fail him too?
+
+Genevieve was coming out by the front door of the house when he reached
+the carriage gate beside the road.
+
+She ran to meet him.
+
+"Good morning. I was on my way to fetch you."
+
+She seized his hand and pressed it hard.
+
+"How sweet of you!"
+
+"But, Jean, you're not coming from the village."
+
+"I've been walking."
+
+"How early you must get up!"
+
+"You see, the sun rises just opposite my window, and shines in on my
+bed. That makes me get up early."
+
+She pushed him in the door ahead of her. They went through the hall to
+a long high room that had a grand piano and many old high-backed chairs,
+and in front of the French windows that opened on the garden, a round
+table of black mahogany littered with books. Two tall girls in muslin
+dresses stood beside the piano.
+
+"These are my cousins.... Here he is at last. Monsieur Andrews, ma
+cousine Berthe et ma cousine Jeanne. Now you've got to play to us; we
+are bored to death with everything we know."
+
+"All right.... But I have a great deal to talk to you about later," said
+Andrews in a low voice.
+
+Genevieve nodded understandingly.
+
+"Why don't you play us La Reine de Saba, Jean?"
+
+"Oh, do play that," twittered the cousins.
+
+"If you don't mind, I'd rather play some Bach."
+
+"There's a lot of Bach in that chest in the corner," cried Genevieve.
+"It's ridiculous; everything in the house is jammed with music."
+
+They leaned over the chest together, so that Andrews felt her hair
+brush against his cheek, and the smell of her hair in his nostrils. The
+cousins remained by the piano.
+
+"I must talk to you alone soon," whispered Andrews.
+
+"All right," she said, her face reddening as she leaned over the chest.
+
+On top of the music was a revolver.
+
+"Look out, it's loaded," she said, when he picked it up.
+
+He looked at her inquiringly. "I have another in my room. You see Mother
+and I are often alone here, and then, I like firearms. Don't you?"
+
+"I hate them," muttered Andrews.
+
+"Here's tons of Bach."
+
+"Fine.... Look, Genevieve," he said suddenly, "lend me that revolver for
+a few days. I'll tell you why I want it later."
+
+"Certainly. Be careful, because it's loaded," she said in an offhand
+manner, walking over to the piano with two volumes under each arm.
+Andrews closed the chest and followed her, suddenly bubbling with
+gaiety. He opened a volume haphazard.
+
+"To a friend to dissuade him from starting on a journey," he read. "Oh,
+I used to know that."
+
+He began to play, putting boisterous vigor into the tunes. In a
+pianissimo passage he heard one cousin whisper to the other: "Qu'il a
+l'air interessant."
+
+"Farouche, n'est-ce pas? Genre revolutionnaire," answered the other
+cousin, tittering. Then he noticed that Mme. Rod was smiling at him. He
+got to his feet.
+
+"Mais ne vous derangez pas," she said.
+
+A man with white flannel trousers and tennis shoes and a man in black
+with a pointed grey beard and amused grey eyes had come into the room,
+followed by a stout woman in hat and veil, with long white cotton gloves
+on her arms. Introductions were made. Andrews's spirits began to
+ebb. All these people were making strong the barrier between him and
+Genevieve. Whenever he looked at her, some well-dressed person stepped
+in front of her with a gesture of politeness. He felt caught in a
+ring of well-dressed conventions that danced about him with grotesque
+gestures of politeness. All through lunch he had a crazy desire to jump
+to his feet and shout: "Look at me; I'm a deserter. I'm under the wheels
+of your system. If your system doesn't succeed in killing me, it will be
+that much weaker, it will have less strength to kill others." There was
+talk about his demobilization, and his music, and the Schola Cantorum.
+He felt he was being exhibited. "But they don't know what they're
+exhibiting," he said to himself with a certain bitter joy.
+
+After lunch they went out into the grape arbor, where coffee was
+brought. Andrews sat silent, not listening to the talk, which was
+about Empire furniture and the new taxes, staring up into the broad
+sun-splotched leaves of the grape vines, remembering how the sun and
+shade had danced about Genevieve's hair when they had been in the arbor
+alone the day before, turning it all to red flame. Today she sat in
+shadow, and her hair was rusty and dull. Time dragged by very slowly.
+
+At last Genevieve got to her feet.
+
+"You haven't seen my boat," she said to Andrews. "Let's go for a row.
+I'll row you about."
+
+Andrews jumped up eagerly.
+
+"Make her be careful, Monsieur Andrews, she's dreadfully imprudent,'"
+said Madame Rod.
+
+"You were bored to death," said Genevieve, as they walked out on the
+road.
+
+"No, but those people all seemed to be building new walls between you
+and me. God knows there are enough already."
+
+She looked him sharply in the eyes a second, but said nothing.
+
+They walked slowly through the sand of the river edge, till they came to
+an old flat-bottomed boat painted green with an orange stripe, drawn up
+among the reeds.
+
+"It will probably sink; can you swim?" she asked, laughing.
+
+Andrews smiled, and said in a stiff voice:
+
+"I can swim. It was by swimming that I got out of the army."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"When I deserted."
+
+"When you deserted?"
+
+Genevieve leaned over to pull on the boat. Their heads almost touching,
+they pulled the boat down to the water's edge, then pushed it half out
+on to the river.
+
+"And if you are caught?"
+
+"They might shoot me; I don't know. Still, as the war is over, it would
+probably be life imprisonment, or at least twenty years."
+
+"You can speak of it as coolly as that?"
+
+"It is no new idea to my mind."
+
+"What induced you to do such a thing?"
+
+"I was not willing to submit any longer to the treadmill."
+
+"Come let's go out on the river."
+
+Genevieve stepped into the boat and caught up the oars.
+
+"Now push her off, and don't fall in," she cried.
+
+The boat glided out into the water. Genevieve began pulling on the oars
+slowly and regularly. Andrews looked at her without speaking.
+
+"When you're tired, I'll row," he said after a while.
+
+Behind them the village, patched white and buff-color and russet and
+pale red with stucco walls and steep, tiled roofs, rose in an irregular
+pyramid to the church. Through the wide pointed arches of the belfry
+they could see the bells hanging against the sky. Below in the river the
+town was reflected complete, with a great rift of steely blue across
+it where the wind ruffled the water. The oars creaked rhythmically as
+Genevieve pulled on them.
+
+"Remember, when you are tired," said Andrews again after a long pause.
+
+Genevieve spoke through clenched teeth:
+
+"Of course, you have no patriotism."
+
+"As you mean it, none."
+
+They rounded the edge of a sand bank where the current ran hard. Andrews
+put his hands beside her hands on the oars, and pushed with her. The bow
+of the boat grounded in some reeds under willows.
+
+"We'll stay here," she said, pulling in the oars that flashed in the sun
+as she jerked them, dripping silver, out of the water.
+
+She clasped her hands round her knees and leaned over towards him.
+
+"So that is why you want my revolver.... Tell me all about it, from
+Chartres," she said, in a choked voice.
+
+"You see, I was arrested at Chartres and sent to a labor battalion, the
+equivalent for your army prison, without being able to get word to my
+commanding officer in the School Detachment...." He paused.
+
+A bird was singing in the willow tree. The sun was under a cloud; beyond
+the long pale green leaves that fluttered ever so slightly in the wind,
+the sky was full of silvery and cream-colored clouds, with here and
+there a patch the color of a robin's egg. Andrews began laughing softly.
+
+"But, Genevieve, how silly those words are, those pompous, efficient
+words: detachment, battalion, commanding officer. It would have all
+happened anyway. Things reached the breaking point; that was all. I
+could not submit any longer to the discipline.... Oh, those long Roman
+words, what millstones they are about men's necks! That was silly, too;
+I was quite willing to help in the killing of Germans, I had no quarrel
+with, out of curiosity or cowardice.... You see, it has taken me so long
+to find out how the world is. There was no one to show me the way."
+
+He paused as if expecting her to speak. The bird in the willow tree was
+still singing.
+
+Suddenly a dangling twig blew aside a little so that Andrews could see
+him--a small grey bird, his throat all puffed out with song.
+
+"It seems to me," he said very softly, "that human society has been
+always that, and perhaps will be always that: organizations growing and
+stifling individuals, and individuals revolting hopelessly against
+them, and at last forming new societies to crush the old societies and
+becoming slaves again in their turn...."
+
+"I thought you were a socialist," broke in Genevieve sharply, in a voice
+that hurt him to the quick, he did not know why.
+
+"A man told me at the labor battalion," began Andrews again, "that
+they'd tortured a friend of his there once by making him swallow lighted
+cigarettes; well, every order shouted at me, every new humiliation
+before the authorities, was as great an agony to me. Can't you
+understand?" His voice rose suddenly to a tone of entreaty.
+
+She nodded her head. They were silent. The willow leaves shivered in a
+little wind. The bird had gone.
+
+"But tell me about the swimming part of it. That sounds exciting."
+
+"We were working unloading cement at Passy--cement to build the stadium
+the army is presenting to the French, built by slave labor, like the
+pyramids."
+
+"Passy's where Balzac lived. Have you ever seen his house there?"
+
+"There was a boy working with me, the Kid, 'le gosse,' it'd be in
+French. Without him, I should never have done it. I was completely
+crushed.... I suppose that he was drowned.... Anyway, we swam under
+water as far as we could, and, as it was nearly dark, I managed to get
+on a barge, where a funny anarchist family took care of me. I've never
+heard of the Kid since. Then I bought these clothes that amuse you so,
+Genevieve, and came back to Paris to find you, mainly."
+
+"I mean as much to you as that?" whispered Genevieve.
+
+"In Paris, too. I tried to find a boy named Marcel, who worked on a
+farm near St. Germain. I met him out there one day. I found he'd gone
+to sea.... If it had not been that I had to see you, I should have gone
+straight to Bordeaux or Marseilles. They aren't too particular who they
+take as a seaman now."
+
+"But in the army didn't you have enough of that dreadful life,
+always thrown among uneducated people, always in dirty, foulsmelling
+surroundings, you, a sensitive person, an artist? No wonder you are
+almost crazy after years of that." Genevieve spoke passionately, with
+her eyes fixed on his face.
+
+"Oh, it wasn't that," said Andrews with despair in his voice. "I rather
+like the people you call low. Anyway, the differences between people
+are so slight...." His sentence trailed away. He stopped speaking, sat
+stirring uneasily on the seat, afraid he would cry out. He noticed the
+hard shape of the revolver against his leg.
+
+"But isn't there something you can do about it? You must have friends,"
+burst out Genevieve. "You were treated with horrible injustice. You can
+get yourself reinstated and properly demobilised. They'll see you are a
+person of intelligence. They can't treat you as they would anybody."
+
+"I must be, as you say, a little mad, Genevieve," said Andrews.
+
+"But now that I, by pure accident, have made a gesture, feeble as it
+is, towards human freedom, I can't feel that.... Oh, I suppose I'm a
+fool.... But there you have me, just as I am, Genevieve."
+
+He sat with his head drooping over his chest, his two hands clasping the
+gunwales of the boat. After a long while Genevieve said in a dry little
+voice:
+
+"Well, we must go back now; it's time for tea."
+
+Andrews looked up. There was a dragon fly poised on the top of a reed,
+with silver wings and a long crimson body.
+
+"Look just behind you, Genevieve."
+
+"Oh, a dragon fly! What people was it that made them the symbol of life?
+It wasn't the Egyptians. O, I've forgotten."
+
+"I'll row," said Andrews.
+
+The boat was hurried along by the current. In a very few minutes they
+had pulled it up on the bank in front of the Rods' house.
+
+"Come and have some tea," said Genevieve.
+
+"No, I must work."
+
+"You are doing something new, aren't you?"
+
+Andrews nodded.
+
+"What's its name?"
+
+"The Soul and Body of John Brown."
+
+"Who's John Brown?"
+
+"He was a madman who wanted to free people. There's a song about him."
+
+"It is based on popular themes?"
+
+"Not that I know of.... I only thought of the name yesterday. It came to
+me by a very curious accident."
+
+"You'll come tomorrow?"
+
+"If you're not too busy."
+
+"Let's see, the Boileaus are coming to lunch. There won't be anybody at
+tea time. We can have tea together alone."
+
+He took her hand and held it, awkward as a child with a new playmate.
+
+"All right, at about four. If there's nobody there, we'll play music,"
+he said.
+
+She pulled her hand from him hurriedly, made a curious formal gesture of
+farewell, and crossed the road to the gate without looking back. There
+was one idea in his head, to get to his room and lock the door and throw
+himself face down on the bed. The idea amused some distant part of his
+mind. That had been what he had always done when, as a child, the world
+had seemed too much for him. He would run upstairs and lock the door and
+throw himself face downward on the bed. "I wonder if I shall cry?" he
+thought.
+
+Madame Boncour was coming down the stairs as he went up. He backed down
+and waited. When she got to the bottom, pouting a little, she said:
+
+"So you are a friend of Mme. Rod, Monsieur?"
+
+"How did you know that?"
+
+A dimple appeared near her mouth in either cheek.
+
+"You know, in the country, one knows everything," she said.
+
+"Au revoir," he said, starting up the stairs.
+
+"Mais, Monsieur. You should have told me. If I had known I should
+not have asked you to pay in advance. Oh, never. You must pardon me,
+Monsieur."
+
+"All right."
+
+"Monsieur est Americain? You see I know a lot." Her puffy cheeks shook
+when she giggled. "And Monsieur has known Mme. Rod et Mlle. Rod a long
+time. An old friend. Monsieur is a musician."
+
+"Yes. Bon soir." Andrews ran up the stairs.
+
+"Au revoir, Monsieur." Her chanting voice followed him up the stairs.
+
+He slammed the door behind him and threw himself on the bed.
+
+When Andrews awoke next morning, his first thought was how long he had
+to wait that day to see Genevieve. Then he remembered their talk of
+the day before. Was it worth while going to see her at all, he asked
+himself. And very gradually he felt cold despair taking hold of him. He
+felt for a moment that he was the only living thing in a world of dead
+machines; the toad hopping across the road in front of a steam roller.
+Suddenly he thought of Jeanne. He remembered her grimy, overworked
+fingers lying in her lap. He pictured her walking up and down in front
+of the Cafe de Rohan one Wednesday night, waiting for him. In the place
+of Genevieve, what would Jeanne have done? Yet people were always alone,
+really; however much they loved each other, there could be no real
+union. Those who rode in the great car could never feel as the others
+felt; the toads hopping across the road. He felt no rancour against
+Genevieve.
+
+These thoughts slipped from him while he was drinking the coffee and
+eating the dry bread that made his breakfast; and afterwards, walking
+back and forth along the river bank, he felt his mind and body becoming
+as if fluid, and supple, trembling, bent in the rush of his music like
+a poplar tree bent in a wind. He sharpened a pencil and went up to his
+room again.
+
+The sky was cloudless that day. As he sat at his table the square of
+blue through the window and the hills topped by their windmill and the
+silver-blue of the river, were constantly in his eyes. Sometimes
+he wrote notes down fast, thinking nothing, feeling nothing, seeing
+nothing; other times he sat for long periods staring at the sky and at
+the windmill vaguely happy, playing with unexpected thoughts that came
+and vanished, as now and then a moth fluttered in the window to blunder
+about the ceiling beams, and, at last, to disappear without his knowing
+how.
+
+When the clock struck twelve, he found he was very hungry. For two
+days he had eaten nothing but bread, sausage and cheese. Finding Madame
+Boncour behind the bar downstairs, polishing glasses, he ordered dinner
+of her. She brought him a stew and a bottle of wine at once, and stood
+over him watching him eat it, her arms akimbo and the dimples showing in
+her huge red cheeks.
+
+"Monsieur eats less than any young man I ever saw," she said.
+
+"I'm working hard," said Andrews, flushing.
+
+"But when you work you have to eat a great deal, a great deal."
+
+"And if the money is short?" asked Andrews with a smile.
+
+Something in the steely searching look that passed over her eyes for a
+minute startled him.
+
+"There are not many people here now, Monsieur, but you should see it on
+a market day.... Monsieur will take some dessert?"
+
+"Cheese and coffee."
+
+"Nothing more? It's the season of strawberries."
+
+"Nothing more, thank you."
+
+When Madame Boncour came back with the cheese, she said:
+
+"I had Americans here once, Monsieur. A pretty time I had with them,
+too. They were deserters. They went away without paying, with the
+gendarmes after them I hope they were caught and sent to the front,
+those good-for-nothings."
+
+"There are all sorts of Americans," said Andrews in a low voice. He was
+angry with himself because his heart beat so.
+
+"Well, I'm going for a little walk. Au revoir, Madame."
+
+"Monsieur is going for a little walk. Amusez-vous bien, Monsieur. Au
+revoir, Monsieur," Madame Boncour's singsong tones followed him out.
+
+A little before four Andrews knocked at the front door of the Rods'
+house. He could hear Santo, the little black and tan, barking inside.
+Madame Rod opened the door for him herself.
+
+"Oh, here you are," she said. "Come and have some tea. Did the work go
+well to-day?"
+
+"And Genevieve?" stammered Andrews.
+
+"She went out motoring with some friends. She left a note for you. It's
+on the tea-table."
+
+He found himself talking, making questions and answers, drinking tea,
+putting cakes into his mouth, all through a white dead mist. Genevieve's
+note said:
+
+"Jean:--I'm thinking of ways and means. You must get away to a neutral
+country. Why couldn't you have talked it over with me first, before
+cutting off every chance of going back. I'll be in tomorrow at the same
+time.
+
+"Bien a vous.                                                 G. R."
+
+"Would it disturb you if I played the piano a few minutes, Madame Rod?"
+Andrews found himself asking all at once.
+
+"No, go ahead. We'll come in later and listen to you."
+
+It was only as he left the room that he realized he had been talking to
+the two cousins as well as to Madame Rod.
+
+At the piano he forgot everything and regained his mood of vague
+joyousness. He found paper and a pencil in his pocket, and played the
+theme that had come to him while he had been washing windows at the top:
+of a step-ladder at training camp arranging it, modelling it, forgetting
+everything, absorbed in his rhythms and cadences. When he stopped work
+it was nearly dark. Genevieve Rod, a veil round her head, stood in the
+French window that led to the garden.
+
+"I heard you," she said. "Go on."
+
+"I'm through. How was your motor ride?"
+
+"I loved it. It's not often I get a chance to go motoring."
+
+"Nor is it often I get a chance to talk to you alone," cried Andrews
+bitterly.
+
+"You seem to feel you have rights of ownership over me. I resent it. No
+one has rights over me." She spoke as if it were not the first time she
+had thought of the phrase.
+
+He walked over and leaned against the window beside her.
+
+"Has it made such a difference to you, Genevieve, finding out that I am
+a deserter?"
+
+"No, of course not," she said hastily.
+
+"I think it has, Genevieve.... What do you want me to do? Do you think
+I should give myself up? A man I knew in Paris has given himself up, but
+he hadn't taken his uniform off. It seems that makes a difference. He
+was a nice fellow. His name was Al, he was from San Francisco. He had
+nerve, for he amputated his own little finger when his hand was crushed
+by a freight car."
+
+"Oh, no, no. Oh, this is so frightful. And you would have been a great
+composer. I feel sure of it."
+
+"Why, would have been? The stuff I'm doing now's better than any of the
+dribbling things I've done before, I know that."
+
+"Oh, yes, but you'll need to study, to get yourself known."
+
+"If I can pull through six months, I'm safe. The army will have gone. I
+don't believe they extradite deserters."
+
+"Yes, but the shame of it, the danger of being found out all the time."
+
+"I am ashamed of many things in my life, Genevieve. I'm rather proud of
+this."
+
+"But can't you understand that other people haven't your notions of
+individual liberty?"
+
+"I must go, Genevieve."
+
+"You must come in again soon."
+
+"One of these days."
+
+And he was out in the road in the windy twilight, with his music papers
+crumpled in his hand. The sky was full of tempestuous purple clouds;
+between them were spaces of clear claret-colored light, and here and
+there a gleam of opal. There were a few drops of rain in the wind that
+rustled the broad leaves of the lindens and filled the wheat fields
+with waves like the sea, and made the river very dark between rosy sand
+banks. It began to rain. Andrews hurried home so as not to drench his
+only suit. Once in his room he lit four candles and placed them at the
+corners of his table. A little cold crimson light still filtered in
+through the rain from the afterglow, giving the candles a ghostly
+glimmer. Then he lay on his bed, and staring up at the flickering light
+on the ceiling, tried to think.
+
+"Well, you're alone now, John Andrews," he said aloud, after a
+half-hour, and jumped jauntily to his feet. He stretched himself and
+yawned. Outside the rain pattered loudly and steadily. "Let's have a
+general accounting," he said to himself. "It'll be easily a month before
+I hear from old Howe in America, and longer before I hear from Henslowe,
+and already I've spent twenty francs on food. Can't make it this way.
+Then, in real possessions, I have one volume of Villon, a green book on
+counterpoint, a map of France torn in two, and a moderately well-stocked
+mind."
+
+He put the two books on the middle of the table before him, on top of
+his disorderly bundle of music papers and notebooks. Then he went on,
+piling his possessions there as he thought of them. Three pencils, a
+fountain pen. Automatically he reached for his watch, but he remembered
+he'd given it to Al to pawn in case he didn't decide to give himself
+up, and needed money. A toothbrush. A shaving set. A piece of soap. A
+hairbrush and a broken comb. Anything else? He groped in the musette
+that hung on the foot of the bed. A box of matches. A knife with one
+blade missing, and a mashed cigarette. Amusement growing on him every
+minute, he contemplated the pile. Then, in the drawer, he remembered,
+was a clean shirt and two pairs of soiled socks. And that was all,
+absolutely all. Nothing saleable there. Except Genevieve's revolver.
+He pulled it out of his pocket. The candlelight flashed on the bright
+nickel. No, he might need that; it was too valuable to sell. He pointed
+it towards himself. Under the chin was said to be the best place.
+He wondered if he would pull the trigger when the barrel was pressed
+against his chin. No, when his money gave out he'd sell the revolver.
+An expensive death for a starving man. He sat on the edge of the bed and
+laughed.
+
+Then he discovered he was very hungry. Two meals in one day; shocking!
+He said to himself. Whistling joyfully, like a schoolboy, he strode down
+the rickety stairs to order a meal of Madame Boncour.
+
+It was with a strange start that he noticed that the tune he was
+whistling was:
+
+     "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
+     But his soul goes marching on."
+
+
+The lindens were in bloom. From a tree beside the house great gusts of
+fragrance, heavy as incense, came in through the open window. Andrews
+lay across the table with his eyes closed and his cheek in a mass of
+ruled papers. He was very tired. The first movement of the "Soul and
+Body of John Brown" was down on paper. The village clock struck two. He
+got to his feet and stood a moment looking absently out of the window.
+It was a sultry afternoon of swollen clouds that hung low over the
+river. The windmill on the hilltop opposite was motionless. He seemed to
+hear Genevieve's voice the last time he had seen her, so long ago.
+"You would have been a great composer." He walked over to the table and
+turned over some sheets without looking at them. "Would have been!"
+He shrugged his shoulders. So you couldn't be a great composer and a
+deserter too in the year 1919. Probably Genevieve was right. But he must
+have something to eat.
+
+"But how late it is," expostulated Madame Boncour, when he asked for
+lunch.
+
+"I know it's very late. I have just finished a third of the work I'm
+doing.
+
+"And do you get paid a great deal, when that is finished?" asked Madame
+Boncour, the dimples appearing in her broad cheeks.
+
+"Some day, perhaps."
+
+"You will be lonely now that the Rods have left."
+
+"Have they left?"
+
+"Didn't you know? Didn't you go to say goodby? They've gone to the
+seashore.... But I'll make you a little omelette."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+When Madame Boncour cams back with the omelette and fried potatoes, she
+said to him in a mysterious voice:
+
+"You didn't go to see the Rods as often these last weeks."
+
+"No."
+
+Madame Boncour stood staring at him, with her red arms folded round her
+breasts, shaking her head.
+
+When he got up to go upstairs again, she suddenly shouted:
+
+"And when are you going to pay me? It's two weeks since you have paid
+me."
+
+"But, Madame Boncour, I told you I had no money. If you wait a day or
+two, I'm sure to get some in the mail. It can't be more than a day or
+two."
+
+"I've heard that story before."
+
+"I've even tried to get work at several farms round here."
+
+Madame Boncour threw back her head and laughed, showing the blackened
+teeth of her lower jaw.
+
+"Look here," she said at length, "after this week, it's finished. You
+either pay me, or...And I sleep very lightly, Monsieur." Her voice took
+on suddenly its usual sleek singsong tone.
+
+Andrews broke away and ran upstairs to his room.
+
+"I must fly the coop tonight," he said to himself. But suppose then
+letters came with money the next day. He writhed in indecision all the
+afternoon.
+
+That evening he took a long walk. In passing the Rods' house he saw
+that the shutters were closed. It gave him a sort of relief to know that
+Genevieve no longer lived near him. His solitude was complete, now.
+
+And why, instead of writing music that would have been worth while if he
+hadn't been a deserter, he kept asking himself, hadn't he tried long ago
+to act, to make a gesture, however feeble, however forlorn, for other
+people's freedom? Half by accident he had managed to free himself from
+the treadmill. Couldn't he have helped others? If he only had his life
+to live over again. No; he had not lived up to the name of John Brown.
+
+It was dark when he got back to the village. He had decided to wait one
+more day.
+
+The next morning he started working on the second movement. The lack of
+a piano made it very difficult to get ahead, yet he said to himself that
+he should put down what he could, as it would be long before he found
+leisure again.
+
+One night he had blown out his candle and stood at the window watching
+the glint of the moon on the river. He heard a soft heavy step on the
+landing outside his room. A floorboard creaked, and the key turned in
+the lock. The step was heard again on the stairs. John Andrews laughed
+aloud. The window was only twenty feet from the ground, and there was a
+trellis. He got into bed contentedly. He must sleep well, for tomorrow
+night he would slip out of the window and make for Bordeaux.
+
+Another morning. A brisk wind blew, fluttering Andrews's papers as
+he worked. Outside the river was streaked blue and silver and
+slate-colored. The windmill's arms waved fast against the piled clouds.
+The scent of the lindens came only intermittently on the sharp wind. In
+spite of himself, the tune of "John Brown's Body" had crept in among his
+ideas. Andrews sat with a pencil at his lips, whistling softly, while in
+the back of his mind a vast chorus seemed singing:
+
+     "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
+      But his soul goes marching on.
+      Glory, glory, hallelujah!
+      But his soul goes marching on."
+
+If one could only find freedom by marching for it, came the thought.
+
+All at once he became rigid, his hands clutched the table edge.
+
+There was an American voice under his window:
+
+"D'you think she's kiddin' us, Charley?"
+
+Andrews was blinded, falling from a dizzy height. God, could things
+repeat themselves like that? Would everything be repeated? And he seemed
+to hear voices whisper in his ears: "One of you men teach him how to
+salute."
+
+He jumped to his feet and pulled open the drawer. It was empty. The
+woman had taken the revolver. "It's all planned, then. She knew," he
+said aloud in a low voice.
+
+He became suddenly calm.
+
+A man in a boat was passing down the river. The boat was painted bright
+green; the man wore a curious jacket of a burnt-brown color, and held a
+fishing pole.
+
+Andrews sat in his chair again. The boat was out of sight now, but there
+was the windmill turning, turning against the piled white clouds.
+
+There were steps on the stairs.
+
+Two swallows, twittering, curved past the window, very near, so that
+Andrews could make out the marking on their wings and the way they
+folded their legs against their pale-grey bellies. There was a knock.
+
+"Come in," said Andrews firmly.
+
+"I beg yer pardon," said a soldier with his hat, that had a band, in his
+hand. "Are you the American?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, the woman down there said she thought your papers wasn't in very
+good order." The man stammered with embarrassment.
+
+Their eyes met.
+
+"No, I'm a deserter," said Andrews.
+
+The M. P. snatched for his whistle and blew it hard. There was an
+answering whistle from outside the window.
+
+"Get your stuff together."
+
+"I have nothing."
+
+"All right, walk downstairs slowly in front of me."
+
+Outside the windmill was turning, turning, against the piled white
+clouds of the sky.
+
+Andrews turned his eyes towards the door. The M. P. closed the door
+after them, and followed on his heels down the steps.
+
+On John Andrews's writing table the brisk wind rustled among the broad
+sheets of paper. First one sheet, then another, blew off the table,
+until the floor was littered with them.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Three Soldiers, by John Dos Passos
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE SOLDIERS ***
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Three Soldiers, by John Dos Passos
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
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+Title: Three Soldiers
+
+Author: John Dos Passos
+
+Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6362]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on December 1, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE SOLDIERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Etext transcribed by Eve Sobol, South Bend, IN, USA
+
+
+
+
+
+THREE SOLDIERS
+
+JOHN DOS PASSOS
+
+1921
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+PART ONE: MAKING THE MOULD
+
+PART TWO: THE METAL COOLS
+
+PART THREE: MACHINES
+
+PART FOUR: RUST
+
+PART FIVE: THE WORLD OUTSIDE
+
+PART SIX: UNDER THE WHEELS
+
+
+"Les contemporains qui souffrent de certaines choses ne peuvent
+s'en souvenir qu'avec une horreur qui paralyse tout autre plaisir,
+meme celui de lire un conte."
+
+                                          STENDHAL
+
+
+                  PART ONE: MAKING THE MOULD
+
+                                I
+
+The company stood at attention, each man looking straight before
+him at the empty parade ground, where the cinder piles showed
+purple with evening. On the wind that smelt of barracks and
+disinfectant there was a faint greasiness of food cooking. At the
+other side of the wide field long lines of men shuffled slowly
+into the narrow wooden shanty that was the mess hall. Chins down,
+chests out, legs twitching and tired from the afternoon's
+drilling, the company stood at attention. Each man stared straight
+in front of him, some vacantly with resignation, some trying to
+amuse themselves by noting minutely every object in their field of
+vision,--the cinder piles, the long shadows of the barracks and
+mess halls where they could see men standing about, spitting,
+smoking, leaning against clapboard walls. Some of the men in line
+could hear their watches ticking in their pockets.
+
+Someone moved, his feet making a crunching noise in the cinders.
+
+The sergeant's voice snarled out: "You men are at attention. Quit
+yer wrigglin' there, you!"
+
+The men nearest the offender looked at him out of the corners of
+their eyes.
+
+Two officers, far out on the parade ground, were coming towards
+them. By their gestures and the way they walked, the men at
+attention could see that they were chatting about something that
+amused them. One of the officers laughed boyishly, turned away and
+walked slowly back across the parade ground. The other, who was
+the lieutenant, came towards them smiling. As he approached his
+company, the smile left his lips and he advanced his chin, walking
+with heavy precise steps.
+
+"Sergeant, you may dismiss the company." The lieutenant's voice
+was pitched in a hard staccato.
+
+The sergeant's hand snapped up to salute like a block signal.
+"Companee dis...missed," he rang out.
+
+The row of men in khaki became a crowd of various individuals with
+dusty boots and dusty faces. Ten minutes later they lined up and
+marched in a column of fours to mess. A few red filaments of
+electric lights gave a dusty glow in the brownish obscurity where
+the long tables and benches and the board floors had a faint smell
+of garbage mingled with the smell of the disinfectant the tables
+had been washed off with after the last meal. The men, holding
+their oval mess kits in front of them, filed by the great tin
+buckets at the door, out of which meat and potatoes were splashed
+into each plate by a sweating K.P. in blue denims.
+
+"Don't look so bad tonight," said Fuselli to the man opposite him
+as he hitched his sleeves up at the wrists and leaned over his
+steaming food. He was sturdy, with curly hair and full vigorous
+lips that he smacked hungrily as he ate.
+
+"It ain't," said the pink flaxen-haired youth opposite him, who
+wore his broad-brimmed hat on the side of his head with a certain
+jauntiness:
+
+"I got a pass tonight," said Fuselli, tilting his head vainly.
+
+"Goin' to tear things up?"
+
+"Man...I got a girl at home back in Frisco. She's a good kid."
+
+"Yer right not to go with any of the girls in this goddam town....
+They ain't clean, none of 'em.... That is if ye want to go
+overseas."
+
+The flaxen-haired youth leaned across the table earnestly.
+
+"I'm goin' to git some more chow: Wait for me, will yer?" said
+Fuselli.
+
+"What yer going to do down town?" asked the flaxen-haired youth
+when Fuselli came back.
+
+"Dunno,--run round a bit an' go to the movies," he answered,
+filling his mouth with potato.
+
+"Gawd, it's time fer retreat." They overheard a voice behind them.
+
+Fuselli  stuffed his mouth as full as he could and emptied the
+rest of his meal reluctantly into the garbage pail.
+
+A few moments later he stood stiffly at attention in a khaki row
+that was one of hundreds of other khaki rows, identical, that
+filled all sides of the parade ground, while the bugle blew
+somewhere at the other end where the flag-pole was. Somehow it
+made him think of the man behind the desk in the office of the
+draft board who had said, handing him the papers sending him to
+camp, "I wish I was going with you," and had held out a white bony
+hand that Fuselli, after a moment's hesitation, had taken in his
+own stubby brown hand. The man had added  fervently, "It must be
+grand, just grand, to feel the danger, the chance of being potted
+any minute. Good luck, young feller.... Good luck." Fuselli
+remembered unpleasantly his paper-white face and the greenish look
+of his bald head; but the words had made him stride out of the
+office sticking out his chest, brushing truculently past a
+group of men in the door. Even now the memory of it, mixing with
+the strains of the national anthem made him feel important,
+truculent.
+
+"Squads right!" same an order. Crunch, crunch, crunch in the
+gravel. The companies were going back to their barracks. He wanted
+to smile but he didn't dare. He wanted to smile because he had a
+pass till midnight, because in ten minutes he'd be outside the
+gates, outside the green fence and the sentries and the strands of
+barbed wire. Crunch, crunch, crunch; oh, they were so slow in
+getting back to the barracks and he was losing time, precious free
+minutes. "Hep, hep, hep," cried the sergeant, glaring down the
+ranks, with his aggressive bulldog expression, to where someone had
+fallen out of step.
+
+The company stood at attention in the dusk. Fuselli was biting the
+inside of  his lips with impatience. Minutes at last, as if
+reluctantly, the sergeant sang out:
+
+"Dis...missed."
+
+Fuselli hurried towards the gate, brandishing his pass with an
+important swagger.
+
+Once out on the asphalt of the street, he looked down the long row
+of lawns and porches where violet arc lamps already contested the
+faint afterglow, drooping from their iron stalks far above the
+recently planted saplings of the avenue. He stood at the corner
+slouched against a telegraph pole, with the camp fence, surmounted
+by three strands of barbed wire, behind him, wondering which way he
+would go. This was a hell of a town anyway. And he used to think he
+wanted to travel round and see places.--"Home'll be good enough for
+me after this," he muttered. Walking down the long street towards
+the centre of town, where was the moving-picture show, he thought of
+his home, of the dark apartment on the ground floor of a seven-
+storey house where his aunt lived. "Gee, she used to cook swell," he
+murmured regretfully.
+
+On a warm evening like this he would have stood round at the
+corner where the drugstore was, talking to fellows he knew,
+giggling when the girls who lived in the street, walking arm and
+arm, twined in couples or trios, passed by affecting ignorance of
+the glances that followed them. Or perhaps he would have gone
+walking with Al, who worked in the same optical-goods store, down
+through the glaring streets of the theatre and restaurant quarter,
+or along the wharves and ferry slips, where they would have sat
+smoking and looking out over the dark purple harbor, with its
+winking lights and its moving ferries spilling swaying reflections
+in the water out of their square reddish-glowing windows. If they
+had been lucky, they would have seen a liner come in through the
+Golden Gate, growing from a blur of light to a huge moving
+brilliance, like the front of a high-class theatre, that towered
+above the ferry boats. You could often hear the thump of the screw
+and the swish of the bow cutting the calm baywater, and the sound
+of a band playing, that came alternately faint and loud. "When I
+git rich," Fuselli had liked to say to Al, "I'm going to take a
+trip on one of them liners."
+
+"Yer dad come over from the old country in one, didn't he?" Al
+would ask.
+
+"Oh, he came steerage. I'd stay at home if I had to do that. Man,
+first class for me, a cabin de lux, when I git rich."
+
+But here he was in this town in the East, where he didn't know
+anybody and where there was no place to go but the movies.
+
+"'Lo, buddy," came a voice beside him. The tall youth who had sat
+opposite at mess was just catching up to him. "Goin' to the
+movies?"
+
+"Yare, nauthin' else to do."
+
+"Here's a rookie. Just got to camp this mornin'," said the tall
+youth, jerking his head in the direction of the man beside him.
+
+"You'll like it. Ain't so bad as it seems at first," said Fuselli
+encouragingly.
+
+"I was just telling him," said the other, "to be careful
+as hell not to get in wrong. If ye once get in wrong in this
+damn army...it's hell."
+
+"You bet yer life...so they sent ye over to our company, did they,
+rookie? Ain't so bad. The sergeant's sort o' decent if yo're in
+right with him, but the lieutenant's a stinker.... Where you
+from?"
+
+"New York," said the rookie, a little man of thirty with an ash-
+colored face and a shiny Jewish nose. "I'm in the clothing
+business there. I oughtn't to be drafted at all. It's an outrage.
+I'm consumptive." He spluttered in a feeble squeaky voice.
+
+"They'll fix ye up, don't you fear," said the tall youth.
+"They'll make you so goddam well ye won't know yerself. Yer mother
+won't know ye, when you get home, rookie.... But you're in
+luck."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Bein' from New York. The corporal, Tim Sidis, is from New York,
+an' all the New York fellers in the company got a graft with
+him."
+
+"What kind of cigarettes d'ye smoke?" asked the tall youth.
+
+"I don't smoke."
+
+"Ye'd better learn. The corporal likes fancy ciggies and so does
+the sergeant; you jus' slip 'em each a butt now and then. May
+help ye to get in right with "em."
+
+"Don't do no good," said Fuselli.... "It's juss luck. But keep
+neat-like and smilin' and you'll get on all right. And if they
+start to ride ye, show fight. Ye've got to be hard boiled to
+git on in this army."
+
+"Ye're goddam right," said the tall youth. "Don't let 'em ride
+yer.... What's yer name, rookie?"
+
+"Eisenstein."
+
+"This feller's name's Powers.... Bill Powers. Mine's Fuselli....
+Goin' to the movies, Mr. Eisenstein?"
+
+"No, I'm trying to find a skirt." The little man leered wanly.
+"Glad to have got ackwainted."
+
+"Goddam kike!" said Powers as Eisenstein walked off up a side
+street, planted, like the avenue, with saplings on which the
+sickly leaves rustled in the faint breeze that smelt of factories and
+coal dust.
+
+"Kikes ain't so bad," said Fuselli, "I got a good friend who's a
+kike."
+
+
+
+They were coming out of the movies in a stream of people in which
+the blackish clothes of factory-hands predominated.
+
+"I came near bawlin' at the picture of the feller leavin' his girl
+to go off to the war," said Fuselli.
+
+"Did yer?"
+
+"It was just like it was with me. Ever been in Frisco, Powers?"
+
+The tall youth shook his head. Then he took off his broad-brimmed
+hat and ran his fingers over his stubby tow-head.
+
+"Gee, it was some hot in there," he muttered.
+
+"Well, it's like this," said Fuselli. "You have to cross the ferry
+to Oakland. My aunt...ye know I ain't got any mother, so I always
+live at my aunt's.... My aunt an' her sister-in-law an' Mabe...
+Mabe's my girl...they all came over on the ferry-boat, 'spite of
+my tellin' 'em I didn't want 'em. An' Mabe said she was mad at me,
+'cause she'd seen the letter I wrote Georgine Slater. She was a
+toughie, lived in our street, I used to write mash notes to. An' I
+kep' tellin' Mabe I'd done it juss for the hell of it, an' that I
+didn't mean nawthin' by it. An' Mabe said she wouldn't never
+forgive me, an' then I said maybe I'd be killed an' she'd never
+see me again, an' then we all began to bawl. Gawd! it was a
+mess.... "
+
+"It's hell sayin' good-by to girls," said Powers, understandingly.
+"Cuts a feller all up. I guess it's better to go with coosies. Ye
+don't have to say good-by to them."
+
+"Ever gone with a coosie?"
+
+"Not exactly," admitted the tall youth, blushing all over his pink
+face, so that it was noticeable even under the ashen  glare  of
+the arc lights on the avenue that led towards camp.
+
+"I have," said Fuselli, with a certain pride. "I used to go with
+a Portugee girl. My but she was a toughie. I've given all that
+up now I'm engaged, though.... But I was tellin' ye.... Well, we
+finally made up an' I kissed her an' Mabe said she'd never marry
+any one but me. So when we was walkin" up the street I spied a
+silk service flag in a winder, that was all fancy with a star all
+trimmed up to beat the band, an' I said to myself, I'm goin' to
+give that to Mabe, an' I ran in an' bought it. I didn't give a
+hoot in hell what it cost. So when we was all kissin' and
+bawlin' when I was goin' to leave them to report to the overseas
+detachment, I shoved it into her hand, an' said, 'Keep that,
+girl, an' don't you forgit me.' An' what did she do but pull out
+a five-pound box o' candy from behind her back an' say, 'Don't
+make yerself  sick, Dan.'  An' she'd had it all the time without
+my knowin' it. Ain't girls clever?"
+
+"Yare," said the tall youth vaguely.
+
+
+
+Along the rows of cots, when Fuselli got back to the barracks,
+men were talking excitedly.
+
+"There's hell to pay, somebody's broke out of the jug."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Damned if I know."
+
+"Sergeant Timmons said he made a rope of his blankets."
+
+"No, the feller on guard helped him to get away."
+
+"Like hell he did. It was like this. I was walking by the
+guardhouse when they found out about it."
+
+"What company did he belong ter?"
+
+"Dunno."
+
+"What's his name?"
+
+
+"Some guy on trial for insubordination. Punched an officer in the
+jaw."
+
+"I'd a liked to have seen that."
+
+"Anyhow he's fixed himself this time."
+
+"You're goddam right."
+
+"Will you fellers quit talkin'? It's after taps," thundered the
+sergeant, who sat reading the paper at a little board desk at the
+door of the barracks under the feeble light of one small bulb,
+carefully screened. "You'll have the O. D. down on us."
+
+Fuselli wrapped the blanket round his head and prepared to sleep.
+Snuggled down into the blankets on the narrow cot, he felt
+sheltered from the sergeant's thundering voice and from the cold
+glare of officers' eyes. He felt cosy and happy like he had felt
+in bed at home, when he had been a little kid. For a moment he
+pictured to himself the other man, the man who had punched an
+officer's jaw, dressed like he was, maybe only nineteen, the same
+age like he was, with a girl like Mabe waiting for him somewhere.
+How cold and frightful it must feel to be out of the camp with the
+guard looking for you! He pictured himself running breathless down
+a long street pursued by a company with guns, by officers whose
+eyes glinted cruelly like the pointed tips of bullets. He pulled
+the blanket closer round his head, enjoying the warmth and
+softness of the wool against his cheek. He must remember to smile
+at the sergeant when he passed him off duty. Somebody had said
+there'd be promotions soon. Oh, he wanted so hard to be promoted.
+It'd be so swell if he could write back to Mabe and tell her to
+address her letters Corporal Dan Fuselli. He must be more careful
+not to do anything that would get him in wrong with anybody. He
+must never miss an opportunity to show them what a clever kid he
+was. "Oh, when we're ordered overseas, I'll show them," he thought
+ardently, and picturing to himself long movie reels of heroism he
+went off to sleep.
+
+ A sharp voice beside his cot woke him with a jerk.
+
+"Get up, you."
+
+The white beam of a pocket searchlight was glaring in the face of
+the man next to him.
+
+"The O. D." said Fuselli to himself.
+
+"Get up, you," came the sharp voice again.
+
+The man in the next cot stirred and opened his eyes.
+
+"Get up."
+
+"Here, sir," muttered the man in the next cot, his eyes blinking
+sleepily in the glare of the flashlight. He got out of bed and
+stood unsteadily at attention.
+
+"Don't you know better than to sleep in your O. D. shirt? Take
+it off."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+The man looked up, blinking, too dazed to speak. "Don't know your
+own name, eh?" said the officer, glaring at the man savagely,
+using his curt voice like a whip.--"Quick, take off yer shirt and
+pants and get back to bed."
+
+The Officer of the Day moved on, flashing his light to one side
+and the other in his midnight inspection of the barracks.
+Intense blackness again, and the sound of men breathing deeply in
+sleep, of men snoring. As he went to sleep Fuselli could hear the
+man beside him swearing, monotonously, in an even whisper,
+pausing now and then to think of  new  filth, of  new
+combinations of  words, swearing away his helpless anger,
+soothing himself to sleep by the monotonous reiteration of his
+swearing.
+
+A little later Fuselli woke with a choked nightmare cry. He had
+dreamed that he had smashed the O. D. in the jaw and had broken
+out of the jug and was running, breathless, stumbling, falling,
+while the company on guard chased him down an avenue lined with
+little dried-up saplings, gaining on him, while with voices
+metallic as the clicking of rifle triggers officers shouted
+orders, so that he was certain to be caught, certain to be shot.
+He shook himself all over, shaking off the nightmare as a dog
+shakes off water, and went back to sleep again, snuggling into
+his blankets.
+
+
+
+                             II
+
+John Andrews stood naked in the center of a large bare room, of
+which the walls and ceiling and floor were made of raw pine
+boards. The air was heavy from the steam heat. At a desk in one
+corner a typewriter clicked spasmodically.
+
+"Say, young feller, d'you  know how to spell imbecility?"
+
+John Andrews walked over to the desk, told him, and added, "Are
+you going to examine me?"
+
+The man went on typewriting without answering. John Andrews stood
+in the center of the floor with his arms folded, half amused, half
+angry, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, listening
+to the sound of the typewriter and of the man's voice as he read
+out each word of the report he was copying.
+
+"Recommendation for discharge"...click, click..."Damn  this
+typewriter.... Private Coe  Elbert"...click, click. "Damn these
+rotten army typewriters.... Reason...mental deficiency. History of
+Case.... " At that moment the recruiting sergeant came back. "Look
+here, if  you don't have that recommendation ready in ten minutes
+Captain Arthurs'll be mad as hell about it, Hill. For God's sake
+get it done. He said already that if you couldn't do the work, to
+get somebody who could. You don't want to lose your job do you?"
+
+"Hullo," the sergeant's eyes lit on John Andrews, "I'd forgotten
+you. Run around the room a little.... No, not that way. Just a
+little so I can test yer heart.... God, these rookies are thick."
+
+While he stood tamely being prodded and measured, feeling like a
+prize horse at a fair, John Andrews listened to the man at the
+typewriter, whose voice went on monotonously. "No...record of
+sexual dep.... O hell, this eraser's no good!... pravity or
+alcoholism; spent...normal...youth on farm. App-ear-ance normal
+though im...say, how many 'm's' in immature?"
+
+"All right, put yer clothes on," said the recruiting sergeant.
+"Quick, I can't spend all day. Why the hell did they send you down
+here alone?"
+
+"The papers were balled up," said Andrews.
+
+"Scores ten years...in test B," went on the voice of the man at the
+typewriter. "Sen...exal ment...m-e-n-t-a-l-i-t-y that of child of
+eight. Seems unable...to either.... Goddam this man's writin'. How
+kin I copy it when he don't write out his words?"
+
+"All right. I guess you'll do. Now there are some forms to fill
+out. Come over here."
+
+Andrews followed the recruiting sergeant to a desk in the far
+corner of the room, from which he could hear more faintly the
+click, click of the typewriter and the man's voice mumbling
+angrily.
+
+"Forgets to obey orders.... Responds to no form of per...suasion.
+M-e-m-o-r-y, nil."
+
+"All right. Take this to barracks B.... Fourth building, to the
+right; shake a leg," said the recruiting sergeant.
+
+Andrews drew a deep breath of the sparkling air outside. He stood
+irresolutely a moment on the wooden steps of the building looking
+down the row of hastily constructed barracks. Some were painted
+green, some were of plain boards, and some were still mere
+skeletons. Above his head great piled, rose-tinted  clouds  were
+moving slowly across the immeasurable free sky. His glance slid
+down the sky to some tall trees that flamed bright yellow with
+autumn outside the camp limits, and then to the end of the long
+street of barracks, where was a picket fence and a sentry walking
+to and fro, to and fro. His brows contracted for a moment. Then he
+walked with a sort of swagger towards the fourth building to the
+right.
+
+
+
+John Andrews was washing windows. He stood in dirty blue denims at
+the top of a ladder, smearing with a soapy cloth the small panes
+of the barrack windows. His nostrils were full of a smell of dust
+and of the sandy quality of the soap. A little man with one lined
+greyish-red cheek puffed out by tobacco followed him up also on a
+ladder, polishing the panes with a dry cloth till they shone and
+reflected the mottled cloudy sky. Andrews's legs were tired from
+climbing up and down the ladder, his hands were sore from the
+grittiness of the soap; as he worked he looked down, without
+thinking, on rows of cots where the blankets were all folded the
+same way, on some of which men were sprawled in attitudes of utter
+relaxation. He kept remarking to himself how strange it was that
+he was not thinking of anything. In the last few days his mind
+seemed to have become a hard meaningless core.
+
+"How long do we have to do this?" he asked the man who was working
+with him. The man went on chewing, so that Andrews thought he was
+not going to answer at all. He was just beginning to speak again
+when the man, balancing thoughtfully on top of his ladder, drawled
+out:
+
+"Four o'clock."
+
+"We won't finish today then?"
+
+The man shook his head and wrinkled his face into a strange spasm
+as he spat.
+
+"Been here long?"
+
+"Not so long."
+
+"How long?"
+
+"Three months.... Ain't so long." The man spat again, and climbing
+down from his ladder waited, leaning against the wall, until
+Andrews should finish soaping his window.
+
+"I'll go crazy if I stay here three months.... I've been here a
+week," muttered Andrews between his teeth as he climbed down and
+moved his ladder to the next window.
+
+They both climbed their ladders again in silence.
+
+"How's it you're in Casuals?" asked Andrews again.
+
+"Ain't got no lungs."
+
+"Why don't they discharge you?"
+
+"Reckon they're going to, soon."
+
+They worked on in silence for a long time. Andrews stared at the
+upper right-hand corner and smeared with soap each pane of the
+window in turn. Then he climbed down, moved his ladder, and
+started on the next window. At times he would start in the middle
+of the window for variety. As he worked a rhythm began pushing its
+way through the hard core of his mind, leavening it, making it
+fluid. It expressed the vast dusty dullness, the men waiting in
+rows on drill fields, standing at attention, the monotony of feet
+tramping in unison, of the dust rising from the battalions going
+back and forth over the dusty drill fields. He felt the rhythm
+filling his whole body, from his sore hands to his legs, tired
+from marching back and forth from making themselves the same
+length as millions of other legs. His mind began unconsciously,
+from habit, working on it, orchestrating it. He could imagine a
+vast orchestra swaying with it. His heart was beating faster. He
+must make it into music; he must fix it in himself, so that he
+could make it into music and write it down, so that orchestras
+could play it and make the ears of multitudes feel it, make their
+flesh tingle with it.
+
+He went on working through the endless afternoon, climbing up and
+down his ladder, smearing the barrack windows with a soapy rag. A
+silly phrase took the place of the welling of music in his mind:
+"Arbeit und Rhythmus." He kept saying it over and over to himself:
+"Arbeit und Rhythmus." He tried to drive the phrase out of his
+mind, to bury his mind in the music of the rhythm that had come to
+him, that expressed the dusty boredom, the harsh constriction of
+warm bodies full of gestures and attitudes and aspirations into
+moulds, like the moulds toy soldiers are cast in. The phrase
+became someone shouting  raucously in his ears: "Arbeit und
+Rhythmus,"--drowning everything else, beating his mind hard again,
+parching it.
+
+But suddenly he laughed aloud. Why, it was in German. He was being
+got ready to kill men who said that. If anyone said that, he was
+going to kill him. They were going to kill everybody who spoke
+that language, he and all the men whose feet he could hear
+tramping on the drill field, whose legs were all being made the
+same length on the drill field.
+
+
+
+                             III
+
+It was Saturday morning. Directed by the corporal, a bandy-legged
+Italian who even on the army diet managed to keep a faint odour of
+garlic about him, three soldiers in blue denims were sweeping up
+the leaves in the street between the rows of barracks.
+
+"You fellers are slow as molasses.... Inspection in twenty-five
+minutes," he kept saying.
+
+The soldiers raked on doggedly, paying no attention. "You don't
+give a damn. If we don't pass inspection, I get hell--not you.
+Please queeck. Here, you, pick up all those goddam cigarette
+butts."
+
+Andrews made a grimace and began collecting the little grey sordid
+ends of burnt-out cigarettes. As he leant over he found himself
+looking into the dark-brown eyes of the soldier who was working
+beside him. The eyes were contracted with anger and there was a
+flush under the tan of the boyish face.
+
+"Ah didn't git in this here army to be ordered around by a goddam
+wop," he muttered.
+
+"Doesn't matter much who you're ordered around by, you're ordered
+around just the same," said Andrews. "Where d'ye come from,
+buddy?"
+
+"Oh, I come from New York. My folks are from Virginia," said
+Andrews.
+
+"Indiana's ma state. The tornado country.... Git to work; here's
+that bastard wop comin' around the buildin'."
+
+"Don't pick 'em up that-a-way; sweep 'em up," shouted the corporal.
+
+Andrews and the Indiana boy went round with a broom and a shovel
+collecting chewed-out quids of tobacco and cigar butts and stained
+bits of paper.
+
+"What's your name? Mahn's Chrisfield. Folks all call me Chris."
+
+"Mine's Andrews, John Andrews."
+
+"Ma dad uster have a hired man named Andy. Took sick an' died last
+summer. How long d'ye reckon it'll be before us-guys git
+overseas?"
+
+"God, I don't know."
+
+"Ah want to see that country over there."
+
+"You do?"
+
+"Don't you?"
+
+"You bet I do."
+
+"All right, what you fellers stand here for? Go and dump them
+garbage cans. Lively!" shouted the corporal waddling about
+importantly on his bandy legs. He kept looking down the row of
+barracks, muttering to himself, "Goddam.... Time fur inspectin'
+now, goddam. Won't never pass this time."
+
+His face froze suddenly into obsequious immobility. He brought his
+hand up to the brim of his hat. A group of officers strode past
+him into the nearest building.
+
+John Andrews, coming back from emptying the garbage pails, went in
+the back door of his barracks.
+
+"Attention!" came the cry from the other end. He made his neck and
+arms as rigid as possible.
+
+Through the silent barracks came the hard clank of the heels of
+the officers inspecting.
+
+A sallow face with hollow eyes and heavy square jaw came close to
+Andrews's eyes. He stared straight before him noting the few
+reddish hairs on the officer's Adam's apple and the new insignia
+on either side of his collar.
+
+"Sergeant, who is this man?" came a voice from the sallow face.
+
+"Don't know, sir; a new recruit, sir. Corporal Valori, who is this
+man?"
+
+"The name's Andrews, sergeant," said the Italian corporal with an
+obsequious whine in his voice.
+
+The officer addressed Andrews directly, speaking fast and loud.
+"How long have you been in the army?"
+
+"One week, sir."
+
+"Don't you know you have to be clean and shaved and ready for
+inspection every Saturday morning at nine?"
+
+"I was cleaning the barracks, sir."
+
+"To teach you not to answer back when an officer addresses
+you...." The officer spaced his words carefully, lingering on them.
+As he spoke he glanced out of the corner of his eye at his
+superior and noticed the major was frowning. His tone changed ever
+so slightly. "If this ever occurs again you may be sure that
+disciplinary action will be taken.... Attention there!" At the
+other end of the barracks a man had moved. Again, amid absolute
+silence, could be heard the clanking of the officers' heels as the
+inspection continued.
+
+
+"Now, fellows, all together," cried the "Y" man who stood with his
+arms stretched wide in front of the movie screen. The piano
+started jingling and the roomful of crowded soldiers roared out:
+
+"Hail, Hail, the gang's all here;
+ We're going to get the Kaiser,
+ We're going to get the Kaiser,
+ We're going to get the Kaiser,
+ Now!"
+
+The rafters rang with their deep voices.
+
+The "Y" man twisted his lean face into a facetious expression.
+
+"Somebody tried to put one over on the 'Y' man and sing 'What the
+hell do we care?' But you do care, don't you, Buddy?" he shouted.
+
+There was a little rattle of laughter.
+
+"Now, once more," said the "Y" man again, "and lots of guts in the
+get and lots of kill in the Kaiser. Now all together.... "
+
+The moving pictures had begun. John Andrews looked furtively about
+him, at the face of the Indiana boy beside him intent on the
+screen, at the tanned faces and the close-cropped heads that rose
+above the mass of khaki-covered bodies about him. Here and there a
+pair of eyes glinted in the white flickering light from the
+screen. Waves of laughter or of little exclamations passed over
+them. They were all so alike, they seemed at moments to be but one
+organism. This was what he had sought when he had enlisted, he
+said to himself. It was in this that he would take refuge from the
+horror of the world that had fallen upon him. He was sick of
+revolt, of thought, of carrying his individuality like a banner
+above the turmoil. This was much better, to let everything go, to
+stamp out his maddening desire for music, to humble himself into
+the mud of common slavery. He was still tingling with sudden anger
+from the officer's voice that morning: "Sergeant, who is this
+man?" The officer had stared in his face, as a man might stare at
+a piece of furniture.
+
+"Ain't this some film?" Chrisfield turned to him with a smile that
+drove his anger away in a pleasant feeling of comradeship.
+
+"The part that's comin's fine. I seen it before out in Frisco,"
+said the man on the other side of Andrews. "Gee, it makes ye hate
+the Huns."
+
+The man at the piano jingled elaborately in the intermission
+between the two parts of the movie.
+
+The Indiana boy leaned in front of John Andrews, putting an arm
+round his shoulders, and talked to the other man.
+
+"You from Frisco?"
+
+"Yare."
+
+"That's goddam funny. You're from the Coast, this feller's from
+New York, an' Ah'm from ole Indiana, right in the middle."
+
+"What company you in?"
+
+"Ah ain't yet. This feller an me's in Casuals."
+
+"That's a hell of a place.... Say, my name's Fuselli."
+
+"Mahn's Chrisfield."
+
+"Mine's Andrews."
+
+"How soon's it take a feller to git out o' this camp?"
+
+"Dunno. Some guys says three weeks and some says six months....
+Say, mebbe you'll get into our company. They transferred a lot of
+men out the other day, an' the corporal says they're going to give
+us rookies instead."
+
+"Goddam it, though, but Ah want to git overseas."
+
+"It's swell over there," said Fuselli, "everything's awful pretty-
+like. Picturesque, they call it. And the people wears peasant
+costumes.... I had an uncle who used to tell me about it. He came
+from near Torino."
+
+"Where's that?"
+
+"I dunno. He's an Eyetalian."
+
+"Say, how long does it take to git overseas?"
+
+"Oh, a week or two," said Andrews.
+
+"As long as that?" But the movie had begun again, unfolding scenes
+of soldiers in spiked helmets marching into Belgian cities full of
+little milk carts drawn by dogs and old women in peasant costume.
+There were hisses and catcalls when a German flag was seen, and as
+the troops were pictured advancing, bayonetting the civilians in
+wide Dutch pants, the old women with starched caps, the soldiers
+packed into the stuffy Y. M. C. A. hut shouted oaths at them.
+Andrews felt blind hatred stirring like something that had a life
+of its own in the young men about him. He was lost in it, carried
+away in it, as in a stampede of wild cattle. The terror of it was
+like ferocious hands clutching his throat. He glanced at the faces
+round him. They were all intent and flushed, glinting with sweat
+in the heat of the room.
+
+As he was leaving the hut, pressed in a tight stream of soldiers
+moving towards the door, Andrews heard a man say:
+
+"I never raped a woman in my life, but by God, I'm going to. I'd
+give a lot to rape some of those goddam German women."
+
+"I hate 'em too," came another voice, "men, women, children and
+unborn children. They're either jackasses or full of the lust for
+power like their rulers are, to let themselves be governed by a
+bunch of warlords like that."
+
+"Ah'd lahk te cepture a German officer an' make him shine ma boots
+an' then shoot him dead," said Chris to Andrews as they walked
+down the long row towards their barracks.
+
+"You would?"
+
+"But Ah'd a damn side rather shoot somebody else Ah know," went on
+Chris intensely. "Don't stay far from here either. An' Ah'll do it
+too, if he don't let off pickin' on me."
+
+"Who's that?"
+
+"That big squirt Anderson they made a file closer at drill
+yesterday. He seems to think that just because Ah'm littler than
+him he can do anything he likes with me."
+
+Andrews turned sharply and looked in his companion's face;
+something in the gruffness of the boy's tone startled him. He was
+not accustomed to this. He had thought of himself as a passionate
+person, but never in his life had he wanted to kill a man.
+
+"D'you really want to kill him?"
+
+"Not now, but he gits the hell started in me, the way he teases
+me. Ah pulled ma knife on him yisterday. You wasn't there. Didn't
+ye notice Ah looked sort o' upsot at drill?"
+
+"Yes...but how old are you, Chris!"
+
+"Ah'm twenty. You're older than me, ain't yer?"
+
+"I'm twenty-two."
+
+They were leaning against the wall of their barracks, looking up
+at the brilliant starry night.
+
+"Say, is the stars the same over there, overseas, as they is
+here?"
+
+"I guess so," said Andrews, laughing. "Though I've never been to
+see."
+
+"Ah never had much schoolin'," went on Chris. "I lef school when I
+was twelve, 'cause it warn't much good, an' dad drank so the folks
+needed me to work on the farm."
+
+"What do you grow in your part of the country?"
+
+"Mostly coan. A little wheat an' tobacca. Then we raised a lot o'
+stock.... But Ah was juss going to tell ye Ah nearly did kill a
+guy once."
+
+"Tell me about it."
+
+"Ah was drunk at the time. Us boys round Tallyville was a pretty
+tough bunch then. We used ter work juss long enough to git some
+money to tear things up with. An' then we used to play craps an'
+drink whiskey. This happened just at coan-shuckin' time. Hell, Ah
+don't even know what it was about, but Ah got to quarrellin' with
+a feller Ah'd been right smart friends with. Then he laid off an'
+hit me in the jaw. Ah don't know what Ah done next, but before Ah
+knowed it Ah had a hold of a shuck-in' knife and was slashin' at
+him with it. A knife like that's a turruble thing to stab a man
+with. It took four of 'em to hold me down an' git it away from me.
+They didn't keep me from givin' him a good cut across the chest,
+though. Ah was juss crazy drunk at the time. An' man, if Ah wasn't
+a mess to go home, with half ma clothes pulled off and ma shirt
+torn. Ah juss fell in the ditch an' slep' there till daylight an'
+got mud all through ma hair.... Ah don't scarcely tech a drop now,
+though."
+
+"So you're in a hurry to get overseas, Chris, like me," said
+Andrews after a long pause.
+
+"Ah'll push that guy Anderson into the sea, if we both go over on
+the same boat," said Chrisfield laughing; but he added after a
+pause: "It would have been hell if Ah'd killed that feller,
+though. Honest Ah wouldn't a-wanted to do that."
+
+
+
+"That's the job that pays, a violinist," said somebody.
+
+"No, it don't," came a melancholy drawling voice from a lanky man
+who sat doubled up with his long face in his hands and his elbows
+resting on his knees. "Just brings a living wage...a living wage."
+
+Several men were grouped at the end of the barracks. From them the
+long row of cots, with here and there a man asleep or a man
+hastily undressing, stretched, lighted by occasional feeble
+electric-light bulbs, to the sergeant's little table beside the
+door.
+
+"You're gettin' a dis-charge, aren't you?" asked a man with a
+brogue, and the red face of a jovial gorilla, that signified the
+bartender.
+
+"Yes, Flannagan, I am," said the lanky man dolefully.
+
+"Ain't he got hard luck?" came a voice from the crowd.
+
+"Yes, I have got hard luck, Buddy," said the lanky man, looking at
+the faces about him out of sunken eyes. "I ought to be getting
+forty dollars a week and here I am getting seven and in the army
+besides."
+
+"I meant that you were gettin' out of this goddam army."
+
+"The army, the army, the democratic army," chanted someone under
+his breath.
+
+"But, begorry, I want to go overseas and 'ave a look at the 'uns,"
+said Flannagan, who managed with strange skill to combine a
+cockney whine with his Irish brogue.
+
+"Overseas?" took up the lanky man. "If I could have gone an'
+studied overseas, I'd be making as much as Kubelik. I had the
+makings of a good player in me."
+
+"Why don't you go?" asked Andrews, who stood on the outskirts with
+Fuselli and Chris.
+
+"Look at me...t. b.," said the lanky man.
+
+"Well, they can't get me over there soon enough," said Flannagan.
+
+"Must be funny not bein' able to understand what folks say. They
+say 'we' over there when they mean 'yes,' a guy told me."
+
+"Ye can make signs to them, can't ye?" said Flannagan "an' they
+can understand an Irishman anywhere. But ye won't 'ave to talk to
+the 'uns. Begorry I'll set up in business when I get there, what
+d'ye think of that?"
+
+Everybody laughed.
+
+"How'd that do? I'll start an Irish House in Berlin, I will, and
+there'll be O'Casey and O'Ryan and O'Reilly and O'Flarrety, and
+begod the King of England himself'll come an' set the goddam
+Kaiser up to a drink."
+
+"The Kaiser'll be strung up on a telephone pole by that time; ye
+needn't worry, Flannagan."
+
+"They ought to torture him to death, like they do niggers when
+they lynch 'em down south."
+
+A bugle sounded far away outside on the parade ground. Everyone
+slunk away silently to his cot.
+
+John Andrews arranged himself carefully in his blankets, promising
+himself a quiet time of thought before going to sleep. He needed
+to be awake and think at night this way, so that he might not lose
+entirely the thread of his own life, of the life he would take up
+again some day if he lived through it. He brushed away the thought
+of death. It was uninteresting. He didn't care anyway. But some
+day he would want to play the piano again, to write music. He must
+not let himself sink too deeply into the helpless mentality of the
+soldier. He must keep his will power.
+
+No, but that was not what he had wanted to think about. He was so
+bored with himself. At any cost he must forget himself. Ever since
+his first year at college he seemed to have done nothing but think
+about himself, talk about himself.  At least at the bottom, in the
+utterest degradation of slavery, he could find forgetfulness and
+start rebuilding the fabric of his life, out of real things this
+time, out of work and comradeship and scorn. Scorn--that was the
+quality he needed. It was such a raw, fantastic world he had
+suddenly fallen into. His life before this week seemed a dream read
+in a novel, a picture he had seen in a shop window--it was so
+different. Could it have been in the same world at all? He must
+have died without knowing it and been born again into a new,
+futile hell.
+
+When he had been a child he had lived in a dilapidated mansion
+that stood among old oaks and chestnuts, beside a road where
+buggies and oxcarts passed rarely to disturb the sandy ruts that
+lay in the mottled shade. He had had so many dreams; lying under
+the crepe-myrtle bush at the end of the overgrown garden he had
+passed the long  Virginia afternoons, thinking, while  the
+dryflies whizzed sleepily in the sunlight, of the world he would
+live in when he grew up. He had planned so many lives for himself:
+a general, like Caesar, he was to conquer the world and die
+murdered in a great marble hall; a wandering minstrel, he would go
+through all countries singing and have intricate endless
+adventures; a great musician, he would sit at the piano playing,
+like Chopin in the engraving, while beautiful women wept and men
+with long, curly hair hid their faces in their hands. It was only
+slavery that he had not foreseen. His race had dominated for too
+many centuries for that. And yet the world was made of various
+slaveries.
+
+John Andrews lay on his back on his cot while everyone about him
+slept and snored in the dark barracks. A certain terror held him.
+In a week the great structure of his romantic world, so full of
+many colors and harmonies, that had survived school and college
+and the buffeting of making a living in New York, had fallen in
+dust about him. He was utterly in the void. "How silly," he
+thought; "this is the world as it has appeared to the majority of
+men, this is just the lower half of the pyramid."
+
+He thought of his friends, of Fuselli and Chrisfield and that
+funny little man Eisenstein. They seemed at home in this army
+life. They did not seem appalled by the loss of their liberty. But
+they had never lived in the glittering other world. Yet he could
+not feel the scorn of them he wanted to feel. He thought of them
+singing under the direction of the "Y" man:
+
+"Hail, Hail, the gang's all here;
+ We're going to get the Kaiser,
+ We're going to get the Kaiser,
+ We're going to get the Kaiser,
+ Now!"
+
+He thought of himself and Chrisfield picking up cigarette butts
+and the tramp, tramp, tramp of feet on the drill field. Where was
+the connection? Was this all futile madness? They'd come from such
+various worlds, all these men sleeping about him, to be united in
+this. And what did they think of it, all these sleepers? Had they
+too not had dreams when they were boys? Or had the generations
+prepared them only for this?
+
+He thought of himself lying under the crepe-myrtle bush through
+the hot, droning afternoon, watching the pale magenta flowers
+flutter down into the dry grass, and felt, again, wrapped in his
+warm blankets among all these sleepers, the straining of limbs
+burning with desire to rush untrammelled through some new keen
+air. Suddenly darkness overspread his mind.
+
+
+He woke with a start. The bugle was blowing outside.
+
+"All right, look lively!" the sergeant was shouting. Another day.
+
+
+
+                             IV
+
+The stars were very bright when Fuselli, eyes stinging with sleep,
+stumbled out of the barracks. They trembled like bits of brilliant
+jelly in the black velvet of the sky, just as something inside him
+trembled with excitement.
+
+"Anybody know where the electricity turns on?" asked the sergeant
+in a good-humored voice. "Here it is." The light over the door of
+the barracks snapped on, revealing a rotund cheerful man with a
+little yellow mustache and an unlit cigarette dangling out of the
+corner of his mouth. Grouped about him, in overcoats and caps, the
+men of the company rested their packs against their knees.
+
+"All right; line up, men."
+
+Eyes looked curiously at Fuselli as he lined up with the rest. He
+had been transferred into the company the night before.
+
+"Attenshun," shouted the sergeant. Then he wrinkled up his eyes
+and grinned hard at the slip of paper he had in his hand, while
+the men of his company watched him affectionately.
+
+"Answer 'Here' when your name is called. Allan, B.C."
+
+"Yo!" came a shrill voice from the end of the line.
+
+"Anspach."
+
+"Here."
+
+Meanwhile outside the other barracks other companies could be
+heard calling the roll. Somewhere from the end of the street came
+a cheer.
+
+"Well, I guess I can tell you now, fellers," said the sergeant
+with his air of quiet omniscience, when he had called the last
+name. "We're going overseas."
+
+Everybody cheered.
+
+"Shut up, you don't want the Huns to hear us, do you?"
+
+The company laughed, and there was a broad grin on the sergeant's
+round face.
+
+"Seem to have a pretty decent top-kicker," whispered Fuselli to
+the man next to him.
+
+"You bet yer, kid, he's a peach," said the other man in a voice
+full of devotion. "This is some company, I can tell you that."
+
+"You bet it is," said the next man along. "The corporal's in the
+Red Sox outfield."
+
+The lieutenant appeared suddenly in the area of light in front of
+the barracks. He was a pink-faced boy. His trench coat, a little
+too large, was very new and stuck out stiffly from his legs.
+
+"Everything all right, sergeant? Everything all right?" he asked
+several times, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
+
+"All ready  for entrainment, sir,"  said the  sergeant
+heartily.
+
+"Very good, I'll let you know the order of march in a minute."
+
+Fuselli's ears pounded with strange excitement. These phrases,
+"entrainment," "order of march," had a businesslike sound. He
+suddenly started to wonder how it would feel to be under fire.
+Memories of movies flickered in his mind.
+
+"Gawd, ain't I glad to git out o' this hell-hole," he said
+to the man next him.
+
+"The next one may be more of a hell-hole yet, buddy," said the
+sergeant striding up and down with his important confident walk.
+
+Everybody laughed.
+
+"He's some sergeant, our sergeant is," said the man next to
+Fuselli. "He's got brains in his head, that boy has."
+
+"All right, break ranks," said the sergeant, "but if anybody moves
+away from this barracks, I'll put him in K. P. Till--till he'll be
+able to peel spuds in his sleep."
+
+The company laughed again. Fuselli noticed with displeasure that
+the tall man with the shrill voice whose name had been called
+first on the roll did not laugh but spat disgustedly out of the
+corner of his mouth.
+
+"Well, there are bad eggs in every good bunch," thought Fuselli.
+
+It gradually grew grey with dawn. Fuselli's legs were tired from
+standing so long. Outside all the barracks, as far as he could see
+up the street, men stood in ragged lines waiting.
+
+The sun rose hot on a cloudless day. A few sparrows twittered
+about the tin roof of the barracks.
+
+"Hell, we're not goin' this day."
+
+"Why?" asked somebody savagely.
+
+"Troops always leaves at night."
+
+"The hell they do!"
+
+"Here comes Sarge."
+
+Everybody craned their necks in the direction pointed out.
+
+The sergeant strolled up with a mysterious smile on his face.
+
+"Put away your overcoats and get out your mess kits."
+
+Mess kits clattered and gleamed in the slanting rays of the sun.
+They marched to the mess hall and back again, lined up again with
+packs and waited some more.
+
+Everybody began to get tired and peevish. Fuselli wondered where
+his old friends of the other company were. They were good kids
+too, Chris and that educated fellow, Andrews. Tough luck they
+couldn't have come along.
+
+The sun rose higher. Men sneaked into the barracks one by one and
+lay down on the bare cots.
+
+"What you want to bet we won't leave this camp for a week yet?"
+asked someone.
+
+At noon they lined up for mess again, ate dismally and hurriedly.
+As Fuselli was leaving the mess hall tapping a tattoo on his kit
+with two dirty finger nails, the corporal spoke to him in a low
+voice.
+
+"Be sure to wash yer kit, buddy. We may have pack inspection."
+
+The corporal was a slim yellow-faced man with a wrinkled skin,
+though he was still young, and an arrow-shaped mouth that opened
+and shut like the paper mouths children make.
+
+"All right, corporal," Fuselli answered cheerfully. He wanted to
+make a good impression. "Fellers'll be sayin' 'All right,
+corporal,' to me soon," he thought. An idea that he repelled came
+into his mind. The corporal didn't look strong. He wouldn't last
+long overseas. And he pictured Mabe writing Corporal Dan Fuselli,
+O.A.R.D.5.
+
+At the end of the afternoon, the lieutenant appeared suddenly, his
+face flushed, his trench coat stiffer than ever.
+
+"All right, sergeant; line up your men," he said in a breathless
+voice.
+
+All down the camp street companies were forming. One by one they
+marched out in columns of fours and halted with their packs on.
+The day was getting amber with sunset. Retreat sounded.
+
+Fuselli's mind had suddenly become very active. The notes of the
+bugle and of the band playing "The Star Spangled Banner" sifted
+into his consciousness through a dream of what it would be like
+over there. He was in a place like the Exposition ground, full of
+old men and women in peasant costume, like in the song, "When It's
+Apple Blossom Time in Normandy." Men in spiked helmets who looked
+like firemen kept charging through, like the Ku-Klux Klan in the
+movies, jumping from their horses and setting fire to buildings
+with strange outlandish gestures, spitting babies on their long
+swords. Those were the Huns. Then there were flags blowing very
+hard in the wind, and the sound of a band. The Yanks were coming.
+Everything was lost in a scene from a movie in which khaki-clad
+regiments marched fast, fast across the scene. The memory of the
+shouting that always accompanied it drowned out the picture. "The
+guns must make a racket, though," he added as an after-thought.
+
+"Atten-shun!
+
+"Forwa--ard, march!"
+
+The long street of the camp was full of the tramping of feet. They
+were off. As they passed through the gate Fuselli caught a glimpse
+of Chris standing with his arm about Andrews's shoulders. They
+both waved. Fuselli grinned and expanded his chest. They were just
+rookies still. He was going overseas.
+
+The weight of the pack tugged at his shoulders and made his feet
+heavy as if they were charged with lead. The sweat ran down his
+close-clipped head under the overseas cap and streamed into his
+eyes and down the sides of his nose. Through the tramp of feet he
+heard confusedly cheering from the sidewalk. In front of him the
+backs of heads and the swaying packs got smaller, rank by rank up
+the street. Above them flags dangled from windows, flags leisurely
+swaying in the twilight. But the weight of the pack, as the column
+marched under arc lights glaring through the afterglow, inevitably
+forced his head to droop forward. The soles of boots and legs
+wrapped in puttees and the bottom strap of the pack of the man
+ahead of him were all he could see. The pack seemed heavy enough
+to push him through the asphalt pavement. And all about him was
+the faint jingle of equipment and the tramp of feet. Every part of
+him was full of sweat. He could feel vaguely the steam of sweat
+that rose from the ranks of struggling bodies about him. But
+gradually he forgot everything but the pack tugging at his
+shoulders, weighing down his thighs and ankles and feet, and the
+monotonous rhythm of his feet striking the pavement and of the
+other feet, in front of him, behind him, beside him, crunching,
+crunching.
+
+
+
+The train smelt of new uniforms on which the sweat had dried, and
+of the smoke of cheap cigarettes. Fuselli awoke with a start. He
+had been asleep with his head on Bill Grey's shoulder. It was
+already broad daylight. The train was jolting slowly over cross-
+tracks in some dismal suburb, full of long soot-smeared warehouses
+and endless rows of freight cars, beyond which lay brown marshland
+and slate-grey stretches of water.
+
+"God! that must be the Atlantic Ocean," cried Fuselli in
+excitement.
+
+"Ain't yer never seen it before? That's the Perth River," said
+Bill Grey scornfully.
+
+"No, I come from the Coast."
+
+They stuck their heads out of the window side by side so that
+their cheeks touched.
+
+"Gee, there's some skirts," said Bill Grey. The train jolted to a
+stop. Two untidy red-haired girls were standing beside the track
+waving their hands.
+
+"Give us a kiss," cried Bill Grey.
+
+"Sure," said a girl,--"anythin' fer one of our boys."
+
+She stood on tiptoe and Grey leaned far out of the window, just
+managing to reach the girl's forehead.
+
+Fuselli felt a flush of desire all over him.
+
+"Hol' onter my belt," he said. "I'll kiss her right."
+
+He leaned far out, and, throwing his arms around the girl's pink
+gingham shoulders, lifted her off the ground and kissed her
+furiously on the lips.
+
+"Lemme go, lemme go," cried the girl. Men leaning out of the other
+windows of the car cheered and shouted.
+
+Fuselli kissed her again and then dropped her.
+
+"Ye're too rough, damn ye," said the girl angrily.
+
+A man from one of the windows yelled, "I'll go an' tell mommer";
+and everybody laughed. The train moved on. Fuselli looked about
+him proudly. The image of Mabe giving him the five-pound box
+of candy rose a moment in his mind.
+
+"Ain't no harm in havin' a little fun. Don't mean nothin'," he
+said aloud.
+
+"You just wait till we hit France. We'll hit it up some with the
+Madimerzels, won't we, kid?" said Bill Grey, slapping Fuselli on
+the knee.
+
+"Beautiful Katy,
+ Ki-Ki-Katy,
+ You're the only gugugu-girl that I adore;
+ And when the mo-moon shines
+ Over the cowshed,
+ I'll be waiting at the ki-ki-ki-kitchen door."
+
+Everybody sang as the thumping of wheels over rails grew faster.
+Fuselli looked about contentedly at the company sprawling over
+their packs and equipment in the smoky car.
+
+"It's great to be a soldier," he said to Bill Grey. "Ye kin do
+anything ye goddam please."
+
+
+
+"This," said the corporal, as the company filed into barracks
+identical to those they had left two days before, "is an
+embarkation camp, but I'd like to know where the hell we embark
+at." He twisted his face into a smile, and then shouted with
+lugubrious intonation: "Fall in for mess."
+
+It was pitch dark in that part of the camp. The electric lights
+had a sparse reddish glow. Fuselli kept straining his eyes,
+expecting to see a wharf and the masts of a ship at the end of
+every alley. The line filed into a dim mess hall, where a thin
+stew was splashed into the mess kits. Behind the counter of the
+kitchen the non-coms, the jovial first sergeant, and the business-
+like sergeant who looked like a preacher, and the wrinkled-faced
+corporal who had been on the Red Sox outfield, could be seen
+eating steak. A faint odor of steak frying went through the mess
+hall and made the thin chilly stew utterly tasteless in
+comparison.
+
+Fuselli looked enviously towards the kitchen and thought of the
+day when he would be a non-com too. "I got to get busy," he said
+to himself earnestly. Overseas, under fire, he'd have a chance to
+show what he was worth; and he pictured himself heroically
+carrying a wounded captain back to a dressing tent, pursued by
+fierce-whiskered men with spiked helmets like firemen's helmets.
+
+The strumming of a guitar came strangely down the dark street of
+the camp.
+
+"Some guy sure can play," said Bill Grey who, with his hands in
+his pockets, slouched along beside Fuselli.
+
+They looked in the door of one of the barracks. A lot of soldiers
+were sitting in a ring round two tall negroes whose black faces
+and chests glistened like jet in the faint light.
+
+"Come on, Charley, give us another," said someone.
+
+"Do Ah git it now, or mus' Ah hesit-ate?"
+
+One negro began chanting while the other strummed carelessly on
+the guitar.
+
+"No, give us the 'Titanic.'"
+
+The guitar strummed in a crooning rag-time for a moment. The
+negro's voice broke into it suddenly, pitched high.
+
+"Dis is de song ob de Titanic,
+ Sailin' on de sea."
+
+The guitar strummed on. There had been a tension in the negro's
+voice that had made everyone stop talking. The soldiers looked at
+him curiously.
+
+"How de Titanic ran in dat cole iceberg,
+ How de Titanic ran in dat cole iceberg
+ Sailin' on de sea."
+
+His voice was confidential and soft, and the guitar strummed to
+the same sobbing rag-time. Verse after verse the voice grew louder
+and the strumming faster.
+
+"De Titanic's sinkin' in de deep blue,
+ Sinkin' in de deep blue, deep blue,
+ Sinkin' in de sea.
+ O de women an' de chilen a-floatin' in de sea,
+ O de women an' de chilen a-floatin' in de sea,
+ Roun' dat cole iceberg,
+ Sung 'Nearer, my gawd, to Thee,'
+ Sung 'Nearer, my gawd, to Thee,
+ Nearer to Thee.'"
+
+The guitar was strumming the hymn-tune. The negro was singing with
+every cord in his throat taut, almost sobbing.
+
+A man next to Fuselli took careful aim and spat into the box of
+sawdust in the middle of the ring of motionless soldiers.
+
+The guitar played the rag-time again, fast, almost mockingly. The
+negro sang in low confidential tones.
+
+"O de women an' de chilen dey sank in de sea.
+ O de women an' de chilen dey sank in de sea,
+ Roun' dat cole iceberg."
+
+Before he had finished a bugle blew in the distance. Everybody
+scattered.
+
+Fuselli and Bill Grey went silently back to their barracks.
+
+"It must be an awful thing to drown in the sea," said Grey as he
+rolled himself in his blankets. "If one of those bastard
+U-boats..."
+
+"I don't give a damn," said Fuselli boisterously; but as he lay
+staring into the darkness, cold terror stiffened him suddenly. He
+thought for a moment of deserting, pretending he was sick,
+anything to keep from going on the transport.
+
+"O de women an' de chilen dey sank in de sea,
+ Roun" dat cole iceberg."
+
+He could feel himself going down through icy water. "It's a hell
+of a thing to send a guy over there to drown," he said to himself,
+and he thought of the hilly streets of San Francisco, and the glow
+of the sunset over the harbor and ships coming in through the
+Golden Gate. His mind went gradually blank and he went to sleep.
+
+
+The column was like some curious khaki-colored carpet, hiding the
+road as far as you could see. In Fuselli's company the men were
+shifting their weight from one foot to the other, muttering, "What
+the hell a' they waiting for now?" Bill Grey, next to Fuselli in
+the ranks, stood bent double so as to take the weight of his pack
+off his shoulders. They were at a cross-roads on fairly high
+ground so that they could see the long sheds and barracks of the
+camp stretching away in every direction, in rows and rows, broken
+now and then by a grey drill field. In front of them the column
+stretched to the last bend in the road, where it disappeared on a
+hill among mustard-yellow suburban houses.
+
+Fuselli was excited. He kept thinking of the night before, when he
+had helped the sergeant distribute emergency rations, and had
+carried about piles of boxes of hard bread, counting them
+carefully without a mistake. He felt full of desire to do things,
+to show what he was good for. "Gee," he said to himself, "this
+war's a lucky thing for me. I might have been in the R.C. Vicker
+Company's store for five years an' never got a raise, an' here in
+the army I got a chance to do almost anything."
+
+Far ahead down the road the column was beginning to move. Voices
+shouting orders beat crisply on the morning air. Fuselli's heart
+was thumping. He felt proud of himself and of the company--the
+damn best company in the whole outfit. The company ahead was
+moving, it was their turn now.
+
+"Forwa--ard, march!"
+
+They were lost in the monotonous tramp of feet. Dust rose from the
+road, along which like a drab brown worm crawled the column.
+
+
+
+A sickening unfamiliar smell choked their nostrils.
+
+"What are they taking us down here for?"
+
+"Damned if I know."
+
+They were filing down ladders into the terrifying pit which the
+hold of the ship seemed to them. Every man had a blue card in his
+hand with a number on it. In a dim place like an empty warehouse
+they stopped. The sergeant shouted out:
+
+"I guess this is our diggings. We'll have to make the best of it."
+Then he disappeared.
+
+Fuselli looked about him. He was sitting in one of the lowest of
+three tiers of bunks roughly built of new pine boards. Electric
+lights placed here and there gave a faint reddish tone to the
+gloom, except at the ladders, where high-power lamps made a white
+glare. The place was full of tramping of feet and the sound of
+packs being thrown on bunks as endless files of soldiers poured in
+down every ladder. Somewhere down the alley an officer with a
+shrill voice was shouting to his men: "Speed it up there; speed it
+up there." Fuselli sat on his bunk looking at the terrifying
+confusion all about, feeling bewildered and humiliated. For how
+many days would they be in that dark pit? He suddenly felt angry.
+They had no right to treat a feller like that. He was a man, not a
+bale of hay to be bundled about as anybody liked.
+
+"An' if we're torpedoed a fat chance we'll have down here," he
+said aloud.
+
+"They got sentries posted to keep us from goin up on deck," said
+someone.
+
+"God damn them. They treat you like you was a steer being taken
+over for meat."
+
+"Well, you're not a damn sight more. Meat for the guns."
+
+A little man lying in one of the upper bunks had spoken suddenly,
+contracting his sallow face into a curious spasm, as if the words
+had burst from him in spite of an effort to keep them in.
+
+Everybody looked up at him angrily.
+
+"That goddam kike Eisenstein," muttered someone.
+
+"Say, tie that bull outside," shouted Bill Grey good-naturedly.
+
+"Fools," muttered Eisenstein, turning over and burying his face in
+his hands.
+
+"Gee, I wonder what it is makes it smell so funny down here," said
+Fuselli.
+
+
+Fuselli lay flat on deck resting his head on his crossed arms.
+When he looked straight up he could see a lead-colored mast sweep
+back and forth across the sky full of clouds of light grey and
+silver and dark purplish-grey showing yellowish at the edges. When
+he tilted his head a little to one side he could see Bill Grey's
+heavy colorless face and the dark bristles of his unshaven chin
+and his mouth a little twisted to the left, from which a cigarette
+dangled unlighted. Beyond were heads and bodies huddled together
+in a mass of khaki overcoats and life preservers. And when the
+roll tipped the deck he had a view of moving green waves and of a
+steamer striped grey and white, and the horizon, a dark taut line,
+broken here and there by the tops of waves.
+
+"O God, I feel sick," said Bill Grey, taking the cigarette out of
+his mouth and looking at it revengefully.
+
+"I'd be all right if everything didn't stink so. An' that mess
+hall. Nearly makes a guy puke to think of it." Fuselli spoke in a
+whining voice, watching the top of the mast move like a pencil
+scrawling on paper, back and forth across the mottled clouds.
+
+"You belly-achin' again?" A brown moon-shaped face with thick
+black eyebrows and hair curling crisply about a forehead with many
+horizontal wrinkles rose from the deck on the other side of
+Fuselli.
+
+"Get the hell out of here."
+
+"Feel sick, sonny?" came the deep voice again, and the dark
+eyebrows contracted in an expression of sympathy. "Funny, I'd have
+my sixshooter out if I was home and you told me to get the hell
+out, sonny."
+
+"Well, who wouldn't be sore when they have to go on K.P.?" said
+Fuselli peevishly.
+
+"I ain't been down to mess in three days. A feller who lives on
+the plains like I do ought to take to the sea like a duck, but it
+don't seem to suit me."
+
+"God, they're a sick lookin' bunch I have to sling the hash to,"
+said Fuselli more cheerfully. "I don't know how they get that way.
+The fellers in our company ain't that way. They look like they was
+askeered somebody was going to hit 'em. Ever noticed that,
+Meadville?"
+
+"Well, what d'ye expect of you guys who live in the city all your
+lives and don't know the butt from the barrel of a gun an' never
+straddled anything more like a horse than a broomstick. Ye're juss
+made to be sheep. No wonder they have to herd you round like
+calves." Meadville got to his feet and went unsteadily to the
+rail, keeping, as he threaded his way through the groups that
+covered the transport's after deck, a little of his cowboy's bow-
+legged stride.
+
+"I know what it is that makes men's eyes blink when they go down
+to that putrid mess," came a nasal voice.
+
+Fuselli turned round.
+
+Eisenstein was sitting in the place Meadville had just left.
+
+"You do, do you?"
+
+"It's part of the system. You've got to turn men into beasts
+before ye can get 'em to act that way. Ever read Tolstoi?"
+
+"No. Say, you want to be careful how you go talkin' around the way
+you do." Fuselli lowered his voice confidentially. "I heard of a
+feller bein' shot at Camp Merritt for talkin' around."
+
+"I don't care.... I'm a desperate man," said Eisenstein.
+
+"Don't ye feel sick? Gawd, I do.... Did you get rid o' any of it,
+Meadville?"
+
+"Why don't they fight their ole war somewhere a man can get to on
+a horse?...   Say that's my seat."
+
+"The place was empty.... I sat down in it," said Eisenstein,
+lowering his head sullenly.
+
+"You kin have three winks to get out o' my place," said Meadville,
+squaring his broad shoulders.
+
+"You are stronger than me," said Eisenstein, moving off.
+
+''God, it's hell not to have a gun," muttered Meadville as he
+settled himself on the deck again. "D'ye know, sonny, I nearly
+cried when I found I was going to be in this damn medical corps? I
+enlisted for the tanks. This is the first time in my life I
+haven't had a gun. I even think I had one in my cradle."
+
+"That's funny," said Fuselli.
+
+The sergeant appeared suddenly in the middle of the group, his
+face red.
+
+"Say, fellers," he said in a low voice, "go down an' straighten
+out the bunks as fast as you goddam can. They're having an
+inspection. It's a hell of a note."
+
+They all filed down the gang planks into the foul-smelling hold,
+where there was no light but the invariable reddish glow of
+electric bulbs. They had hardly reached their bunks when someone
+called, "Attention!"
+
+Three officers stalked by, their firm important tread a little
+disturbed by the rolling. Their heads were stuck forward and they
+peered from side to side among the bunks with the cruel, searching
+glance of hens looking for worms.
+
+
+
+"Fuselli," said the first sergeant, "bring up the record book to
+my stateroom; 213 on the lower deck."
+
+"All right, Sarge," said Fuselli with alacrity. He admired the
+first sergeant and wished he could imitate his jovial, domineering
+manner.
+
+It was the first time he had been in the upper part of the ship.
+It seemed a different world. The long corridors with red carpets,
+the white paint and the gilt mouldings on the partitions, the
+officers strolling about at their ease--it all made him think of
+the big liners he used to watch come in through the Golden Gate,
+the liners he was going to Europe on some day, when he got rich.
+Oh, if he could only get to be a sergeant first-class, all this
+comfort and magnificence would be his. He found the number and
+knocked on the door. Laughter and loud talking came from inside
+the stateroom.
+
+"Wait a sec!" came an unfamiliar voice.
+
+"Sergeant Olster here?"
+
+"Oh, it's one o' my gang," came the sergeant's voice. "Let him in.
+He won't peach on us."
+
+The door opened and he saw Sergeant Olster and two other young men
+sitting with their feet dangling over the red varnished boards
+that enclosed the bunks. They were talking gaily, and had glasses
+in their hands.
+
+"Paris is some town, I can tell you," one was saying. "They say
+the girls come up an' put their arms round you right in the main
+street."
+
+"Here's the records, sergeant," said Fuselli stiffly in his
+best military manner.
+
+"Oh thanks.... There's nothing else I want," said the sergeant,
+his voice more jovial than ever. "Don't fall overboard like the
+guy in Company C."
+
+Fuselli laughed as he closed the door, growing serious suddenly on
+noticing that one of the young men wore in his shirt the gold bar
+of a second lieutenant.
+
+"Gee," he said to himself. "I ought to have saluted."
+
+He waited a moment outside the closed door of the stateroom,
+listening to the talk and the laughter, wishing he were one of
+that merry group talking about women in Paris. He began thinking.
+Sure he'd get private first-class as soon as they got overseas.
+Then in a couple of months he might be corporal. If they saw much
+service, he'd move along all right, once he got to be a non-com.
+
+"Oh, I mustn't get in wrong. Oh, I mustn't get in wrong," he kept
+saying to himself as he went down the ladder into the hold. But he
+forgot everything in the seasickness that came on again as he
+breathed in the fetid air.
+
+
+
+The deck now slanted down in front of him, now rose so that he was
+walking up an incline. Dirty water slushed about from one side of
+the passage to the other with every lurch of the ship. When he
+reached the door the whistling howl of the wind through the hinges
+and cracks made Fuselli hesitate a long time with his hand on the
+knob. The  moment he turned the knob the door flew open and he was
+in the full sweep of the wind. The deck was deserted. The wet
+ropes strung along it shivered dismally in the wind. Every other
+moment came the rattle of spray, that rose up in white fringy
+trees to windward and smashed against him like hail. Without
+closing the door he crept forward along the deck, clinging as hard
+as he could to the icy rope. Beyond the spray he could see huge
+marbled green waves rise in constant succession out of the mist.
+The roar of the wind in his ears confused him and terrified him.
+It seemed ages before he reached the door of the forward house
+that opened on a passage that smelt of drugs; and breathed out
+air, where men waited in a packed line, thrown one against the
+other by the lurching of the boat, to get into the dispensary. The
+roar of the wind came to them faintly, and only now and then the
+hollow thump of a wave against the bow.
+
+"You sick?" a man asked Fuselli.
+
+"Naw, I'm not sick; but Sarge sent me to get some stuff for some
+guys that's too sick to move."
+
+"An awful lot o' sickness on this boat."
+
+"Two fellers died this mornin' in that there room," said another
+man solemnly, pointing over his shoulder with a jerk of the thumb.
+"Ain't buried 'em yet. It's too rough."
+
+"What'd they die of?" asked Fuselli eagerly.
+
+"Spinal somethin'...."
+
+"Menegitis," broke in a man at the end of the line.
+
+"Say, that's awful catchin' ain't it?"
+
+"It sure is."
+
+"Where does it hit yer?" asked Fuselli.
+
+"Yer neck swells up, an' then you juss go stiff all over," came
+the man's voice from the end of the line.
+
+There was a silence. From the direction of the infirmary a man
+with a packet of medicines in his hand began making his way
+towards the door.
+
+"Many guys in there?" asked Fuselli in a low voice as the man
+brushed past him.
+
+When the door closed again the man beside Fuselli, who was tall
+and broad shouldered with heavy black eyebrows, burst out, as if
+he were saying something he'd been trying to keep from saying for
+a long while:
+
+"It won't be right if that sickness gets me; indeed it won't....
+I've got a girl waitin' for me at home. It's two years since I
+ain't touched a woman all on account of her. It ain't natural for
+a fellow to go so long as that.
+
+"Why didn't you marry her before you left?" somebody asked
+mockingly.
+
+"Said she didn't want to be no war bride, that she could wait for
+me better if I didn't."
+
+Several men laughed.
+
+"It wouldn't be right if I took sick an' died of this sickness,
+after keepin' myself clean on account of that girl.... It wouldn't
+be right," the man muttered again to Fuselli.
+
+Fuselli was picturing himself lying in his bunk with a swollen
+neck, while his arms and legs stiffened, stiffened.
+
+A red-faced man half way up the passage started speaking:
+
+"When I thinks to myself how much the folks need me home, it makes
+me feel sort o' confident-like, I dunno why. I juss can't cash in
+my checks, that's all." He laughed jovially.
+
+No one joined in the laugh.
+
+"Is it awfully catchin'?" asked Fuselli of the man next him.
+
+"Most catchin' thing there is," he answered solemnly. "The worst
+of it is," another man was muttering in a shrill hysterical voice,
+"bein' thrown over to the sharks. Gee, they ain't got a right to
+do that, even if it is war time, they ain't got a right to treat a
+Christian like he was a dead dawg."
+
+"They got a right to do anythin' they goddam please, buddy. Who's
+goin' to stop 'em I'd like to know," cried the red-faced man.
+
+"If he was an awficer, they wouldn't throw him over like that,"
+came the shrill hysterical voice again.
+
+"Cut that," said someone else, "no use gettin' in wrong juss for
+the sake of talkin'."
+
+"But ain't it dangerous, waitin' round up here so near where those
+fellers are with that sickness," whispered Fuselli to the man next
+him.
+
+"Reckon it is, buddy," came the other man's voice dully.
+
+Fuselli started making his way toward the door.
+
+"Lemme out, fellers, I've got to puke," he said. "Shoot," he was
+thinking, "I'll tell 'em the place was closed; they'll never come
+to look."
+
+As he opened the door he thought of himself crawling back to his
+bunk and feeling his neck swell and his hands burn with fever and
+his arms and legs stiffen until everything would be effaced in the
+blackness of death. But the roar of the wind and the lash of the
+spray as he staggered back along the deck drowned all other
+thought.
+
+
+
+Fuselli and another man carried the dripping garbage-can up the
+ladder that led up from the mess hall. It smelt of rancid grease
+and coffee grounds and greasy juice trickled over their fingers as
+they struggled with it. At last they burst out on to the deck
+where a free wind blew out of the black night. They staggered
+unsteadily to the rail and emptied the pail into the darkness. The
+splash was lost in the sound of the waves and of churned water
+fleeing along the sides. Fuselli leaned over the rail and looked
+down at the faint phosphorescence that was the only light in the
+whole black gulf. He had never seen such darkness before. He
+clutched hold of the rail with both hands, feeling lost and
+terrified in the blackness, in the roaring of the wind in his ears
+and the sound of churned water fleeing astern. The alternative was
+the stench of below decks.
+
+"I'll bring down the rosie, don't you bother," he said to the
+other man, kicking the can that gave out a ringing sound as he
+spoke.
+
+He strained his eyes to make out something. The darkness seemed to
+press in upon his eyeballs, blinding him. Suddenly he noticed
+voices near him. Two men were talking.
+
+"I ain't never seen the sea before this, I didn't know it
+was like this."
+
+"We're in the zone, now."
+
+"That means we may go down any minute."
+
+"Yare."
+
+"Christ, how black it is.... It'ld be awful to drown in the dark
+like this."
+
+"It'ld be over soon."
+
+"Say, Fred, have you ever been so skeered that...?"
+
+"D'you feel a-skeert?"
+
+"Feel my hand, Fred.... No.... There it is. God, it's so hellish
+black you can't see yer own hand."
+
+"It's cold. Why are you shiverin' so? God, I wish I had a drink."
+
+"I  ain't   never   seen   the   sea   before...I   didn't
+know..."
+
+Fuselli heard distinctly the man's teeth chattering in the
+darkness.
+
+"God, pull yerself together, kid. You can't be skeered
+like this."
+
+"O God."
+
+There was a long pause. Fuselli heard nothing but the churned
+water speeding along the ship's side and the wind roaring in his
+ears.
+
+"I ain't never seen the sea before this time, Fred, an' it sort o'
+gits my goat, all this sickness an' all.... They dropped three of
+'em overboard yesterday."
+
+"Hell, kid, don't think of it."
+
+"Say, Fred, if I...if I...if you're saved, Fred, an' not me,
+you'll write to my folks, won't you?"
+
+"Indeed I will. But I reckon you an' me'll both go down together."
+
+"Don't say that. An' you won't forget to write that girl I gave
+you the address of?"
+
+"You'll do the same for me."
+
+"Oh, no, Fred, I'll never see land.... Oh, it's no use. An' I feel
+so well an' husky.... I don't want to die. I can't die like this."
+
+"If it only wasn't so goddam black."
+
+
+
+                PART TWO: THE METAL COOLS
+
+                            I
+
+It was purplish dusk outside the window. The rain fell steadily
+making long flashing stripes on the cracked panes, beating a
+hard monotonous tattoo on the tin roof overhead. Fuselli had
+taken off his wet slicker and stood in front of the window
+looking out dismally at the rain. Behind him was the smoking
+stove into which a man was poking wood, and beyond that a few
+broken folding chairs on which soldiers sprawled in attitudes
+of utter boredom, and the counter where the "Y" man stood with
+a set smile doling out chocolate to a line of men that filed past.
+
+"Gee, you have to line up for everything here, don't you?" Fuselli
+muttered.
+
+"That's about all you do do in this hell-hole, buddy," said a man
+beside him.
+
+The man pointed with his thumb at the window and said again:
+
+"See that rain? Well, I been in this camp three weeks and it ain't
+stopped rainin' once. What d'yer think of that fer a country?"
+
+"It certainly ain't like home," said Fuselli. "I'm going to have
+some chauclate."
+
+"It's damn rotten."
+
+"I might as well try it once."
+
+Fuselli slouched over to the end of the line and stood waiting his
+turn. He was thinking of the steep streets of San Francisco and
+the glimpses he used to get of the harbor full of yellow lights,
+the color of amber in a cigarette holder, as he went home from
+work through the blue dusk. He had begun to think of Mabe handing
+him the five-pound box of candy when his attention was distracted
+by the talk of the men behind him. The man next to him was
+speaking with hurried nervous intonation. Fuselli could feel his
+breath on the back of his neck.
+
+"I'll be goddamned," the man said, "was you there too? Where d'you
+get yours?"
+
+"In the leg; it's about all right, though."
+
+"I ain't. I won't never be all right. The doctor says I'm all
+right now, but I know I'm not, the lyin' fool."
+
+"Some time, wasn't it?"
+
+"I'll be damned to hell if I do it again. I can't sleep at night
+thinkin' of the shape of the Fritzies' helmets. Have you ever
+thought that there was somethin' about the shape of them goddam
+helmets...?"
+
+"Ain't they just or'nary shapes?" asked Fuselli, half turning
+round. "I seen 'em in the movies." He laughed apologetically.
+
+"Listen to the rookie, Tub, he's seen 'em in the movies!" said the
+man with the nervous twitch in his voice, laughing a croaking
+little laugh. "How long you been in this country, buddy?"
+
+"Two days."
+
+"Well, we only been here two months, ain't we, Tub?"
+
+"Four months; you're forgettin', kid."
+
+The "Y" man turned his set smile on Fuselli while he filled his
+tin cup up with chocolate.
+
+"How much?"
+
+"A franc; one of those looks like a quarter," said the "Y" man,
+his well-fed voice full of amiable condescension.
+
+"That's a hell of a lot for a cup of chauclate," said
+Fuselli.
+
+"You're at the war, young man, remember that," said the "Y" man
+severely. "You're lucky to get it at all."
+
+A cold chill gripped Fuselli's spine as he went back to the stove
+to drink the chocolate. Of course he mustn't crab. He was in the
+war now. If the sergeant had heard him crabbing, it might have
+spoiled his chances for a corporalship. He must be careful. If he
+just watched out and kept on his toes, he'd be sure to get it.
+
+"And why ain't there no more chocolate, I want to know?" the
+nervous voice of the man who had stood in line behind Fuselli rose
+to a sudden shriek. Everybody looked round. The "Y" man was moving
+his head from side to side in a flustered way, saying in a shrill
+little voice:
+
+"I've told you there's no more. Go away!"
+
+"You ain't got no right to tell me to go away. You got to get me
+some chocolate. You ain't never been at the front, you goddam
+slacker." The man was yelling at the top of his lungs. He had hold
+of the counter with two hands and swayed from side to side. His
+friend was trying to pull him away.
+
+"Look here, none of that, I'll report you," said the "Y" man. "Is
+there a non-commissioned officer in the hut?"
+
+"Go ahead, you can't do nothin'. I can't never have nothing done
+worse than what's been done to me already." The man's voice had
+reached a sing-song fury.
+
+"Is there a non-commissioned officer in the room?" The "Y" man
+kept looking from side to side. His little eyes were hard and
+spiteful and his lips were drawn up in a thin straight line.
+
+"Keep quiet, I'll get him away," said the other man in a low
+voice. "Can't you see he's not...?"
+
+A strange terror took hold of Fuselli. He hadn't expected things
+to be like that. When he had sat in the grandstand in the training
+camp and watched the jolly soldiers in khaki marching into towns,
+pursuing terrified Huns across  potato fields, saving  Belgian
+milk-maids against picturesque backgrounds.
+
+"Does many of 'em come back that way?" he asked a man beside him.
+
+"Some do. It's this convalescent camp." The man and his friend
+stood side by side near the stove talking in low voices.
+
+"Pull yourself together, kid," the friend was saying.
+
+"All right, Tub; I'm all right now, Tub. That slacker got my goat,
+that was all."
+
+Fuselli was looking at him curiously. He had a yellow parchment
+face and a high, gaunt forehead going up to sparse, curly brown
+hair. His eyes had a glassy look about them when they met
+Fuselli's. He smiled amiably.
+
+"Oh, there's the kid who's seen Fritzies' helmets in the
+movies.... Come on, buddy, come and have a beer at the English
+canteen."
+
+"Can you get beer?"
+
+"Sure, over in the English camp." They went out into the slanting
+rain. It was nearly dark, but the sky had a purplish-red color
+that was reflected a little on the slanting sides of tents and on
+the roofs of the rows of sheds that disappeared into the rainy
+mist in every direction. A few lights gleamed, a very bright
+polished yellow. They followed a board-walk that splashed mud up
+from the puddles under the tramp of their heavy boots.
+
+At one place they flattened themselves against the wet flap of a
+tent and saluted as an officer passed waving a little cane
+jauntily.
+
+"How long does a fellow usually stay in these rest camps?" asked
+Fuselli.
+
+"Depends on what's goin' on out there," said Tub, pointing
+carelessly to the sky beyond the peaks of the tents.
+
+"You'll leave here soon enough. Don't you worry, buddy," said the
+man with the nervous voice. "What you in?"
+
+"Medical Replacement Unit."
+
+"A medic are you? Those boys didn't last long at the Chateau, did
+they, Tub?"
+
+"No, they didn't."
+
+Something inside Fuselli was protesting; "I'll last out though.
+I'll last out though."
+
+"Do you remember the fellers went out to get poor ole Corporal
+Jones, Tub? I'll be goddamned if anybody ever found a button of
+their pants." He laughed his creaky little laugh. "They got in the
+way of a torpedo."
+
+The "wet" canteen was full of smoke and a cosy steam of beer. It
+was crowded with red-faced men, with shiny brass buttons on their
+khaki uniforms, among whom was a good sprinkling of lanky
+Americans.
+
+"Tommies," said Fuselli to himself.
+
+After standing in line a while, Fuselli's cup was handed back to
+him across the counter, foaming with beer.
+
+"Hello, Fuselli," Meadville clapped him on the shoulder. "You
+found the liquor pretty damn quick, looks like to me."
+
+Fuselli laughed.
+
+"May I sit with you fellers?"
+
+"Sure, come along," said Fuselli proudly, "these guys have been to
+the front."
+
+"You have?" asked Meadville. "The Huns are pretty good scrappers,
+they say. Tell me, do you use your rifle much, or is it mostly big
+gun work?"
+
+"Naw; after all the months I spent learnin' how to drill with my
+goddam rifle, I'll be a sucker if I've used it once. I'm in the
+grenade squad."
+
+Someone at the end of the room had started singing:
+
+"O Mademerselle from Armenteers,
+      Parley voo!"
+
+The man with the nervous voice went on talking, while the song
+roared about them.
+
+"I don't spend a night without thinkin' o' them funny helmets the
+Fritzies wear. Have you ever thought that there was something
+goddam funny about the shape o' them helmets?"
+
+"Can the helmets, kid," said his friend. "You told us all about
+them onct."
+
+"I ain't told you why I can't forgit 'em, have I?"
+
+"A German officer crossed the Rhine;
+     Parley voo?
+ A German officer crossed the Rhine;
+ He loved the women and liked the wine;
+     Hanky Panky, parley voo.... "
+
+"Listen to this, fellers," said the man in his twitching nervous
+voice, staring straight into Fuselli's eyes. "We made a little
+attack to straighten out our trenches a bit just before I got
+winged. Our barrage cut off a bit of Fritzie's trench an' we ran
+right ahead juss about dawn an' occupied it. I'll be goddamned if
+it wasn't as quiet as a Sunday morning at home."
+
+"It was!" said his friend.
+
+"An' I had a bunch of grenades an' a feller came runnin' up to me,
+whisperin', 'There's a bunch of Fritzies playin' cards in a dug-
+out. They don't seem to know they're captured. We'd better take
+'em pris'ners!"
+
+"'Pris'ners, hell,' says I, 'We'll go and clear the buggars out.'
+So we crept along to the steps and looked down.... "
+
+The song had started again:
+
+ "O Mademerselle from Armenteers,
+        Parley voo?
+
+"Their helmets looked so damn like toadstools I came near laughin'.
+An' they sat round the lamp layin' down the cards serious-like,
+the way I've seen Germans do in the Rathskeller at home."
+
+ "He loved the women and liked the wine,
+        Parley voo?
+
+"I lay there lookin' at 'em for a hell of a time, an' then I
+clicked a grenade an' tossed it gently down the steps. An' all
+those funny helmets like toadstools popped up in the air an'
+somebody gave a yell an' the light went out an' the damn grenade
+went off. Then I let 'em have the rest of 'em an' went away 'cause
+one o' 'em was still moanin'-like. It was about that time they let
+their barrage down on us and I got mine."
+
+"The Yanks are havin' a hell of a time,
+       Parley voo?
+
+"An' the first thing I thought of when I woke up was how those
+goddam helmets looked. It upsets a feller to think of a thing like
+that." His voice ended in a whine like the broken voice of a child
+that has been beaten.
+
+"You need to pull yourself together, kid," said his friend.
+
+"I know what I need, Tub. I need a woman."
+
+"You know where you get one?" asked Meadville. "I'd like to get me
+a nice little French girl a rainy night like this."
+
+"It must be a hell of a ways to the town.... They say it's full of
+M. P.'s too," said Fuselli.
+
+"I know a way," said the man with the nervous voice, "Come on;
+Tub."
+
+"No, I've had enough of these goddam frog women."
+
+They all left the canteen.
+
+As the two men went off down the side of the building, Fuselli
+heard the nervous twitching voice through the metallic patter of
+the rain:
+
+"I can't find no way of forgettin' how funny the helmets looked
+all round the lamp... I can't find no way.... "
+
+
+
+Bill Grey and Fuselli pooled their blankets and slept together.
+They lay on the hard floor of the tent very close to each other,
+listening to the rain pattering endlessly on the drenched canvas
+that slanted above their heads.
+
+"Hell, Bill, I'm gettin' pneumonia," said Fuselli, clearing his
+nose.
+
+"That's the only thing that scares me in the whole goddam
+business. I'd hate to die o' sickness...an' they say another kid's
+kicked off with that--what d'they call it?--menegitis."
+
+"Was that what was the matter with Stein?"
+
+"The corporal won't say."
+
+"Ole Corp. looks sort o' sick himself," said Fuselli.
+
+"It's this rotten climate" whispered Bill Grey, in the middle of a
+fit of coughing.
+
+"For cat's sake quit that coughin'. Let a feller sleep," came a
+voice from the other side of the tent.
+
+"Go an' get a room in a hotel if you don't like it."
+
+"That's it, Bill, tell him where to get off."
+
+"If you fellers don't quit yellin', I'll put the whole blame lot
+of you on K. P.," came the sergeant's good-natured voice.
+
+"Don't you know that taps has blown?"
+
+The tent was silent except for the fast patter of the rain and
+Bill Grey's coughing.
+
+"That sergeant gives me a pain in the neck," muttered Bill Grey
+peevishly, when his coughing had stopped, wriggling about under
+the blankets.
+
+After a while Fuselli said in a very low voice, so that no one but
+his friend should hear:
+
+"Say, Bill, ain't it different from what we thought it was going
+to be?"
+
+"Yare."
+
+"I mean fellers don't seem to think about beatin' the Huns at all,
+they're so busy crabbin' on everything."
+
+"It's the guys higher up that does the thinkin'," said Grey
+grandiloquently.
+
+"Hell, but I thought it'd be excitin' like in the movies."
+
+"I guess that was a lot o' talk."
+
+"Maybe."
+
+Fuselli went to sleep on the hard floor, feeling the comfortable
+warmth of Grey's body along the side of him, hearing the endless,
+monotonous patter of the rain on the drenched canvas above his
+head. He tried to stay awake a minute to remember what Mabe looked
+like, but sleep closed down on him suddenly.
+
+The bugle wrenched them out of their blankets before it was light.
+It was not raining. The air was raw and full of white mist that
+was cold as snow against their faces still warm from sleep. The
+corporal called the roll, lighting matches to read the list. When
+he dismissed the formation the sergeant's voice was heard from the
+tent, where he still lay rolled in his blankets.
+
+"Say, Corp, go an' tell Fuselli to straighten out Lieutenant
+Stanford's room at eight sharp in Officers' Barracks, Number
+Four."
+
+"Did you hear, Fuselli?"
+
+"All right," said Fuselli. His blood boiled up suddenly. This was
+the first time he'd had to do servants' work. He hadn't joined the
+army to be a slavey to any damned first loot. It was against army
+regulations anyway. He'd go and kick. He wasn't going to be a
+slavey.... He walked towards the door of the tent, thinking what
+he'd say to the sergeant. But he noticed the corporal coughing
+into his handkerchief with an expression of pain on his face. He
+turned and strolled away. It would get him in wrong if he started
+kicking like that. Much better shut his mouth and put up with it.
+The poor old corp couldn't last long at this rate. No, it wouldn't
+do to get in wrong.
+
+At eight, Fuselli, with a broom in his hand, feeling dull fury
+pounding and fluttering within him, knocked on the unpainted board
+door.
+
+"Who's that?"
+
+"To clean the room, sir," said Fuselli. "Come back in about twenty
+minutes," came the voice of the lieutenant.
+
+"All right, sir."
+
+Fuselli leaned against the back of the barracks and smoked a
+cigarette. The air stung his hands as if they had been scraped by
+a nutmeg-grater. Twenty minutes passed slowly. Despair seized hold
+of him. He was so far from anyone who cared about him, so lost in
+the vast machine. He was telling himself that he'd never get on,
+would never get up where he could show what he was good for. He
+felt as if he were in a treadmill. Day after day it would be like
+this,--the same routine, the same helplessness. He looked at his
+watch. Twenty-five minutes had passed. He picked up his broom and
+moved round to the lieutenant's room.
+
+"Come in," said the lieutenant carelessly. He was in his shirt-
+sleeves, shaving. A pleasant smell of shaving soap filled the dark
+clapboard room, which had no furniture but three cots and some
+officers' trunks. He was a red-faced young man with flabby cheeks
+and dark straight eyebrows. He had taken command of the company
+only a day or two before.
+
+"Looks like a decent feller," thought Fuselli.
+
+"What's your name?" asked the lieutenant, speaking into the small
+nickel mirror, while he ran the safety razor obliquely across his
+throat. He stuttered a little. To Fuselli he seemed to speak like
+an Englishman.
+
+"Fuselli."
+
+"Italian parentage, I presume?"
+
+"Yes," said Fuselli sullenly, dragging one of the cots away from
+the wall.
+
+"Parla Italiano?"
+
+"You mean, do I speak Eyetalian? Naw, sir," said Fuselli
+emphatically, "I was born in Frisco."
+
+"Indeed? But get me some more water, will you, please?"
+
+When Fuselli came back, he stood with his broom between his knees,
+blowing on his hands that were blue and stiff from carrying the
+heavy bucket. The lieutenant was dressed and was hooking the top
+hook of the uniform carefully. The collar made a red mark on his
+pink throat.
+
+"All right; when you're through, report back to the Company." The
+lieutenant went out, drawing on a pair of khaki-colored gloves
+with a satisfied and important gesture.
+
+Fuselli walked back slowly to the tents where the Company was
+quartered, looking about him at the long lines of barracks, gaunt
+and dripping in the mist, at the big tin sheds of the cook shacks
+where the cooks and K. P.'s in greasy blue denims were slouching
+about amid a steam of cooking food.
+
+Something of the gesture with which the lieutenant drew on his
+gloves caught in the mind of Fuselli. He had seen peoople make
+gestures like that in the movies, stout dignified people in
+evening suits. The president of the Company that owned the optical
+goods store, where he had worked, at home in Frisco, had had
+something of that gesture about him.
+
+And he pictured himself drawing on a pair of gloves that way,
+importantly, finger by finger, with a little wave, of self-
+satisfaction when the gesture was completed.... He'd have to get
+that corporalship.
+
+"There's a long, long trail a-winding
+ Through no man's land in France."
+
+The company sang lustily as it splashed through the mud down a
+grey road between high fences covered with great tangles of barbed
+wire, above which peeked the ends of warehouses and the chimneys
+of factories.
+
+The lieutenant and the top sergeant walked side by side
+chatting, now and then singing a little of the song in a
+deprecating way. The corporal sang, his eyes sparkling with
+delight. Even the sombre sergeant who rarely spoke to anyone,
+sang. The company strode along, its ninety-six legs splashing
+jauntily through the deep putty-colored puddles. The packs swayed
+merrily from side to side as if it were they and not the legs that
+were walking.
+
+"There's a long, long trail a-winding
+ Through no man's land in France."
+
+At last they were going somewhere. They had separated from the
+contingent they had come over with. They were all alone now. They
+were going to be put to work. The lieutenant strode along
+importantly. The sergeant strode along importantly. The corporal
+strode along importantly. The right guard strode along more
+importantly than anyone. A sense of importance, of something
+tremendous to do, animated the company like wine, made the packs
+and the belts seem less heavy, made their necks and shoulders less
+stiff from struggling with the weight of the packs, made the
+ninety-six legs tramp jauntily in spite of the oozy mud and the
+deep putty-colored puddles.
+
+It was cold in the dark shed of the freight station where they
+waited. Some gas lamps flickered feebly high up among the rafters,
+lighting up in a ghastly way white piles of ammunition boxes and
+ranks and ranks of shells that disappeared in the darkness. The
+raw air was full of coal smoke and a smell of  freshly-cut boards.
+The captain and the top sergeant had disappeared. The men sat
+about, huddled in groups, sinking as far as they could into their
+overcoats, stamping their numb wet feet on the mud-covered cement
+of the floor. The sliding doors were shut. Through them came a
+monotonous sound of cars shunting, of buffers bumping against
+buffers, and now and then the shrill whistle of an engine.
+
+"Hell, the French railroads are rotten," said someone.
+
+"How d'you know?" snapped Eisenstein, who sat on a box away from
+the rest with his lean face in his hands staring at his mud-
+covered boots.
+
+"Look at this," Bill Grey made a disgusted gesture towards the
+ceiling. "Gas. Don't even have electric light."
+
+"Their trains run faster than ours," said Eisenstein.
+
+"The hell they do. Why, a fellow back in that rest camp told me
+that it took four or five days to get anywhere."
+
+"He was stuffing you," said Eisenstein. "They used to run the
+fastest trains in the world in France."
+
+"Not so fast as the 'Twentieth Century.' Goddam, I'm a railroad
+man and I know."
+
+"I want five men to help me sort out the eats," said the top
+sergeant, coming suddenly out of the shadows. "Fuselli, Grey,
+Eisenstein, Meadville, Williams...all right, come along."
+
+"Say, Sarge, this guy says that frog trains are faster than our
+trains. What d'ye think o' that?"
+
+The sergeant put on his comic expression. Everybody got ready to
+laugh.
+
+"Well, if he'd rather take the side-door Pullmans we're going to
+get aboard tonight than the 'Sunset Limited,' he's welcome. I've
+seen 'em. You fellers haven't."
+
+Everybody laughed. The top sergeant turned confidentially to the
+five men who followed him into a small well-lighted room that
+looked like a freight office.
+
+"We've got to sort out the grub, fellers. See those cases? That's
+three days' rations for the outfit. I want to sort it into three
+lots, one for each car. Understand?"
+
+Fuselli pulled open one of the boxes. The cans of bully beef flew
+under his fingers. He kept looking out of the corner of his eye at
+Eisenstein, who seemed very skilful in a careless way. The top
+sergeant stood beaming at them with his legs wide apart. Once he
+said something in a low voice to the corporal. Fuselli thought he
+caught the words: "privates first-class," and his heart started
+thumping hard. In a few minutes the job was done, and everybody
+stood about lighting cigarettes.
+
+"Well, fellers," said Sergeant Jones, the sombre man who rarely
+spoke, "I certainly didn't reckon when I used to be teachin' and
+preachin' and tendin' Sunday School and the like that I'd come to
+be usin' cuss words, but I think we got a damn good company."
+
+"Oh, we'll have you sayin' worse things than 'damn' when we get
+you out on the front with a goddam German aeroplane droppin' bombs
+on you," said the top sergeant, slapping him on the back. "Now, I
+want you five men to look out for the grub." Fuselli's chest
+swelled. "The company'll be in charge of the corporal for the
+night. Sergeant Jones and I have got to be with the lieutenant,
+understand?"
+
+They all walked back to the dingy room where the rest of the
+company waited huddled in their coats, trying to keep their
+importance from being too obvious in their step.
+
+"I've really started now," thought Fuselli to himself. "I've
+really started now."
+
+
+
+The bare freight car clattered and rumbled monotonously over the
+rails. A bitter cold wind blew up through the cracks in the grimy
+splintered boards of the floor. The men huddled in the corners of
+the car, curled up together like puppies in a box. It was pitch
+black. Fuselli lay half asleep, his head full of curious
+fragmentary dreams, feeling through his sleep the aching cold and
+the unending clattering rumble of the wheels and the bodies and
+arms and legs muffled in coats and blankets pressing against him.
+He woke up with a start. His teeth were chattering. The clanking
+rumble of wheels seemed to be in his head. His head was being
+dragged along, bumping over cold iron rails. Someone lighted a
+match. The freight car's black swaying walls, the packs piled in
+the center, the bodies heaped in the corners where, out of khaki
+masses here and there gleamed an occasional white face or a pair
+of eyes--all showed clear for a moment and then vanished again in
+the utter blackness. Fuselli pillowed his head in the crook of
+someone's arm and tried to go to sleep, but the scraping rumble of
+wheels over rails was too loud; he stayed with open eyes staring
+into the blackness, trying to draw his body away from the blast of
+cold air that blew up through a crack in the floor.
+
+When the first greyness began filtering into the car, they all
+stood up and stamped and pounded each other and wrestled to get
+warm.
+
+When it was nearly light, the train stopped and they opened the
+sliding doors. They were in a station, a foreign-looking station
+where the walls were plastered with unfamiliar advertisements. "V-
+E-R-S-A-I-L-L-E-S"; Fuselli spelt out the name.
+
+"Versales," said Eisenstein. "That's where the kings of France
+used to live."
+
+The train started moving again slowly. On the platform stood the
+top sergeant.
+
+"How d'ye sleep," he shouted as the car passed him. "Say, Fuselli,
+better start some grub going."
+
+"All right, Sarge," said Fuselli.
+
+The sergeant ran back to the front of the car and climbed on.
+With a delicious feeling of leadership, Fuselli divided up the
+bread and the cans of bully beef and the cheese. Then he sat on
+his pack eating dry bread and unsavoury beef, whistling joyfully,
+while the train rumbled and clattered along through a strange,
+misty-green countryside,--whistling joyfully because he was going
+to the front, where there would be glory and excitement, whistling
+joyfully because he felt he was getting along in the world.
+
+
+
+It was noon. A pallid little sun like a toy balloon hung low in
+the reddish-grey sky. The train had stopped on a siding in the
+middle of a russet plain. Yellow poplars, faint as mist, rose
+slender against the sky along a black shining stream that swirled
+beside the track. In the distance a steeple and a few red roofs
+were etched faintly in the greyness.
+
+The men stood about balancing first on one foot and then on the
+other, stamping to get warm. On the other side of the river an old
+man with an oxcart had stopped and was looking sadly at the train.
+
+"Say, where's the front?" somebody shouted to him.
+
+Everybody took up the cry; "Say, where's the front?"
+
+The old man waved his hand, shook his head and shouted to the
+oxen. The oxen took up again their quiet processional gait and the
+old man walked ahead of them, his eyes on the ground.
+
+"Say, ain't the frogs dumb?"
+
+"Say, Dan," said Bill Grey, strolling away from a group of men he
+had been talking to. "These guys say we are going to the Third
+Army."
+
+"Say, fellers," shouted Fuselli. "They say we're going to the
+Third Army."
+
+"Where's that?"
+
+"In the Oregon forest," ventured somebody.
+
+"That's at the front, ain't it?"
+
+At that moment the lieutenant strode by. A long khaki muffler was
+thrown carelessly round his neck and hung down his back.
+
+"Look here, men," he said severely, "the orders are to stay in the
+cars."
+
+The men slunk back into the cars sullenly.
+
+A hospital train passed, clanking slowly over the cross-tracks.
+Fuselli looked fixedly at the dark enigmatic windows, at the red
+crosses, at the orderlies in white who leaned out of the doors,
+waving their hands. Somebody noticed that there were scars on the
+new green paint of the last car.
+
+"The Huns have been shooting at it."
+
+"D'ye hear that? The Huns tried to shoot up that hospital train."
+
+Fuselli remembered the pamphlet "German Atrocities" he had read
+one night in the Y. M. C. A. His mind became suddenly filled with
+pictures of children with their arms cut off, of babies spitted on
+bayonets, of women strapped on tables and violated by soldier
+after soldier. He thought of Mabe. He wished he were in a
+combatant service; he wanted to fight, fight. He pictured himself
+shooting dozens of men in green uniforms, and he thought of Mabe
+reading about it in the papers. He'd have to try to get into a
+combatant service. No, he couldn't stay in the medics.
+
+The train had started again. Misty russet fields slipped by and
+dark clumps of trees that gyrated slowly waving branches of yellow
+and brown leaves and patches of black lace-work against the
+reddish-grey sky. Fuselli was thinking of the good chance he had
+of getting to be corporal.
+
+
+
+At night. A dim-lighted station platform. The company waited in
+two lines, each man sitting on his pack. On the opposite platform
+crowds of little men in blue with mustaches and long, soiled
+overcoats that reached almost to their feet were shouting and
+singing. Fuselli watched them with a faint disgust.
+
+"Gee, they got funny lookin' helmets, ain't they?"
+
+"They're the best fighters in the world," said Eisenstein, "not
+that that's sayin' much about a man."
+
+"Say, that's an M. P.," said Bill Grey, catching Fuselli's
+arm. "Let's go ask him how near the front we are. I
+thought I heard guns a minute ago."
+
+"Did you? I guess we're in for it now," said Fuselli. "Say, buddy,
+how near the front are we?" they spoke together excitedly.
+
+"The front?" said the M. P., who was a red-faced Irishman with a
+crushed nose. "You're 'way back in the middle of France." The M.
+P. spat disgustedly. "You fellers ain't never goin' to the front,
+don't you worry."
+
+"Hell!" said Fuselli.
+
+"I'll be goddamned if I don't get there somehow," said Bill Grey,
+squaring his jaw.
+
+A fine rain was falling on the unprotected platform. On the other
+side the little men in blue were singing a song Fuselli could not
+understand, drinking out of their ungainly-looking canteens.
+
+Fuselli announced the news to the company. Everybody clustered
+round him cursing. But the faint sense of importance it gave him
+did not compensate for the feeling he had of being lost in the
+machine, of being as helpless as a sheep in a flock. Hours passed.
+They stamped about the platform in the fine rain or sat in a row
+on their packs, waiting for orders. A grey belt appeared behind
+the trees. The platform began to take on a silvery gleam. They sat
+in a row on their packs, waiting.
+
+
+
+                             II
+
+The company stood at attention lined up outside of their barracks,
+a long wooden shack covered with tar paper, in front of them was a
+row of dishevelled plane trees with white trunks that looked like
+ivory in the faint ruddy sunlight. Then there was a rutted road on
+which stood a long line of French motor trucks with hunched grey
+backs like elephants. Beyond these were more plane trees and an-
+other row of barracks covered with tar paper, outside of which
+other companies were lined up standing at attention.
+
+A bugle was sounding far away.
+
+The lieutenant stood at attention very stiffly. Fuselli's eyes
+followed the curves of his brilliantly-polished puttees up to the
+braid on his sleeves.
+
+"Parade rest!" shouted the lieutenant in a muffled voice.
+
+Feet and hands moved in unison.
+
+Fuselli was thinking of the town. After retreat you could go down
+the irregular cobbled street from the old fair-ground where the
+camp was to a little square where there was a grey stone fountain
+and a gin-mill where you could sit at an oak table and have beer
+and eggs and fried potatoes served you by a girl with red cheeks
+and plump white appetizing arms.
+
+"Attention!"
+
+Feet and hands moved in unison again. They could hardly hear the
+bugle, it was so faint.
+
+"Men, I have some appointments to announce, said the lieutenant,
+facing the company and taking on an easy conversational tone.
+"At rest!...  You've done good work in the storehouse here, men.
+I'm glad I have such a willing bunch of men under me. And I
+certainly hope that we can manage to make as many promotions
+as possible--as many as possible."
+
+Fuselli's hands were icy, and his heart was pumping the blood so
+fast to his ears that he could hardly hear.
+
+"The following privates to private first-class, read the
+lieutenant in a routine voice: "Grey, Appleton, Williams,
+Eisenstein, Porter...Eisenstein will be company clerk.... "
+Fuselli was almost ready to cry. His name was not on the list.
+The sergeant's voice came after a long pause, smooth as velvet.
+
+"You forget Fuselli, sir."
+
+"Oh, so I did," the lieutenant laughed--a small dry laugh. --"And Fuselli."
+
+"Gee, I must write Mabe tonight," Fuselli was saying to himself.
+"She'll be a proud kid when she gets that letter."
+
+"Companee dis...missed!", shouted the sergeant genially.
+
+"O Madermoiselle from Armenteers,
+      Parley voo?
+ O Madermoiselle from Armenteers,
+
+struck up the sergeant in his mellow voice.
+
+The front room of the cafe was full of soldiers. Their khaki hid
+the worn oak benches and the edges of the square tables and the
+red tiles of the floor. They clustered round the tables, where
+glasses and bottles  gleamed vaguely through the tobacco smoke.
+They stood in front of the bar, drinking out of bottles, laughing,
+scraping their feet on the floor. A stout girl with red cheeks and
+plump white arms moved contentedly among them, carrying away empty
+bottles, bringing back full ones, taking the money to a grim old
+woman with a grey face and eyes like bits of jet, who stared
+carefully at each coin, fingered it with her grey hands and
+dropped it reluctantly into the cash drawer. In the corner sat
+Sergeant Olster with a flush on his face, and the corporal who had
+been on the Red Sox outfield and another sergeant, a big man with
+black hair and a black mustache. About them clustered, with
+approbation and respect in their faces, Fuselli, Bill Grey and
+Meadville the cowboy, and Earl Williams, the blue-eyed and yellow-
+haired drug-clerk.
+
+"O the Yanks are having the hell of a time,
+     Parley voo?"
+
+They pounded their bottles on the table in time to the song.
+
+"It's a good job," the top sergeant said, suddenly interrupting
+the song. "You needn't worry about that, fellers. I saw to it that
+we got a good job.... And about getting to the front, you needn't
+worry about that. We'll all get to the front soon enough.... Tell
+me--this war is going to last ten years."
+
+"I guess we'll all be generals by that time, eh, Sarge?" said
+Williams. "But, man, I wish I was back jerkin' soda water."
+
+"It's a great life if you don't weaken," murmured Fuselli
+automatically.
+
+"But I'm beginnin' to weaken," said Williams. "Man, I'm homesick.
+I don't care who knows it. I wish I could get to the front and be
+done with it,"
+
+"Say, have a heart. You need a drink," said the top sergeant,
+banging his fist on the table. "Say, mamselle, mame shows, mame
+shows!"
+
+"I didn't know you could talk French, Sarge," said Fuselli.
+
+"French, hell!" said the top sergeant. "Williams is the boy can
+talk French."
+
+"Voulay vous couchay aveck moy.... That's all I know."
+
+Everybody laughed.
+
+"Hey, mamzelle," cried the top sergeant. "Voulay vous couchay
+aveck moy? We We, champagne." Everybody laughed, uproariously.
+
+The girl slapped his head good-naturedly.
+
+At that moment a man stamped noisily into the cafe, a tall broad-
+shouldered man in a loose English tunic, who had a swinging
+swagger that made the glasses ring on all the tables. He was
+humming under his breath and there was a grin on his broad red
+face. He went up to the girl and pretended to kiss her, and she
+laughed and talked familiarly with him in French.
+
+"There's wild Dan Cohan," said the dark-haired sergeant. "Say,
+Dan, Dan."
+
+"Here, yer honor."
+
+"Come over and have a drink. We're going to have some fizzy."
+
+"Never known to refuse."
+
+They made room for him on the bench.
+
+"Well, I'm confined to barracks," said Dan Cohan. "Look at me!" He
+laughed and gave his head a curious swift jerk to one side.
+"Compree?"
+
+"Ain't ye scared they'll nab you?" said Fuselli.
+
+"Nab me, hell, they can't do nothin' to me. I've had three court-
+martials already and they're gettin' a fourth up on me."
+
+Dan Cohan pushed his head to one side and laughed. "I got a
+friend. My old boss is captain, and he's goin' to fix it up. I
+used to alley around politics chez moy. Compree?"
+
+The champagne came and Dan Cohan popped the cork up to the ceiling
+with dexterous red fingers.
+
+"I was just wondering who was going to give me a drink," he said.
+"Ain't had any pay since Christ was a corporal. I've forgotten
+what it looks like."
+
+The champagne fizzed into the beer-glasses.
+
+"This is the life," said Fuselli.
+
+"Ye're damn right, buddy, if yer don't let them ride yer," said
+Dan.
+
+"What they got yer up for now, Dan?"
+
+"Murder."
+
+"Murder, hell! How's that?"
+
+"That is, if that bloke dies."
+
+"The hell you say!"
+
+"It all started by that goddam convoy down from Nantes...Bill Rees
+an' me.... They called us the shock troops.--Hy! Marie! Ancore
+champagne, beaucoup.--I was in the Ambulance service then. God
+knows what rotten service I'm in now.... Our section was on repo
+and they sent some of us fellers down to Nantes to fetch a convoy
+of cars back to Sandrecourt. We started out like regular racers,
+just the chassis, savey? Bill Rees an' me was the goddam tail of
+the peerade. An' the loot was a hell of a blockhead that didn't
+know if he was coming or going."
+
+"Where the hell's Nantes?" asked the top sergeant, as if it had
+just slipped his mind.
+
+"On the coast," answered Fuselli. "I seen it on the map."
+
+"Nantes's way off to hell and gone anyway," said wild Dan Cohan,
+taking a gulp of champagne that he held in his mouth a moment,
+making his mouth move like a cow ruminating.
+
+"An' as Bill Rees an' me was the tail of the peerade an' there was
+lots of cafes and little gin-mills, Bill Rees an' me'd stop off
+every now and then to have a little drink an' say 'Bonjour' to the
+girls an' talk to the people, an' then we'd go like a bat out of
+hell to catch up. Well, I don't know if we went too fast for 'em
+or if they lost the road or what, but we never saw that goddam
+convoy from the time we went out of Nantes. Then we thought we
+might as well see a bit of the country, compree?...    An' we did,
+goddam it.... We landed up in Orleans, soused to the gills and
+without any gas an' with an M. P; climbing up on the dashboard."
+
+"Did they nab you, then?"
+
+"Not a bit of it," said wild Dan Cohen, jerking his head to one
+side. "They gave us gas and commutation of rations an' told us to
+go on in the mornin'. You see we put up a good line of talk,
+compree?...   Well, we went to the swankiest restaurant.... You
+see we had on those bloody British uniforms they gave us when the
+O. D. gave out, an' the M. P.'s didn't know just what sort o'
+birds we were. So we went and ordered up a regular meal an' lots
+o' vin rouge an' vin blank an' drank a few cognacs an' before we
+knew it we were eating dinner with two captains and a sergeant.
+One o' the captains was the drunkest man I ever did see.... Good
+kid! We all had dinner and Bill Rees says, 'Let's go for a joy-
+ride.' An' the captains says, 'Fine,' and the sergeant would have
+said, 'Fine,' but he was so goggle-eyed drunk he couldn't. An' we
+started off!...  Say, fellers, I'm dry as hell! Let's order up
+another bottle."
+
+"Sure," said everyone.
+
+"Ban swar, ma cherie,
+ Comment allez vous?"
+
+"Encore champagne, Marie, gentille!"
+
+"Well," he went on, "we went like a bat out of hell along a good
+state road, and it was all fine until one of the captains thought
+we ought to have a race. We did.... Compree? The flivvers flivved
+all right, but the hell of it was we got so excited about the race
+we forgot about the sergeant an' he fell off an' nobody missed
+him. An' at last we all pull up before a gin-mill an' one captain
+says, 'Where's the sergeant?' an' the other captain says there
+hadn't been no sergeant. An' we all had a drink on that. An' one
+captain kept sayin', 'It's all imagination. Never was a sergeant.
+I wouldn't associate with a sergeant, would I, lootenant?' He kept
+on calling me lootenant.... Well that was how they got this new
+charge against me. Somebody picked up the sergeant an' he got
+concussion o' the brain an' there's hell to pay, an' if the poor
+buggar croaks.... I'm it.... Compree? About that time the captains
+start wantin' to go to Paris, an' we said we'd take 'em, an' so we
+put all the gas in my car an' the four of us climbed on that
+goddam chassis an' off we went like a bat out of hell! It'ld all
+have been fine if I wasn't lookin' cross-eyed.... We piled up in
+about two minutes on one of those nice little stone piles an'
+there we were. We all got up an' one o' the captains had his arm
+broke, an' there was hell to pay, worse than losing the sergeant.
+So we walked on down the road. I don't know how it got to be
+daylight. But we got to some hell of a town or other an' there was
+two M. P.'s all ready to meet us.... Compree?...  Well, we didn't
+mess around with them captains. We just lit off down a side street
+an' got into a little cafe an' went in back an' had a hell of a
+lot o' cafe o' lay. That made us feel sort o' good an' I says to
+Bill, 'Bill, we've got to get to headquarters an' tell 'em that we
+accidentally smashed up our car, before the M. P.'s get busy.' An'
+he says, 'You're goddamned right,' an' at that minute I sees an M.
+P. through a crack in the door comin' into the cafe. We lit out
+into the garden and made for the wall. We got over that, although
+we left a good piece of my pants in the broken glass. But the hell
+of it was the M. P.'s got over too an' they had their pop-guns
+out. An' the last I saw of Bill Rees was--there was a big fat
+woman in a pink dress washing clothes in a big tub, an' poor ole
+Bill Rees runs head on into her an' over they both goes into the
+washtub. The M. P.'s got him all right. That's how I got away. An'
+the last I saw of Bill Rees he was squirming about on top of the
+washtub like he was swimmin', an' the fat woman was sittin' on the
+ground shaking her fist at him. Bill Rees was the best buddy I
+ever had."
+
+He paused and poured the rest of the champagne in his glass and
+wiped the sweat off his face with his big red hand.
+
+"You ain't stringin' us, are you?" asked Fuselli.
+
+"You just ask Lieutenant Whitehead, who's defending me in the
+court-martial, if I'm stringin' yer. I been in the ring, kid, and
+you can bet your bottom dollar that a man's been in the ring'll
+tell the truth."
+
+"Go on, Dan," said the sergeant.
+
+"An' I never heard a word about Bill Rees since. I guess they got
+him into the trenches and made short work of him."
+
+Dan Cohan paused to light a cigarette.
+
+"Well, one o' the M. P.'s follows after me and starts shootin'.
+An' don't you believe I ran. Gee, I was scared! But I was in luck
+'cause a Frenchman had just started his camion an' I jumped in and
+said the gendarmes were after me. He was white, that frog was. He
+shot the juice into her an' went off like a bat out of hell an'
+there was a hell of a lot of traffic on the road because there was
+some damn-fool attack or other goin' on. So I got up to Paris....
+An' then it'ld all have been fine if I hadn't met up with a Jane I
+knew. I still had five hundred francs on me, an' so we raised hell
+until one day we was havin' dinner in the cafe de Paris, both of
+us sort of jagged up, an' we didn't have enough money to pay the
+bill an' Janey made a run for it, but an M. P. got me an' then
+there was hell to pay.... Compree? They put me in the Bastille,
+great place.... Then they shipped me off to some damn camp or
+other an' gave me a gun an' made me drill for a week an' then they
+packed a whole gang of us, all A. W. O. L's, into a train for the
+front. That was nearly the end of little Daniel again. But when we
+was in Vitry-le-Francois, I chucked my rifle out of one window and
+jumped out of the other an' got on a train back to Paris an' went
+an' reported to headquarters how I'd smashed the car an' been in
+the Bastille an' all, an' they were sore as hell at the M. P.'s
+an' sent me out to a section an' all went fine until I got ordered
+back an' had to alley down to this goddam camp. Ah' now I don't
+know what they're goin' to do to me."
+
+"Gee whiz!"
+
+"It's a great war, I tell you, Sarge. It's a great war. I wouldn't
+have missed it."
+
+Across the room someone was singing.
+
+"Let's drown 'em out," said the top sergeant boisterously.
+
+"O Mademerselle from Armenteers,
+ Parley voo?"
+
+"Well, I've got to get the hell out of here," said wild Dan Cohan,
+after a minute. "I've got a Jane waitin' for me. I'm all fixed
+up,... Compree?"
+
+He swaggered out singing:
+
+"Bon soir, ma cherie,
+ Comment alley vous?
+ Si vous voulez
+ Couche avec moi...."
+
+The door slammed behind him, leaving the cafe quiet.
+
+Many men had left. Madame had taken up her knitting and Marie of
+the plump white arms sat beside her, leaning her head back among
+the bottles that rose in tiers behind the bars.
+
+Fuselli was staring at a door on one side of the bar. Men kept
+opening it and looking in and closing it again with a peculiar
+expression on their faces. Now and then someone would open it with
+a smile and go into the next room, shuffling his feet and closing
+the door carefully behind him.
+
+"Say, I wonder what they've got there," said the top sergeant, who
+had been staring at the door. "Mush be looked into, mush be looked
+into," he added, laughing drunkenly.
+
+"I dunno," said Fuselli. The champagne was humming in his head
+like a fly against a window pane. He felt very bold and important.
+
+The top sergeant got to his feet unsteadily.
+
+"Corporal, take charge of the colors," he said, and walked to the
+door. He opened it a little, peeked in; winked elaborately to his
+friends and skipped into the other room, closing the door
+carefully behind him.
+
+The corporal went over next. He said, "Well, I'll be damned," and
+walked straight in, leaving the door ajar. In a moment it was
+closed from the inside.
+
+"Come on, Bill, let's see what the hell they got in there," said
+Fuselli.
+
+"All right, old kid," said Bill Grey. They went together over to
+the door. Fuselli opened it and looked in. He let out a breath
+through his teeth with a faint whistling sound.
+
+"Gee, come in, Bill," he said, giggling.
+
+The room was small, nearly filled up by a dining table with a red
+cloth. On the mantel above the empty fireplace were candlesticks
+with dangling crystals that glittered red and yellow and purple in
+the lamplight, in front of a cracked mirror that seemed a window
+into another dingier room. The paper was peeling off the damp
+walls, giving a mortuary smell of mildewed plaster that not even
+the reek of beer and tobacco had done away with.
+
+"Look at her, Bill, ain't she got style?" whispered Fuselli.
+
+Bill Grey grunted.
+
+"Say, d'ye think the Jane that feller was tellin' us he raised
+hell with in Paris was like that?"
+
+At the end of the table, leaning on her elbows, was a woman with
+black frizzy hair cut short, that stuck out from her head in all
+directions. Her eyes were dark and her lips red with a faint
+swollen look. She looked with a certain defiance at the men who
+stood about the walls and sat at the table.
+
+The men stared at her silently. A big man with red hair and a
+heavy jaw who sat next her kept edging up nearer. Someone knocked
+against the table making the bottles and liqueur glasses clustered
+in the center jingle.
+
+"She ain't clean; she's got bobbed hair," said the man next
+Fuselli.
+
+The woman said something in French.
+
+Only one man understood it. His laugh rang hollowly in the silent
+room and stopped suddenly.
+
+The woman looked attentively at the faces round her for a moment,
+shrugged her shoulders, and began straightening the ribbon on the
+hat she held on her lap.
+
+"How the hell did she get here? I thought the M. P.'s ran them out
+of town the minute they got here," said one man.
+
+The woman continued plucking at her hat.
+
+"You venay Paris?" said a boy with a soft voice who sat near her.
+He had blue eyes and a milky complexion, faintly tanned, that went
+strangely with the rough red and brown faces in the room.
+
+"Oui; de Paris," she said after a pause, glancing suddenly in the
+boy's face.
+
+"She's a liar, I can tell you that," said the red-haired man, who
+by this time had moved his chair very close to the woman's.
+
+"You told him you came from Marseilles, and him you came from
+Lyon," said the boy with the milky complexion, smiling genially.
+"Vraiment de ou venay vous?"
+
+"I come from everywhere," she said, and tossed the hair back from
+her face.
+
+"Travelled a lot?" asked the boy again.
+
+"A feller told me," said Fuselli to Bill Grey, "that he'd talked
+to a girl like that who'd been to Turkey an' Egypt I bet that
+girl's seen some life."
+
+The woman jumped to her feet suddenly screaming with rage. The man
+with the red hair moved away sheepishly. Then he lifted his large
+dirty hands in the air.
+
+"Kamarad," he said.
+
+Nobody laughed. The room was silent except for feet scraping
+occasionally on the floor.
+
+She put her hat on and took a little box from the chain bag in her
+lap and began powdering her face, making faces into the mirror she
+held in the palm of her hand.
+
+The men stared at her.
+
+"Guess she thinks she's the Queen of the May," said one man,
+getting to his feet. He leaned across the table and spat into the
+fireplace. "I'm going back to barracks." He turned to the woman
+and shouted in a voice full of hatred, "Bon swar."
+
+The woman was putting the powder puff away in her jet bag. She did
+not look up; the door closed sharply.
+
+"Come along," said the woman, suddenly, tossing her head back.
+"Come along one at a time; who go with me first?"
+
+Nobody spoke. The men stared at her silently. There was no sound
+except that of feet scraping occasionally on the floor.
+
+
+
+                              III
+
+The oatmeal flopped heavily into the mess-kit. Fuselli's eyes were
+still glued together with sleep. He sat at the dark greasy bench
+and took a gulp of the scalding coffee that smelt vaguely of dish
+rags. That woke him up a little. There was little talk in the mess
+shack. The men, that the bugle had wrenched out of their blankets
+but fifteen minutes before, sat in rows, eating sullenly or
+blinking at each other through the misty darkness. You could hear
+feet scraping in the ashes of the floor and mess kits clattering
+against the tables and here and there a man coughing. Near the
+counter where the food was served out one of the cooks swore
+interminably in a whiny sing-sing voice.
+
+"Gee, Bill, I've got a head," said Fuselli.
+
+"Ye're ought to have," growled Bill Grey. "I had to carry you up
+into the barracks. You said you were goin' back and love up that
+goddam girl."
+
+"Did I?" said Fuselli, giggling.
+
+"I had a hell of a time getting you past the guard."
+
+"Some cognac!... I got a hangover now," said Fuselli.
+
+"I'm goddamned if I can go this much longer."
+
+"What?"
+
+They were washing their mess-kits in the tub of warm water thick
+with grease from the hundred mess-kits that had gone before, in
+front of the shack. An electric light illumined faintly the wet
+trunk of a plane tree and the surface of the water where bits of
+oatmeal floated and coffee grounds,--and the garbage pails with
+their painted signs: WET GARBAGE, DRY GARBAGE; and the line of men who
+stood waiting to reach the tub.
+
+"This hell of a life!" said Bill Grey, savagely.
+
+"What d'ye mean?"
+
+"Doin' nothin' but pack bandages in packin' cases and take
+bandages out of packin' cases. I'll go crazy. I've tried gettin'
+drunk; it don't do no good."
+
+"Gee; I've got a head," said Fuselli.
+
+Bill Grey put his heavy muscular hand round Fuselli's shoulder as
+they strolled towards the barracks.
+
+"Say, Dan, I'm goin' A. W. O. L."
+
+"Don't ye do it, Bill. Hell, look at the chance we've got to get
+ahead. We can both of us get promoted if we don't get in wrong."
+
+"I don't give a hoot in hell for all that.... What d'ye think I
+got in this goddamed army for? Because I thought I'd look nice in
+the uniform?"
+
+Bill Grey thrust his hands into his pockets and spat dismally in
+front of him.
+
+"But, Bill, you don't want to stay a buck private, do you?"
+
+"I want to get to the front.... I don't want to stay here till I
+get in the jug for being spiffed or get a court-martial.... Say,
+Dan, will you come with me?"
+
+"Hell, Bill, you ain't goin'. You're just kiddin', ain't yer?
+They'll send us there soon enough. I want to get to be a
+corporal,"--he puffed out his chest a little--"before I go to the
+front, so's to be able to show what I'm good for. See, Bill?"
+
+A bugle blew.
+
+"There's fatigue, an' I ain't done my bunk."
+
+"Me neither.... They won't do nothin', Dan.... Don't let them ride
+yer, Dan."
+
+They lined up in the dark road feeling the mud slopping under
+their feet. The ruts were full of black water, in which gleamed a
+reflection of distant electric lights.
+
+"All you fellows work in Storehouse A today," said the sergeant,
+who had been a preacher, in his sad, drawling voice. "Lieutenant
+says that's all got to be finished by noon. They're sending it to
+the front today."
+
+Somebody let his breath out in a whistle of surprise.
+
+"Who did that?"
+
+Nobody answered.
+
+"Dismissed!" snapped the sergeant disgustedly.
+
+They straggled off into the darkness towards one of the lights,
+their feet splashing confusedly in the puddles.
+
+Fuselli strolled up to the sentry at the camp gate. He was picking
+his teeth meditatively with the splinter of a pine board.
+
+"Say, Phil, you couldn't lend me a half a dollar, could you?"
+Fuselli stopped, put his hands in his pockets and looked at the
+sentry with the splinter sticking out of a corner of his mouth.
+
+"Sorry, Dan," said the other man; "I'm cleaned out. Ain't had a
+cent since New Year's."
+
+"Why the hell don't they pay us?"
+
+"You guys signed the pay roll yet?"
+
+"Sure. So long!"
+
+
+
+Fuselli strolled on down the dark road, where the mud was frozen
+into deep ruts, towards the town. It was still strange to him,
+this town of little houses faced with cracked stucco, where the
+damp made grey stains and green stains, of confused red-tiled
+roofs, and of narrow cobbled streets that zigzagged in and out
+among high walls overhung with balconies. At night, when it was
+dark except for where a lamp in a window spilt gold reflections
+out on the wet street or the light streamed out from a store or a
+cafe, it was almost frighteningly unreal. He walked down into the
+main square, where he could hear the fountain gurgling. In the
+middle he stopped indecisively, his coat unbuttoned, his hands
+pushed to the bottom of his trousers pockets, where they
+encountered nothing but the cloth. He listened a long time to the
+gurgling of the fountain and to the shunting of trains far away in
+the  freight yards.  "An' this is the  war,"  he thought. "Ain't
+it queer? It's quieter than it was at home nights." Down the
+street at the end of the square a band of white light appeared,
+the searchlight of a staff car. The two eyes of the car stared
+straight into his eyes, dazzling him, then veered off to one side
+and whizzed past, leaving a faint smell of gasoline and a sound of
+voices. Fuselli watched the fronts of houses light up as the car
+made its way to the main road. Then the town was dark and silent
+again.
+
+He strolled across the square towards the Cheval Blanc, the large
+cafe where the officers went.
+
+"Button yer coat," came a gruff voice. He saw a stiff tall figure
+at the edge of the curve. He made out the shape of the pistol
+holster that hung like a thin ham at the man's thigh. An M. P. He
+buttoned his coat hurriedly and walked off with rapid steps.
+
+He stopped outside a cafe that had "Ham and Eggs" written in white
+paint on the window and looked in wistfully. Someone from behind
+him put two big hands over his eyes. He wriggled his head free.
+
+"Hello, Dan," he said. "How did you get out of the jug?"
+
+"I'm a trusty, kid," said Dan Cohan. "Got any dough?"
+
+"Not a damn cent!"
+
+"Me neither.... Come on in anyway," said Cohan. "I'll fix it up
+with Marie." Fuselli followed doubtfully. He was a little afraid
+of Dan Cohan; he remembered how a man had been court-martialed
+last week for trying to bolt out of a cafe without paying for his
+drinks.
+
+He sat down at a table near the door. Dan had disappeared into the
+back room. Fuselli felt homesick. He was thinking how long it was
+since, he had had a letter from Mabe. "I bet she's got another
+feller," he told himself savagely. He tried to remember how she
+looked, but he had to take out his watch and peep in the back
+before he could make out if her nose were straight or snub. He
+looked up, clicking the watch in his pocket. Marie of the white
+arms was coming laughing out of the inner room. Her large firm
+breasts, neatly held in by the close-fitting blouse, shook a
+little when she laughed. Her cheeks were very red and a strand of
+chestnut hair hung down along her neck. She picked it up hurriedly
+and caught it up with a hairpin, walking slowly into the middle of
+the room as she did so with her hands behind her head. Dan Cohan
+followed her into the room, a broad grin on his face.
+
+"All right, kid," he said. "I told her you'ld pay when Uncle Sam
+came across. Ever had any Kummel?"
+
+"What the hell's that?"
+
+"You'll see."
+
+They sat down before a dish of fried eggs at the table in the
+corner, the favoured table, where Marie herself often sat and
+chatted, when wizened Madame did not have her eye upon her.
+
+Several men drew up their chairs. Wild Dan Cohan always had an
+audience.
+
+"Looks like there was going to be another offensive at Verdun,"
+said Dan Cohan. Someone answered vaguely.
+
+"Funny how little we know about what's going on out there," said
+one man. "I knew more about the war when I was home in Minneapolis
+than I do here,"
+
+"I guess we're lightin' into 'em all right," said Fuselli in a
+patriotic voice.
+
+"Hell! Nothin' doin' this time o' year anyway," said Cohan. A grin
+spread across his red face. "Last time I was at the front the
+Boche had just made a coup de main and captured a whole
+trenchful."
+
+"Of who?"
+
+"Of Americans--of us!"
+
+"The hell you say!"
+
+"That's a goddam lie," shouted a black-haired man with an ill-
+shaven jaw, who had just come in. "There ain't never been an
+American captured, an' there never will be, by God!"
+
+"How long were you at the front, buddy," asked Cohan coolly. "I
+guess you been to Berlin already, ain't yer?"
+
+"I say that any man who says an American'ld let himself be
+captured by a stinkin' Hun, is a goddam liar," said the man with
+the ill-shaven jaw, sitting down sullenly.
+
+"Well, you'd better not say it to me," said Cohan laughing,
+looking meditatively at one of his big red fists.
+
+There had been a look of apprehension on Marie's face. She looked
+at Cohan's fist and shrugged her shoulders and laughed.
+
+Another crowd had just slouched into the cafe.
+
+"Well if that isn't wild Dan! Hello, old kid, how are you?"
+
+"Hello, Dook!"
+
+A small man in a coat that looked almost like an officer's coat,
+it was so well cut, was shaking hands effusively with Cohan. He
+wore a corporal's stripes and a British aviator's fatigue cap.
+Cohan made room for him on the bench.
+
+"What are you doing in this hole, Dook?" The man twisted his mouth
+so that his neat black mustache was a slant.
+
+"G. O. 42," he said.
+
+"Battle of Paris?" said Cohan in a sympathetic voice. "Battle of
+Nice! I'm going back to my section soon. I'd never have got a
+court-martial if I'd been with my outfit. I was in the Base
+Hospital 15 with pneumonia."
+
+"Tough luck!"
+
+"It was a hell of a note."
+
+"Say, Dook, your outfit was  working with ours at Chamfort that
+time, wasn't it?"
+
+"You mean when we evacuated the nut hospital?"
+
+"Yes, wasn't that hell?" Dan Cohan gulped down half a glass of red
+wine, smacked his thick lips, and began in his story-telling
+voice:
+
+"Our section had just come out of Verdun where we'd been getting
+hell for three weeks on the Bras road. There was one little hill
+where we'd have to get out and shove every damn time, the mud was
+so deep, and God, it stank there with the shells turning up the
+ground all full of mackabbies as the poilus call them.... Say,
+Dook, have you got any money?"
+
+"I've got some," said Dook, without enthusiasm.
+
+"Well, the champagne's damn good here. I'm part of the outfit in
+this gin mill; they'll give it to you at a reduction."
+
+"All right!"
+
+Dan Cohan turned round and whispered something to Marie. She
+laughed and dived down behind the curtain.
+
+"But that Chamfort was worse yet. Everybody was sort o' nervous
+because the Germans had dropped a message sayin' they'd give 'em
+three days to clear the hospital out, and that then they'd shell
+hell out of the place."
+
+"The Germans done that! Quit yer kiddin'," said Fuselli.
+
+"They did it at Souilly, too," said Dook. "Hell, yes.... A funny
+thing happened there. The hospital was in a big rambling house,
+looked like an Atlantic City hotel.... We used to run our car in
+back and sleep in it. It was where we took the shell-shock cases,
+fellows who were roarin' mad, and tremblin' all over, and some of
+'em paralysed like.... There was a man in the wing opposite where
+we slept who kept laugh-in'. Bill Rees was on the car with me, and
+we laid in our blankets in the bottom of the car and every now and
+then one of us'ld turn over and whisper: 'Ain't this hell, kid?'
+'cause that feller kept laughin' like a man who had just heard a
+joke that was so funny he couldn't stop laughin'. It wasn't like a
+crazy man's laugh usually is. When I first heard it I thought it
+was a man really laughin', and I guess I laughed too. But it
+didn't stop.... Bill Rees an' me laid in our car shiverin',
+listenin' to the barrage in the distance with now and then the big
+noise of an aeroplane bomb, an' that feller laughin', laughin',
+like he'd  just heard a joke, like something had struck him
+funny." Cohan took a gulp of champagne and jerked his head to one
+side. "An that damn laughin' kept up until about noon the next day
+when the orderlies strangled the feller.... Got their goat, I
+guess."
+
+Fuselli was looking towards the other side of the room, where a
+faint murmur of righteous indignation was rising from the dark man
+with the unshaven jaw and his companions. Fuselli was thinking
+that it wasn't good to be seen round too much with a fellow like
+Cohan, who talked about the Germans notifying hospitals before
+they bombarded them and who was waiting for a court-martial. Might
+get him in wrong. He slipped out of the cafe into the dark. A dank
+wind blew down the irregular street, ruffling the reflected light
+in the puddles, making a shutter bang interminably somewhere.
+Fuselli  went to the main square again, casting an envious glance
+in the window of the Cheval Blanc, where he saw officers playing
+billiards in a well-lighted room painted white and gold, and a
+blond girl in a raspberry-colored shirtwaist enthroned haughtily
+behind the bar. He remembered the M. P. and automatically hastened
+his steps. In a narrow street the other side of the square he
+stopped before the window of a small grocery shop and peered
+inside, keeping carefully out of the oblong of light that showed
+faintly the grass-grown cobbles and the green and grey walls
+opposite. A girl sat knitting beside the small counter with her
+two little black feet placed demurely side by side on the edge of
+a box full of red beets. She was very small and slender. The
+lamplight gleamed on her black hair, done close to her head. Her
+face was in the shadow. Several soldiers lounged awkwardly against
+the counter and the jambs of the door, following her movements
+with their eyes as dogs watch a plate of meat being moved about in
+a kitchen.
+
+After a little the girl rolled up her knitting and jumped to her
+feet, showing her face,--an oval white face with large dark lashes
+and an impertinent mouth. She stood looking at the soldiers who
+stood about her in a circle, then twisted up her mouth in a
+grimace and disappeared into the inner room.
+
+Fuselli walked to the end of the street where there was a bridge
+over a small stream. He leaned on the cold stone rail and looked
+into the water that was barely visible gurgling beneath between
+rims of ice.
+
+"O this is a hell of a life," he muttered.
+
+He shivered in the cold wind but remained leaning over the water.
+In the distance trains rumbled interminably, giving him a sense of
+vast desolate distances. The village clock struck eight. The bell
+had a soft note like the bass string of a guitar. In the darkness
+Fuselli could almost see the girl's face grimacing with its broad
+impertinent lips. He thought of the sombre barracks and men
+sitting about on the end of their cots. Hell, he couldn't go back
+yet. His whole body was taut with desire for warmth and softness
+and quiet. He slouched back along the narrow street cursing in a
+dismal monotone. Before the grocery store he stopped. The men had
+gone. He went in jauntily pushing his cap a little to one side so
+that some of his thick curly hair came out over his forehead. The
+little bell in the door clanged.
+
+The girl came out of the inner room. She gave him her hand
+indifferently.
+
+"Comment ca va! Yvonne? Bon?"
+
+His pidgin-French made her show her little pearly teeth in a
+smile.
+
+"Good," she said in English.
+
+They laughed childishly.
+
+"Say, will you be my girl, Yvonne?"
+
+She looked in his eyes and laughed.
+
+"Non compris," she said.
+
+"We, we; voulez vous et' ma fille?"
+
+She shrieked with laughter and slapped him hard on the cheek.
+"Venez," she said, still laughing. He followed her. In the inner
+room was a large oak table with chairs round it. At the end
+Eisenstein and a French soldier were talking excitedly, so
+absorbed in what they were saying that they did not notice the
+other two. Yvonne took the Frenchman by the hair and pulled his
+head back and told him, still laughing, what Fuselli had said. He
+laughed.
+
+"No, you must not say that," he said in English, turning to
+Fuselli.
+
+Fuselli was angry and sat down sullenly at the end of the table,
+keeping his eyes on Yvonne. She drew the knitting out of the
+pocket of her apron and holding it up comically between two
+fingers, glanced towards the dark corner of the room where an old
+woman with a lace cap on her head sat asleep, and then let herself
+fall into a chair.
+
+"Boom!" she said.
+
+Fuselli laughed until the tears filled his eyes. She laughed too.
+They sat a long while looking at each other and giggling, while
+Eisenstein and the Frenchman talked. Suddenly Fuselli caught a
+phrase that startled him.
+
+"What would you Americans do if revolution broke out in France?"
+
+"We'd do what we were ordered to," said Eisenstein bitterly.
+"We're a bunch of slaves." Fuselli noticed that Eisenstein's puffy
+sallow face was flushed and that there was a flash in his eyes he
+had never seen before.
+
+"How do you mean, revolution?" asked Fuselli in a puzzled voice.
+
+The Frenchman turned black eyes searchingly upon him.
+
+"I mean, stop the butchery,--overthrow the capitalist government.
+--The social revolution."
+
+"But you're a republic already, ain't yer?"
+
+"As much as you are."
+
+"You talk like a socialist," said Fuselli. "They tell me they
+shoot guys in America for talkin' like that."
+
+"You see!" said Eisenstein to the Frenchman.
+
+"Are they all like that?"
+
+"Except a very few. It's hopeless," said Eisenstein, burying his
+face in his hands. "I often think of shooting myself."
+
+"Better shoot someone else," said the Frenchman. "It will be more
+useful."
+
+Fuselli stirred uneasily in his chair.
+
+"Where'd you fellers get that stuff anyway?" he asked. In his mind
+he was saying: "A kike and a frog, that's a good combination."
+
+His eye caught Yvonne's and they both laughed, Yvonne threw her
+knitting ball at him. It rolled down under the table and they both
+scrambled about under the chairs looking for it.
+
+"Twice I have thought it was going to happen," said the Frenchman.
+
+"When was that?"
+
+"A little while ago a division started marching on Paris.... And
+when I was in Verdun.... O there will be a revolution.... France
+is the country of revolutions."
+
+"We'll always be here to shoot you down," said Eisenstein.
+
+"Wait till you've been in the war a little while. A winter in the
+trenches will make any army ready for revolution."
+
+"But we have no way of learning the truth. And in the tyranny of
+the army a man becomes a brute, a piece of machinery. Remember you
+are freer than we are. We are worse than the Russians!"
+
+"It is curious!... O but you must have some feeling of
+civilization. I have always heard that Americans were free and
+independent. Will they let themselves be driven to the slaughter
+always?"
+
+"O I don't know." Eisenstein got to his feet. "We'd better be
+getting to barracks. Coming, Fuselli?" he said.
+
+"Guess so," said Fuselli indifferently, without getting up.
+
+Eisenstein and the Frenchman went out into the shop.
+
+"Bon swar," said Fuselli, softly, leaning across the table.
+"Hey, girlie?"
+
+He threw himself on his belly on the wide table and put his arms
+round her neck and kissed her, feeling everything go blank in a
+flame of desire.
+
+She pushed him away calmly with strong little arms.
+
+"Stop!" she said, and jerked her head in the direction of the old
+woman in the chair in the dark corner of the room. They stood side
+by side listening to her faint wheezy snoring. He put his arms
+round her and kissed her long on the mouth.
+
+"Demain," he said.
+
+She nodded her head.
+
+Fuselli walked fast up the dark street towards the camp. The blood
+pounded happily through his veins. He caught up with Eisenstein.
+
+"Say, Eisenstein," he said in a comradely voice, "I don't think
+you ought to go talking round like that. You'll get yourself in
+too deep one of these days."
+
+"I don't care!"
+
+"But, hell, man, you don't want to get in the wrong that bad. They
+shoot fellers for less than you said."
+
+"Let them."
+
+"Christ, man, you don't want to be a damn fool," expostulated
+Fuselli.
+
+"How old are you, Fuselli?"
+
+"I'm twenty now."
+
+"I'm thirty. I've lived more, kid. I know what's good and what's
+bad. This butchery makes me unhappy."
+
+"God, I know. It's a hell of a note. But who brought it on? If
+somebody had shot that Kaiser."
+
+Eisenstein laughed bitterly. At the entrance of camp Fuselli
+lingered a moment watching the small form of Eisenstein disappear
+with its curious waddly walk into the darkness.
+
+"I'm going to be damn careful who I'm seen goin' into barracks
+with," he said to himself. "That damn kike may be a German spy or
+a secret-service officer." A cold chill of terror went over him,
+shattering his mood of joyous self-satisfaction. His feet slopped
+in the puddles, breaking through the thin ice, as he walked up the
+road towards the barracks. He felt as if people were watching him
+from everywhere out of the darkness, as if some gigantic figure
+were driving him forward through the darkness, holding a fist over
+his head, ready to crush him.
+
+When he was rolled up in his blankets in the bunk next to Bill
+Grey, he whispered to his friend:
+
+"Say, Bill, I think I've got a skirt all fixed up in town."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Yvonne--don't tell anybody."
+
+Bill Grey whistled softly.
+
+"You're some highflyer, Dan."
+
+Fuselli chuckled.
+
+"Hell, man, the best ain't good enough for me."
+
+"Well, I'm going to leave you," said Bill Grey.
+
+"When?"
+
+"Damn soon. I can't go this life. I don't see how you can."
+
+Fuselli did not answer. He snuggled warmly into his blankets,
+thinking of Yvonne and the corporalship.
+
+
+
+In the light of the one flickering lamp that made an unsteady
+circle of reddish glow on the station platform Fuselli looked at
+his pass. From Reveille on February fourth to Reveille on February
+fifth he was a free man. His eyes smarted with sleep as he walked
+up and down the cold station platform. For twenty-four hours he
+wouldn't have to obey anybody's orders. Despite the loneliness of
+going away on a train in a night like this in a strange country
+Fuselli was happy. He clinked the money in his pocket.
+
+Down the track a red eye appeared and grew nearer. He could hear
+the hard puffing of the engine up the grade. Huge curves gleamed
+as the engine roared slowly past him. A man with bare arms black
+with coal dust was leaning out of the cab, lit up from behind by a
+yellowish red glare. Now the cars were going by, flat cars with
+guns, tilted up like the muzzles of hunting dogs, freight cars out
+of which here and there peered a man's head. The train almost came
+to a stop. The cars clanged one against the other all down the
+train. Fuselli was looking into a pair of eyes that shone in the
+lamplight; a hand was held out to him.
+
+"So long, kid," said a boyish voice. "I don't know who the hell
+you are, but so long; good luck."
+
+"So long," stammered Fuselli. "Going to the front?"
+
+"Yer goddam right," answered another voice.
+
+The train took up speed again; the clanging of car against car
+ceased and in a moment they were moving fast before Fuselli's
+eyes. Then the station was dark and empty again, and he was
+watching the red light grow smaller and paler while the train
+rumbled on into the darkness.
+
+
+
+A confusion of gold and green and crimson silks and intricate
+designs of naked pink-fleshed cupids filled Fuselli's mind, when,
+full of wonder, he walked down the steps of the palace out into
+the faint ruddy sunlight of the afternoon. A few names, Napoleon,
+Josephine, the Empire, that had never had significance in his mind
+before, flared with a lurid gorgeous light in his imagination like
+a tableau of living statues at a vaudeville theatre.
+
+"They must have had a heap of money, them guys," said the man who
+was with him, a private in Aviation. "Let's go have a drink."
+
+Fuselli was silent and absorbed in his thoughts. Here was
+something that supplemented his visions of wealth and glory that
+he used to tell Al about, when they'd sit and watch the big liners
+come in, all glittering with lights, through the Golden Gate.
+
+"They didn't mind having naked women about, did they?" said   the
+private in Aviation, a  morose foul-mouthed little man who had
+been in the woolen business. "D'ye blame them?"
+
+"No, I can't say's I do.... I bet they was immoral, them guys," he
+continued vaguely.
+
+They wandered about the streets of Fontainebleau listlessly,
+looking into shop windows, staring at women, lolling on benches in
+the parks where the faint sunlight came through a lacework of
+twigs purple and crimson and yellow, that cast intricate lavender-
+grey shadows on the asphalt.
+
+"Let's  go  have  another  drink,"  said  the  private  in
+Aviation.
+
+Fuselli looked at his watch; they had hours before train time.
+
+A girl in a loose dirty blouse wiped off the table.
+
+"Vin blank," said the other man.
+
+"Mame shows," said Fuselli.
+
+His head was full of gold and green mouldings and silk and crimson
+velvet and intricate designs in which naked pink-fleshed cupids
+writhed indecently. Some day, he was saying to himself, he'd make
+a hell of a lot of money and live in a house like that with Mabe;
+no, with Yvonne, or with some other girl.
+
+"Must have been immoral, them guys," said the private in Aviation,
+leering at the girl in the dirty blouse.
+
+Fuselli remembered a revel he'd seen in a moving picture of "Quo
+Vadis," people in bath robes dancing around with large cups in
+their hands and tables full of dishes being upset.
+
+"Cognac, beaucoup," said the private in Aviation.
+
+"Mame shows," said Fuselli.
+
+The cafe was full of gold and green silks, and great brocaded beds
+with heavy carvings above them, beds in which writhed, pink-
+fleshed and indecent, intricate patterns of cupids.
+
+Somebody said, "Hello, Fuselli."
+
+He was on the train; his ears hummed and his head had an iron band
+round it. It was dark except for the little light that flickered
+in the ceiling. For a minute he thought it was a goldfish in a
+bowl, but it was a light that flickered in the ceiling.
+
+"Hello, Fuselli," said Eisenstein. "Feel all right?"
+
+"Sure," said Fuselli with a thick voice. "Why shouldn't I?"
+
+"How did you find that house?" said Eisenstein seriously.
+
+"Hell, I don't know," muttered Fuselli. "I'm goin' to sleep."
+
+His mind was a jumble. He remembered vast halls full of green and
+gold silks, and great beds with crowns over them where Napoleon
+and Josephine used to sleep. Who were they? O yes, the Empire,--or
+was it the Abdication? Then there were patterns of flowers and
+fruits and cupids, all gilded, and a dark passage and stairs that
+smelt musty, where he and the man in Aviation fell down. He
+remembered how it felt to rub his nose hard on the gritty red
+plush carpet of the stairs. Then there were women in open-work
+skirts standing about, or were those the pictures on the walls?
+And there was a bed with mirrors round it. He opened his eyes.
+Eisenstein was talking to him. He must have been talking to him
+for some time.
+
+"I look at it this way," he was saying. "A feller needs a little
+of that to keep healthy. Now, if he's abstemious and careful..."
+
+Fuselli went to sleep. He woke up again thinking suddenly: he must
+borrow that little blue book of army regulations. It would be
+useful to know that in case something came up. The corporal who
+had been in the Red Sox outfield had been transferred to a Base
+Hospital. It was t. b. so Sergeant Osier said. Anyway they were
+going to appoint an acting corporal. He stared at the flickering
+little light in the ceiling.
+
+"How did you get a pass?" Eisenstein was asking.
+
+"Oh, the sergeant fixed me up with one," answered Fuselli
+mysteriously.
+
+"You're in pretty good with the sergeant, ain't yer?" said
+Eisenstein.
+
+Fuselli smiled deprecatingly.
+
+"Say, d'ye know that little kid Stockton?"
+
+"The white-faced little kid who's clerk in that outfit that has
+the other end of the barracks?"
+
+"That's him," said Eisenstein. "I wish I could do something to
+help that kid. He just can't stand the discipline.... You ought to
+see him wince when the red-haired sergeant over there yells at
+him.... The kid looks sicker every day."
+
+"Well, he's got a good soft job: clerk," said Fuselli.
+
+"Ye think it's soft? I worked twelve hours day before yesterday
+getting out reports," said Eisenstein, indignantly. "But the kid's
+lost it and they keep ridin' him for some reason or other. It
+hurts a feller to see that. He ought to be at home at school."
+
+"He's got to take his medicine," said Fuselli.
+
+"You wait till we get butchered in the trenches. We'll see how you
+like your medicine," said Eisenstein.
+
+"Damn fool," muttered Fuselli, composing himself to sleep again.
+
+
+
+The bugle wrenched Fuselli out of his blankets, half dead with
+sleep.
+
+"Say, Bill, I got a head again," he muttered. There was no answer.
+It was only then that he noticed that the cot next to his was
+empty. The blankets were folded neatly at the foot. Sudden panic
+seized him. He couldn't get along without Bill Grey, he said to
+himself, he wouldn't have anyone to go round with. He looked
+fixedly at the empty cot.
+
+"Attention!"
+
+The company was lined up in the dark with their feet in the mud
+puddles of the road. The lieutenant strode up and down in front of
+them with the tail of his trench coat sticking out behind. He had
+a pocket flashlight that he kept flashing at the gaunt trunks of
+trees, in the faces of the company, at his feet, in the puddles of
+the road.
+
+"If any man knows anything about the whereabouts of Private 1st-
+class William Grey, report at once, as otherwise we shall have to
+put him down A. W. O. L. You know what that means?" The lieutenant
+spoke in short shrill periods, chopping off the ends of his words
+as if with a hatchet.
+
+No one said anything.
+
+"I  guess he's S. O. L."; this from someone behind Fuselli.
+
+"And I have one more announcement to make, men," said the
+lieutenant in his natural voice. "I'm going to appoint Fuselli,
+1st-class private, acting corporal."
+
+Fuselli's knees were weak under him. He felt like shouting and
+dancing with joy. He was glad it was dark so that no one could see
+how excited he was.
+
+"Sergeant, dismiss the company," said the lieutenant bringing his
+voice back to its military tone.
+
+"Companee dis-missed!" said out the sergeant jovially.
+
+In groups, talking with crisp voices, cheered by the occurrence of
+events, the company straggled across the great stretch of mud
+puddles towards the mess shack.
+
+
+
+                             IV
+
+Yvonne tossed the omelette in the air. It landed sizzling in the
+pan again, and she came forward into the light, holding the frying
+pan before her. Behind her was the dark stove and above it a row
+of copper kettles that gleamed through the bluish obscurity. She
+flicked the omelette out of the pan into the white dish that stood
+in the middle of the table, full in the yellow lamplight.
+
+"Tiens," she said, brushing a few stray hairs off her forehead
+with the back of her hand.
+
+"You're some cook," said Fuselli getting to his feet. He had been
+sprawling on a chair in the other end of the kitchen, watching
+Yvonne's slender body in tight black dress and blue apron move in
+and out of the area of light as she got dinner ready. A smell of
+burnt butter with a faint tang of pepper in it, filled the
+kitchen, making his mouth water.
+
+"This is the real stuff," he was saying to himself,--"like home."
+
+He stood with his hands deep in his pockets and his head thrown
+back, watching her cut the bread, holding the big loaf to her
+chest and pulling the knife towards her. she brushed some crumbs
+off her dress with a thin white hand.
+
+"You're my girl, Yvonne; ain't yer?" Fuselli put his arms round
+her.
+
+"Sale bete," she said, laughing and pushing him away.
+
+There was a brisk step outside and another girl came into the
+kitchen, a thin yellow-faced girl with a sharp nose and long
+teeth.
+
+"Ma   cousine.... Mon 'tit americain." They both laughed. Fuselli
+blushed as he shook the girl's hand.
+
+"Il est beau, hein?" said Yvonne gruffly.
+
+"Mais, ma petite, il est charmant, vot' americain!" They laughed
+again. Fuselli who did not understand laughed too, thinking to
+himself, "They'll let the dinner get cold if they don't sit down
+soon."
+
+"Get maman, Dan," said Yvonne. Fuselli went into the shop through
+the room with the long oak table. In the dim light that came from
+the kitchen he saw the old woman's white bonnet. Her face was in
+shadow but there was a faint gleam of light in her small beady
+eyes.
+
+"Supper, ma'am," he shouted.
+
+Grumbling in her creaky little voice, the old woman followed him
+back into the kitchen.
+
+Steam, gilded by the lamplight, rose in pillars to the ceiling
+from the big tureen of soup.
+
+There was a white cloth on the table and a big loaf of bread at
+the end. The plates, with borders of little roses on them, seemed,
+after the army mess, the most beautiful things Fuselli had ever
+seen. The wine bottle was black beside the soup tureen and the
+wine in the glasses cast a dark purple stain on the cloth.
+
+Fuselli ate his soup silently understanding very little of the
+French that the two girls rattled at each other. The old woman
+rarely spoke and when she did one of the girls would throw her a
+hasty remark that hardly interrupted their chatter.
+
+Fuselli was thinking of the other men lining up outside the dark
+mess shack and the sound the food made when it flopped into the
+mess kits. An idea came to him. He'd have to bring Sarge to see
+Yvonne. They could set him up to a feed. "It would help me to stay
+in good with him," He had a minute's worry about his corporalship.
+He was acting corporal right enough, but he wanted them to send in
+his appointment.
+
+The omelette melted in his mouth.
+
+"Damn bon," he said to Yvonne with his mouth full.
+
+She looked at him fixedly.
+
+"Bon, bon," he said again.
+
+"You.... Dan, bon," she said and laughed. The cousin was looking
+from one to the other enviously, her upper lip lifted away from
+her teeth in a smile.
+
+The old woman munched her bread in a silent preoccupied fashion.
+
+"There's somebody in the store," said Fuselli after a long pause.
+"Je irey." He put his napkin down and went out wiping his mouth on
+the back of his hand. Eisenstein and a chalky-faced boy were in
+the shop.
+
+"Hullo! are you keepin' house here?" asked Eisenstein.
+
+"Sure," said Fuselli conceitedly.
+
+"Have you got any chawclit?" asked the chalky-faced boy in a thin
+bloodless voice.
+
+Fuselli looked round the shelves and threw a cake of chocolate
+down on the counter.
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"Nothing, thank you, corporal. How much is it?"
+
+Whistling "There's a long, long trail a-winding," Fuselli strode
+back into the inner room.
+
+"Combien chocolate?" he asked.
+
+When he had received the money, he sat down at his place at table
+again, smiling importantly. He must write Al about all this, he
+was thinking, and he was wondering vaguely whether Al had been
+drafted yet.
+
+After dinner the women sat a long time chatting over their coffee,
+while Fuselli squirmed uneasily on his chair, looking now and then
+at his watch. His pass was till twelve only; it was already
+getting on to ten. He tried to catch Yvonne's eye, but she was
+moving about the kitchen putting things in order for the night,
+and hardly seemed to notice him. At last the old woman shuffled
+into the shop and there was the sound of a key clicking hard in
+the outside door. When she came back, Fuselli said good-night to
+everyone and left by the back door into the court. There he leaned
+sulkily against the wall and waited in the dark, listening to the
+sounds that came from the house. He could see shadows passing
+across the orange square of light the window threw on the cobbles
+of the court. A light went on in an upper window, sending a faint
+glow over the disorderly tiles of the roof of the shed opposite.
+The door opened and Yvonne and her cousin stood on the broad stone
+doorstep chattering. Fuselli had pushed himself in behind a big
+hogshead that had a pleasant tang of old wood damp with sour wine.
+At last the heads of the shadows on the cobbles came together for
+a moment and the cousin clattered across the court and out into
+the empty streets. Her rapid footsteps died away. Yvonne's shadow
+was still in the door:
+
+"Dan," she said softly.
+
+Fuselli came out from behind the hogshead, his whole body flushing
+with delight. Yvonne pointed to his shoes. He took them off, and
+left them beside the door. He looked at his watch. It was a
+quarter to eleven.
+
+"Viens," she said.
+
+He followed her, his knees trembling a little from excitement, up
+the steep stairs.
+
+
+
+The deep broken strokes of the town clock had just begun to strike
+midnight when Fuselli hurried in the camp gate. He gave up his
+pass jauntily to the guard and strolled towards his barracks. The
+long shed was pitch black, full of a sound of deep breathing and
+of occasional snoring. There was a thick smell of uniform wool on
+which the sweat had dried. Fuselli undressed without haste,
+stretching his arms luxuriously. He wriggled into his blankets
+feeling cool and tired, and went to sleep with a smile of self-
+satisfaction on his lips.
+
+
+
+The companies were lined up for retreat, standing stiff as toy
+soldiers outside their barracks. The evening was almost warm. A
+little playful wind, oozing with springtime, played with the
+swollen buds on the plane trees. The sky was a drowsy violet
+color, and the blood pumped hot and stinging through the stiffened
+arms and legs of the soldiers who stood at attention. The voices
+of the non-coms were particularly harsh and metallic this evening.
+It was rumoured that a general was about. Orders were shouted with
+fury.
+
+Standing behind the line of his company, Fuselli's chest was stuck
+out until the buttons of his tunic were in danger of snapping off.
+His shoes were well-shined, and he wore a new pair of puttees,
+wound so tightly that his legs ached.
+
+At last the bugle sounded across the silent camp.
+
+"Parade rest!" shouted the lieutenant.
+
+Fuselli's mind was full of the army regulations which he had been
+studying assiduously for the last week. He was thinking of an
+imaginary examination for the corporalship, which he would pass,
+of course.
+
+When the company was dismissed, he went up familiarly to the top
+sergeant:
+
+"Say, Sarge, doin' anything this evenin'?"
+
+"What the hell can a man do when he's broke?" said the top
+sergeant.
+
+"Well, you come down town with me. I want to introjuce you to
+somebody."
+
+"Great!"
+
+"Say, Sarge, have they sent that appointment in yet?"
+
+"No, they haven't, Fuselli," said the top sergeant. "It's all made
+out," he added encouragingly.
+
+They walked towards the town silently. The evening was silvery-
+violet. The few windows in the old grey-green houses that were
+lighted shone orange.
+
+"Well, I'm goin' to get it, ain't I?"
+
+A staff car shot by, splashing them with mud, leaving them a
+glimpse of officers leaning back in the deep cushions.
+
+"You sure are," said the top sergeant in his good-natured voice.
+
+They had reached the square. They saluted stiffly as two officers
+brushed past them.
+
+"What's the regulations about a feller marryin' a French girl?"
+broke out Fuselli suddenly.
+
+"Thinking of getting hitched up, are you?"
+
+"Hell, no." Fuselli was crimson. "I just sort o' wanted to know."
+
+"Permission of C. O., that's all I know of."
+
+They had stopped in front of the grocery shop. Fuselli peered in
+through the window. The shop was full of soldiers lounging against
+the counter and the walls. In the midst of them, demurely
+knitting, sat Yvonne.
+
+"Let's go and have a drink an' then come back," said Fuselli.
+
+They went to the cafe where Marie of the white arms presided.
+Fuselli paid for two hot rum punches.
+
+"You see it's this way, Sarge," he said confidentially, "I wrote
+all my folks at home I'd been made corporal, an' it'ld be a hell
+of a note to be let down now."
+
+The top sergeant was drinking his hot drink in little sips. He
+smiled broadly and put his hand paternal-fashion on Fuselli's
+knee.
+
+"Sure; you needn't worry, kid. I've got you fixed up all right,"
+he said; then he added jovially, "Well, let's go see that girl of
+yours."
+
+They went out into the dark streets, where the wind, despite the
+smell of burnt gasolene and army camps, had a faint suavity,
+something like the smell of mushrooms; the smell of spring.
+
+Yvonne sat under the lamp in the shop, her feet up on a box of
+canned peas, yawning dismally. Behind her on the counter was the
+glass case full of yellow and greenish-white cheeses. Above that
+shelves rose to the ceiling in the brownish obscurity of the shop
+where gleamed faintly large jars and small jars, cans neatly
+placed in rows, glass jars and vegetables. In the corner, near the
+glass curtained door that led to the inner room, hung clusters of
+sausages large and small, red, yellow, and speckled. Yvonne jumped
+up when Fuselli and the sergeant opened the door.
+
+"You are good," she said. "Je mourrais de cafard." They laughed.
+
+"You know what that mean--cafard?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"It is only since the war. Avant la guerre on ne savais pas ce que
+c'etait le cafard. The war is no good."
+
+"Funny, ain't it?" said Fuselli to the top sergeant, "a feller
+can't juss figure out what the war is like."
+
+"Don't you worry. We'll all get there," said the top sergeant
+knowingly.
+
+"This is the sarjon, Yvonne," said Fuselli.
+
+"Oui, oui, je sais," said Yvonne, smiling at the top sergeant.
+They sat in the little room behind the shop and drank white wine,
+and talked as best they could to Yvonne, who, very trim in her
+black dress and blue apron, perched on the edge of her chair with
+her feet in tiny pumps pressed tightly together, and glanced now
+and then at the elaborate stripes on the top sergeant's arm.
+
+
+
+Fuselli strode familiarly into the grocery shop, whistling, and
+threw open the door to the inner room. His whistling stopped in
+the middle of a bar.
+
+"Hello," he said in an annoyed voice.
+
+"Hello, corporal," said Eisenstein. Eisenstein, his French soldier
+friend, a lanky man with a scraggly black heard and burning black
+eyes, and Stockton, the chalky-faced boy, were sitting at the
+table that filled up the room, chatting intimately and gaily with
+Yvonne, who leaned against the yellow wall beside the Frenchman
+and showed all her little pearly teeth in a laugh. In the middle
+of the dark oak table was a pot of hyacinths and some glasses that
+had had wine in them. The odor of the hyacinths hung in the air
+with a faint warm smell from the kitchen.
+
+After a second's hesitation, Fuselli sat down to wait until the
+others should leave. It was long after pay-day and his pockets
+were empty, so he had nowhere else to go.
+
+"How are they treatin' you down in your outfit now?" asked
+Eisenstein of Stockton, after a silence.
+
+"Same as ever," said Stockton in his thin voice, stuttering a
+little.... "Sometimes I wish I was dead."
+
+"Hum," said Eisenstein, a curious expression of understanding on
+his flabby face. "We'll be civilians some day."
+
+"I won't" said Stockton.
+
+"Hell," said Eisenstein. "You've got to keep your upper lip stiff.
+I thought I was goin' to die in that troopship coming over here.
+An' when I was little an' came over with the emigrants from
+Poland, I thought I was goin' to die. A man can stand more than he
+thinks for.... I never thought I could stand being in the army,
+bein' a slave like an' all that, an' I'm still here. No, you'll
+live long and be successful yet." He put his hand on Stockton's
+shoulder. The boy winced and drew his chair away. "What for you do
+that? I ain't goin' to hurt you," said Eisenstein.
+
+Fuselli looked at them both with a disgusted interest.
+
+"I'll tell you what you'd better do, kid," he said
+condescendingly. "You get transferred to our company. It's an Al
+bunch, ain't it, Eisenstein? We've got a good loot an' a good top-
+kicker, an' a damn good bunch o' fellers."
+
+"Our top-kicker was in here a few minutes ago," said Eisenstein.
+
+"He was?" asked Fuselli. "Where'd he go?"
+
+"Damned if I know."
+
+Yvonne and the French soldier were talking in low voices, laughing
+a little now and then. Fuselli leaned back in his chair looking at
+them, feeling out of things, wishing despondently that he knew
+enough French to understand what they were saying. He scraped his
+feet angrily back and forth on the floor. His eyes lit on the
+white hyacinths. They made him think of florists' windows at home
+at Eastertime and the noise and bustle of San Francisco's streets.
+"God, I hate this rotten hole," he muttered to himself. He thought
+of Mabe. He made a noise with his lips. Hell, she was married by
+this time. Anyway Yvonne was the girl for him. If he could only
+have Yvonne to himself; far away somewhere, away from the other
+men and that damn frog and her old mother. He thought of himself
+going to the theatre with Yvonne. When he was a sergeant he would
+be able to afford that sort of thing. He counted up the months. It
+was March. Here he'd been in Europe five months and he was still
+only a corporal, and not that yet. He clenched his fists with
+impatience. But once he got to be a non-com it would go faster, he
+told himself reassuringly.
+
+He leaned over and sniffed loudly at the hyacinths.
+
+"They smell good," he said. "Que disay vous, Yvonne?"
+
+Yvonne looked at him as if she had forgotten that he was in the
+room. Her eyes looked straight into his, and she burst out
+laughing. Her glance had made him feel warm all over, and he
+leaned back in his chair again, looking at her slender body so
+neatly cased in its black dress and at her little head with its
+tightly-done hair, with a comfortable feeling of possession.
+
+"Yvonne, come over here," he said, beckoning with his head.
+She looked from him to the Frenchman provocatively. Then she came
+over and stood behind him.
+
+"Que voulez-vous?"
+
+Fuselli glanced at Eisenstein. He and Stockton were deep in
+excited conversation with the Frenchman again. Fuselli heard that
+uncomfortable word that always made him angry, he did not know
+why, "Revolution."
+
+"Yvonne," he said so that only she could hear, "what you say you
+and me get married?"
+
+"Marries.... moi et toi?" asked Yvonne in a puzzled voice.
+
+"We we."
+
+She looked him in the eyes a moment, and then threw hack her head
+in a paroxysm of hysterical laughter.
+
+Fuselli flushed scarlet, got to his feet and strode out, slamming
+the door behind him so that the glass rang. He walked hurriedly
+back to camp, splashed with mud by the long lines of grey motor
+trucks that were throbbing their way slowly through the main
+street, each with a yellow eye that lit up faintly the tailboards
+of the truck ahead. The barracks were dark and nearly empty. He
+sat down at the sergeant's desk and began moodily turning over the
+pages of the little blue book of Army Regulations.
+
+
+
+The moonlight glittered in the fountain at the end of the main
+square of the town. It was a warm dark night of faint clouds
+through which the moon shone palely as through a thin silk canopy.
+Fuselli stood by the fountain smoking a cigarette, looking at the
+yellow windows of the Cheval Blanc at the other end of the square,
+from which came a sound of voices and of billiard balls clinking.
+He stood quiet letting the acrid cigarette smoke drift out through
+his nose, his ears full of the silvery tinkle of the water in the
+fountain beside him. There were little drifts of warm and chilly
+air in the breeze that blew fitfully from the west. Fuselli was
+waiting. He took out his watch now and then and strained his eyes
+to see the time, but there was not light enough. At last the deep
+broken note of the bell in the church spire struck once. It must
+be half past ten.
+
+He started walking slowly towards the street where Yvonne's
+grocery shop was. The faint glow of the moon lit up the grey
+houses with the shuttered windows and tumultuous red roofs full of
+little dormers and skylights. Fuselli felt deliciously at ease
+with the world. He could almost feel Yvonne's body in his arms and
+he smiled as he remembered the little faces she used to make at
+him. He slunk past the shuttered windows of the shop and dove into
+the darkness under the arch that led to the court. He walked
+cautiously, on tiptoe, keeping close to the moss-covered wall, for
+he heard voices in the court. He peeped round the edge of the
+building and saw that there were several people in the kitchen
+door talking. He drew his head back into the shadow. But he had
+caught a glimpse of the dark round form of the hogshead beside the
+kitchen door. If he only could get behind that as he usually did,
+he would be hidden until the people went away.
+
+Keeping well in the shadow round the edge of the court, he slipped
+to the other side, and was just about to pop himself in behind the
+hogshead when he noticed that someone was there before him.
+
+He caught his breath and stood still, his heart thumping. The
+figure turned and in the dark he recognised the top sergeant's
+round face.
+
+"Keep quiet, can't you?" whispered the top sergeant peevishly.
+
+Fuselli stood still with his fists clenched. The blood flamed
+through his head, making his scalp tingle.
+
+Still the top sergeant was the top sergeant, came the thought. It
+would never do to get in wrong with him. Fuselli's legs moved him
+automatically back into a corner of the court, where he leaned
+against the damp wall; glaring with smarting eyes at the two women
+who stood talking outside the kitchen door, and at the dark shadow
+behind the hogshead. At last, after several smacking kisses, the
+women went away and the kitchen door closed. The bell in the
+church spire struck eleven slowly and mournfully. When it had
+ceased striking, Fuselli heard a discreet tapping and saw the
+shadow of the top sergeant against the door. As he slipped in,
+Fuselli heard the top sergeant's good-natured voice in a large
+stage whisper, followed by a choked laugh  from Yvonne. The
+door closed and the light was extinguished, leaving the court
+in darkness except for a faint marbled glow in the sky.
+
+Fuselli strode out, making as much noise as he could with his
+heels on the cobble stones. The streets of the town were silent
+under the pale moon. In the square the fountain sounded loud and
+metallic. He gave up his pass to the guard and strode glumly
+towards the barracks. At the door he met a man with a pack on his
+back.
+
+"Hullo, Fuselli," said a voice he knew. "Is my old bunk still
+there?"
+
+"Damned if I know," said Fuselli; "I thought they'd shipped you
+home."
+
+The corporal who had been on the Red Sox outfield broke into a fit
+of coughing.
+
+"Hell, no," he said. "They kep' me at that goddam hospital till
+they saw I wasn't goin' to die right away, an' then they told me
+to come back to my outfit. So here I am!"
+
+"Did they bust you?" said Fuselli with sudden eagerness.
+
+"Hell, no. Why should they? They ain't gone and got a new
+corporal, have they?"
+
+"No, not exactly," said Fuselli.
+
+
+
+                             V
+
+Meadville stood near the camp gate, watching the motor trucks go
+by on the main road. Grey, lumbering, and mud-covered, they
+throbbed by sloughing in and out of the mud holes in the worn road
+in an endless train stretching as far as he could see into the
+town and as far as he could see up the road.
+
+He stood with his legs far apart and spat into the center of the
+road; then he turned to the corporal who had been in the Red Sox
+outfield and said:
+
+"I'll be goddamed if there ain't somethin' doin'!"
+
+"A hell of a lot doin'," said the corporal, shaking his head.
+
+"Seen that guy Daniels who's been to the front?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, he says hell's broke loose. Hell's broke loose!"
+
+"What's happened?... Be gorry, we may see some active service,"
+said Meadville, grinning. "By God, I'd give the best colt on my
+ranch to see some action."
+
+"Got a ranch?" asked the corporal.
+
+The motor trucks kept on grinding past monotonously; their drivers
+were so splashed with mud it was hard to see what uniform they
+wore.
+
+"What d'ye think?" asked Meadville. "Think I keep store?"
+
+Fuselli walked past them towards the town.
+
+"Say, Fuselli," shouted Meadville. "Corporal says hell's broke
+loose out there. We may smell gunpowder yet."
+
+Fuselli stopped and joined them.
+
+"I guess poor old Bill Grey's smelt plenty of gunpowder by this
+time," he said.
+
+"I wish I had gone with him," said Meadville. "I'll try that
+little trick myself now the good weather's come on if we don't get
+a move on soon."
+
+"Too damn risky!"
+
+"Listen to the kid. It'll be too damn risky in the trenches.... Or
+do you think you're goin' to get a cushy job in camp here?"
+
+"Hell, no! I want to go to the front. I don't want to stay in this
+hole."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"But ain't no good throwin' yerself in where it don't do no
+good.... A guy wants to get on in this army if he can."
+
+"What's the good o' gettin' on?" said the corporal. "Won't get
+home a bit sooner."
+
+"Hell! but you're a non-com."
+
+Another train of motor trucks went by, drowning their
+Talk.
+
+
+
+Fuselli was packing medical supplies in a box in a great brownish
+warehouse full of packing cases where a little sun filtered in
+through the dusty air at the corrugated sliding tin doors. As he
+worked, he listened to Daniels talking to Meadville who worked
+beside him.
+
+"An' the gas is the goddamndest stuff I ever heard of," he was
+saying. "I've seen fellers with their arms swelled up to twice the
+size like blisters from it. Mustard gas, they call it."
+
+"What did you get to go to the hospital?" said Meadville.
+
+"Only pneumonia," said Daniels, "but I had a buddy who was split
+right in half by a piece of a shell. He was standin' as near me as
+you are an' was whistlin' 'Tipperary' under his breath when all at
+once there was a big spurt o' blood an' there he was with his
+chest split in half an' his head hangin' a thread like."
+
+Meadville moved his quid of tobacco from one cheek to the other
+and spat on to the sawdust of the floor. The men within earshot
+stopped working and looked admiringly at Daniels.
+
+"Well; what d'ye reckon's goin' on at the front now?" said
+Meadville.
+
+"Damned of I know. The goddam hospital at Orleans was so full up
+there was guys in stretchers waiting all day on the pavement
+outside. I know that.... Fellers there said hell'd broke loose for
+fair. Looks to me like the Fritzies was advancin'."
+
+Meadville looked at him incredulously.
+
+"Those skunks?" said Fuselli. "Why they can't advance. They're
+starvin' to death."
+
+"The hell they are," said Daniels. "I guess you believe everything
+you see in the papers."
+
+Eyes looked at Daniels indignantly. They all went on working in
+silence.
+
+Suddenly the lieutenant, looking strangely flustered, strode into
+the warehouse, leaving the tin door open behind him.
+
+"Can anyone tell me where Sergeant Osler is?"
+
+"He was here a few minutes ago," spoke up Fuselli.
+
+"Well, where is he now?" snapped the lieutenant angrily.
+
+"I don't know, sir," mumbled Fuselli, flushing.
+
+"Go and see if you can find him."
+
+Fuselli went off to the other end of the warehouse. Outside the
+door he stopped and bit off a cigarette in a leisurely fashion.
+His blood boiled sullenly. How the hell should he know where the
+top sergeant was? They didn't expect him to be a mind-reader, did
+they? And all the flood of bitterness that had been collecting in
+his spirit seethed to the surface. They had not treated him right,
+He felt full of hopeless anger against this vast treadmill to
+which he was bound. The endless succession of the days, all alike,
+all subject to orders, to the interminable monotony of drills and
+line-ups, passed before his mind. He felt he couldn't go on, yet
+he knew that he must and would go on, that there was no stopping,
+that his feet would go on beating in time to the steps of the
+treadmill.
+
+He caught sight of the sergeant coming towards the warehouse,
+across the new green grass, scarred by the marks of truck wheels.
+
+"Sarge," he called. Then he went up to him mysteriously. "The loot
+wants to see you at once in Warehouse B."
+
+He slouched back to his work, arriving just in time to hear the
+lieutenant say in a severe voice to the sergeant:
+
+"Sergeant, do you know how to draw up court-martial papers?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said the sergeant, a look of surprise on his face. He
+followed the precise steps of the lieutenant out of the door.
+
+Fuselli had a moment of panic terror, during which he went on
+working methodically, although his hands trembled. He was
+searching his memory for some infringement of a regulation that
+might be charged against him. The terror passed as fast as it had
+come. Of course he had no reason to fear. He laughed softly to
+himself. What a fool he'd been to get scared like that, and a
+summary court-martial couldn't do much to you anyway. He went on
+working as fast and as carefully as he could, through the long
+monotonous afternoon.
+
+That night nearly the whole company gathered in a group at the end
+of the barracks. Both sergeants were away. The corporal said he
+knew nothing, and got sulkily into bed, where he lay, rolled in
+his blankets, shaken by fit after fit of coughing.
+
+At last someone said:
+
+"I bet that kike Eisenstein's turned out to be a spy."
+
+"I bet he has too."
+
+"He's foreign born, ain't he? Born in Poland or some goddam
+place."
+
+"He always did talk queer."
+
+"I always thought," said Fuselli, "he'd get into trouble talking
+the way he did."
+
+"How'd he talk?" asked Daniels.
+
+"Oh, he said that war was wrong and all that goddamed pro-German
+stuff."
+
+"D'ye know what they did out at the front?" said Daniels. "In the
+second division they made two fellers dig their own graves and
+then shot 'em for sayin' the war was wrong."
+
+"Hell, they did?"
+
+"You're goddam right, they did. I tell you, fellers, it don't do
+to monkey with the buzz-saw in this army."
+
+"For God's sake shut up. Taps has blown. Meadville, turn the
+lights out!" said the corporal angrily. The barracks was dark,
+full of a sound of men undressing in their bunks, and of whispered
+talk.
+
+
+
+The company was lined up for morning mess. The sun that had just
+risen was shining in rosily through the soft clouds of the sky.
+The sparrows kept up a great clattering in the avenue of plane
+trees. Their riotous chirping could be heard above the sound of
+motors starting that came from a shed opposite the mess shack.
+
+The sergeant appeared suddenly; walking past with his shoulders
+stiff, so that everyone knew at once that something important was
+going on.
+
+"Attention, men, a minute," he said.
+
+Mess kits clattered as the men turned round.
+
+"After mess I want you to go immediately to barracks and roll your
+packs. After that every man must stand by his pack until orders
+come." The company cheered and mess kits clattered together like
+cymbals.
+
+"As you were," shouted the top sergeant jovially.
+
+Gluey oatmeal and greasy bacon were hurriedly bolted down, and
+every man in the company, his heart pounding, ran to the barracks
+to do up his pack, feeling proud under the envious eyes of the
+company at the other end of the shack that had received no orders.
+
+When the packs were done up, they sat on the empty hunks and
+drummed their feet against the wooden partitions waiting.
+
+"I don't suppose we'll leave here till hell freezes over," said
+Meadville, who was doing up the last strap on his pack.
+
+"It's always like this.... You break your neck to obey orders
+an'..."
+
+"Outside!" shouted the sergeant, poking his head in the door.
+
+"Fall in! Atten-shun!"
+
+The lieutenant in his trench coat and in a new pair of roll
+puttees stood facing the company, looking solemn.
+
+"Men," he said, biting off his words as a man bites through a
+piece of hard stick candy; "one of your number is up for court-
+martial for possibly disloyal statements found in a letter
+addressed to friends at home. I have been extremely grieved to
+find anything of this sort in any company of mine; I don't believe
+there is another man in the company...low enough to hold...
+entertain such ideas...."
+
+Every man in the company stuck out his chest, vowing inwardly to
+entertain no ideas at all rather than run the risk of calling
+forth such disapproval from the lieutenant. The lieutenant paused:
+
+"All I can say is if there is any such man in the company, he had
+better keep his mouth shut and be pretty damn careful what he
+writes home.... Dismissed!"
+
+He shouted the order grimly, as if it were the order for the
+execution of the offender.
+
+"That goddam skunk Eisenstein," said someone.
+
+The lieutenant heard it as he walked away. "Oh, sergeant," he said
+familiarly; "I think the others have got the right stuff in them."
+
+The company went into the barracks and waited.
+
+
+
+The sergeant-major's office was full of a clicking of typewriters,
+and was overheated by a black stove that stood in the middle of
+the floor, letting out occasional little puffs of smoke from a
+crack in the stove pipe. The sergeant-major was a small man with a
+fresh boyish face and a drawling voice who lolled behind a large
+typewriter reading a magazine that lay on his lap.
+
+Fuselli slipped in behind the typewriter and stood with his cap in
+his hand beside the sergeant-major's chair.
+
+"Well what do you want?" asked the sergeant-major gruffly.
+
+"A feller told me, Sergeant-Major, that you was look-in' for a man
+with optical experience;" Fuselli's voice was velvety.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I worked three years in an optical-goods store at home in
+Frisco."
+
+"What's your name, rank, company?"
+
+"Daniel Fuselli, Private 1st-class, Company C, medical supply
+warehouse."
+
+"All right, I'll attend to it."
+
+"But, sergeant."
+
+"All right; out with what you've got to say, quick." The sergeant-
+major fingered the leaves of his magazine impatiently.
+
+"My company's all packed up to go. The transfer'll have to be
+today, sergeant."
+
+"Why the hell didn't you come in earlier?... Stevens, make out a
+transfer to headquarters company and get the major to sign it when
+he goes through.... That's the way it always is," he cried,
+leaning back tragically in his swivel chair. "Everybody always
+puts everything off on me at the last minute."
+
+"Thank you, sir," said Fuselli, smiling. The sergeant-major ran
+his hand through his hair and took up his magazine again
+peevishly.
+
+Fuselli hurried back to barracks where he found the company still
+waiting. Several men were crouched in a circle playing craps. The
+rest lounged in their bare bunks or fiddled with their packs.
+Outside it had begun to rain softly, and a smell of wet sprouting
+earth came in through the open door. Fuselli sat on the floor
+beside his bunk throwing his knife down so that it stuck in the
+boards between his knees. He was whistling softly to himself. The
+day dragged on. Several times he heard the town clock strike in
+the distance.
+
+At last the top sergeant came in, shaking the water off his
+slicker, a serious, important expression on his face.
+
+"Inspection of medical belts," he shouted. "Everybody open up
+their belt and lay it on the foot of their bunk and stand at
+attention on the left side."
+
+The lieutenant and a major appeared suddenly at one end of the
+barracks and came through slowly, pulling the little packets out
+of the belts. The men looked at them out of the corners of their
+eyes. As they examined the belts, they chatted easily, as if they
+had been alone.
+
+"Yes," said the major. "We're in for it this time.... That damned
+offensive."
+
+"Well, we'll be able to show 'em what we're good for," said the
+lieutenant, laughing. "We haven't had a chance yet."
+
+"Hum! Better mark that belt, lieutenant, and have it changed. Been
+to the front yet?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Hum, well.... You'll look at things differently when you have,"
+said the major.
+
+The lieutenant frowned.
+
+"Well, on the whole, lieutenant, your outfit is in very good
+shape.... At ease, men!" The lieutenant and the major stood at the
+door a moment raising the collars of their coats; then they dove
+out into the rain.
+
+A few minutes later the sergeant came in.
+
+"All right, get your slickers on and line up."
+
+They stood lined up in the rain for a long while. It was a leaden
+afternoon. The even clouds had a faint coppery tinge. The rain
+beat in their faces, making them tingle. Fuselli was looking
+anxiously at the sergeant. At last the lieutenant appeared.
+
+"Attention!" cried the sergeant.
+
+The roll was called and a new man fell in at the end of the line,
+a tall man with large protruding eyes like a calf's.
+
+"Private 1st-class Daniel Fuselli, fall out and report to
+headquarters company!"
+
+Fuselli saw a look of surprise come over men's faces. He smiled
+wanly at Meadville.
+
+"Sergeant, take the men down to the station."
+
+"Squads, right," cried the sergeant. "March!"
+
+The company tramped off into the streaming rain.
+
+Fuselli went back to the barracks, took off his pack and slicker
+and wiped the water off his face.
+
+
+
+The rails gleamed gold in the early morning sunshine above the
+deep purple cinders of the track. Fuselli's eyes followed the
+track until it curved into a cutting where the wet clay was a
+bright orange in the clear light. The station platform, where
+puddles from the night's rain glittered as the wind ruffled them,
+was empty. Fuselli started walking up and down with his hands in
+his pockets. He had been sent down to unload some supplies that
+were coming on that morning's train. He felt free and successful
+since he joined the headquarters company! At last, he told
+himself, he had a job where he could show what he was good for. He
+walked up and down whistling shrilly.
+
+A train pulled slowly into the station. The engine stopped to take
+water and the couplings clanked all down the line of cars. The
+platform was suddenly full of men in khaki, stamping their feet,
+running up and down shouting.
+
+"Where you guys goin'?" asked Fuselli.
+
+"We're bound for Palm Beach. Don't we look it?" someone snarled in
+reply.
+
+But Fuselli had seen a familiar face. He was shaking hands with
+two browned men whose faces were grimy with days of travelling in
+freight cars.
+
+"Hullo, Chrisfield. Hullo, Andrews!" he cried. "When did you
+fellows get over here?"
+
+"Oh, 'bout four months ago," said Chrisfield, whose black eyes
+looked at Fuselli searchingly. "Oh! Ah 'member you. You're
+Fuselli. We was at trainin' camp together. 'Member him, Andy?"
+
+"Sure," said Andrews. "How are you makin' out?"
+
+"Fine," said Fuselli. "I'm in the optical department here."
+
+"Where the hell's that?"
+
+"Right here." Fuselli pointed vaguely behind the station.
+
+"We've been training about four months near Bordeaux," said
+Andrews; "and now we're going to see what it's like."
+
+The whistle blew and the engine started puffing hard. Clouds of
+white steam filled the station platform, where the soldiers
+scampered for their cars.
+
+"Good luck!" said Fuselli; but Andrews and Chrisfield had already
+gone. He saw them again as the train pulled out, two brown and
+dirt-grimed faces among many other brown and dirt-grimed faces.
+The steam floated up tinged with yellow in the bright early
+morning air as the last car of the train disappeared round the
+curve into the cutting.
+
+
+
+The dust rose thickly about the worn broom. As it was a dark
+morning, very little light filtered into the room full of great
+white packing cases, where Fuselli was sweeping. He stopped now
+and then and leaned on his broom. Far away he heard a sound of
+trains shunting and shouts and the sound of feet tramping in
+unison from the drill ground. The building where he was was
+silent. He went on sweeping, thinking of his company tramping off
+through the streaming rain, and of those fellows he had known in
+training Camp in America, Andrews and Chrisfield, jolting in box
+cars towards the front, where Daniel's buddy had had his chest
+split in half by a piece of shell. And he'd written home he'd been
+made a corporal. What was he going to do when letters came for
+him, addressed Corporal Dan Fuselli? Putting the broom away, he
+dusted the yellow chair and the table covered with order slips
+that stood in the middle of the piles of packing boxes. The door
+slammed somewhere below and there was a step on the stairs that
+led to the upper part of the warehouse. A little man with a
+monkey-like greyish-brown face and spectacles appeared and slipped
+out of his overcoat, like a very small bean popping out of a very
+large pod.
+
+The sergeant's stripes looked unusually wide and conspicuous on
+his thin arm.
+
+He grunted at Fuselli, sat down at the desk, and began at once
+peering among the order slips.
+
+"Anything in our mailbox this morning?" he asked Fuselli in a
+hoarse voice.
+
+"It's all there, sergeant," said Fuselli.
+
+The sergeant peered about the desk some more.
+
+"Ye'll have to wash that window today," he said after a pause.
+"Major's likely to come round here any time.... Ought to have been
+done yesterday."
+
+"All right," said Fuselli dully.
+
+He slouched over to the corner of the room, got the worn broom and
+began sweeping down the stairs. The dust rose about him, making
+him cough. He stopped and leaned on the broom. He thought of all
+the days that had gone by since he'd last seen those fellows,
+Andrews and Chrisfield, at training camp in America; and of all
+the days that would go by. He started sweeping again, sweeping the
+dust down from stair to stair.
+
+
+
+Fuselli sat on the end of his bunk. He had just shaved. It was a
+Sunday morning and he looked forward to having the afternoon off.
+He rubbed his face on his towel and got to his feet. Outside, the
+rain fell in great silvery sheets, so that the noise on the tar-
+paper roof of the barracks was almost deafening.
+
+Fuselli noticed, at the other end of the row of bunks, a group of
+men who all seemed to be looking at the same thing. Rolling down
+his sleeves, with his tunic hitched over one arm, he walked down
+to see what was the matter. Through the patter of the rain, he
+heard a thin voice say:
+
+"It ain't no use, sergeant, I'm sick. I ain't a' goin' to get up."
+
+"The kid's crazy," someone beside Fuselli said, turning
+away.
+
+"You get up this minute," roared the sergeant. He was a big man
+with black hair who looked like a lumberman. He stood over the
+bunk. In the bunk at the end of a bundle of blankets was the
+chalk-white face of Stockton. The boy's teeth were clenched, and
+his eyes were round and protruding, it seemed from terror.
+
+"You get out o' bed this minute," roared the sergeant again.
+
+The boy; was silent; his white cheeks quivered.
+
+"What the hell's the matter with him?"
+
+"Why don't you yank him out yourself, Sarge?"
+
+"You get out of bed this minute," shouted the sergeant again,
+paying no attention.
+
+The men gathered about walked away. Fuselli watched fascinated
+from a little distance.
+
+"All right, then, I'll get the lieutenant. This is a court-martial
+offence. Here, Morton and Morrison, you're guards over this man."
+
+The boy lay still in his blankets. He closed his eyes. By the way
+the blanket rose and fell over his chest, they could see that he
+was breathing heavily.
+
+"Say, Stockton, why don't you get up, you fool?"' said Fuselli.
+"You can't buck the whole army."
+
+The boy didn't answer.
+
+Fuselli walked away.
+
+"He's crazy," he muttered.
+
+The lieutenant was a stoutish red-faced man who came in puffing
+followed by the tall sergeant. He stopped and shook the water off
+his Campaign hat. The rain kept up its deafening patter on the
+roof.
+
+"Look here, are you sick? If you are, report sick call at once,"
+said the lieutenant in an elaborately kind voice.
+
+The boy looked at him dully and did not answer.
+
+"You should get up and stand at attention when an officer speaks
+to you.
+
+"I ain't goin' to get up," came the thin voice.
+
+The officer's red face became crimson.
+
+"Sergeant, what's the matter with the man?" he asked in a furious
+tone.
+
+"I can't do anything with him, lieutenant. I think he's gone
+crazy."
+
+"Rubbish.... Mere insubordination.... You're under arrest, d'ye
+hear?" he shouted towards the bed.
+
+There was no answer. The rain pattered hard on the roof.
+
+"Have him brought down to the guardhouse, by force if necessary,"
+snapped the lieutenant. He strode towards the door. "And sergeant,
+start drawing up court-martial papers at once." The door slammed
+behind him.
+
+"Now you've got to get him up," said the sergeant to the two
+guards.
+
+Fuselli walked away.
+
+"Ain't some people damn fools?" he said to a man at the other end
+of the barracks. He stood looking out of the window at the bright
+sheets of the rain.
+
+"Well, get him up," shouted the sergeant.
+
+The boy lay with his eyes closed, his chalk-white face half-hidden
+by the blankets; he was very still.
+
+"Well, will you get up and go to the guardhouse, or have we to
+carry you there?" shouted the sergeant.
+
+The guards laid hold of him gingerly and pulled him up to a
+sitting posture.
+
+"All right, yank him out of bed."
+
+The frail form in khaki shirt and whitish drawers was held up for
+a moment between the two men. Then it fell a limp heap on the
+floor.
+
+"Say, Sarge, he's fainted."
+
+"The hell he has.... Say, Morrison, ask one of the orderlies to
+come up from the Infirmary."
+
+"He ain't fainted.... The kid's dead," said the other man.
+
+"Give me a hand."
+
+The sergeant helped lift the body on the bed again. "Well, I'll be
+goddamned," said the sergeant.
+
+The eyes had opened. They covered the head with a blanket.
+
+
+
+                     PART THREE: MACHINES
+
+                            I
+
+The fields and the misty blue-green woods slipped by slowly as the
+box car rumbled and jolted over the rails, now stopping for hours
+on sidings amid meadows, where it was quiet and where above the
+babel of voices of the regiment you could hear the skylarks, now
+clattering fast over bridges and along the banks of jade-green
+rivers where the slim poplars were just coming into leaf and where
+now and then a fish jumped. The men crowded in the door, grimy and
+tired, leaning on each other's shoulders and watching the plowed
+lands slip by and the meadows where the golden-green grass was
+dappled with buttercups, and the villages of huddled red roofs
+lost among pale budding trees and masses of peach blossom. Through
+the smells of steam and coal smoke and of unwashed bodies in
+uniforms came smells of moist fields and of manure from fresh-
+sowed patches and of cows and pasture lands just coming into
+flower.
+
+"Must be right smart o'craps in this country.... Ain't like that
+damn Polignac, Andy?" said Chrisfield.
+
+"Well, they made us drill so hard there wasn't any time for the
+grass to grow."
+
+"You're damn right there warn't."
+
+"Ah'd lak te live in this country a while," said Chrisfield.
+
+"We might ask 'em to let us off right here."
+
+"Can't be that the front's like this," said Judkins, poking
+his head out between Andrews's and Chrisfield's heads so that the
+bristles of his unshaven chin rubbed against Chrisfield's cheek.
+It was a large square head with closely cropped light hair and
+porcelain-blue eyes under lids that showed white in the red
+sunburned face, and a square jaw made a little grey by the
+sprouting beard.
+
+"Say, Andy, how the hell long have we all been in this goddam
+train?... Ah've done lost track o' the time...."
+
+"What's the matter; are you gettin' old, Chris?" asked Judkins
+laughing.
+
+Chrisfield had slipped out of the place he held and began poking
+himself in between Andrews and Judkins.
+
+"We've been on this train four days and five nights, an' we've got
+half a day's rations left, so we must be getting somewhere," said
+Andrews.
+
+"It can't be like this at the front."
+
+"It must be spring there as well as here," said Andrews.
+
+It was a day of fluffy mauve-tinted clouds that moved across the
+sky, sometimes darkening to deep blue where a small rainstorm
+trailed across the hills, sometimes brightening to moments of
+clear sunlight that gave blue shadows to the poplars and shone
+yellow on the smoke of the engine that puffed on painfully at the
+head of the long train.
+
+"Funny, ain't it? How li'l everythin' is," said Chrisfield. "Out
+Indiana way we wouldn't look at a cornfield that size. But it sort
+o' reminds me the way it used to be out home in the spring o' the
+year."
+
+"I'd like to see Indiana in the springtime," said Andrews.
+
+"Well you'll come out when the war's over and us guys is all
+home...won't you, Andy?"
+
+"You bet I will."
+
+They were going into the suburbs of a town. Rows and clusters of
+little brick and stucco houses were appearing along the roads. It
+began to rain from a sky full of lights of amber and lilac color.
+The slate roofs and the pinkish-grey streets of the town shone
+cheerfully in the rain. The little patches of garden were all
+vivid emerald-green. Then they were looking at rows and rows of
+red chimney pots over wet slate roofs that reflected the bright
+sky. In the distance rose the purple-grey spire of a church and
+the irregular forms of old buildings. They passed through a
+station.
+
+"Dijon," read Andrews. On the platform were French soldiers in
+their blue coats and a good sprinkling of civilians.
+
+"Gee, those are about the first real civies I've seen since I came
+overseas," said Judkins. "Those goddam country people down at
+Polignac didn't look like real civilians. There's folks dressed
+like it was New York."
+
+They had left the station and were rumbling slowly past
+interminable freight trains. At last the train came to a dead
+stop.
+
+A whistle sounded.
+
+"Don't nobody get out," shouted the sergeant from the car ahead.
+
+"Hell! They keep you in this goddam car like you was a convict,"
+muttered Chrisfield.
+
+"I'd like to get out and walk around Dijon."
+
+"O boy!"
+
+"I swear I'd make a bee line for a dairy lunch," said Judkins.
+
+"Hell of a fine dairy lunch you'll find among those goddam frogs.
+No, vin blank is all you'ld get in that goddam town."
+
+"Ah'm goin' to sleep," said Chrisfield. He stretched himself out
+on the pile of equipment at the end of the car. Andrews sat down
+near him and stared at his mud-caked boots, running one of his
+long hands, as brown as Chrisfield's now, through his light short-
+cut hair.
+
+Chrisfield lay looking at the gaunt outline of Andrews's face
+against the light through half-closed eyes. And he felt a warm
+sort of a smile inside him as he said to himself: "He's a damn
+good kid." Then he thought of the spring in the hills of southern
+Indiana and the mocking-bird singing in the moonlight among the
+flowering locust trees behind the house. He could almost smell the
+heavy sweetness of the locust blooms, as he used to smell them
+sitting on the steps after supper, tired from a day's heavy
+plowing, while the clatter of his mother's housework came from the
+kitchen. He didn't wish he was back there, but it was pleasant to
+think of it now and then, and how the yellow farmhouse looked and
+the red barn where his father never had been able to find time to
+paint the door, and the tumble-down cowshed where the shingles
+were always coming off. He wondered dully what it would be like
+out there at the front. It couldn't be green and pleasant, the way
+the country was here. Fellows always said it was hell out there.
+Well, he didn't give a damn. He went to sleep.
+
+He woke up gradually, the warm comfort of sleep giving place
+slowly to the stiffness of his uncomfortable position with the
+hobnails of a boot from the back of a pack sticking into his
+shoulder. Andrews was sitting in the same position, lost in
+thought. The rest of the men sat at the open doors or sprawled
+over the equipment.
+
+Chrisfield got up, stretched himself, yawned, and went to the door
+to look out. There was a heavy important step on the gravel
+outside. A large man with black eyebrows that met over his nose
+and a very black stubbly beard passed the car. There were a
+sergeants stripes on his arm.
+
+"Say, Andy," cried Chrisfield, "that bastard is a sergeant."
+
+"Who's that?" asked Andrews getting up with a smile, his blue eyes
+looking mildly into Chrisfield's black ones.
+
+"You know who Ah mean."
+
+Under their heavy tan Chrisfield's rounded cheeks were
+flushed. His eyes snapped under their long black lashes. His fists
+were clutched.
+
+"Oh, I know, Chris. I didn't know he was in this regiment."
+
+"God damn him!" muttered Chrisfield in a low voice, throwing
+himself down on his packs again.
+
+"Hold your horses, Chris," said Andrews. "We may all cash in our
+checks before long...no use letting things worry us."
+
+"I don't give a damn if we do."
+
+"Nor do I, now." Andrews sat down beside Chrisfield again.
+
+After a while the train got jerkily into motion. The wheels
+rumbled and clattered over the rails and the clots of mud bounced
+up and down on the splintered boards of the floor. Chrisfield
+pillowed his head on his arm and went to sleep again, still
+smarting from the flush of his anger.
+
+Andrews looked out through his fingers at the swaying black box
+car, at the men sprawled about on the floor, their heads nodding
+with each jolt, and at the mauve-grey clouds and bits of sparkling
+blue sky that he could see behind the silhouettes of the heads and
+shoulders of the men who stood in the doors. The wheels ground on
+endlessly.
+
+
+
+The car stopped with a jerk that woke up all the sleepers and
+threw one man off his feet. A whistle blew shrilly outside.
+
+"All right, out of the cars! Snap it up; snap it up!" yelled the
+sergeant.
+
+The men piled out stiffly, handing the equipment out from hand to
+hand till it formed a confused heap of packs and rifles outside.
+All down the train at each door there was a confused pile of
+equipment and struggling men.
+
+"Snap it up.... Full equipment.... Line up!" the sergeant yelled.
+
+The men fell into line slowly, with their packs and rifles.
+Lieutenants hovered about the edges of the forming lines, tightly
+belted into their stiff trench coats, scrambling up and down the
+coal piles of the siding. The men were given "at ease" and stood
+leaning on their rifles staring at a green water-tank on three
+wooden legs, over the top of which had been thrown a huge piece of
+torn grey cheesecloth. When the confused sound of tramping feet
+subsided, they could hear a noise in the distance, like someone
+lazily shaking a piece of heavy sheet-iron. The sky was full of
+little dabs of red, purple and yellow and the purplish sunset
+light was over everything.
+
+The order came to march. They marched down a rutted road where the
+puddles were so deep they had continually to break ranks to avoid
+them. In a little pine-wood on one side were rows of heavy motor
+trucks and ammunition caissons; supper was cooking in a field
+kitchen about which clustered the truck drivers in their wide
+visored caps. Beyond the wood the column turned off into a field
+behind a little group of stone and stucco houses that had lost
+their roofs. In the field they halted. The grass was brilliant
+emerald and the wood and the distant hills were shades of clear
+deep blue. Wisps of pale-blue mist lay across the field. In the
+turf here and there were small clean bites, that might have been
+made by some strange animal. The men looked at them curiously.
+
+"No lights, remember we're in sight of the enemy. A match might
+annihilate the detachment," announced the lieutenant dramatically
+after having given the orders for the pup tents to be set up.
+
+When the tents were ready, the men stood about in the chilly white
+mist that kept growing denser, eating their cold rations.
+Everywhere were grumbling snorting voices.
+
+"God, let's turn in, Chris, before our bones are frozen," said
+Andrews.
+
+Guards had been posted and walked up and down with a business-like
+stride, peering now and then suspiciously into the little wood
+where the truck-drivers were.
+
+Chrisfield and Andrews crawled into their little tent and rolled
+up together in their blankets, getting as close to each other as
+they could. At first it was very cold and hard, and they squirmed
+about restlessly, but gradually the warmth from their bodies
+filled their thin blankets and their muscles began to relax.
+Andrews went to sleep first and Chrisfield lay listening to his
+deep breathing. There was a frown on his face. He was thinking of
+the man who had walked past the train at Dijon. The last time he
+had seen that man Anderson was at training camp. He had only been
+a corporal then. He remembered the day the man had been made
+corporal. It had not been long before that that Chrisfield had
+drawn his knife on him, one night in the barracks. A fellow had
+caught his hand just in time. Anderson had looked a bit pale that
+time and had walked away. But he'd never spoken a word to
+Chrisfield since. As he lay with his eyes closed, pressed close
+against Andrew's limp  sleeping body, Chrisfield could see the
+man's face, the eyebrows that joined across the nose and the jaw,
+always blackish from the heavy beard, that looked blue when he had
+just shaved. At last the tenseness of his mind slackened; he
+thought of women for a moment, of a fair-haired girl he'd seen
+from the tram, and then suddenly crushing sleepiness closed down
+on him and everything went softly warmly black, as he drifted off
+to sleep with no sense but the coldness of one side and the warmth
+of his bunkie's body on the other.
+
+In the middle of the night he awoke and crawled out of the tent.
+Andrews followed him. Their teeth chattered a little, and they
+stretched their legs stiffly. It was cold, but the mist had
+vanished. The stars shone brilliantly. They walked out a little
+way into the field away from the bunch of tents to make water. A
+faint rustling and breathing noise, as of animals. herded
+together, came from the sleeping regiment. Somewhere a brook made
+a shrill gurgling. They strained their ears, but they could hear
+no guns. They stood side by side looking up at the multitudes of
+stars.
+
+"That's Orion," said Andrews.
+
+"What?"
+
+"That bunch of stars there is called Orion. D'you see 'em. It's
+supposed to look like a man with a bow, but he always looks to me
+like a fellow striding across the sky."
+
+"Some stars tonight, ain't there? Gee, what's that?"
+
+Behind the dark hills a glow rose and fell like the glow in a
+forge.
+
+"The front must be that way," said Andrews, shivering. "I guess
+we'll know tomorrow."
+
+"Yes; tomorrow night we'll know more about it," said Andrews.
+They stood silent a moment listening to the noise the brook made.
+
+"God, it's quiet, ain't it? This can't be the front. Smell that?"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Smells like an apple tree in bloom somewhere.... Hell, let's git
+in, before our blankets git cold."
+
+Andrews was still staring at the group of stars he had said was
+Orion.
+
+Chrisfield pulled him by the arm. They crawled into their tent
+again, rolled up together and immediately were crushed under an
+exhausted sleep.
+
+
+
+As far ahead of him as Chrisfield could see were packs and heads
+with caps at a variety of angles, all bobbing up and down with the
+swing of the brisk marching time. A fine warm rain was falling,
+mingling with the sweat that ran down his face. The column had
+been marching a long time along a straight road that was worn and
+scarred with heavy traffic. Fields and hedges where clusters of
+yellow flowers were in bloom had given place to an avenue of
+poplars. The light wet trunks and the stiff branches hazy with
+green filed by, interminable, as interminable as the confused
+tramp of feet and jingle of equipment that sounded in his ears.
+
+"Say, are we goin' towards the front?"
+
+"Goddamned if I know."
+
+"Ain't no front within miles."
+
+Men's sentences came shortly through their heavy breathing.
+
+The column shifted over to the side of the road to avoid a train
+of motor trucks going the other way. Chrisfield felt the heavy mud
+spurt up over him as truck after truck rumbled by. With the wet
+back of one hand he tried to wipe it off his face, but the grit,
+when he rubbed it, hurt his skin, made tender by the rain. He
+swore long and whiningly, half aloud. His rifle felt as heavy as
+an iron girder.
+
+They entered a village of plaster-and-timber houses. Through  open
+doors they could see into comfortable kitchens where copper pots
+gleamed and where the floors were of clean red tiles. In front of
+some of the houses were little gardens full of crocuses and
+hyacinths where box-bushes shone a very dark green in the rain.
+They marched through the square with its pavement of little yellow
+rounded cobbles, its grey church with a pointed arch in the door,
+its cafes with names painted over them. Men and women looked out
+of doors and windows. The column perceptibly slackened its speed,
+but kept on, and as the houses dwindled and became farther apart
+along the road the men's hope of stopping vanished. Ears were
+deafened by the confused tramp of feet on the macadam road. Men's
+feet seemed as lead, as if all the weight of the pack hung on
+them. Shoulders, worn callous, began to grow tender and sore under
+the constant sweating. Heads drooped. Each man's eyes were on the
+heels of the man ahead of him that rose and fell, rose and fell
+endlessly. Marching became for each man a personal struggle with
+his pack, that seemed to have come alive, that seemed something
+malicious and overpowering, wrestling to throw him.
+
+The rain stopped and the sky brightened a little, taking on pale
+yellowish lights as if the clouds that hid the sun were growing
+thin.
+
+The column halted at the edge of a group of farms and barns that
+scattered along the road. The men sprawled in all directions along
+the roadside hiding the bright green grass with the mud-color of
+their uniforms.
+
+Chrisfield lay in the field beside the road, pressing his hot face
+into the wet sprouting clover. The blood throbbed through his
+ears. His arms and legs seemed to cleave to the ground, as if he
+would never be able to move them again. He closed his eyes.
+Gradually a cold chill began stealing through his body. He sat up
+and slipped his arms out of the harness of his pack. Someone was
+handing him a cigarette, and he sniffed a little acrid sweet
+smoke.
+
+Andrews was lying beside him, his head propped against his pack,
+smoking, and poking a cigarette towards his friend with a muddy
+hand. His blue eyes looked strangely from out the flaming red of
+his mud-splotched face.
+
+Chrisfield took the cigarette, and fumbled in his pocket for a
+match.
+
+"That nearly did it for me," said Andrews.
+
+Chrisfield grunted. He pulled greedily on the cigarette.
+
+A whistle blew.
+
+Slowly the men dragged themselves off the ground and fell into
+line, drooping under the weight of their equipment.
+
+The companies marched off separately.
+
+Chrisfield overheard the lieutenant saying to a sergeant:
+
+"Damn fool business that. Why the hell couldn't they have sent us
+here in the first place?"
+
+"So we ain't goin' to the front after all?" said the sergeant.
+
+"Front, hell!" said the lieutenant. The lieutenant was a small man
+who looked like a jockey with a coarse red face which, now that he
+was angry, was almost purple.
+
+"I guess they're going to quarter us here," said somebody.
+
+Immediately everybody began saying: "We're going to be quartered
+here."
+
+They stood waiting in formation a long while, the packs cutting
+into their backs and shoulders. At last the sergeant shouted out:
+
+"All right, take yer stuff upstairs." Stumbling on each others'
+heels they climbed up into a dark loft, where the air was heavy
+with the smell of hay and with an acridity of cow manure from the
+stables below. There was a little straw in the corners, on which
+those who got there first spread their blankets.
+
+Chrisfield and Andrews tucked themselves in a corner from which
+through a hole where the tiles had fallen off the roof, they could
+see down into the barnyard, where white and speckled chickens
+pecked about with jerky movements. A middle-aged woman stood in
+the doorway of the house looking suspiciously at the files of
+khaki-clad soldiers that shuffled slowly into the barns by every
+door.
+
+An officer went up to her, a little red book in his hand. A
+conversation about some matter proceeded painfully. The officer
+grew very red. Andrews threw back his head and laughed,
+luxuriously rolling from side to side in the straw. Chrisfield
+laughed too, he hardly knew why. Over their heads they could hear
+the feet of pigeons on the roof, and a constant drowsy rou-cou-
+cou-cou.
+
+Through the barnyard smells began to drift...the greasiness of
+food cooking in the field kitchen.
+
+"Ah hope they give us somethin' good to eat," said Chrisfield.
+"Ah'm hongry as a thrasher."
+
+"So am I," said Andrews.
+
+"Say, Andy, you kin talk their language a li'l', can't ye?"
+
+Andrews nodded his head vaguely.
+
+"Well, maybe we kin git some aigs or somethin' out of the lady
+down there. Will ye try after mess?"
+
+"All right."
+
+They both lay back in the straw and closed their eyes. Their
+cheeks still burned from the rain. Everything seemed very
+peaceful; the men sprawled about talking in low drowsy voices.
+Outside, another shower had come up and beat softly on the tiles
+of the roof. Chrisfield thought he had never been so comfortable
+in his life, although his soaked shoes pinched his cold feet and
+his knees were wet and cold. But in the drowsiness of the rain and
+of voices talking quietly about him, he fell asleep.
+
+He dreamed he was home in Indiana, but instead of his mother
+cooking at the stove in the kitchen, there was the Frenchwoman who
+had stood in the farmhouse door, and near her stood a lieutenant
+with a little red book in his hand. He was eating cornbread and
+syrup off a broken plate. It was fine cornbread with a great deal
+of crust on it, crisp and hot, on which the butter was cold and
+sweet to his tongue. Suddenly he stopped eating and started
+swearing, shouting at the top of his lungs: "You goddam..." he
+started, but he couldn't seem to think of anything more to say.
+"You goddam..." he started again. The lieutenant looked towards
+him, wrinkling his black eyebrows that met across his nose. He was
+Sergeant Anderson. Chris drew his knife and ran at him, but it was
+Andy his bunkie he had run his knife into. He threw his arms round
+Andy's body, crying hot tears.... He woke up. Mess kits were
+clinking all about the dark crowded loft. The men had already
+started piling down the stairs.
+
+
+
+The larks filled the wine-tinged air with a constant chiming of
+little bells. Chrisfield and Andrews were strolling across a field
+of white clover that covered the brow of a hill. Below in the
+valley they could see a cluster of red roofs of farms and the
+white ribbon of the road where long trains of motor trucks crawled
+like beetles. The sun had just set behind the blue hills the other
+side of the shallow valley. The air was full of the smell of
+clover and of hawthorn from the hedgerows. They took deep breaths
+as they crossed the field.
+
+"It's great to get away from that crowd," Andrews was saying.
+
+Chrisfield walked on silently, dragging his feet through the
+matted clover. A leaden dullness weighed like some sort of warm
+choking coverlet on his limbs, so that it seemed an effort to
+walk, an effort to speak. Yet under it his muscles were taut and
+trembling as he had known them to be before when he was about to
+get into a fight or to make love to a girl.
+
+"Why the hell don't they let us git into it?" he said suddenly.
+
+"Yes, anything'ld be better than this...wait, wait, wait."
+
+They walked on, hearing the constant chirrup of the larks, the
+brush of their feet through the clover, the faint jingle of some
+coins in Chrisfield's pocket, and in the distance the irregular
+snoring of an aeroplane motor. As they walked Andrews leaned over
+from time to time and picked a couple of the white clover flowers.
+
+The aeroplane came suddenly nearer and swooped in a wide curve
+above the field, drowning every sound in the roar of its exhaust.
+They made out the figures of the  pilot and the observer before
+the plane rose again and vanished against the ragged purple clouds
+of the sky. The observer had waved a hand at them as he passed.
+They stood still in the darkening field, staring up at the sky,
+where a few larks still hung chirruping.
+
+"Ah'd lahk to be one o' them guys," said Chrisfield.
+
+"You would?"
+
+"God damn it, Ah'd do anything to git out o' this hellish
+infantry. This ain't no sort o' life for a man to be treated lahk
+he was a nigger."
+
+"No, it's no sort of life for a man."
+
+"If they'd let us git to the front an' do some fightin' an' be
+done with it.... But all we do is drill and have grenade practice
+an' drill again and then have bayonet practice an' drill again.
+'Nough to drive a feller crazy."
+
+"What the hell's the use of talking about it, Chris? We can't be
+any lower than we are, can we?" Andrews laughed.
+
+"There's that plane again."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"There, just goin' down behind the piece o' woods."
+
+"That's where their field is."
+
+"Ah bet them guys has a good time. Ah put in an application back
+in trainin' camp for Aviation. Ain't never heard nothing from it
+though. If Ah had, Ah wouldn't be lower than dirt in this hawg-
+pen."
+
+"It's wonderful up here on the hill this evening," said Andrews,
+looking dreamily at the pale orange band of light where the sun
+had set. "Let's go down and get a bottle of wine."
+
+"Now yo're talkin'. Ah wonder if that girl's down there tonight."
+
+"Antoinette?"
+
+"Um-hum.... Boy, Ah'd lahk to have her all by ma-self some night."
+
+Their steps grew brisker as they strode along a grass-grown road
+that led through high hedgerows to a village under the brow of the
+hill. It was almost dark under the shadow of the bushes on either
+side. Overhead the purple clouds were washed over by a pale yellow
+light that gradually faded to grey. Birds chirped and rustled
+among the young leaves.
+
+Andrews put his hand on Chrisfield's shoulder.
+
+"Let's walk slow," he said, "we don't want to get out of here too
+soon." He grabbed carelessly at little cluster of hawthorn flowers
+as he passed them, and seemed reluctant to untangle the thorny
+branches that caught in his coat and on his loosely wound puttees.
+
+"Hell, man," said Chrisfield, "we won't have time to get a
+bellyful. It must be gettin' late already."
+
+They hastened their steps again and came in a moment to the first
+tightly shuttered houses of the village.
+
+In the middle of the road was an M.P., who stood with his legs
+wide apart, waving his "billy" languidly. He had a red face, his
+eyes were fixed on the shuttered upper window of a house, through
+the chinks of which came a few streaks of yellow light. His lips
+were puckered up as if to whistle, but no sound came. He swayed
+back and forth indecisively. An officer came suddenly out of the
+little green door of the house in front of the M.P., who brought
+his heels together with a jump and saluted, holding his hand a
+long while to his cap. The officer flicked a hand up hastily to
+his hat, snatching his cigar out of his mouth for an instant. As
+the officer's steps grew fainter down the road, the M.P. gradually
+returned to his former position.
+
+Chrisfield and Andrews had slipped by on the other side, and gone
+in at the door of a small ramshackle house of which the windows
+were closed by heavy wooden shutters.
+
+"I bet there ain't many of them bastards at the front," said
+Chris.
+
+"Not many of either kind of bastards," said Andrews laughing, as
+he closed the door behind them. They were in a room that had once
+been the parlor of a farmhouse. The chandelier with its bits of
+crystal and the orange-blossoms on a piece of dusty red velvet
+under a bell glass on the mantelpiece denoted that. The furniture
+had been taken out, and four square oak tables crowded in. At one
+of the tables sat three Americans and at another a very young
+olive-skinned French soldier, who sat hunched over his table
+looking moodily down into his glass of wine.
+
+A girl in a faded frock of some purplish material that showed the
+strong curves of her shoulders and breasts slouched into the room,
+her hands in the pocket of a dark blue apron against which her
+rounded forearms showed golden brown. Her face had the same golden
+tan under a mass of dark blonde hair. She smiled when she saw the
+two soldiers, drawing her thin lips away from her ugly yellow
+teeth.
+
+"Ca va bien, Antoinette?" asked Andrews.
+
+"Oui," she said, looking beyond their heads at the French soldier
+who sat at the other side of the little room.
+
+"A bottle of vin rouge, vite," said Chrisfield.
+
+"Ye needn't be so damn vite about it tonight, Chris," said one of
+the men at the other table.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Ain't a-goin' to be no roll call. Corporal tole me his-self.
+Sarge's gone out to git stewed, an' the Loot's away."
+
+"Sure," said another man, "we kin stay out as late's we goddam
+please tonight."
+
+"There's a new M.P. in town," said Chrisfield.... "Ah saw him
+maself.... You did, too, didn't you, Andy?"
+
+Andrews nodded. He was looking at the Frenchman, who sat with his
+face in shadow and his black lashes covering his eyes. A purplish
+flash had suffused the olive skin at his cheekbones.
+
+"Oh, boy," said Chrisfield. "That ole wine sure do go down
+fast.... Say, Antoinette, got any cognac?"
+
+"I'm going to have some more wine," said Andrews.
+
+"Go ahead, Andy; have all ye want. Ah want some-thin' to warm ma
+guts."
+
+Antoinette brought a bottle of cognac and two small glasses and
+sat down in an empty chair with her red hands crossed on her
+apron. Her eyes moved from Chrisfield to the Frenchman and back
+again.
+
+Chrisfield turned a little round in his chair and looked at the
+Frenchman, feeling in his eyes for a moment a glance of the man's
+yellowish-brown eyes.
+
+Andrews leaned back against the wall sipping his dark-colored
+wine, his eyes contracted dreamily, fixed on the shadow of the
+chandelier, which the cheap oil-lamp with its tin reflector cast
+on the peeling plaster of the wall opposite.
+
+Chrisfield punched him.
+
+"Wake up, Andy, are you asleep?"
+
+"No," said Andy smiling.
+
+"Have a li'l mo' cognac."
+
+Chrisfield poured out two more glasses unsteadily. His eyes were
+on Antoinette again. The faded purple frock was hooked at the
+neck. The first three hooks were undone revealing a V-shape of
+golden brown skin and a bit of whitish underwear.
+
+"Say, Andy," he said, putting his arm round his friend's neck and
+talking into his ear, "talk up to her for me, will yer, Andy?...
+Ah won't let that goddam frog get her, no, I won't, by Gawd. Talk
+up to her for me, Andy."
+
+Andrews laughed.
+
+"I'll try," he said. "But there's always the Queen of Sheba,
+Chris."
+
+"Antoinette, j'ai un ami," started Andrews, making a gesture with
+a long dirty hand towards Chris.
+
+Antoinette showed her bad teeth in a smile.
+
+"Joli garcon," said Andrews.
+
+Antoinette's face became impassive and beautiful again. Chrisfield
+leaned back in his chair with an empty glass in his hand and
+watched his friend admiringly.
+
+"Antoinette, mon ami vous...vous admire," said Andrews in a
+courtly voice.
+
+A woman put her head in the door. It was the same face and hair as
+Antoinette's, ten years older, only the skin, instead of being
+golden brown, was sallow and wrinkled.
+
+"Viens," said the woman in a shrill voice.
+
+Antoinette got up, brushed heavily against Chrisfield's leg as she
+passed him and disappeared. The Frenchman walked across the room
+from his corner, saluted gravely and went out.
+
+Chrisfield jumped to his feet. The room was like a white box
+reeling about him.
+
+"That frog's gone after her," he shouted.
+
+"No, he ain't, Chris," cried someone from the next table. "Sit
+tight, ole boy. We're bettin' on yer."
+
+"Yes, sit down and have a drink, Chris," said Andy. "I've got to
+have somethin' more to drink. I haven't had a thing to drink all
+the evening." He pulled him back into his chair. Chrisfield tried
+to get up again. Andrews hung on him so that the chair upset. Then
+both sprawled on the red tiles of the floor.
+
+"The house is pinched!" said a voice.
+
+Chrisfield saw Judkins standing over him, a grin on his large red
+face. He got to his feet and sat sulkily in his chair again.
+Andrews was already sitting opposite him, looking impassive as
+ever.
+
+The tables were full now. Someone was singing in a droning voice.
+
+"O the oak and the ash and the weeping willow tree,
+ O green grows the grass in God's countree!"
+
+"Ole Indiana," shouted Chris. "That's the only God's country I
+know." He suddenly felt that he could tell Andy all about his home
+and the wide corn-fields shimmering and rustling under the July
+sun, and the creek with red clay banks where he used to go in
+swimming. He seemed to see it all before him, to smell the winey
+smell of the silo, to see the cattle, with their chewing mouths
+always stained a little with green, waiting to get through the
+gate to the water trough, and the yellow dust and roar of wheat-
+thrashing, and the quiet evening breeze cooling his throat and
+neck when he lay out on a shack of hay that he had been tossing
+all day long under the tingling sun. But all he managed to say
+was:
+
+"Indiana's God's country, ain't it, Andy?"
+
+"Oh, he has so many," muttered Andrews.
+
+"Ah've seen a hailstone measured nine inches around out home,
+honest to Gawd, Ah have."
+
+"Must be as good as a barrage."
+
+"Ah'd like to see any goddam barrage do the damage one of our
+thunder an' lightnin' storms'll do," shouted Chris.
+
+"I guess all the barrage we're going to see's grenade practice."
+
+"Don't you worry, buddy," said somebody across the room.
+
+"You'll see enough of it. This war's going to last damn long...."
+
+"Ah'd lak to get in some licks at those Huns tonight; honest to
+Gawd Ah would, Andy," muttered Chris in a low voice. He felt his
+muscles contract with a furious irritation. He looked through
+half-closed eyes at the men in the room, seeing them in distorted
+white lights and reddish shadows. He thought of himself throwing a
+grenade among a crowd of men. Then he saw the face of Anderson, a
+ponderous white face with eyebrows that met across his nose and a
+bluish, shaved chin.
+
+"Where does he stay at, Andy? I'm going to git him."
+
+Andrews guessed what he meant.
+
+"Sit down and have a drink, Chris," he said, "Remember you're
+going to sleep with the Queen of Sheba tonight."
+
+"Not if I can't git them goddam...." his voice trailed off into an
+inaudible muttering of oaths.
+
+"O the oak and the ash and the weeping willow tree,
+ O green grows the grass in God's countree!"
+
+somebody sang again.
+
+Chrisfield saw a woman standing beside the table with her back to
+him, collecting the bottles. Andy was paying her.
+
+"Antoinette," he said. He got to his feet and put his arms round
+her shoulders. With a quick movement of the elbows she pushed him
+back into his chair. She turned round. He saw the sallow face and
+thin breasts of the older sister. She looked in his eyes with
+surprise. He was grinning drunkenly. As she left the room she made
+a sign to him with her head to follow her. He got up and staggered
+out the door, pulling Andrews after him.
+
+In the inner room was a big bed with curtains where the women
+slept, and the fireplace where they did their cooking. It was dark
+except for the corner where he and Andrews stood blinking in the
+glare of a candle on the table. Beyond they could only see ruddy
+shadows and the huge curtained bed with its red coverlet.
+
+The Frenchman, somewhere in the dark of the room, said something
+several times.
+
+"Avions boches...ss-t!"
+
+They were quiet.
+
+Above them they heard the snoring of aeroplane motors, rising and
+falling like the buzzing of a fly against a window pane.
+
+They all looked at each other curiously. Antoinette was leaning
+against the bed, her face expressionless. Her heavy hair had come
+undone and fell in smoky gold waves about her shoulders.
+
+The older woman was giggling.
+
+"Come on, let's see what's doing, Chris," said Andrews.
+
+They went out into the dark village street.
+
+"To hell with women, Chris, this is the war!" cried Andrews in a
+loud drunken voice as they reeled arm in arm up the street.
+
+"You bet it's the war.... Ah'm a-goin' to beat up...."
+
+Chrisfield felt his friend's hand clapped over his mouth. He let
+himself go limply, feeling himself pushed to the side of the road.
+
+Somewhere in the dark he heard an officer's voice say:
+
+"Bring those men to me."
+
+"Yes, sir," came another voice.
+
+Slow heavy footsteps came up the road in their direction. Andrews
+kept pushing him back along the side of a house, until suddenly
+they both fell sprawling in a manure pit.
+
+"Lie still for God's sake," muttered Andrews, throwing an arm over
+Chrisfield's chest. A thick odor of dry manure filled their
+nostrils.
+
+They heard the steps come nearer, wander about irresolutely and
+then go off in the direction from which they had come.
+
+Meanwhile the throb of motors overhead grew louder and louder.
+
+"Well?" came the officer's voice.
+
+"Couldn't find them, sir," mumbled the other voice.
+
+"Nonsense. Those men were drunk," came the officer's voice.
+
+"Yes, sir," came the other voice humbly.
+
+Chrisfield started to giggle. He felt he must yell aloud with
+laughter.
+
+The nearest motor stopped its singsong roar, making the night seem
+deathly silent.
+
+Andrews jumped to his feet.
+
+The air was split by a shriek followed by a racking snorting
+explosion. They saw the wall above their pit light up with a red
+momentary glare.
+
+Chrisfield got to his feet, expecting to see flaming ruins. The
+village street was the same as ever. There was a little light from
+the glow the moon, still under the horizon, gave to the sky. A
+window in the house opposite showed yellow. In it was a blue
+silhouette of an officer's cap and uniform.
+
+A little group stood in the street below.
+
+"What was that?" the form in the window was shouting in a
+peremptory voice.
+
+"German aeroplane just dropped a bomb, Major," came a breathless
+voice in reply.
+
+"Why the devil don't he close that window?" a voice was muttering
+all the while. "Juss a target for 'em to aim at...a target to aim
+at."
+
+"Any damage done?" asked the major.
+
+Through the silence the snoring of the motors sing-songed
+ominously overhead, like giant mosquitoes.
+
+"I seem to hear more," said the major, in his drawling voice.
+
+"O yes sir, yes sir, lots," answered an eager voice.
+
+"For God's sake tell him to close the window, Lieutenant,"
+muttered another voice.
+
+"How the hell can I tell him? You tell him."
+
+"We'll all be killed, that's all there is about it."
+
+"There are no shelters or dugouts," drawled the major from the
+window. "That's Headquarters' fault."
+
+"There's the cellar!" cried the eager voice, again.
+
+"Oh," said the major.
+
+Three snorting explosions in quick succession drowned everything
+in a red glare. The street was suddenly filled with a scuttle of
+villagers running to shelter.
+
+"Say, Andy, they may have a roll call," said Chrisfield.
+
+"We'd better cut for home across country," said Andrews.
+
+They climbed cautiously out of their manure pit. Chrisfield was
+surprised to find that he was trembling. His hands were cold.
+
+It was with difficulty he kept his teeth from chattering.
+
+"God, we'll stink for a week."
+
+"Let's git out," muttered Chrisfield, "o' this goddam village."
+
+They ran out through an orchard, broke through a hedge and climbed
+up the hill across the open fields.
+
+Down the main road an anti-aircraft gun had started barking and
+the sky sparkled with exploding shrapnel. The "put, put, put" of a
+machine gun had begun somewhere. Chrisfield strode up the hill in
+step with his friend. Behind them bomb followed bomb, and above
+them the air seemed full of exploding shrapnel and droning planes.
+The cognac still throbbed a little in their blood. They stumbled
+against each other now and then as they walked. From the top of
+the hill they turned and looked back. Chrisfield felt a tremendous
+elation thumping stronger than the cognac through his veins.
+Unconsciously he put his arm round his friend's shoulders. They
+seemed the only live things in a reeling world.
+
+Below in the valley a house was burning brightly. From all
+directions came the yelp of anti-aircraft guns, and overhead
+unperturbed continued the leisurely singsong of the motors.
+
+Suddenly Chrisfield burst out laughing. "By God, Ah always have
+fun when Ah'm out with you, Andy," he said.
+
+They turned and hurried down the other slope of the hill towards
+the farms where they were quartered.
+
+
+
+                             II
+
+As far as he could see in every direction were the grey trunks of
+beeches bright green with moss on one side. The ground was thick
+with last year's leaves that rustled maddeningly with every step.
+In front of him his eyes followed other patches of olive-drab
+moving among the tree trunks. Overhead, through the mottled light
+and dark green of the leaves he could see now and then a patch of
+heavy grey sky, greyer than the silvery trunks that moved about
+him in every direction as he walked. He strained his eyes down
+each alley until they were dazzled by the reiteration of mottled
+grey and green. Now and then the rustling stopped ahead of him,
+and the olive-drab patches were still. Then, above the clamour of
+the blood in his ears, he could hear batteries "pong, pong, pong"
+in the distance, and the woods ringing with a sound like hail as a
+heavy shell hurtled above the tree tops to end in a dull rumble
+miles away.
+
+Chrisfield was soaked with sweat, but he could not feel his arms
+or legs. Every sense was concentrated in eyes and ears, and in the
+consciousness of his gun. Time and again he pictured himself
+taking sight at something grey that moved, and firing. His
+forefinger itched to press the trigger. He would take aim very
+carefully, he told himself; he pictured a dab of grey starting up
+from behind a grey tree trunk, and the sharp detonation of his
+rifle, and the dab of grey rolling among the last year's leaves.
+
+A branch carried his helmet off his head so that it rolled at his
+feet and bounced with a faint metallic sound against the root of a
+tree.
+
+He was blinded by the sudden terror that seized him. His heart
+seemed to roll from side to side in his chest. He stood stiff, as
+if paralyzed for a moment before he could stoop and pick the
+helmet up. There was a curious taste of blood in his mouth.
+
+"Ah'll pay 'em fer that," he muttered between clenched teeth.
+
+His fingers were still trembling when he stooped to pick up the
+helmet, which he put on again very carefully, fastening it with
+the strap under his chin. Furious anger had taken hold of him. The
+olive-drab patches ahead had moved forward again. He followed,
+looking eagerly to the right and the left, praying he might see
+something. In every direction were the silvery trunk of the
+beeches, each with a vivid green streak on one side. With every
+step the last year's russet leaves rustled underfoot, maddeningly
+loud.
+
+Almost out of sight among the moving tree trunks was a log. It was
+not a log; it was a bunch of grey-green cloth. Without thinking
+Chrisfield strode towards it. The silver trunks of the beeches
+circled about him, waving jagged arms. It was a German lying full
+length among the leaves.
+
+Chrisfield was furiously happy in the angry pumping of blood
+through his veins.
+
+He could see the buttons on the back of the long coat of the
+German, and the red band on his cap.
+
+He kicked the German. He could feel the ribs against his toes
+through the leather of his boot. He kicked again and again with
+all his might. The German rolled over heavily. He had no face.
+Chrisfield felt the hatred suddenly ebb out of him. Where the face
+had been was a spongy mass of purple and yellow and red, half of
+which stuck to the russet leaves when the body rolled over. Large
+flies with bright shiny green bodies circled about it. In a brown
+clay-grimed hand was a revolver.
+
+Chrisfield felt his spine go cold; the German had shot himself.
+
+He ran off suddenly, breathlessly, to join the rest of the
+reconnoitering squad. The silent beeches whirled about him, waving
+gnarled boughs above his head. The German had shot himself. That
+was why he had no face.
+
+Chrisfield fell into line behind the other men. The corporal
+waited for him.
+
+"See anything?" he asked.
+
+"Not a goddam thing," muttered Chrisfield almost inaudibly.
+The corporal went off to the head of the line. Chrisfield was
+alone again. The leaves rustled maddeningly loud underfoot.
+
+
+
+                            III
+
+Chrisfield's eyes were fixed on the leaves at the tops of the
+walnut trees, etched like metal against the bright colorless sky,
+edged with flicks and fringes of gold where the sunlight struck
+them. He stood stiff and motionless at attention, although there
+was a sharp pain in his left ankle that seemed swollen enough to
+burst the worn boot. He could feel the presence of men on both
+sides of him, and of men again beyond them. It seemed as if the
+stiff line of men in olive-drab, standing at attention, waiting
+endlessly for someone to release them from their erect paralysis,
+must stretch unbroken round the world. He let his glance fall to
+the trampled grass of the field where the regiment was drawn up.
+Somewhere behind him he could hear the clinking of spurs at some
+officer's heels. Then there was the sound of a motor on the road
+suddenly shut off, and there were steps coming down the line of
+men, and a group of officers passed hurriedly, with a business-
+like stride, as if they did nothing else all their lives.
+Chrisfield made out eagles on tight khaki shoulders, then a single
+star and a double star, above which was a red ear and some grey
+hair; the general passed too soon for him to make out his face.
+Chrisfield swore to himself a little because his ankle hurt so.
+His eyes travelled back to the fringe of the trees against the
+bright sky. So this was what he got for those weeks in dugouts,
+for all the times he had thrown himself on his belly in the mud,
+for the bullets he had shot into the unknown at grey specks that
+moved among the grey mud. Something was crawling up the middle of
+his back. He wasn't sure if it were a louse or if he were
+imagining it. An order had been shouted. Automatically he had
+changed his position to parade rest. Somewhere far away a little
+man was walking towards the long drab lines. A wind had come up,
+rustling the stiff leaves of the grove of walnut trees. The voice
+squeaked above it, but Chrisfield could not make out what it said.
+The wind in the trees made a vast rhythmic sound like the churning
+of water astern of the transport he had come over on. Gold flicks
+and olive shadows danced among the indented clusters of leaves as
+they swayed, as if sweeping something away, against the bright
+sky. An idea came into Chrisfield's head. Suppose the leaves
+should sweep in broader and broader curves until they should reach
+the ground and sweep and sweep until all this was swept away, all
+these pains and lice and uniforms and officers with maple leaves
+or eagles or single stars or double stars or triple stars on their
+shoulders. He had a sudden picture of himself in his old
+comfortable overalls, with his shirt open so that the wind
+caressed his neck like a girl blowing down it playfully, lying on
+a shuck of hay under the hot Indiana sun. Funny he'd thought all
+that, he said to himself. Before he'd known Andy he'd never have
+thought of that. What had come over him these days?
+
+The regiment was marching away in columns of fours. Chrisfield's
+ankle gave him sharp hot pain with every step. His tunic was too
+tight and the sweat tingled on his back. All about him were
+sweating irritated faces; the woollen tunics with their high
+collars were like straight-jackets that hot afternoon. Chrisfield
+marched with his fists clenched; he wanted to fight somebody, to
+run his bayonet into a man as he ran it into the dummy in that
+everlasting bayonet drill, he wanted to strip himself naked, to
+squeeze the wrists of a girl until she screamed.
+
+His company was marching past another company that was lined up to
+be dismissed in front of a ruined barn which had a roof that
+sagged in the middle like an old cow's back. The sergeant stood in
+front of them with his arms crossed, looking critically at the
+company that marched past. He had a white heavy face and black
+eyebrows that met over his nose. Chrisfield stared hard at him as
+he passed, but Sergeant Anderson did not seem to recognize him. It
+gave him a dull angry feeling as if he'd been cut by a friend.
+
+The company melted suddenly into a group of men unbuttoning their
+shirts and tunics in front of the little board shanty where they
+were quartered, which had been put up by the French at the time of
+the Marne, years before, so a man had told Andy.
+
+"What are you dreamin' about, Indiana?" said Judkins, punching
+Chrisfield jovially in the ribs.
+
+Chrisfield doubled his fists and gave him a smashing blow in the
+jaw that Judkins warded of just in time.
+
+Judkins's face flamed red. He swung with a long bent arm.
+
+"What the hell d'you think this is?" shouted somebody. "What's he
+want to hit me for?" spluttered Judkins, breathless.
+
+Men had edged in between them.
+
+"Lemme git at him."
+
+"Shut up, you fool," said Andy, drawing Chrisfield away. The
+company scattered sullenly. Some of the men lay down in the long
+uncut grass in the shade of the ruins of the house, one of the
+walls of which made a wall of the shanty where they lived.
+Andrews and Chrisfield strolled in silence down the road, kicking
+their feet into the deep dust. Chrisfield was limping. On both
+sides of the road were fields of ripe wheat, golden under the sun.
+In the distance were low green hills fading to blue, pale yellow
+in patches with the ripe grain. Here and there a thick clump of
+trees or a screen of poplars broke the flatness of the long smooth
+hills. In the hedgerows were blue cornflowers and poppies in all
+colors from carmine to orange that danced in the wind on their
+wiry stalks. At the turn in the road they lost the noise of the
+division and could hear the bees droning in the big dull purple
+cloverheads and in the gold hearts of the daisies.
+
+"You're a wild man, Chris. What the hell came over you to try an'
+smash poor old Judkie's jaw? He could lick you anyway. He's twice
+as heavy as you are."
+
+Chrisfield walked on in silence.
+
+"God, I should think you'ld have had enough of that sort of
+thing.... I should think you'ld be sick of wanting to hurt people.
+You don't like pain yourself, do you?"
+
+Andrews spoke in spurts, bitterly, his eyes on the ground.
+
+"Ah think Ah sprained ma goddam ankle when Ah tumbled off the back
+o' the truck yesterday."
+
+"Better go on sick call.... Say, Chris, I'm sick of this
+business.... Almost like you'd rather shoot yourself than keep
+on."
+
+"Ah guess you're gettin' the dolefuls, Andy. Look...let's go in
+swimmin'. There's a lake down the road."
+
+"I've got my soap in my pocket. We can wash a few cooties off."
+
+"Don't walk so goddam fast...Andy, you got more learnin' than I
+have. You ought to be able to tell what it is makes a feller go
+crazy like that.... Ah guess Ah got a bit o' the devil in me."
+
+Andrews was brushing the soft silk of a poppy petal against his
+face.
+
+"I wonder if it'ld have any effect if I ate some of these," he
+said.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"They say you go to sleep if you lie down in a poppy-field.
+Wouldn't you like to do that, Chris, an' not wake up till the war
+was over and you could be a human being again."
+
+Andrews bit into the green seed capsule he held in his hand. A
+milky juice came out.
+
+"It's bitter...I guess it's the opium," he said.
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"A stuff that makes you go to sleep and have wonderful
+dreams. In China...."
+
+"Dreams," interrupted Chrisfield. "Ah had one of them last night.
+Dreamed Ah saw a feller that had shot hisself that I saw one
+time  reconnoitrin' out in the Bringy Wood."
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"Nawthin', juss a Fritzie had shot hisself."
+
+"Better than opium," said Andrews, his voice trembling with sudden
+excitement.
+
+"Ah dreamed the flies buzzin' round him was aeroplanes....
+Remember the last rest village?"
+
+"And the major who wouldn't close the window? You bet I do!"
+
+They lay down on the grassy bank that sloped from the road to the
+pond. The road was hidden from them by the tall reeds through
+which the wind lisped softly. Overhead huge white cumulus clouds,
+piled tier on tier like fantastic galleons in full sail, floated,
+changing slowly in a greenish sky. The reflection of clouds in the
+silvery glisten of the pond's surface was broken by clumps of
+grasses and bits of floating weeds. They lay on their backs for
+some time before they started taking their clothes off, looking up
+at the sky, that seemed vast and free, like the ocean, vaster and
+freer than the ocean.
+
+"Sarge says a delousin' machine's comin' through this way soon."
+
+"We need it, Chris."
+
+Andrews pulled his clothes off slowly.
+
+"It's great to feel the sun and the wind on your body, isn't it,
+Chris?"
+
+Andrews walked towards the pond and lay flat on his belly on the
+fine soft grass near the edge.
+
+"It's great to have your body there, isn't it?" he said in a
+dreamy voice. "Your skin's so soft and supple, and nothing in the
+world has the feel a muscle has.... Gee, I don't know what I'd do
+without my body."
+
+Chrisfield laughed.
+
+"Look how ma ole ankle's raised.... Found any cooties yet?" he
+said.
+
+"I'll try and drown "em," said Andrews. "Chris, come away from
+those stinking uniforms and you'll feel like a human being with
+the sun on your flesh instead of like a lousy soldier."
+
+"Hello, boys," came a high-pitched voice unexpectedly. A "Y" man
+with sharp nose and chin had come up behind them.
+
+"Hello," said Chrisfield sullenly, limping towards the water.
+
+"Want the soap?" said Andrews.
+
+"Going to take a swim, boys?" asked the "Y" man. Then he added in
+a tone of conviction, "That's great."
+
+"Better come in, too," said Andrews.
+
+"Thanks, thanks.... Say, if you don't mind my suggestion, why
+don't you fellers get under the water.... You see there's two
+French girls looking at you from the road." The "Y" man giggled
+faintly.
+
+"They don't mind," said Andrews soaping, himself vigorously.
+
+"Ah reckon they lahk it," said Chrisfield.
+
+"I know they haven't any morals.... But still."
+
+"And why should they not look at us? Maybe there won't be many
+people who get a chance."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Have you ever seen what a little splinter of a shell does to a
+feller's body?" asked Andrews savagely. He splashed into the
+shallow water and swam towards the middle of the pond.
+
+"Ye might ask 'em to come down and help us pick the cooties off,"
+said Chrisfield and followed in Andrews's wake. In the middle he
+lay on a sand bank in the warm shallow water and looked back at
+the "Y" man, who still stood on the bank. Behind him were other
+men undressing, and soon the grassy slope was filled with naked
+men and yellowish grey underclothes, and many dark heads and
+gleaming backs were bobbing up and down in the water. When he came
+out, he found Andrews sitting cross-legged near his clothes. He
+reached for his shirt and drew it on him.
+
+"God, I can't make up my mind to put the damn thing on again,"
+said Andrews in a low voice, almost as if he were talking to
+himself; "I feel so clean and free. It's like voluntarily taking
+up filth and slavery again.... I think I'll just walk off naked
+across the fields."
+
+"D'you call serving your country slavery, my friend?" The "Y" man,
+who had been roaming among the bathers, his neat uniform and well-
+polished boots and puttees contrasting strangely with the mud-
+clotted, sweat-soaked clothing of the men about him, sat down on
+the grass beside Andrews.
+
+"You're goddam right I do."
+
+"You'll get into trouble, my boy, if you talk that way," said the
+"Y" man in a cautious voice.
+
+"Well, what is your definition of slavery?"
+
+"You must remember that you are a voluntary worker in the cause of
+democracy.... You're doing this so that your children will be able
+to live peaceful...."
+
+"Ever shot a man?"
+
+"No.... No, of course not, but I'd have enlisted, really I would.
+Only my eyes are weak."
+
+"I guess so," said Andrews under his breath. "Remember that your
+women folks, your sisters and sweethearts and mothers, are praying
+for you at this instant."
+
+"I wish somebody'd pray me into a clean shirt," said Andrews,
+starting to get into his clothes. "How long have you been over
+here?"
+
+"Just three months." The man's sallow face, with its pinched nose
+and chin lit up. "But, boys, those three months have been worth
+all the other years of my min--" he caught himself--"life.... I've
+heard the great heart of America beat.  O boys, never forget that
+you are in a great Christian undertaking."
+
+"Come on, Chris, let's beat it." They left the "Y" man wandering
+among the men along the bank of the pond, to which the reflection
+of the greenish silvery sky and the great piled white clouds gave
+all the free immensity of space. From the road they could still
+hear his high pitched voice.
+
+"And that's what'll survive you and me," said Andrews.
+
+"Say, Andy, you sure can talk to them guys," said Chris
+admiringly.
+
+"What's the use of talking? God, there's a bit of honeysuckle
+still in bloom. Doesn't that smell like home to you, Chris?"
+
+"Say, how much do they pay those 'Y' men, Andy?"
+
+"Damned if I know."
+
+They were just in time to fall into line for mess. In the line
+everyone was talking and laughing, enlivened by the smell of food
+and the tinkle of mess-kits. Near the field kitchen Chrisfield saw
+Sergeant Anderson talking with Higgins, his own sergeant. They
+were laughing together, and he heard Anderson's big voice saying
+jovially, "We've pulled through this time, Higgins.... I guess we
+will again." The two sergeants looked at each other and cast a
+paternal, condescending glance over their men and laughed aloud.
+
+Chrisfield felt powerless as an ox under the yoke. All he could do
+was work and strain and stand at attention, while that white-faced
+Anderson could lounge about as if he owned the earth and laugh
+importantly like that. He held out his plate. The K.P. splashed
+the meat and gravy into it. He leaned against the tar-papered wall
+of the shack, eating his food and looking sullenly over at the two
+sergeants, who laughed and talked with an air of leisure while the
+men of their two companies ate hurriedly as dogs all round them.
+
+Chrisfield glanced suddenly at Anderson, who sat in the grass at
+the back of the house, looking out over the wheat fields, while
+the smoke of a cigarette rose in spirals about his face and his
+fair hair. He looked peaceful, almost happy. Chrisfield clenched
+his fists and felt the hatred of that other man rising stingingly
+within him.
+
+"Guess Ah got a bit of the devil in me," he thought.
+
+
+
+The windows were so near the grass that the faint light had a
+greenish color in the shack where the company was quartered. It
+gave men's faces, tanned as they were, the sickly look of people
+who work in offices, when they lay on their blankets in the bunks
+made of chicken wire, stretched across mouldy scantlings. Swallows
+had made their nests in the peak of the roof, and their droppings
+made white dobs and blotches on the floorboards in the alley
+between the bunks, where a few patches of yellow grass had not yet
+been completely crushed away by footsteps. Now that the shack was
+empty, Chrisfield could hear plainly the peep-peep of the little
+swallows in their mud nests. He sat quiet on the end of one of the
+bunks, looking out of the open door at the blue shadows that were
+beginning to lengthen on the grass of the meadow behind. His
+hands, that had got to be the color of terra cotta, hung idly be-
+tween his legs. He was whistling faintly. His eyes, in their long
+black eyelashes, were fixed on the distance, though he was not
+thinking. He felt a comfortable unexpressed well-being all over
+him. It was pleasant to be alone in the barracks like this, when
+the other men were out at grenade practice. There was no chance of
+anyone shouting orders at him.
+
+A warm drowsiness came over him. From the field kitchen alongside
+came the voice of a man singing:
+
+"O my girl's a lulu, every inch a lulu,
+ Is Lulu, that pretty lil' girl o' mi-ine."
+
+In their mud nests the young swallows twittered faintly overhead.
+Now and then there was a beat of wings and a big swallow skimmed
+into the shack. Chrisfield's cheeks began to feel very softly
+flushed. His head drooped over on his chest. Outside the cook was
+singing over and over again in a low voice, amid a faint clatter
+of pans:
+
+"O my girl's a lulu, every inch a lulu,
+ Is Lulu, that pretty lil' girl o' mi-ine."
+
+Chrisfield fell asleep.
+
+He woke up with a start. The shack was almost dark. A tall man
+stood out black against the bright oblong of the door.
+
+"What are you doing here?" said a deep snarling voice.
+
+Chrisfield's eyes blinked. Automatically he got to his feet; it
+might be an officer. His eyes focussed suddenly. It was Anderson's
+face that was between him and the light. In the greenish obscurity
+the skin looked chalk-white in contrast to the heavy eyebrows that
+met over the nose and the dark stubble on the chin.
+
+"How is it you ain't out with the company?"
+
+"Ah'm barracks guard," muttered Chrisfield. He could feel the
+blood beating in his wrists and temples, stinging his eyes like
+fire. He was staring at the floor in front of Anderson's feet.
+
+"Orders was all the companies was to go out an' not leave any
+guard."
+
+"Ah!'
+
+"We'll see about that when Sergeant Higgins comes in. Is this
+place tidy?"
+
+"You say Ah'm a goddamed liar, do ye?" Chrisfield felt suddenly
+cool and joyous. He felt anger taking possession of him. He seemed
+to be standing somewhere away from himself watching himself get
+angry.
+
+"This place has got to be cleaned up.... That damn General may
+come back to look over quarters," went on Anderson coolly.
+
+"You call me a goddam liar," said Chrisfield again, putting as
+much insolence as he could summon into his voice. "Ah guess you
+doan' remember me."
+
+"Yes, I know, you're the guy tried to run a knife into me once,"
+said Anderson coolly, squaring his shoulders. "I guess you've
+learned a little discipline by this time. Anyhow you've got to
+clean this place up. God, they haven't even brushed the birds'
+nests down! Must be some company!" said Anderson with a half
+laugh.
+
+"Ah ain't agoin' to neither, fur you."
+
+"Look here, you do it or it'll be the worse for you," shouted the
+sergeant in his deep rasping voice.
+
+"If ever Ah gits out o' the army Ah'm goin' to shoot you. You've
+picked on me enough." Chrisfield spoke slowly, as coolly as
+Anderson.
+
+"Well, we'll see what a court-martial has to say to that."
+
+"Ah doan give a hoot in hell what ye do."
+
+Sergeant Anderson turned on his heel and went out, twisting the
+corner button of his tunic in his big fingers. Already the sound
+of tramping feet was heard and the shouted order, "Dis-missed."
+Then men crowded into the shack, laughing and talking. Chrisfield
+sat still on the end of the bunk, looking at the bright oblong of
+the door. Outside he saw Anderson talking to Sergeant Higgins.
+They shook hands, and Anderson disappeared. Chrisfield heard
+Sergeant Higgins call after him.
+
+"I guess the next time I see you I'll have to put my heels
+together an' salute."
+
+Andersen's booming laugh faded as he walked away.
+
+Sergeant Higgins came into the shack and walked straight up to
+Chrisfield, saying in a hard official voice:
+
+"You're under arrest.... Small, guard this man; get your gun and
+cartridge belt. I'll relieve you so you can get mess."
+
+He went out. Everyone's eyes were turned curiously on Chrisfield.
+Small, a red-faced man with a long nose that hung down over his
+upper lip, shuffled sheepishly over to his place beside
+Chrisfield's cot and let the butt of his rifle come down with a
+bang on the floor. Somebody laughed. Andrews walked up to them, a
+look of trouble in his blue eyes and in the lines of his lean
+tanned cheeks.
+
+"What's the matter, Chris?" he asked in a low voice.
+
+"Tol'" that bastard Ah didn't give a hoot in hell what he did,"
+said Chrisfield in a broken voice.
+
+"Say, Andy, I don't think I ought ter let anybody talk to him,"
+said Small in an apologetic tone. "I don't see why Sarge always
+gives me all his dirty work."
+
+Andrews walked off without replying.
+
+"Never mind, Chris; they won't do nothin' to ye," said Jenkins,
+grinning at him good-naturedly from the door.
+
+"Ah doan give a hoot in hell what they do," said Chrisfield again.
+
+He lay back in his bunk and looked at the ceiling. The barracks
+was full of a bustle of cleaning up. Judkins was sweeping the
+floor with a broom made of dry sticks. Another man was knocking
+down the swallows' nests with a bayonet. The mud nests crumbled
+and fell on the floor and the bunks, filling the air with a
+flutter of feathers and a smell of birdlime. The little naked
+bodies, with their orange bills too big for them, gave a soft
+plump when they hit the boards of the floor, where they lay giving
+faint gasping squeaks. Meanwhile, with shrill little cries, the
+big swallows flew back and forth in the shanty, now and then
+striking the low roof.
+
+"Say, pick 'em up, can't yer?" said Small. Judkins was sweeping
+the little gasping bodies out among the dust and dirt.
+
+A stoutish man stooped and picked the little birds up one by one,
+puckering his lips into an expression of tenderness. He made his
+two hands into a nest-shaped hollow, out of which stretched the
+long necks and the gaping orange mouths. Andrews ran into him at
+the door.
+
+"Hello, Dad," he said. "What the hell?"
+
+"I just picked these up."
+
+"So they couldn't let the poor little devils stay there? God! it
+looks to me as if they went out of their way to give pain to
+everything, bird, beast or man."
+
+"War ain't no picnic," said Judkins.
+
+"Well, God damn it, isn't that a reason for not going out of your
+way to raise more hell with people's feelings than you have to?"
+
+A face with peaked chin and nose on which was stretched a
+parchment-colored skin appeared in the door.
+
+"Hello, boys," said the "Y" man. "I just thought I'd tell you I'm
+going to open the canteen tomorrow, in the last shack on the
+Beaucourt road. There'll be chocolate, ciggies, soap, and
+everything."
+
+Everybody cheered. The "Y" man beamed.
+
+His eye lit on the little birds in Dad's hands.
+
+"How could you?" he said. "An American soldier being deliberately
+cruel. I would never have believed it."
+
+"Ye've got somethin' to learn," muttered Dad, waddling out into
+the twilight on his bandy legs.
+
+Chrisfield had been watching the scene at the door with unseeing
+eyes. A terrified nervousness that he tried to beat off had come
+over him. It was useless to repeat to himself again and again that
+he didn't give a damn; the prospect of being brought up alone
+before all those officers, of being cross-questioned by those curt
+voices, frightened him. He would rather have been lashed. Whatever
+was he to say, he kept asking himself; he would get mixed up or
+say things he didn't mean to, or else he wouldn't be able to get
+a word out at all. If only Andy could go up with him, Andy was
+educated, like the officers were; he had more learning than the
+whole shooting-match put together. He'd be able to defend himself,
+and defend his friends, too, if only they'd let him.
+
+"I felt just like those little birds that time they got the bead
+on our trench at Boticourt," said Jenkins, laughing.
+
+Chrisfield listened to the talk about him as if from another
+world. Already he was cut off from his outfit. He'd disappear and
+they'd never know or care what became of him.
+
+The mess-call blew and the men filed out. He could hear their talk
+outside, and the sound of their mess-kits as they opened them. He
+lay on his bunk staring up into the dark. A faint blue light still
+came from outside, giving a curious purple color to Small's red
+face and long drooping nose at the end of which hung a glistening
+drop of moisture.
+
+
+
+Chrisfield found Andrews washing a shirt in the brook that flowed
+through the ruins of the village the other side of the road from
+the buildings where the division was quartered. The blue sky
+flicked with pinkish-white clouds gave a shimmer of blue and
+lavender and white to the bright water. At the bottom could be
+seen battered helmets and bits of equipment and tin cans that had
+once held meat. Andrews turned his head; he had a smudge of mud
+down his nose and soapsuds on his chin.
+
+"Hello, Chris," he said, looking him in the eyes with his
+sparkling blue eyes, "how's things?" There was a faint anxious
+frown on his forehead.
+
+"Two-thirds of one month's pay an' confined to quarters," said
+Chrisfield cheerfully.
+
+"Gee, they were easy."
+
+"Um-hum, said Ah was a good shot an' all that, so they'd let me
+off this time."
+
+Andrews started scrubbing at his shirt again.
+
+"I've got this shirt so full of mud I don't think I ever will get
+it clean," he said.
+
+"Move ye ole hide away, Andy. Ah'll wash it. You ain't no good for
+nothin'."
+
+"Hell no, I'll do it."
+
+"Move ye hide out of there."
+
+"Thanks awfully."
+
+Andrews got to his feet and wiped the mud off his nose with his
+bare forearm.
+
+"Ah'm goin' to shoot that bastard," said Chrisfield, scrubbing at
+the shirt.
+
+"Don't be an ass, Chris."
+
+"Ah swear to God Ah am."
+
+"What's the use of getting all wrought up. The thing's over.
+You'll probably never see him again."
+
+"Ah ain't all het up.... Ah'm goin' to do it though." He wrung the
+shirt out carefully and flipped Andrews in the face with it.
+"There ye are," he said.
+
+"You're a good fellow, Chris, even if you are an ass."
+
+"Tell me we're going into the line in a day or two."
+
+"There's been a devil of a lot of artillery going up the road;
+French, British, every old kind."
+
+"Tell me they's raisin' hell in the Oregon forest."
+
+They walked slowly across the road. A motorcycle despatch-rider
+whizzed past them.
+
+"It's them guys has the fun," said Chrisfield.
+
+"I don't believe anybody has much."
+
+"What about the officers?"
+
+"They're too busy feeling important to have a real hell of a
+time."
+
+
+
+The hard cold rain beat like a lash in his; face. There was no
+light anywhere and no sound but the hiss of the rain in the grass.
+His eyes strained to see through the dark until red and yellow
+blotches danced before them. He walked very slowly and carefully,
+holding something very gently in his hand under his raincoat. He
+felt himself full of a strange subdued fury; he seemed to be walk-
+ing behind himself spying on his own actions, and what he saw made
+him feel joyously happy, made him want to sing.
+
+He turned so that the rain beat against his cheek. Under his
+helmet he felt his hair full of sweat that ran with the rain down
+his glowing face. His fingers clutched very carefully the smooth
+stick he had in his hand.
+
+He stopped and shut his eyes for a moment; through the hiss of the
+rain he had heard a sound of men talking in one of the shanties.
+When he shut his eyes he saw the white face of Anderson before
+him, with its unshaven chin and the eyebrows that met across the
+nose.
+
+Suddenly he felt the wall of a house in front of him. He put out
+his hand. His hand jerked back from the rough wet feel of the tar
+paper, as if it had touched something dead. He groped along the
+wall, stepping very cautiously. He felt as he had felt
+reconnoitering in the Bringy Wood. Phrases came to his mind as
+they had then. Without thinking what they meant, the words Make
+the world safe for Democracy formed themselves in his head. They
+were very comforting. They occupied his thoughts. He said them to
+himself again and again. Meanwhile his free hand was fumbling very
+carefully with the fastening that held the wooden shutter over a
+window. The shutter opened a very little, creaking loudly, louder
+than the patter of rain on the roof of the shack. A stream of
+water from the roof was pouring into his face.
+
+Suddenly a beam of light transformed everything, cutting the
+darkness in two. The rain glittered like a bead curtain.
+Chrisfield was looking into a little room where a lamp was
+burning. At a table covered with printed blanks of different size
+sat a corporal; behind him was a bunk and a pile of equipment. The
+corporal was reading a magazine. Chrisfield looked at him a long
+time; his fingers were tight about the smooth stick. There was no
+one else in the room.
+
+A sort of panic seized Chrisfield; he strode away noisily from the
+window and pushed open the door of the shack.
+
+"Where's Sergeant Anderson?" he asked in a breathless voice of the
+first man he saw.
+
+"Corp's there if it's anything important," said the man.
+"Anderson's gone to an O. T. C. Left day before yesterday."
+
+Chrisfield was out in the rain again. It was beating straight in
+his face, so that his eyes were full of water. He was trembling.
+He had suddenly become terrified. The smooth stick he held seemed
+to burn him. He was straining his ears for an explosion. Walking
+straight before him down the road, he went faster and faster as if
+trying to escape from it. He stumbled on a pile of stones.
+Automatically he pulled the string out of the grenade and threw
+it far from him.
+
+There was a minute's pause.
+
+Red flame spurted in the middle of the wheatfield. He felt the
+sharp crash in his eardrums.
+
+He walked fast through the rain. Behind him, at the door of the
+shack, he could hear excited voices. He walked recklessly on, the
+rain blinding him. When he finally stepped into the light he was
+so dazzled he could not see who was in the wine shop.
+
+"Well, I'll be damned, Chris," said Andrews's voice. Chrisfield
+blinked the rain out of his lashes. Andrews sat writing with a
+pile of papers before him and a bottle of champagne. It seemed to
+Chrisfield to soothe his nerves to hear Andy's voice. He wished he
+would go on talking a long time without a pause.
+
+"If you aren't the crowning idiot of the ages," Andrews went on in
+a low voice. He took Chrisfield by the arm and led him into the
+little back room, where was a high bed with a brown coverlet and a
+big kitchen table on which were the remnants of a meal.
+
+"What's the matter? Your arm's trembling like the devil. But
+why.... O pardon, Crimpette. C'est un ami.... You know Crimpette,
+don't you?" He pointed to a youngish woman who had just appeared
+from behind the bed. She had a flabby rosy face and violet circles
+under her eyes, dark as if they'd been made by blows, and untidy
+hair. A dirty grey muslin dress with half the hooks off held in
+badly her large breasts and flabby figure. Chrisfield looked at
+her greedily, feeling his furious irritation flame into one
+desire.
+
+"What's the matter with you, Chris? You're crazy to break out of
+quarters this way?"
+
+"Say, Andy, git out o' here. Ah ain't your sort anyway.... Git out
+o' here."
+
+"You're a wild man. I'll grant you that.... But I'd just as soon
+be your sort as anyone else's.... Have a drink."
+
+"Not now."
+
+Andrews sat down with his bottle and his papers, pushing away the
+broken plates full of stale food to make a place on the greasy
+table. He took a gulp out of the bottle, that made him cough, then
+put the end of his pencil in his mouth and stared gravely at the
+paper.
+
+"No, I'm your sort, Chris," he said over his shoulder, "only
+they've tamed me. O God, how tame I am."
+
+Chrisfield did not listen to what he was saying. He stood in front
+of the woman, staring in her face. She looked at him in a stupid
+frightened way. He felt in his pockets for some money. As he had
+just been paid he had a fifty-franc note. He spread it out
+carefully before her. Her eyes glistened. The pupils seemed to
+grow smaller as they fastened on the bit of daintily colored
+paper. He crumpled it up suddenly in his fist and shoved it down
+between her breasts.
+
+
+
+Some time later Chrisfield sat down in front of Andrews. He still
+had his wet slicker on.
+
+"Ah guess you think Ah'm a swine," he said in his normal voice.
+"Ah guess you're about right."
+
+"No, I don't," said Andrews. Something made him put his hand on
+Chrisfield's hand that lay on the table. It had a feeling of cool
+health.
+
+"Say, why were you trembling so when you came in here? You seem
+all right now."
+
+"Oh, Ah dunno,'" said Chrisfield in a soft resonant voice.
+
+They were silent for a long while. They could hear the woman's
+footsteps going and coming behind them.
+
+"Let's go home," said Chrisfield.
+
+"All right.... Bonsoir, Crimpette."
+
+Outside the rain had stopped. A stormy wind had torn the clouds to
+rags. Here and there clusters of stars showed through.
+They splashed merrily through the puddles. But here and there
+reflected a patch of stars when the wind was not ruffling them.
+
+"Christ, Ah wish Ah was like you, Andy," said Chrisfield.
+
+"You don't want to be like me, Chris. I'm no sort of a person at
+all. I'm tame. O you don't know how damn tame I am."
+
+"Learnin' sure do help a feller to git along in the world."
+
+"Yes, but what's the use of getting along if you haven't any world
+to get along in? Chris, I belong to a crowd that just fakes
+learning. I guess the best thing that can happen to us is to get
+killed in this butchery. We're a tame generation.... It's you that
+it matters to kill."
+
+"Ah ain't no good for anythin'.... Ah doan give a damn.... Lawsee,
+Ah feel sleepy."
+
+As they slipped in the door of their quarters, the sergeant looked
+at Chrisfield searchingly. Andrews spoke up at once.
+
+"There's some rumors going on at the latrine, Sarge. The fellows
+from the Thirty-second say we're going to march into hell's half-
+acre about Thursday."
+
+"A lot they know about it."
+
+"That's the latest edition of the latrine news."
+
+"The hell it is! Well, d'you want to know something, Andrews....
+It'll be before Thursday, or I'm a Dutchman."
+
+Sergeant Higgins put on a great air of mystery.
+
+Chrisfield went to his bunk, undressed quietly and climbed into
+his blankets. He stretched his arms languidly a couple of times,
+and while Andrews was still talking to the sergeant, fell asleep.
+
+
+
+                              IV
+
+The moon lay among clouds on the horizon, like a big red pumpkin
+among its leaves.
+
+Chrisfield  squinted at it through the boughs of the apple trees
+laden with apples that gave a winey fragrance to the crisp air. He
+was sitting on the ground, his legs stretched limply before him,
+leaning against the rough trunk of an apple tree. Opposite him,
+leaning against another tree, was the square form, surmounted by a
+large long-jawed face, of Judkins. Between them lay two empty
+cognac bottles. All about them was the rustling orchard, with its
+crooked twigs that made a crackling sound rubbing together in the
+gusts of the autumn wind, that came heavy with a smell of damp
+woods and of rotting fruits and of all the ferment of the over-
+ripe fields. Chrisfield felt it stirring the moist hair on his
+forehead and through the buzzing haze of the cognac heard the
+plunk, plunk, plunk of apples dropping that followed each gust,
+and the twanging of night insects, and, far in the distance, the
+endless rumble of guns, like tomtoms beaten for a dance.
+
+"Ye heard what the Colonel said, didn't ye?" said Judkins in a
+voice hoarse from too much drink.
+
+Chrisfield belched and nodded his head vaguely. He remembered
+Andrews's white fury after the men had been dismissed, how he had
+sat down on the end of a log by the field kitchen, staring at the
+patch of earth he beat into mud with the toe of his boot.
+
+"Then," went on Judkins, trying to imitate the Colonel's solemn
+efficient voice, "'On the subject of prisoners'"--he hiccoughed
+and made a limp gesture with his hand--"'On the subject of
+prisoners, well, I'll leave that to you, but juss remember...juss
+remember what the Huns did to Belgium, an' I might add that we
+have barely enough emergency rations as it is, and the more
+prisoners you have the less you fellers'll git to eat.'"
+
+"That's what he said, Judkie; that's what he said."
+
+"'An the more prisoners ye have, the less youse'll git to eat,'"
+chanted Judkins, making a triumphal flourish with his hand.
+
+Chrisfield groped for the cognac bottle; it was empty; he waved it
+in the air a minute and then threw it into the tree opposite him.
+A shower of little apples fell about Judkins's head. He got
+unsteadily to his feet.
+
+"I tell you, fellers," he said, "war ain't no picnic."
+
+Chrisfield stood up and grabbed at an apple. His teeth crunched
+into it.
+
+"Sweet," he said.
+
+"Sweet, nauthin'," mumbled Judkins, "war ain't no picnic.... I
+tell you, buddy, if you take any prisoners"--he hiccoughed--
+"after what the Colonel said, I'll lick the spots out of you, by
+God I will.... Rip up their guts that's all, like they was
+dummies. Rip up their guts." His voice suddenly changed to one of
+childish dismay. "Gee, Chris, I'm going to be sick," he whispered.
+
+"Look out," said Chrisfield, pushing him away. Judkins leaned
+against a tree and vomited.
+
+The full moon had risen above the clouds and filled the apple
+orchard with chilly golden light that cast a fantastic shadow
+pattern of interlaced twigs and branches upon the bare ground
+littered with apples. The sound of the guns had grown nearer.
+There were loud eager rumbles as of bowls being rolled very hard
+on a bowling alley, combined with a continuous roar like sheets of
+iron being shaken.
+
+"Ah bet it's hell out there," said Chrisfield.
+
+"I feel better," said Judkins. "Let's go get some more cognac."
+
+"Ah'm hungry," said Chrisfield. "Let's go an' get that ole woman
+to cook us some aigs."
+
+"Too damn late," growled Judkins.
+
+"How the hell late is it?"
+
+"Dunno, I sold my watch."
+
+They were walking at random through the orchard. They came to a
+field full of big pumpkins that gleamed in the moonlight and cast
+shadows black as holes. In the distance they could see wooded
+hills.
+
+Chrisfield picked up a medium-sized pumpkin and threw it as hard
+as he could into the air. It split into three when it landed with
+a thud on the ground, and the moist yellow seeds spilled out.
+
+"Some strong man, you are," said Judkins, tossing up a bigger one.
+
+"Say, there's a farmhouse, maybe we could get some aigs from the
+hen-roost."
+
+"Hell of a lot of hens...."
+
+At that moment the crowing of a rooster came across the silent
+fields. They ran towards the dark farm buildings.
+
+"Look out, there may be officers quartered there."
+
+They walked cautiously round the square, silent group of
+buildings. There were no lights. The big wooden door of the court
+pushed open easily, without creaking. On the roof of the barn the
+pigeon-cot was etched dark against the disc of the moon. A warm
+smell of stables blew in their faces as the two men tiptoed into
+the manure-littered farmyard. Under one of the sheds they found a
+table on which a great many pears were set to ripen. Chrisfield
+put his teeth into one. The rich sweet juice ran down his chin. He
+ate the pear quickly and greedily, and then bit into another.
+
+"Fill yer pockets with 'em," whispered Judkins.
+
+"They might ketch us."
+
+"Ketch us, hell. We'll be goin' into the offensive in a day or
+two."
+
+"Ah sure would like to git some aigs."
+
+Chrisfield pushed open the door of one of the barns. A smell of
+creamy milk and cheeses filled his nostrils.
+
+"Come here," he whispered. "Want some cheese?"
+
+A lot of cheeses ranged on a board shone silver in the moonlight
+that came in through the open door.
+
+"Hell, no, ain't fit te eat," said Judkins, pushing his heavy fist
+into one of the new soft cheeses.
+
+"Doan do that."
+
+"Well, ain't we saved 'em from the Huns?"
+
+"But, hell."
+
+"War ain't no picnic, that's all," said Judkins.
+
+In the next door they found chickens roosting in a small room with
+straw on the floor. The chickens ruffled their feathers and made a
+muffled squeaking as they slept.
+
+Suddenly there was a loud squawking and all the chickens were
+cackling with terror.
+
+"Beat it," muttered Judkins, running for the gate of the farmyard.
+
+There were shrill cries of women in the house. A voice shrieking,
+"C'est les Boches, C'est les Boches," rose above the cackling of
+chickens and the clamor of guinea-hens. As they ran, they heard
+the rasping cries of a woman in hysterics, rending the rustling
+autumn night.
+
+"God damn," said Judkins breathless, "they ain't got no right,
+those frogs ain't, to carry on like that."
+
+They ducked into the orchard again. Above the squawking of the
+chicken Judkins still held, swinging it by its legs, Chrisfield
+could hear the woman's voice shrieking. Judkins dexterously wrung
+the chicken's neck. Crushing the apples underfoot they strode fast
+through the orchard. The voice faded into the distance until it
+could not be heard above the sound of the guns.
+
+"Gee, Ah'm kind o' cut up 'bout that lady," said Chrisfield.
+
+"Well, ain't we saved her from the Huns?"
+
+"Andy don't think so."
+
+"Well, if you want to know what I think about that guy Andy I
+don't think much of him. I think he's yaller, that's all," said
+Judkins.
+
+"No, he ain't."
+
+"I heard the lootenant say so. He's a goddam yeller dawg."
+
+Chrisfield swore sullenly.
+
+"Well, you juss wait 'n see. I tell you, buddy, war ain't no
+picnic."
+
+"What the hell are we goin' to do with that chicken?" said
+Judkins.
+
+"You remember what happened to Eddie White?"
+
+"Hell, we'd better leave it here."
+
+Judkins swung the chicken by its neck round his head and threw it
+as hard as he could into the bushes.
+
+They were walking along the road between chestnut trees that led
+to their village. It was dark except for irregular patches of
+bright moonlight in the centre that lay white as milk among the
+indentated shadows of the leaves. All about them rose a cool scent
+of woods, of ripe fruits and of decaying leaves, of the ferment of
+the autumn countryside.
+
+
+
+The lieutenant sat at a table in the sun, in the village street
+outside the company office. In front of him sparkled piles of
+money and daintily tinted banknotes. Beside him stood Sergeant
+Higgins with an air of solemnity and the second sergeant and the
+corporal. The men stood in line and as each came before the table
+he saluted with deference, received his money and walked away with
+a self-conscious air. A few villagers looked on from the small
+windows with grey frames of their rambling whitewashed houses. In
+the ruddy sunshine the line of men cast an irregular blue-violet
+shadow, like a gigantic centipede, on the yellow gravel road.
+
+From the table by the window of the cafe of "Nos Braves Poilus"
+where Small and Judkins and Chrisfield had established themselves
+with their pay crisp in their pockets, they could see the little
+front garden of the house across the road, where, behind a hedge
+of orange marigolds, Andrews sat on the doorstep talking to an old
+woman hunched on a low chair in the sun just inside the door, who
+leant her small white head over towards his yellow one.
+
+"There ye are," said Judkins in a solemn tone. "He don't even go
+after his pay. That guy thinks he's the whole show, he does."
+
+Chrisfield flushed, but said nothing. "He don't do nothing all day
+long but talk to that ole lady," said Small with a grin. "Guess
+she reminds him of his mother, or somethin'."
+
+"He always does go round with the frogs all he can. Looks to me
+like he'd rather have a drink with a frog than with an American."
+
+"Reckon he wants to learn their language," said Small. "He won't
+never come to much in this army, that's what I'm telling yer,"
+said Judkins.
+
+The little houses across the way had flushed red with the sunset.
+Andrews got to his feet slowly and languidly and held out his hand
+to the old woman. She stood up, a small tottering figure in a
+black silk shawl. He leaned over towards her and she kissed both
+his cheeks vigorously several times. He walked down the road
+towards the billets, with his fatigue cap in his hand, looking at
+the ground.
+
+"He's got a flower behind his ear, like a cigarette," said
+Judkins, with a disgusted snort.
+
+"Well, I guess we'd better go," said Small. "We got to be in
+quarters at six."
+
+They were silent a moment. In the distance the guns kept up a
+continual tomtom sound.
+
+"Guess we'll be in that soon," said Small.
+
+Chrisfield felt a chill go down his spine. He moistened his lips
+with his tongue.
+
+"Guess it's hell out there," said Judkins. "War ain't no picnic."
+
+"Ah doan give a hoot in hell," said Chrisfield.
+
+
+
+The men were lined up in the village street with their packs on,
+waiting for the order to move. Thin wreaths of white mist still
+lingered in the trees and over the little garden plots. The sun
+had not yet risen, but ranks of clouds in the pale blue sky
+overhead were brilliant with crimson and gold. The men stood in an
+irregular line, bent over a little by the weight of their
+equipment, moving back and forth, stamping their feet and beating
+their arms together, their noses and ears red from the chill of
+the morning. The haze of their breath rose above their heads.
+
+Down the misty road a drab-colored limousine appeared, running
+slowly. It stopped in front of the line of men. The lieutenant
+came hurriedly out of the house opposite, drawing on a pair of
+gloves. The men standing in line looked curiously at the
+limousine. They could see that two of the tires were flat and that
+the glass was broken. There were scratches on the drab paint and
+in the door three long jagged holes that obliterated the number. A
+little murmur went down the line of men. The door opened with
+difficulty, and a major in a light buff-colored coat stumbled out.
+One arm, wrapped in bloody bandages, was held in a sling made of a
+handkerchief. His face was white and drawn into a stiff mask with
+pain. The lieutenant saluted.
+
+"For God's sake where's a repair station?" he asked in a loud
+shaky voice.
+
+"There's none in this village, Major."
+
+"Where the hell is there one?"
+
+"I don't know," said the lieutenant in a humble tone.
+
+"Why the hell don't you know? This organization's rotten, no
+good.... Major Stanley's just been killed. What the hell's the
+name of this village?"
+
+"Thiocourt."
+
+"Where the hell's that?"
+
+The chauffeur had leaned out. He had no cap and his hair was full
+of dust.
+
+"You see, Lootenant, we wants to get to Chalons--"
+
+"Yes, that's it. Chalons sur...Chalons-sur-Marne," said the Major.
+
+"The billeting officer has a map," said the lieutenant, "last
+house to the left."
+
+"O let's go there quick," said the major. He fumbled with the
+fastening of the door.
+
+The lieutenant opened it for him.
+
+As he opened the door, the men nearest had a glimpse of the
+interior of the car. On the far side was a long object huddled in
+blankets, propped up on the seat.
+
+Before he got in the major leaned over and pulled a woollen rug
+out, holding it away from him with his one good arm. The car moved
+off slowly, and all down the village street the men, lined up
+waiting for orders, stared curiously at the three jagged holes in
+the door.
+
+The lieutenant looked at the rug that lay in the middle of the
+road. He touched it with his foot. It was soaked with blood that
+in places had dried into clots.
+
+The lieutenant and the men of his company looked at it in silence.
+The sun had risen and shone on the roofs of the little whitewashed
+houses behind them. Far down the road a regiment had begun to
+move.
+
+
+
+                               V
+
+At the brow of the hill they rested. Chrisfield sat on the red
+clay bank and looked about him, his rifle between his knees. In
+front of him on the side of the road was a French burying ground,
+where the little wooden crosses, tilting in every direction, stood
+up against the sky, and the bead wreaths glistened in the warm
+sunlight. All down the road as far as he could see was a long drab
+worm, broken in places by strings of motor trucks, a drab worm
+that wriggled down the slope, through the roofless shell of the
+village and up into the shattered woods on the crest of the next
+hills. Chrisfield strained his eyes to see the hills beyond. They
+lay blue and very peaceful in the moon mist. The river glittered
+about the piers of the wrecked stone bridge, and disappeared
+between rows of yellow poplars. Somewhere in the valley a big gun
+fired. The shell shrieked into the distance, towards the blue,
+peaceful hills.
+
+Chrisfield's regiment was moving again. The men, their feet
+slipping in the clayey mud, went downhill with long strides, the
+straps of their packs tugging at their shoulders.
+
+"Isn't this great country?" said Andrews, who marched beside him.
+
+"Ah'd liever be at an O. T. C. like that bastard Anderson."
+
+"Oh, to hell with that," said Andrews. He still had a big faded
+orange marigold in one of the buttonholes of his soiled tunic. He
+walked with his nose in the air and his nostrils dilated, enjoying
+the tang of the autumnal sunlight.
+
+Chrisfield took the cigarette, that had gone out half-smoked, from
+his mouth and spat savagely at the heels of the man in front of
+him.
+
+"This ain't no life for a white man," he said.
+
+"I'd rather be this than...than that," said Andrews bitterly. He
+tossed his head in the direction of a staff car full of officers
+that was stalled at the side of the road. They were drinking
+something out of a thermos bottle that they passed round with the
+air of Sunday excursionists. They waved, with a conscious
+relaxation of discipline, at the men as they passed. One, a little
+lieutenant with a black mustache with pointed ends, kept crying:
+"They're running like rabbits, fellers; they're running like
+rabbits." A wavering half-cheer would come  from the column now
+and then where it was passing the staff car.
+
+The big gun fired again. Chrisfield was near it this time and felt
+the concussion like a blow in the head.
+
+"Some baby," said the man behind him.
+
+Someone was singing:
+
+"Good morning, mister Zip Zip Zip,
+ With your hair cut just as short as,
+ With your hair cut just as short as,
+ With your hair cut just as short as mi-ine."
+
+Everybody took it up. Their steps rang in rhythm in the paved
+street that zigzagged among the smashed houses of the village.
+Ambulances passed them, big trucks full of huddled men with grey
+faces, from which came a smell of sweat and blood and carbolic.
+Somebody went on:
+
+"O ashes to ashes
+ An' dust to dust..."
+
+"Can that," cried Judkins, "it ain't lucky."
+
+But everybody had taken up the song. Chrisfield noticed that
+Andrews's eyes were sparkling. "If he ain't the damnedest," he
+thought to himself. But he shouted at the top of his lungs with
+the rest:
+
+"O ashes to ashes
+ An' dust to dust;
+ If the gasbombs don't get yer
+             The eighty-eights must."
+
+They were climbing the hill again. The road was worn into deep
+ruts and there were many shell holes, full of muddy water, into
+which their feet slipped. The woods began, a shattered skeleton of
+woods, full of old artillery emplacements and dugouts, where torn
+camouflage fluttered from splintered trees. The ground and the
+road were littered with tin cans and brass shell-cases. Along both
+sides of the road the trees were festooned, as with creepers, with
+strand upon strand of telephone wire.
+
+When next they stopped Chrisfield was on the crest of the hill
+beside a battery of French seventy-fives. He looked curiously at
+the Frenchmen, who sat about on logs in their pink and blue shirt-
+sleeves playing cards and smoking. Their gestures irritated him.
+
+"Say, tell 'em we're advancin'," he said to Andrews.
+
+"Are we?" said Andrews. "All right.... Dites-donc, les Boches
+courent-ils comme des lapins?" he shouted.
+
+One of the men turned his head and laughed.
+
+"He says they've been running that way for four years," said
+Andrews. He slipped his pack off, sat down on it, and fished for a
+cigarette. Chrisfield took off his helmet and rubbed a muddy hand
+through his hair. He took a bite of chewing tobacco and sat with
+his hands clasped over his knees.
+
+"How the hell long are we going to wait this time?" he muttered.
+The shadows of the tangled and splintered trees crept slowly
+across the road. The French artillerymen were eating their supper.
+A long train of motor trucks growled past, splashing mud over the
+men crowded along the sides of the road. The sun set, and a lot of
+batteries down in the valley began firing, making it impossible to
+talk. The air was full of a shrieking and droning of shells
+overhead. The Frenchmen stretched and yawned and went down into
+their dugout. Chrisfield watched them enviously. The stars were
+beginning to come out in the green sky behind the tall lacerated
+trees. Chrisfield's legs ached with cold. He began to get crazily
+anxious  for something to happen, for something to happen, but the
+column waited, without moving, through the gathering darkness.
+Chrisfield chewed steadily, trying to think of nothing but the
+taste of the tobacco in his mouth.
+
+The column was moving again; as they reached the brow of another
+hill Chrisfield felt a curious sweetish smell that made his
+nostrils smart. "Gas," he thought, full of panic, and put his hand
+to the mask that hung round his neck. But he did not want to be
+the first to put it on. No order came. He marched on, cursing the
+sergeant and the lieutenant. But maybe they'd been killed by it.
+He had a vision of the whole regiment sinking down in the road
+suddenly, overcome by the gas.
+
+"Smell anythin', Andy?" he whispered cautiously.
+
+"I can smell a combination of dead horses and tube roses and
+banana oil and the ice cream we used to have at college and dead
+rats in the garret, but what the hell do we care now?" said
+Andrews, giggling. "This is the damnedest fool business ever...."
+
+"He's crazy," muttered Chrisfield to himself. He looked at the
+stars in the black sky that seemed to be going along with the
+column on its march. Or was it that they and the stars were
+standing still while the trees moved away from them, waving their
+skinny shattered arms? He could hardly hear the tramp of feet on
+the road, so loud was the pandemonium of the guns ahead and
+behind. Every now and then a rocket would burst in front of
+them and its red and green lights would mingle for a moment with
+the stars. But it was only overhead he could see the stars.
+Everywhere else white and red glows rose and fell as if the
+horizon were on fire.
+
+As they started down the slope, the trees suddenly broke away and
+they saw the valley between them full of the glare of guns and the
+white light of star shells. It was like looking into a stove full
+of glowing embers. The hillside that sloped away from them was
+full of crashing detonations and yellow tongues of flame. In a
+battery near the road, that seemed to crush their skulls each time
+a gun fired, they could see the dark forms of the artillerymen
+silhouetted in fantastic attitudes against the intermittent red
+glare. Stunned and blinded, they kept on marching down the road.
+It seemed to Chrisfield that they were going to step any minute
+into the flaring muzzle of a gun.
+
+At the foot of the hill, beside a little grove of uninjured trees,
+they stopped again. A new train of trucks was crawling past them,
+huge blots in the darkness. There were no batteries near, so they
+could hear the grinding roar of the gears as the trucks went along
+the uneven road, plunging in and out of shellholes.
+
+Chrisfield lay down in the dry ditch, full of bracken, and dozed
+with his head on his pack. All about him were stretched other men.
+Someone was resting his head on Chrisfield's thigh. The noise had
+subsided a little. Through his doze he could hear men's voices
+talking in low crushed tones, as if they were afraid of speaking
+aloud. On the road the truck-drivers kept calling out to each
+other shrilly, raspingly. The motors stopped running one after
+another, making almost a silence, during which Chrisfield fell
+asleep.
+
+Something woke him. He was stiff with cold and terrified. For a
+moment he thought he had been left alone, that the company had
+gone on, for there was no one touching him.
+
+Overhead was a droning as of gigantic mosquitoes, growing fast to
+a loud throbbing. He heard the lieutenant's voice calling shrilly:
+
+"Sergeant Higgins, Sergeant Higgins!"
+
+The lieutenant stood out suddenly black against a sheet of flame.
+Chrisfield could see his fatigue cap a little on one side and his
+trench coat, drawn in tight at the waist and sticking out stiffly
+at the knees. He was shaken by the explosion. Everything was black
+again. Chrisfield got to his feet, his ears ringing. The column
+was moving on. He heard moaning near him in the darkness. The
+tramp of feet and jingle of equipment drowned all other sound. He
+could feel his shoulders becoming raw under the tugging of the
+pack. Now and then the flare from aeroplane bombs behind him
+showed up wrecked trucks on the side of the road. Somewhere a
+machine gun spluttered. But the column tramped on, weighed down by
+the packs, by the deadening exhaustion.
+
+The turbulent flaring darkness was calming to the grey of dawn
+when Chrisfield stopped marching. His eyelids stung as if his
+eyeballs were flaming hot. He could not feel his feet and legs.
+The guns continued incessantly like a hammer beating on his head.
+He was walking very slowly in a single file, now and then
+stumbling against the man ahead of him. There was earth on both
+sides of him, clay walls that dripped moisture. All at once he
+stumbled down some steps into a dugout, where it was pitch-black.
+An unfamiliar smell struck him, made him uneasy; but his thoughts
+seemed to reach him from out of a great distance. He groped to the
+wall. His knees struck against a bunk with blankets in it. In
+another second he was sunk fathoms deep in sleep.
+
+When he woke up his mind was very clear. The roof of the dugout
+was of logs. A bright spot far away was the door. He hoped
+desperately that he wasn't on duty. He wondered where Andy was;
+then he remembered that Andy was crazy,--"a yeller dawg," Judkins
+had called him. Sitting up with difficulty he undid his shoes and
+puttees, wrapped himself in his blanket. All round him were snores
+and the deep breathing of exhausted sleep. He closed his eyes.
+
+He was being court-martialled. He stood with his hands at his
+sides before three officers at a table. All three had the same
+white faces with heavy blue jaws and eyebrows that met above the
+nose. They were reading things out of papers aloud, but, although
+he strained his ears, he couldn't make out what they were saying.
+All he could hear was a faint moaning. Something had a curious un-
+familiar smell that troubled him. He could not stand still at
+attention, although the angry eyes of officers stared at him from
+all round. "Anderson, Sergeant Anderson, what's that smell?" he
+kept asking in a small whining voice. "Please tell a feller what
+that smell is." But the three officers at the table kept reading
+from their papers, and the moaning grew louder and louder in his
+ears until he shrieked aloud. There was a grenade in his hand. He
+pulled the string out and threw it, and he saw the lieutenant's
+trench coat stand out against a sheet of flame. Someone sprang at
+him. He was wrestling for his life with Anderson, who turned into
+a woman with huge flabby breasts. He crushed her to him and turned
+to defend himself against three officers who came at him, their
+trench coats drawn in tightly at the waist until they looked like
+wasps. Everything faded, he woke up.
+
+His nostrils were still full of the strange troubling smell. He
+sat on the edge of the bunk, wriggling in his clothes, for his
+body crawled with lice.
+
+"Gee, it's funny to be in where the Fritzies were not long ago,"
+he heard a voice say.
+
+"Kiddo! we're advancin'," came another voice.
+
+"But, hell, this ain't no kind of an advance. I ain't seen a
+German yet."
+
+"Ah kin smell 'em though," said Chrisfield, getting suddenly to
+his feet.
+
+Sergeant Higgins' head appeared in the door. "Fall in," he
+shouted. Then he added in his normal voice, "It's up and at 'em,
+fellers."
+
+
+
+Chrisfield caught his puttee on a clump of briars at the edge of
+the clearing and stood kicking his leg back and forth to get it
+free. At last he broke away, the torn puttee dragging behind him.
+Out in the sunlight in the middle of the clearing he saw a man in
+olive-drab kneeling beside something on the ground. A German lay
+face down with a red hole in his back. The man was going through
+his pockets. He looked up into Chrisfield's face.
+
+"Souvenirs," he said.
+
+"What outfit are you in, buddy?"
+
+"143rd," said the man, getting to his feet slowly.
+
+"Where the hell are we?"
+
+"Damned if I know."
+
+The clearing was empty, except for the two Americans and the
+German with the hole in his back. In the distance they heard a
+sound of artillery and nearer the "put, put, put" of isolated
+machine guns. The leaves of the trees about them, all shades of
+brown and crimson and yellow, danced in the sunlight.
+
+"Say, that damn money ain't no good, is it?" asked Chrisfield.
+
+"German money? Hell, no.... I got a watch that's a peach though."
+The man held out a gold watch, looking suspiciously at Chrisfield
+all the while through half-closed eyes.
+
+"Ah saw a feller had a gold-handled sword," said Chrisfield.
+
+"Where's that?"
+
+"Back there in the wood"; he waved his hand vaguely.
+
+"Ah've got to find ma outfit; comin' along?" Chrisfield started
+towards the other edge of the clearing.
+
+"Looks to me all right here," said the other man, lying down on
+the grass in the sun.
+
+The leaves rustled underfoot as Chrisfield strode through the
+wood. He was frightened by being alone. He walked ahead as fast as
+he could, his puttee still dragging behind him. He came to a
+barbed-wire entanglement half embedded in fallen beech leaves. It
+had been partly cut in one place, but in crossing he tore his
+thigh on a barb. Taking off the torn puttee, he wrapped it round
+the outside of his trousers and kept on walking, feeling a little
+blood trickle down his leg.
+
+Later he came to a lane that cut straight through the wood where
+there were many ruts through the putty-coloured mud puddles; Down
+the lane in a patch of sunlight he saw a figure, towards which he
+hurried. It was a young man with red hair and a pink-and-white
+face. By a gold bar on the collar of his shirt Chrisfield saw that
+he was a lieutenant. He had no coat or hat and there was greenish
+slime all over the front of his clothes as if he had lain on his
+belly in a mud puddle.
+
+"Where you going?"
+
+"Dunno, sir."
+
+"All right, come along." The lieutenant started walking as fast as
+he could up the lane, swinging his arms wildly.
+
+"Seen any machine-gun nests?"
+
+"Not a one."
+
+"Hum."
+
+He followed the lieutenant, who walked so fast he had difficulty
+keeping up, splashing recklessly through the puddles.
+
+"Where's the artillery? That's what I want to know," cried the
+lieutenant, suddenly stopping in his tracks and running a hand
+through his red hair. "Where the hell's the artillery?" He looked
+at Chrisfield savagely out of green eyes. "No use advancing
+without artillery."  He started walking faster than ever.
+
+All at once they saw sunlight ahead of them and olive-drab
+uniforms. Machine guns started firing all around them in a sudden
+gust. Chrisfield found himself running forward across a field full
+of stubble and sprouting clover among a group of men he did not
+know. The whip-like sound of rifles had chimed in with the
+stuttering of the machine guns. Little white clouds sailed above
+him in a blue sky, and in front of him was a group of houses that
+had the same color, white with lavender-grey shadows, as the
+clouds.
+
+He was in a house, with a grenade like a tin pineapple in each
+hand. The sudden loneliness frightened him again. Outside the
+house was a sound of machine-gun firing, broken by the occasional
+bursting; of a shell. He looked at the red-tiled roof and at a
+chromo of a woman nursing a child that hung on the whitewashed
+wall opposite him. He was in a small kitchen. There was a fire in
+the hearth where something boiled in a black pot. Chrisfield
+tiptoed over and looked in. At the bottom of the bubbling water he
+saw five potatoes. At the other end of the kitchen, beyond two
+broken chairs, was a door. Chrisfield crept over to it, the tiles
+seeming to sway under foot. He put his finger to the latch and
+took it off again suddenly. Holding in his breath he stood a long
+time looking at the door. Then he pulled it open recklessly. A
+young man with fair hair was sitting at a table, his head resting
+on his hands. Chrisfield felt a spurt of joy when he saw that the
+man's uniform was green. Very coolly he pressed the spring, held
+the grenade a second and then threw it, throwing himself backwards
+into the middle of the kitchen. The light-haired man had not
+moved; his blue eyes still stared straight before him.
+
+In the street Chrisfield ran into a tall man who was running. The
+man clutched him by the arm and said:
+
+"The barrage is moving up."
+
+"What barrage?"
+
+"Our barrage; we've got to run, we're ahead of it." His voice came
+in wheezy pants. There were red splotches on his face. They ran
+together down the empty village street. As they ran they passed
+the little red-haired lieutenant, who leaned against a whitewashed
+wall, his legs a mass of blood and torn cloth. He was shouting in
+a shrill delirious voice that followed them out along the open
+road.
+
+"Where's the artillery? That's what I want to know; where's the
+artillery?"
+
+
+
+The woods were grey and dripping with dawn. Chrisfield got stiffly
+to his feet from the pile of leaves where he had slept. He felt
+numb with cold and hunger, lonely and lost away from his outfit.
+All about him were men of another division. A captain with a sandy
+mustache was striding up and down with a blanket about him, on the
+road just behind a clump of beech trees. Chrisfield had watched
+him passing back and forth, back and forth, behind the wet
+clustered trunks of the trees, ever since it had been light.
+Stamping his feet among the damp leaves, Chrisfield strolled away
+from the group of men. No one seemed to notice him. The trees
+closed about him. He could see nothing but moist trees, grey-green
+and black, and the yellow leaves of saplings that cut off the view
+in every direction. He was wondering dully why he was walking off
+that way. Somewhere in the back of his mind there was a vague idea
+of finding his outfit. Sergeant Higgins and Andy and Judkins and
+Small--he wondered what had become of them. He thought of the
+company lined up for mess, and the smell of greasy food that came
+from the field-kitchen. He was desperately hungry. He stopped and
+leaned against the moss-covered trunk of a tree. The deep scratch
+in his leg was throbbing as if all the blood in his body beat
+through it. Now that his rustling footsteps had ceased, the woods
+were absolutely silent, except for the dripping of dew from the
+leaves and branches. He strained his ears to hear some other
+sound. Then he noticed that he was staring at a tree full of small
+red crab apples. He picked a handful greedily, but they were hard
+and sour and seemed to make him hungrier. The sour flavour in his
+mouth made him furiously angry. He kicked at the thin trunk of the
+tree while tears smarted in his eyes. Swearing aloud in a whining
+singsong voice, he strode off through the woods with his eyes on
+the ground. Twigs snapped viciously in his face, crooked branches
+caught at him, but he plunged on. All at once he stumbled against
+something hard that bounced among the leaves.
+
+He stopped still, looking about him, terrified. Two grenades lay
+just under his foot, a little further on a man was propped against
+a tree with his mouth open. Chrisfield thought at first he was
+asleep, as his eyes were closed. He looked at the grenades
+carefully. The fuses had not been sprung. He put one in each
+pocket, gave a glance at the man who seemed to be asleep, and
+strode off again, striking another alley in the woods, at the end
+of which he could see sunlight. The sky overhead was full of heavy
+purple clouds, tinged here and there with yellow. As he walked
+towards the patch of sunlight, the thought came to him that he
+ought to have looked in the pockets of the man he had just passed
+to see if he had any hard bread. He stood still a moment in
+hesitation, but started walking again doggedly towards the patch
+of sunlight.
+
+Something glittered in the irregular fringe of sun and shadow. A
+man was sitting hunched up on the ground with his fatigue cap
+pulled over his eyes so that the little gold bar just caught the
+horizontal sunlight. Chrisfield's first thought was that he might
+have food on him.
+
+"Say, Lootenant," he shouted, "d'you know where a fellow can get
+somethin' to eat."
+
+The man lifted his head slowly. Chrisfield turned cold all over
+when he saw the white heavy face of Anderson; an unshaven beard
+was very black on his square chin; there was a long scratch
+clotted with dried blood from the heavy eyebrow across the left
+cheek to the corner of the mouth.
+
+"Give me some water, buddy," said Anderson in a weak voice.
+
+Chrisfield handed him his canteen roughly in silence. He noticed
+that Anderson's arm was in a sling, and that he drank greedily,
+spilling the water over his chin and his wounded arm.
+
+"Where's Colonel Evans?" asked Anderson in a thin petulant voice.
+
+Chrisfield did not reply but stared at him sullenly. The canteen
+had dropped from his hand and lay on the ground in front of him.
+The water gleamed in the sunlight as it ran out among the russet
+leaves. A wind had come up, making the woods resound. A shower of
+yellow leaves dropped about them.
+
+"First you was a corporal, then you was a sergeant, and now you're
+a lootenant," said Chrisfield slowly.
+
+"You'ld better tell me where Colonel Evans is.... You must
+know.... He's up that road somewhere," said Anderson, struggling
+to get to his feet.
+
+Chrisfield walked away without answering. A cold hand was round
+the grenade in his pocket. He walked away slowly, looking at his
+feet.
+
+Suddenly he found he had pressed the spring of the grenade. He
+struggled to pull it out of his pocket. It stuck in the narrow
+pocket. His arm and his cold fingers that clutched the grenade
+seemed paralyzed. Then a warm joy went through him. He had thrown
+it.
+
+Anderson was standing up, swaying backwards and forwards. The
+explosion made the woods quake. A thick rain of yellow leaves came
+down. Anderson was flat on the ground. He was so flat he seemed to
+have sunk into the ground.
+
+Chrisfield pressed the spring of the other grenade and threw it
+with his eyes closed. It burst among the thick new-fallen leaves.
+
+A few drops of rain were falling. Chrisfield kept on along the
+lane, walking fast, feeling full of warmth and strength. The rain
+beat hard and cold against his back.
+
+He walked with his eyes to the ground. A voice in a strange
+language stopped him. A ragged man in green with a beard that was
+clotted with mud stood in front of him with his hands up.
+Chrisfield burst out laughing.
+
+"Come along," he said, "quick!"
+
+The man shambled in front of him; he was trembling so hard he
+nearly fell with each step.
+
+Chrisfield kicked him.
+
+The man shambled on without turning round. Chrisfield kicked him
+again, feeling the point of the man's spine and the soft flesh of
+his rump against his toes with each kick, laughing so hard all the
+while that he could hardly see where he was going.
+
+"Halt!" came a voice.
+
+"Ah've got a prisoner," shouted Chrisfield still laughing.
+
+"He ain't much of a prisoner," said the man, pointing his bayonet
+at the German. "He's gone crazy, I guess. I'll take keer o'
+him...ain't no use sendin' him back."
+
+"All right," said Chrisfield still laughing. "Say, buddy, where
+can Ah' git something to eat? Ah ain't had nothin' fur a day an a
+half."
+
+"There's a reconnoitrin' squad up the line; they'll give
+you somethin'.... How's things goin' up that way?" The man pointed
+up the road.
+
+"Gawd, Ah doan know. Ah ain't had nothin' to eat fur a day and a
+half."
+
+
+
+The warm smell of a stew rose to his nostrils from the mess-kit.
+Chrisfield stood, feeling warm and important, filling his mouth
+with soft greasy potatoes and gravy, while men about him asked him
+questions. Gradually he began to feel full and content, and a
+desire to sleep came over him. But he was given a gun, and had to
+start advancing again with the reconnoitering squad. The squad
+went cautiously up the same lane through the woods.
+
+"Here's an officer done for," said the captain, who walked ahead.
+He made a little clucking noise of distress with his tongue. "Two
+of you fellows go back and git a blanket and take him back to the
+cross-roads. Poor fellow." The captain walked on again, still
+making little clucking noises with his tongue.
+
+Chrisfield looked straight ahead of him. He did not feel lonely
+any more now that he was marching in ranks again. His feet beat
+the ground in time with the other feet. He would not have to think
+whether to go to the right or to the left. He would do as the
+others did.
+
+
+
+                      PART FOUR: RUST
+
+                             I
+
+There were tiny green frogs in one of the putty-colored puddles by
+the roadside. John Andrews fell out of the slowly advancing column
+a moment to look at them. The frogs' triangular heads stuck out of
+the water in the middle of the puddle. He leaned over, his hands on
+his knees, easing the weight of the equipment on his back. That way
+he could see their tiny jewelled eyes, topaz-colored. His eyes felt
+as if tears were coming to them with tenderness towards the minute
+lithe bodies of the frogs. Something was telling him that he must
+run forward and fall into line again, that he must shamble on
+through the mud, but he remained staring at the puddle, watching
+the frogs. Then he noticed his reflection in the puddle. He looked
+at it curiously. He could barely see the outlines of a stained
+grimacing mask, and the silhouette of the gun barrel slanting
+behind it. So this was what they had made of him. He fixed his eyes
+again on the frogs that swam with elastic, leisurely leg strokes in
+the putty-colored water.
+
+Absently, as if he had no connection with all that went on about
+him, he heard the twang of bursting shrapnel down the road. He had
+straightened himself wearily and taken a step forward, when he
+found himself sinking into the puddle. A feeling of relief came
+over him. His legs sunk in the puddle; he lay without moving
+against the muddy bank. The frogs had gone, but from somewhere a
+little stream of red was creeping out slowly into the putty-colored
+water. He watched the irregular files of men in olive-drab
+shambling by. Their footsteps drummed in his ears. He felt
+triumphantly separated from them, as if he were in a window
+somewhere watching soldiers pass, or in a box of a theater watching
+some dreary monotonous play. He drew farther and farther away from
+them until they had become very small, like toy soldiers forgotten
+among the dust in a garret. The light was so dim he couldn't see,
+he could only hear their feet tramping interminably through the
+mud.
+
+
+
+John Andrews was on a ladder that shook horribly. A gritty sponge
+in his hand, he was washing the windows of a barracks. He began in
+the left hand corner and soaped the small oblong panes one after
+the other. His arms were like lead and he felt that he would fall
+from the shaking ladder, but each time he turned to look towards
+the ground before climbing down he saw the top of the general's cap
+and the general's chin protruding from under the visor, and a voice
+snarled: "Attention," terrifying him so that the ladder shook more
+than ever; and he went on smearing soap over the oblong panes with
+the gritty sponge through interminable hours, though every joint in
+his body was racked by the shaking of the ladder. Bright light
+flared from inside the windows which he soaped, pane after pane,
+methodically. The windows were mirrors. In each pane he saw his
+thin face, in shadow, with the shadow of a gun barrel slanting
+beside it. The jolting stopped suddenly. He sank into a deep pit of
+blackness.
+
+A shrill broken voice was singing in his ear:
+
+"There's a girl in the heart of Maryland
+ With a heart that belongs to me-e."
+
+John Andrews opened his eyes. It was pitch black, except for a
+series of bright yellow oblongs that seemed to go up into the sky,
+where he could see the stars. His mind became suddenly acutely
+conscious. He began taking account of himself in a hurried
+frightened way. He craned his neck a little. In the darkness he
+could make out the form of a man stretched out flat beside him who
+kept moving his head strangely from side to side, singing at the
+top of his lungs in a shrill broken voice. At that moment Andrews
+noticed that the smell of carbolic was overpoweringly strong, that
+it dominated all the familiar smells of blood and sweaty clothes.
+He wriggled his shoulders so that he could feel the two poles of
+the stretcher. Then he fixed his eyes again in the three bright
+yellow oblongs, one above the other, that rose into the darkness.
+Of course, they were windows; he was near a house.
+
+He moved his arms a little. They felt like lead, but unhurt. Then
+he realized that his legs were on fire. He tried to move them;
+everything went black again in a sudden agony of pain. The voice
+was still shrieking in his ears:
+
+"There's a girl in the heart of Maryland
+ With a heart that belongs to me-e."
+
+But another voice could be heard, softer, talking endlessly in
+tender clear tones:
+
+"An' he said they were goin' to take me way down south where there
+was a little house on the beach, all so warm an' quiet..."
+
+The song of the man beside him rose to a tuneless shriek, like a
+phonograph running down:
+
+"An' Mary-land was fairy-land
+ When she said that mine she'd be..."
+
+Another voice broke in suddenly in short spurts of whining groans
+that formed themselves into fragments of drawn-out intricate
+swearing. And all the while the soft voice went on. Andrews
+strained his ears to hear it.
+
+It soothed his pain as if some cool fragrant oil were being poured
+over his body.
+
+"An' there'll be a garden full of flowers, roses an' hollyhocks,
+way down there in the south, an' it'll be so warm an' quiet, an'
+the sun'll shine all day, and the sky'll be so blue..."
+
+Andrews felt his lips repeating the words like lips following a
+prayer.
+
+"--An' it'll be so warm an' quiet, without any noise at all. An'
+the garden'll be full of roses an'..."
+
+But the other voices kept breaking in, drowning out the soft voice
+with groans, and strings of whining oaths.
+
+"An' he said I could sit on the porch, an' the sun'll be so warm
+an' quiet, an' the garden'll smell so good, an' the beach'll be all
+white, an' the sea..."
+
+Andrews felt his head suddenly rise in the air and then his feet.
+He swung out of the darkness into a brilliant white corridor. His
+legs throbbed with flaming agony. The face of a man with a
+cigarette in his mouth peered close to his. A hand fumbled at his
+throat, where the tag was, and someone read:
+
+"Andrews, 1.432.286."
+
+But he was listening to the voice out in the dark, behind him, that
+shrieked in rasping tones of delirium:
+
+"There's a girl in the heart of Mary-land
+ With a heart that belongs to me-e."
+
+Then he discovered that he was groaning. His mind became entirely
+taken up in the curious rhythm of his groans. The only parts of his
+body that existed were his legs and something in his throat that
+groaned and groaned. It was absorbing. White figures hovered about
+him, he saw the hairy forearms of a man in shirt sleeves, lights
+glared and went out, strange smells entered at his nose and
+circulated through his whole body, but nothing could distract his
+attention from the singsong of his groans.
+
+Rain fell in his face. He moved his head from side to side,
+suddenly feeling conscious of himself. His mouth was dry, like
+leather; he put out his tongue to try to catch raindrops in it. He
+was swung roughly about in the stretcher. He lifted his head
+cautiously, feeling a great throb of delight that he still could
+lift his head.
+
+"Keep yer head down, can't yer?" snarled a voice beside him.
+He had seen the back of a man in a gleaming wet slicker at the end
+of the stretcher.
+
+"Be careful of my leg, can't yer?" he found himself whining over
+and over again. Then suddenly there was a lurch that rapped his
+head against the crosspiece of the stretcher, and he found himself
+looking up at a wooden ceiling from which the white paint had
+peeled in places. He smelt gasoline and could hear the throb of an
+engine. He began to think back; how long was it since he had looked
+at the little frogs in the puddle? A vivid picture came to his mind
+of the puddle with its putty-colored water and the little
+triangular heads of the frogs. But it seemed as long ago as a
+memory of childhood; all of his life before that was not so long as
+the time that had gone by since the car had started. And he was
+jolting and swinging about in the stretcher, clutching hard with
+his hands at the poles of the stretcher. The pain in his legs grew
+worse; the rest of his body seemed to shrivel under it. From below
+him came a rasping voice that cried out at every lurch of the
+ambulance. He fought against the desire to groan, but at last he
+gave in and lay lost in the monotonous singsong of his groans.
+
+The rain was in his face again for a moment, then his body was
+tilted. A row of houses and russet trees and chimney pots against a
+leaden sky swung suddenly up into sight and were instantly replaced
+by a ceiling and the coffred vault of a staircase. Andrews was
+still groaning softly, but his eyes fastened with sudden interest
+on the sculptured rosettes of the coffres and the coats of arms
+that made the center of each section of ceiling. Then he found
+himself staring in the face of the man who was carrying the lower
+end of the stretcher. It was a white face with pimples round the
+mouth and good-natured, watery blue eyes. Andrews looked at the
+eyes and tried to smile, but the man carrying the stretcher was not
+looking at him.
+
+Then after more endless hours of tossing about on the stretcher,
+lost in a groaning agony of pain, hands laid hold of him roughly
+and pulled his clothes off and lifted him on a cot where he lay
+gasping, breathing in the cool smell of disinfectant that hung
+about the bedclothes. He heard voices over his head.
+
+"Isn't bad at all...this leg wound.... I thought you said we'd have
+to amputate?"
+
+"Well, what's the matter with him, then?"
+
+"Maybe shell-shock...."
+
+A cold sweat of terror took hold of Andrews. He lay perfectly still
+with his eyes closed. Spasm after spasm of revolt went through him.
+No, they hadn't broken him yet; he still had hold of his nerves, he
+kept saying to himself. Still, he felt that his hands, clasped
+across his belly, were trembling. The pain in his legs disappeared
+in the fright in which he lay, trying desperately to concentrate
+his mind on something outside himself. He tried to think of a tune
+to hum to himself, but he only heard again shrieking in his ears
+the voice which, it seemed to him months and years ago, had sung:
+
+"There's a girl in the heart of Maryland
+ With a heart that belo-ongs to me-e."
+
+The voice shrieking the blurred tune and the pain in his legs
+mingled themselves strangely, until they seemed one and the pain
+seemed merely a throbbing of the maddening tune.
+
+He opened his eyes. Darkness fading into a faint yellow glow.
+Hastily he took stock of himself, moved his head and his arms. He
+felt cool and very weak and quiet; he must have slept a long time.
+He passed his rough dirty, hand over his face. The skin felt soft
+and cool. He pressed his cheek on the pillow and felt himself
+smiling contentedly, he did not know why.
+
+The Queen of Sheba carried a parasol with little vermilion bells
+all round it that gave out a cool tinkle as she walked towards him.
+She wore her hair in a high headdress thickly powdered with blue
+iris powder, and on her long train, that a monkey held up at the
+end, were embroidered in gaudy colors the signs of the zodiac. She
+was not the Queen of Sheba, she was a nurse whose face he could not
+see in the obscurity, and, sticking an arm behind his head in a
+deft professional manner, she gave him something to drink from a
+glass without looking at him. He said "Thank you," in his natural
+voice, which surprised him in the silence; but she went off without
+replying and he saw that it was a trayful of glasses that had
+tinkled as she had come towards him.
+
+Dark as it was he noticed the self-conscious tilt of the nurse's
+body as she walked silently to the next cot, holding the tray of
+glasses in front of her. He twisted his head round on the pillow to
+watch how gingerly she put her arm under the next man's head to
+give him a drink.
+
+"A virgin," he said to himself, "very much a virgin," and he found
+himself giggling softly, notwithstanding the twinges of pain from
+his legs. He felt suddenly as if his spirit had awakened from a
+long torpor. The spell of dejection that had deadened him for
+months had slipped off. He was free. The thought came to him
+gleefully, that as long as he stayed in that cot in the hospital no
+one would shout orders at him. No one would tell him to clean his
+rifle. There would be no one to salute. He would not have
+to worry about making himself pleasant to the sergeant. He would
+lie there all day long, thinking his own thoughts.
+
+Perhaps he was badly enough wounded to be discharged from the army.
+The thought set his heart beating like mad. That meant that he, who
+had given himself up for lost, who had let himself be trampled down
+unresistingly into the mud of slavery, who had looked for no escape
+from the treadmill but death, would live. He, John Andrews, would
+live.
+
+And it seemed inconceivable that he had ever given himself up, that
+he had ever let the grinding discipline have its way with him. He
+saw himself vividly once more as he had seen himself before his
+life had suddenly blotted itself out, before he had become a slave
+among slaves. He renumbered the garden where, in his boyhood, he
+had sat dreaming through the droning summer afternoons under the
+crepe myrtle bushes, while the cornfields beyond rustled and
+shimmered in the heat. He remembered the day he had stood naked in
+the middle of a base room while the recruiting sergeant prodded him
+and measured him. He wondered suddenly what the date was. Could it
+be that it was only a year ago? Yet in that year all the other
+years of his life had been blotted out. But now he would begin
+living again. He would give up this cowardly cringing before
+external things. He would be recklessly himself.
+
+The pain in his legs was gradually localizing itself into the
+wounds. For a while he struggled against it to go on thinking, but
+its constant throb kept impinging in his mind until, although he
+wanted desperately to comb through his pale memories to remember,
+if ever so faintly, all that had been vivid and lusty in his life,
+to build himself a new foundation of resistance against the world
+from which he could start afresh to live, he became again the
+querulous piece of hurt flesh, the slave broken on the treadmill;
+he began to groan.
+
+Cold steel-gray light filtered into the ward, drowning the yellow
+glow which first turned ruddy and then disappeared. Andrews began
+to make out the row of cots opposite him, and the dark beams of the
+ceiling above his head. "This house must be very old," he said to
+himself, and the thought vaguely excited him. Funny that the Queen
+of Sheba had come to his head, it was ages since he'd thought of
+all that. From the girl at the cross-roads singing under her
+street-lamp to the patrician pulling roses to pieces from the
+height of her litter, all the aspects' half-guessed, all the
+imaginings of your desire... that was the Queen of Sheba. He
+whispered the words aloud, "la reine de Saba, la reine de Saba";
+and, with a tremor of anticipation of the sort he used to feel when
+he was a small boy the night before Christmas, with a sense of new;
+things in store for him, he pillowed his head on his arm and went
+quietly to sleep.
+
+"Ain't it juss like them frawgs te make a place like this' into a
+hauspital?" said the orderly, standing with his feet wide apart and
+his hands on his hips, facing a row of cots and talking to anyone
+who  felt well  enough to listen. "Honest, I doan see why you
+fellers doan all cash in yer! checks in this hole.... There warn't
+even electric light till we put it in.... What d'you think o' that?
+That shows how much the goddam  frawgs care...." The orderly was a
+short man with a sallow, lined face and large yellow teeth. When he
+smiled the horizontal lines in his forehead and the lines that ran
+from the sides of his nose to the ends of his mouth deepened so
+that his face looked as if it were made up to play a comic part in
+the movies.
+
+"It's kind of artistic, though, ain't it?" said Applebaum, whose
+cot was next Andrews's,--a skinny man with large, frightened eyes
+and an inordinately red face that looked as if the skin had been
+peeled off. "Look at the work there is on that ceiling. Must have
+cost some dough when it was noo."
+
+"Wouldn't be bad as a dance hall with a little fixin' up, but a
+hauspital; hell!"
+
+Andrews lay, comfortable in his cot, looking into the ward out of
+another world. He felt no connection with the talk about him, with
+the men who lay silent or tossed about groaning in the rows of
+narrow cots that filled the Renaissance hall. In the yellow glow of
+the electric lights, looking beyond the orderly's twisted  face and
+narrow head, he could see very faintly, where the beams of the
+ceiling sprung from the wall, a row of half-obliterated shields
+supported by figures carved out of the grey stone of the wall,
+handed satyrs with horns and goats' beards and deep-set eyes,
+little squat figures of warriors and townsmen in square hats with
+swords between their bent knees, naked limbs twined in scrolls of
+spiked acanthus leaves, all seen very faintly, so that when the
+electric lights swung back and forth in the wind made by the
+orderly's hurried passing, they all seemed to wink and wriggle in
+shadowy mockery of the rows of prostrate bodies in the room beneath
+them. Yet they were familiar, friendly to Andrews. He kept feeling
+a half-formulated desire to be up there too, crowded under a beam,
+grimacing through heavy wreaths of pomegranates and acanthus
+leaves, the incarnation of old rich lusts, of clear fires that had
+sunk to dust ages since. He felt at home in that spacious hall,
+built for wide gestures and stately steps, in which all the little
+routine of the army seemed unreal, and  the wounded men discarded
+automatons, broken toys laid away in rows.
+
+Andrews was snatched out of his thoughts. Applebaum was speaking to
+him; he turned his head.
+
+"How d'you loike it bein' wounded, buddy?"
+
+"Fine."
+
+"Foine, I should think it was.... Better than doin' squads right
+all day."
+
+"Where did you get yours?"
+
+"Ain't got only one arm now.... I don't give a damn.... I've driven
+my last fare, that's all."
+
+"How d'you mean?"
+
+"I used to drive a taxi."
+
+"That's a pretty good job, isn't it?"
+
+"You bet, big money in it, if yer in right."
+
+"So you used to be a taxi-driver, did you?" broke in the orderly.
+"That's a fine job.... When I was in the Providence Hospital half
+the fractures was caused by taxis. We had a little girl of six in
+the children's ward had her feet cut clean off at the ankles by a
+taxi. Pretty yellow hair she had, too. Gangrene.... Only lasted a
+day.... Well, I'm going off, I guess you guys wish you was going
+to be where I'm goin' to be tonight.... That's one thing you guys
+are lucky in, don't have to worry about propho." The orderly
+wrinkled his face up and winked elaborately.
+
+"Say, will you do something for me?" asked Andrews.
+
+"Sure, if it ain't no trouble."
+
+"Will you buy me a book?"
+
+"Ain't ye got enough with all the books at the 'Y'?"
+
+"No.... This is a special book," said Andrews smiling, "a French
+book."
+
+"A French book, is it? Well, I'll see what I can do. What's it
+called?"
+
+"By Flaubert.... Look, if you've got a piece of paper and a pencil,
+I'll write it down."
+
+Andrews scrawled the title on the back of an order slip.
+
+"There."
+
+"What the hell? Who's Antoine? Gee whiz, I bet that's hot stuff. I
+wish I could read French. We'll have you breakin' loose out o' here
+an' going down to number four, roo Villiay, if you read that kind
+o' book."
+
+"Has it got pictures?" asked Applebaum. "One feller did break out
+o' here a month ago,... Couldn't stand it any longer, I guess.
+Well, his wound opened an' he had a hemorrhage, an' now he's
+planted out in the back lot.... But I'm goin'. Goodnight." The
+orderly bustled to the end of the ward and disappeared.
+
+The lights went out, except for the bulb over the nurse's desk at
+the end, beside the ornate doorway, with its wreathed pinnacles
+carved out of the grey stone, which could be seen above the white
+canvas screen that hid the door.
+
+"What's that book about, buddy?" asked Applebaum, twisting his head
+at the end of his lean neck so as to look Andrews full in the face.
+
+"Oh, it's about a man who wants everything so badly that he decides
+there's nothing worth wanting."
+
+"I guess youse had a college edication," said Applebaum
+sarcastically.
+
+ Andrews laughed.
+
+"Well, I was goin' to tell youse about when I used to drive a taxi.
+I was makin' big money when I enlisted. Was you drafted?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, so was I. I doan think nauthin o' them guys that are so
+stuck up 'cause they enlisted, d'you?"
+
+"Not a hell of a lot."
+
+"Don't yer?" came a voice from the other side of Andrews, a thin
+voice that stuttered. "W-w-well, all I can say is, it'ld have
+sss-spoiled my business if I hadn't enlisted. No, sir, nobody
+can say I didn't enlist."
+
+"Well, that's your look-out," said Applebaum.
+
+"You're goddam right, it was."
+
+"Well, ain't your business spoiled anyway?"
+
+"No, sir. I can pick it right up where I left off. I've got an
+established reputation."
+
+"What at?"
+
+"I'm an undertaker by profession; my dad was before me."
+
+"Gee, you were right at home!" said Andrews.
+
+"You haven't any right to say that, young feller," said the
+undertaker angrily. "I'm a humane man. I won't never be at home in
+this dirty butchery."
+
+The nurse was walking by their cots.
+
+"How can you say such dreadful things?" she said. "But lights are
+out. You boys have got to keep quiet.... And you," she plucked at
+the undertaker's bedclothes, "just remember what the Huns did in
+Belgium.... Poor Miss Cavell, a nurse just like I am."
+
+Andrews closed his eyes. The ward was quiet except for the rasping
+sound of the snores and heavy breathing of the shattered men all
+about him. "And I thought she was the Queen of Sheba," he said to
+himself, making a grimace in the dark. Then he began to think of
+the music he had intended to write about the Queen of Sheba before
+he had stripped his life off in the bare room where they had
+measured him and made a soldier of him. Standing in the dark in the
+desert of his despair, he would hear the sound of a caravan in the
+distance, tinkle of bridles, rasping of horns, braying of donkeys,
+and the throaty voices of men singing the songs of desolate roads.
+He would look up, and before him he would see, astride their
+foaming wild asses, the three green horsemen motionless, pointing
+at him with their long forefingers. Then the music would burst in a
+sudden hot whirlwind about him, full of flutes and kettledrums and
+braying horns and whining bagpipes, and torches would flare red and
+yellow, making a tent of light about him, on the edges of which
+would crowd the sumpter mules and the brown mule drivers, and the
+gaudily caparisoned camels, and the elephants glistening with
+jewelled harness. Naked slaves would bend their gleaming backs
+before him as they laid out a carpet at his feet; and, through
+the flare of torchlight, the Queen, of Sheba would advance towards
+him, covered with emeralds and dull-gold ornaments, with a monkey
+hopping behind holding up the end of her long train. She would put
+her hand with its slim fantastic nails on his shoulder; and, looking
+into her eyes, he would suddenly feel within reach all the fiery
+imaginings of his desire. Oh, if he could only be free to work.
+All the months he had wasted in his life seemed to be marching like
+a procession of ghosts before his eyes. And he lay in his cot,
+staring with wide open eyes at the ceiling, hoping desperately
+that his wounds would be long in healing.
+
+
+
+Applebaum sat on the edge of his cot, dressed in a clean new
+uniform, of which the left sleeve hung empty, still showing the
+creases in which it had been folded.
+
+"So you really are going," said Andrews, rolling his head over on
+his pillow to look at him.
+
+"You bet your pants I am, Andy.... An' so could you, poifectly
+well, if you'ld talk it up to 'em a little."
+
+"Oh, I wish to God I could. Not that I want to go home, now, but
+...if I could get out of uniform."
+
+"I don't blame ye a bit, kid; well, next time, we'll know
+better.... Local Board Chairman's going to be my job."
+
+Andrews laughed.
+
+"If I wasn't a sucker...."
+
+"You weren't the only wewe-one," came the undertaker's stuttering
+voice from behind Andrews.
+
+"Hell, I thought you enlisted, undertaker."
+
+"Well, I did, by God. but I didn't think it was going to be like
+this."
+
+"What did ye think it was goin' to be, a picnic?"
+
+"Hell, I doan care about that, or gettin' gassed, and smashed up,
+or anythin', but I thought we was goin' to put things to rights by
+comin' over here.... Look here, I had a lively business in the
+undertaking way, like my father had had before me.... We did all
+the swellest work in Tilletsville...."
+
+"Where?" interrupted Applebaum, laughing.
+
+"Tilletsville; don't you know any geography?"
+
+"Go ahead, tell us about Tilletsville," said Andrews soothingly.
+
+"Why, when Senator Wallace d-d-deceased there, who d'you think had
+charge of embalming the body and taking it to the station an'
+seeing everything was done fitting? We did.... And I was going to
+be married to a dandy girl, and I knowed I had enough pull to get
+fixed up, somehow, or to get a commission even, but there I went
+like a sucker an' enlisted in the infantry, too.... But, hell,
+everybody was saying that we was going to fight to make the world
+safe for democracy, and that, if a feller didn't go, no one'ld
+trade with him any more."
+
+He started coughing suddenly and seemed unable to stop. At last he
+said weakly, in a thin little voice between coughs:
+
+"Well, here I am. There ain't nothing to do about it."
+
+"Democracy.... That's democracy, ain't it: we eat stinkin' goolash
+an' that there fat 'Y' woman goes out with Colonels eatin'
+chawklate soufflay.... Poifect democracy!... But I tell you what:
+it don't do to be the goat."
+
+"But there's so damn many more goats than anything else," said
+Andrews.
+
+"There's a sucker born every minute, as Barnum said. You learn that
+drivin' a taxicab, if ye don't larn nothin' else.... No, sir, I'm
+goin' into politics. I've got good connections up Hundred and
+Twenty-fif' street way.... You see, I've got an aunt, Mrs. Sallie
+Schultz, owns a hotel on a Hundred and Tirty-tird street. Heard of
+Jim O'Ryan, ain't yer? Well, he's a good friend o' hers; see? Bein'
+as they're both Catholics... But I'm goin' out this afternoon, see
+what the town's like... an ole Ford says the skirts are just
+peaches an' cream."
+
+"He juss s-s-says that to torment a feller," stuttered the undertaker.
+
+"I wish I were going with you," said Andrews. "You'll get well
+plenty soon enough, Andy, and get yourself marked Class A, and get
+given a gun, an--'Over the top, boys!'...to see if the Fritzies
+won't make a better shot next time.... Talk about suckers! You're
+the most poifect sucker I ever met.... What did you want to tell
+the loot your legs didn't hurt bad for? They'll have you out o'
+here before you know it.... Well, I'm goin' out to see what the
+mamzelles look like."
+
+Applebaum, the uniform hanging in folds about his skinny body,
+swaggered to the door, followed by the envious glances of the whole
+ward.
+
+"Gee, guess he thinks he's goin' to get to be president," said the
+undertaker bitterly.
+
+"He probably will," said Andrews.
+
+He settled himself in his bed again, sinking back into the dull
+contemplation of the teasing, smarting pain where the torn
+ligaments of his thighs were slowly knitting themselves together.
+He tried desperately to forget the pain; there was so much he
+wanted to think out. If he could only lie perfectly  quiet, and
+piece together the frayed ends of thoughts that kept flickering to
+the surface of his mind. He counted up the days he had been in the
+hospital; fifteen! Could it be that long? And he had not thought of
+anything yet. Soon, as Applebaum said, they'd be putting him in
+Class A and sending him back to the treadmill, and he would not
+have reconquered his courage, his dominion over himself. What a
+coward he had been anyway, to submit. The man beside him kept
+coughing. Andrews stared for a moment at the silhouette of the
+yellow face on the pillow, with its pointed nose and small greedy
+eyes. He thought of the swell undertaking establishment, of the
+black gloves and long faces and soft tactful voices. That man and
+his father before him lived by pretending things they didn't feel,
+by swathing reality with all manner of crepe and trumpery. For
+those people, no one ever died, they passed away, they deceased.
+Still, there had to be undertakers. There was no more stain about
+that than about any other trade. And it was so as not to spoil his
+trade that the undertaker had enlisted, and to make the world safe
+for democracy, too. The phrase came to Andrews's mind amid an
+avalanche of popular tunes; of visions of patriotic numbers on the
+vaudeville stage. He remembered the great flags waving triumphantly
+over Fifth Avenue, and the crowds dutifully cheering. But those
+were valid reasons for the undertaker; but for him, John Andrews,
+were they valid reasons? No. He had no trade, he had not been
+driven into the army by the force of public opinion, he had not
+been carried away by any wave of blind confidence in the phrases of
+bought propagandists. He had not had the strength to live. The
+thought came to him of all those who, down the long tragedy of
+history, had given themselves smilingly for the integrity of their
+thoughts. He had not had the courage to move a muscle for his
+freedom, but he had been fairly cheerful about risking his life as
+a soldier, in a cause he believed useless. What right had a man to
+exist who was too cowardly to stand up for what he thought and
+felt, for his whole makeup, for everything that made him an
+individual apart from his fellows, and not a slave to stand cap in
+hand waiting for someone of stronger will to tell him to act?
+
+Like a sudden nausea, disgust surged up in him. His mind ceased
+formulating phrases and thoughts. He gave himself over to disgust
+as a man who has drunk a great deal, holding on tight to the reins
+of his will, suddenly gives himself over pellmell to drunkenness.
+
+He lay very still, with his eyes closed, listening to the stir of
+the ward, the voices of men talking and the fits of coughing that
+shook the man next him. The smarting pain throbbed monotonously. He
+felt hungry and wondered vaguely if it were supper time. How little
+they gave you to eat in the hospital!
+
+He called over to the man in the opposite cot:
+
+"Hay, Stalky, what time is it?"
+
+"It's after messtime now. Got a good appetite for the steak and
+onions and French fried potatoes?"
+
+"Shut up."
+
+A rattling of tin dishes at the other end of the ward made Andrews
+wriggle up further on his pillow. Verses from the "Shropshire Lad"
+jingled mockingly through his head:
+
+"The world, it was the old world yet,
+ I was I, my things were wet,
+ And nothing now remained to do
+ But begin the game anew."
+
+After he had eaten, he picked up the "Tentation de Saint Antoine,"
+that lay on the cot beside his immovable legs, and buried himself
+in it, reading the gorgeously modulated sentences voraciously, as
+if the book were a drug in which he could drink deep forgetfulness
+of himself.
+
+He put the book down and closed his eyes. His mind was full of
+intangible floating glow, like the ocean on a warm night, when
+every wave breaks into pale flame, and mysterious milky lights keep
+rising to the surface out of the dark waters and gleaming and
+vanishing. He became absorbed in the strange fluid harmonies that
+permeated his whole body, as a grey sky at nightfall suddenly
+becomes filled with endlessly changing patterns of light and color
+and shadow.
+
+When he tried to seize hold of his thoughts, to give them definite
+musical expression in his mind, he found himself suddenly empty,
+the way a sandy inlet on the beach that has been full of shoals of
+silver fishes, becomes suddenly empty when a shadow crosses the
+water, and the man who is watching sees wanly his own reflection
+instead of the flickering of thousands of tiny silver bodies.
+
+
+
+John Andrews awoke to feel a cold hand on his head.
+
+"Feeling all right?" said a voice in his ear.
+
+He found himself looking in a puffy, middle-aged face, with a lean
+nose and grey eyes, with dark rings under them. Andrews felt the
+eyes looking him over inquisitively. He saw the red triangle on the
+man's khaki sleeve.
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"If you don't mind, I'd like to talk to you a little while, buddy."
+
+"Not a bit; have you got a chair?" said Andrews smiling.
+
+"I don't suppose it was just right of me to wake you up, but you
+see it was this way.... You were the next in line, an' I was afraid
+I'd forget you, if I skipped you."
+
+"I understand," said Andrews, with a sudden determination to take
+the initiative away from the "Y" man.
+
+"How long have you been in France? D'you like the war?" he asked
+hurriedly.
+
+The "Y" man smiled sadly.
+
+"You seem pretty spry," he said. "I guess you're in a hurry to get
+back at the front and get some more Huns." He smiled again, with an
+air of indulgence.
+
+Andrews did not answer.
+
+"No, sonny, I don't like it here," the "Y" man said, after a pause.
+"I wish I was home--but it's great to feel you're doing your duty."
+
+"It must be," said Andrews.
+
+"Have you heard about the great air raids our boys have pulled off?
+They've bombarded Frankfort; now if they could only wipe Berlin off
+the map."
+
+"Say, d'you hate 'em awful hard?" said Andrews in a low voice.
+"Because, if you do, I can tell you something will tickle you most
+to death.... Lean over."
+
+The "Y" man leant over curiously. "Some German prisoners come to
+this hospital at six every night to get the garbage; now all you
+need to do if you really hate 'em so bad is borrow a revolver from
+one of your officer friends, and just shoot up the convoy...."
+
+"Say...where were you raised, boy?" The "Y" man sat up suddenly
+with a look of alarm on his face. "Don't you know that prisoners
+are sacred?"
+
+"D'you know what our colonel told us before going into the Argonne
+offensive? The more prisoners we took, the less grub there'ld be;
+and do you know what happened to the prisoners that were taken? Why
+do you hate the Huns?"
+
+"Because they are barbarians, enemies of civilization. You must
+have enough education to know that," said the "Y" man, raising his
+voice angrily. "What church do you belong to?"
+
+"None."
+
+"But you must have been connected with some church, boy. You can't
+have been raised a heathen in America. Every Christian belongs or
+has belonged to some church or other from baptism."
+
+"I make no pretensions to Christianity."
+
+Andrews closed his eyes and turned his head away. He could feel the
+"Y" man hovering over him irresolutely. After a while he opened his
+eyes. The "Y" man was leaning over the next bed.
+
+Through the window at the opposite side of the ward he could see a
+bit of blue sky among white scroll-like clouds, with mauve shadows.
+He stared at it until the clouds, beginning to grow golden into
+evening, covered it. Furious, hopeless irritation consumed him. How
+these people enjoyed hating! At that rate it was better to be at
+the front. Men were more humane when they were killing each other
+than when they were talking about it. So was civilization nothing
+but a vast edifice of sham, and the war, instead of its crumbling,
+was its fullest and most ultimate expression. Oh, but there must be
+something more in the world than greed and hatred and cruelty. Were
+they all shams, too, these gigantic phrases that floated like gaudy
+kites high above mankind? Kites, that was it, contraptions of tissue
+paper held at the end of a string, ornaments not to be taken
+seriously. He thought of all the long procession of men who had been
+touched by the unutterable futility of the lives of men, who had
+tried by phrases to make things  otherwise,  who  had  taught
+unworldliness. Dim enigmatic figures they were--Democritus, Socrates,
+Epicurus, Christ; so many of them, and so vague in the silvery mist
+of history that he hardly knew that they were not his own imagining;
+Lucretius, St. Francis, Voltaire, Rousseau, and how many others,
+known and unknown, through the tragic centuries;  they had wept, some
+of them, and some of them had laughed, and their phrases had risen
+glittering, soap bubbles to dazzle men for a moment, and had shattered.
+And he felt a crazy desire to join the forlorn ones, to throw himself
+into inevitable defeat, to live his life as he saw it in spite of
+everything, to proclaim once more the falseness of the gospels under
+the cover of which greed and fear filled with more and yet more pain
+the already unbearable agony of human life.
+
+As soon as he got out of the hospital he would desert; the
+determination formed suddenly in his mind, making the excited blood
+surge gloriously through his body. There was nothing else to do; he
+would desert. He pictured himself hobbling away in the dark on his
+lame legs, stripping his uniform off, losing himself in some out of
+the way corner of France, or slipping by the sentries to Spain and
+freedom. He was ready to endure anything, to face any sort of
+death, for the sake of a few months of liberty in which to forget
+the degradation of this last year. This was his last run with the
+pack.
+
+An enormous exhilaration took hold of him. It seemed the first time
+in his life he had ever determined to act. All the rest had been
+aimless drifting. The blood sang m his ears. He fixed his eyes on
+the half-obliterated figures that supported the shields under the
+beams in the wall opposite. They seemed to be wriggling out of
+their contorted positions and smiling encouragement to him.  He
+imagined them, warriors out of old tales, on their way to clay
+dragons  in enchanted woods, clever-fingered guildsmen and
+artisans, cupids and satyrs and fauns, jumping from their niches
+and carrying him off with them in a headlong rout, to a sound of
+flutes, on a last forlorn assault on the citadels of pain.
+
+The lights went out, and an orderly came round with chocolate that
+poured with a pleasant soothing sound into the tin cups. With a
+greasiness of chocolate in his mouth and the warmth of it in his
+stomach, John Andrews went to sleep.
+
+
+
+There was a stir in the ward when he woke up. Reddish sunlight
+filtered in through the window opposite, and from outside came a
+confused noise, a sound of bells ringing and whistles blowing.
+Andrews looked past his feet towards Stalky's cot opposite. Stalky
+was sitting bolt upright in bed, with his eyes round as quarters.
+
+"Fellers, the war's over!"
+
+"Put him out."
+
+"Cut that."
+
+"Pull the chain."
+
+"Tie that bull outside," came from every side of the ward.
+
+"Fellers," shouted Stalky louder than ever, "it's straight dope,
+the war's over. I just dreamt the Kaiser came up to me on
+Fourteenth Street and bummed a nickel for a glass of beer. The
+war's over. Don't you hear the whistles?"
+
+"All right; let's go home."
+
+"Shut up, can't you let a feller sleep?"
+
+The ward quieted down again, but all eyes were wide open, men lay
+strangely still in their cots, waiting, wondering.
+
+"All I can say," shouted Stalky again, "is that she was some war
+while she lasted.... What did I tell yer?"
+
+As he spoke the canvas screen in front of the door collapsed and
+the major appeared with his cap askew over his red face and a brass
+bell in his hand, which he rang frantically as he advanced into the
+ward.
+
+"Men," he shouted in the deep roar of one announcing baseball
+scores, "the war ended at 4:03 A.M. this morning.... The Armistice
+is signed. To hell with the Kaiser!" Then he rang the dinner bell
+madly and danced along the aisle between the rows of cots, holding
+the head nurse by one hand, who held a little yellow-headed
+lieutenant by the other hand, who, in turn, held another nurse, and
+so on. The line advanced jerkily into the ward; the front part was
+singing "The Star Spangled Banner," and the rear the "Yanks are
+Coming," and through it all the major rang his brass bell. The men
+who were well enough sat up in bed and yelled. The others rolled
+restlessly about, sickened by the din.
+
+They made the circuit of the ward and filed out, leaving confusion
+behind them. The dinner bell could be heard faintly in the other
+parts of the building.
+
+"Well, what d'you think of it, undertaker?" said Andrews.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Why?"
+
+The undertaker turned his small black eyes on Andrews and looked
+him straight in the face.
+
+"You know what's the matter with me, don't yer, outside o' this
+wound?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Coughing like I am, I'd think you'd be more observant. I got
+t.b., young feller."
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"They're going to move me out o' here to a t.b. ward tomorrow."
+
+"The hell they are!" Andrews's words were lost in the paroxysm of
+coughing that seized the man next to him.
+
+"Home, boys, home; it's home we want to be,"
+
+Those well enough were singing, Stalky conducting, standing on the
+end of his cot in his pink Red Cross pajamas, that were too short
+and showed a long expanse of skinny leg, fuzzy with red hairs. He
+banged together two bed pans to beat time.
+
+"Home.... I won't never go home," said the undertaker when the
+noise had subsided a little. "D'you know what I wish? I wish the
+war'd gone on and on until everyone of them bastards had been
+killed in it."
+
+"Which bastards?"
+
+"The men who got us fellers over here." He began coughing again
+weakly.
+
+"But they'll be safe if every other human being...." began
+Andrews. He was interrupted by a thundering voice from the end of
+the ward.
+
+"Attention!"
+
+"Home, boys, home; it's home we want to be,"
+
+went on the song. Stalky glanced towards the end of the ward, and
+seeing it was the major, dropped the bed pans that smashed at the
+foot of his cot, and got as far as possible under his blankets.
+
+"Attention!" thundered the major again. A sudden uncomfortable
+silence fell upon the ward; broken only by the coughing of the man
+next to Andrews.
+
+"If I hear any more noise from this ward, I'll chuck everyone of
+you men out of this hospital; if you can't walk you'll have to
+crawl.... The war may be over, but you men are in the Army, and
+don't you forget it."
+
+The major glared up and down the lines of cots. He turned on his
+heel and went out of the door, glancing angrily as he went at the
+overturned screen. The ward was still. Outside whistles blew and
+churchbells rang madly, and now and then there was a sound of
+singing.
+
+
+
+                               II
+
+The snow beat against the windows and pattered on the tin roof of
+the lean-to, built against the side of the hospital, that went by
+the name of sun parlor. It was a dingy place, decorated by strings
+of dusty little paper flags that one of the "Y" men had festooned
+about the slanting beams of the ceiling to celebrate Christmas.
+There were tables with torn magazines piled on them, and a counter
+where cracked white cups were ranged waiting for one of the rare
+occasions when cocoa could be bought. In the middle of the room,
+against the wall of the main building, a stove was burning, about
+which sat several men in hospital denims talking in drowsy voices.
+Andrews watched them from his seat by the window, looking at their
+broad backs bent over towards the stove and at the hands that hung
+over their knees, limp from boredom. The air was heavy with a
+smell of coal gas mixed with carbolic from men's clothes, and
+stale cigarette smoke. Behind the cups at the counter a "Y" man, a
+short, red-haired man with freckles, read the Paris edition of the
+New York Herald. Andrews, in his seat by the window, felt
+permeated by the stagnation about him: He had a sheaf of pencilled
+music-papers on his knees, that he rolled and unrolled nervously,
+staring at the stove and the motionless backs of the men about it.
+The stove roared a little, the "Y" man's paper rustled, men's
+voices came now and then in a drowsy whisper, and outside the snow
+beat evenly and monotonously against the window panes. Andrews
+pictured himself vaguely walking fast through the streets, with
+the snow stinging his face and the life of a city swirling about
+him, faces flushed by the cold, bright eyes under hatbrims,
+looking for a second into his and passing on; slim forms of women
+bundled in shawls that showed vaguely the outline of their breasts
+and hips. He wondered if he would ever be free again to walk at
+random through city streets. He stretched his legs out across the
+floor in front of him; strange, stiff, tremulous legs they were,
+but it was not the wounds that gave them their leaden weight. It
+was the stagnation of the life about him that he felt sinking into
+every crevice of his spirit, so that he could never shake it off,
+the stagnation of dusty ruined automatons that had lost all life
+of their own, whose limbs had practised the drill manual so long
+that they had no movements of their own left, who sat limply, sunk
+in boredom, waiting for orders.
+
+Andrews was roused suddenly from his thoughts; he had been
+watching the snowflakes in their glittering dance just outside the
+window pane, when the sound of someone rubbing his hands very
+close to him made him look up. A little man with chubby cheeks and
+steel-grey hair very neatly flattened against his skull, stood at
+the window rubbing his fat little white hands together and making
+a faint unctuous puffing with each breath. Andrews noticed that a
+white clerical collar enclosed the little man's pink neck, that
+starched cuffs peeped from under the well-tailored sleeves of his
+officer's uniform. Sam Brown belt and puttees, too, were highly
+polished. On his shoulder was a demure little silver cross.
+Andrews' glance had reached the pink cheeks again, when he
+suddenly found a pair of steely eyes looking sharply into his.
+
+"You look quite restored, my friend," said a chanting clerical
+voice.
+
+"I suppose I am."
+
+"Splendid, splendid.... But do you mind moving into the end of the
+room.... That's it." He followed Andrews, saying in a deprecatory tone:
+"We're going to have just a little bit of a prayer and then I have
+some interesting things to tell you boys."
+
+The red-headed "Y" man had left his seat and stood in the center
+of the room, his paper still dangling from his hand, saying in a
+bored voice: "Please fellows, move down to the end.... Quiet,
+please.... Quiet, please."
+
+The soldiers shambled meekly to the folding chairs at the end of
+the room and after some chattering were quiet. A couple of men
+left, and several tiptoed in and sat in the front row. Andrews
+sank into a chair with a despairing sort of resignation, and
+burying his face in his hands stared at the floor between his
+feet.
+
+"Fellers," went on the bored voice of the "Y" man, "let me
+introduce the Reverend Dr. Skinner, who--" the "Y" man's voice
+suddenly took on deep patriotic emotion--"who has just come back
+from the Army of Occupation in Germany."
+
+At the words "Army of Occupation," as if a spring had been
+touched, everybody clapped and cheered.
+
+The Reverend Dr. Skinner looked about his audience with smiling
+confidence and raised his hands for silence, so that the men could
+see the chubby pink palms.
+
+"First, boys, my dear friends, let us indulge in a few moments of
+silent prayer to our Great Creator," his voice rose and fell in
+the suave chant of one accustomed to going through the episcopal
+liturgy for the edification of well-dressed and well-fed
+congregations. "Inasmuch as He has vouchsafed us safety and a
+mitigation of our afflictions, and let us pray that in His good
+time He may see fit to return us whole in limb and pure in heart
+to our families, to the wives, mothers, and to those whom we will
+some day honor with the name of wife, who eagerly await our
+return; and that we may spend the remainder of our lives in useful
+service of the great country for whose safety and glory we have
+offered up our youth a willing sacrifice.... Let us pray!"
+
+Silence fell dully on the room. Andrews could hear the self-
+conscious breathing of the men about him, and the rustling of the
+snow against the tin roof. A few feet scraped. The voice began
+again after a long pause, chanting:
+
+"Our Father which art in Heaven..."
+
+At the "Amen" everyone lifted his head cheerfully. Throats were
+cleared, chairs scraped. Men settled themselves to listen.
+
+"Now, my friends, I am going to give you in a few brief words a
+little glimpse into Germany, so that you may be able to picture to
+yourselves the way your comrades of the Army of Occupation manage
+to make themselves comfortable among the Huns.... I ate my
+Christmas dinner in Coblenz. What do you think of that? Never had
+I thought that a Christmas would find me away from my home and
+loved ones. But what unexpected things happen to us in this world!
+Christmas in Coblenz under the American flag!"
+
+He paused a moment to allow a little scattered clapping to
+subside.
+
+"The turkey was fine, too, I can tell you.... Yes, our boys in
+Germany are very, very comfortable, and just waiting for the word,
+if necessary, to continue their glorious advance to Berlin. For I
+am sorry to say, boys, that the Germans have not undergone the
+change of heart for which we had hoped. They have, indeed, changed
+the name of their institutions, but their spirit they have not
+changed.... How grave a disappointment it must be to our great
+President, who has exerted himself so to bring the German people
+to reason, to make them understand the horror that they alone have
+brought deliberately upon the world! Alas! Far from it. Indeed,
+they have attempted with insidious propaganda to undermine the
+morale of our troops...." A little storm of muttered epithets went
+through the room. The Reverend Dr. Skinner elevated his chubby
+pink palms and smiled benignantly..."to undermine the morale of
+our troops; so that the most stringent regulations have had to be
+made by the commanding general to prevent it. Indeed, my friends,
+I very much fear that we stopped too soon in our victorious
+advance; that Germany should have been utterly crushed. But all
+we can do is watch and wait, and abide by the decision of those
+great men who in a short time will be gathered together at the
+Conference at Paris.... Let me, boys, my dear friends, express
+the hope that you may speedily be cured of your wounds, ready
+again to do willing service in the ranks of the glorious army that
+must be vigilant for some time yet, I fear, to defend, as Americans
+and Christians, the civilization you have so nobly saved from a
+ruthless foe.... Let us all join together in singing the hymn,
+'Stand up, stand up for Jesus,' which I am sure you all know."
+
+The men got to their feet, except for a few who had lost their
+legs, and sang the first verse of the hymn unsteadily. The second
+verse petered out altogether, leaving only the "Y" man and the
+Reverend Dr. Skinner singing away at the top of their lungs.
+
+The Reverend Dr. Skinner pulled out his gold watch and looked at
+it frowning.
+
+"Oh, my, I shall miss the train," he muttered. The "Y" man helped
+him into his voluminous trench coat and they both hurried out of
+the door.
+
+"Those are some puttees he had on, I'll tell you," said the
+legless man who was propped in a chair near the stove.
+
+Andrews sat down beside him, laughing. He was a man with high
+cheekbones and powerful jaws to whose face the pale brown eyes
+and delicately pencilled lips gave a look of great gentleness.
+Andrews did not look at his body.
+
+"Somebody said he was a Red Cross man giving out cigarettes....
+Fooled us that time," said Andrews.
+
+"Have a butt? I've got one," said the legless man. With a large
+shrunken hand that was the transparent color of alabaster he held
+out a box of cigarettes.
+
+"Thanks." When Andrews struck a match he had to lean over the
+legless man to light his cigarette for him. He could not help
+glancing down the man's tunic at the drab trousers that hung
+limply from the chair. A cold shudder went through him; he was
+thinking of the zigzag scars on his own thighs.
+
+"Did you get it in the legs, too, Buddy?" asked the legless man,
+quietly.
+
+"Yes, but I had luck.... How long have you been here?"
+
+"Since Christ was a corporal. Oh, I doan know. I've been here
+since two weeks after my outfit first went into the lines.... That
+was on November 16th, 1917.... Didn't see much of the war, did
+I?... Still, I guess I didn't miss much."
+
+"No.... But you've seen enough of the army."
+
+"That's true.... I guess I wouldn't mind the war if it wasn't for
+the army."
+
+"They'll be sending you home soon, won't they?"
+
+"Guess so.... Where are you from?"
+
+"New York," said Andrews.
+
+"I'm from Cranston, Wisconsin. D'you know that country? It's a
+great country for lakes. You can canoe for days an' days without a
+portage. We have a camp on Big Loon Lake. We used to have some
+wonderful times there...lived like wild men. I went for a trip for
+three weeks once without seeing a house. Ever done much canoeing?"
+
+"Not so much as I'd like to."
+
+"That's the thing to make you feel fit. First thing you do when
+you shake out of your blankets is jump in an' have a swim. Gee,
+it's great to swim when the morning mist is still on the water an'
+the sun just strikes the tops of the birch trees. Ever smelt bacon
+cooking? I mean out in the woods, in a frying pan over some sticks
+of pine and beech wood.... Some great old smell, isn't it?... And
+after you've paddled all day, an' feel tired and sunburned right
+to the palms of your feet, to sit around the fire with some trout
+roastin' in the ashes and hear the sizzlin' the bacon makes in the
+pan.... O boy!" He stretched his arms wide.
+
+"God, I'd like to have wrung that damn little parson's neck," said
+Andrews suddenly.
+
+"Would you?" The legless man turned brown eyes on Andrews with a
+smile. "I guess he's about as much to blame as anybody is...guys
+like him.... I guess they have that kind in Germany, too."
+
+"You don't think we've made the world quite as safe for Democracy
+as it might be?" said Andrews in a low voice.
+
+"Hell, how should I know? I bet you never drove an ice
+wagon.... I did, all one summer down home.... It was some life.
+Get up at three o'clock in the morning an' carry a hundred or two
+hundred pounds of ice into everybody's ice box. That was the life
+to make a feller feel fit. I was goin' around with a big Norwegian
+named Olaf, who was the strongest man I ever knew. An' drink! He
+was the boy could drink. I once saw him put away twenty-five dry
+Martini cocktails an' swim across the lake on top of it.... I used
+to weigh a hundred and eighty pounds, and he could pick me up with
+one hand and put me across his shoulder.... That was the life to
+make a feller feel fit. Why, after bein' out late the night
+before, we'd jump up out of bed at three o'clock feeling springy
+as a cat."
+
+"What's he doing now?" asked Andrews.
+
+"He died on the transport coming 'cross here. Died of the
+flu.... I met a feller came over in his regiment. They dropped him
+overboard when they were in sight of the Azores.... Well, I didn't
+die of the flu. Have another butt?"
+
+"No, thanks," said Andrews.
+
+They were silent. The fire roared in the stove. No one was
+talking. The men lolled in chairs somnolently. Now and then
+someone spat. Outside of the window Andrews could see the soft
+white dancing of the snowflakes. His limbs felt very heavy; his
+mind was permeated with dusty stagnation like the stagnation of
+old garrets and lumber rooms, where, among superannuated bits of
+machinery and cracked grimy crockery, lie heaps of broken toys.
+
+
+
+John Andrews sat on a bench in a square full of linden trees, with
+the pale winter sunshine full on his face and hands. He had been
+looking up through his eyelashes at the sun, that was the color of
+honey, and he let his dazzled glance sink slowly through the black
+lacework of twigs, down the green trunks of the trees to the bench
+opposite where sat two nursemaids and, between them, a tiny girl
+with a face daintily colored and lifeless like a doll's face, and
+a frilled dress under which showed small ivory knees and legs
+encased in white socks and yellow sandals. Above the yellow halo
+of her hair floated, with the sun shining through it, as through a
+glass of claret, a bright carmine balloon which the child held by
+a string. Andrews looked at her for a long time, enraptured by the
+absurd daintiness of the figure between the big bundles of flesh
+of the nursemaids. The thought came to him suddenly that months
+had gone by,--was it only months?--since his hands had touched
+anything soft, since he had seen any flowers. The last was a
+flower an old woman had given him in a village in the Argonne, an
+orange marigold, and he remembered how soft the old woman's
+withered lips had been against his cheek when she had leaned over
+and kissed him. His mind suddenly lit up, as with a strain of
+music, with a sense of the sweetness of quiet lives worn away
+monotonously in the fields, in the grey little provincial towns,
+in old kitchens full of fragrance of herbs and tang of smoke from
+the hearth, where there are pots on the window-sill full of basil
+in flower.
+
+Something made him go up to the little girl and take her hand. The
+child, looking up suddenly and seeing a lanky soldier with pale
+lean face and light, straw-colored hair escaping from under a cap
+too small for him, shrieked and let go the string of the balloon,
+which soared slowly into the air trembling a little in the faint
+cool wind that blew. The child wailed dismally, and Andrews,
+quailing under the furious glances of the nursemaids, stood before
+her, flushed crimson, stammering apologies, not knowing what to
+do. The white caps of the nursemaids bent over and ribbons
+fluttered about the child's head as they tried to console her.
+Andrews walked away dejectedly, now and then looking up at the
+balloon, which soared, a black speck against the grey and topaz-
+colored clouds.
+
+"Sale Americain!" he heard one nursemaid exclaim to the other.
+But this was the first hour in months he had had free, the first
+moment of solitude; he must live; soon he would be sent back to
+his division. A wave of desire for furious fleshly enjoyments went
+through him, making him want steaming dishes of food drenched in
+rich, spice-flavored sauces; making him want to get drunk on
+strong wine; to roll on thick carpets in the arms of naked,
+libidinous women. He was walking down the quiet grey street of the
+provincial town, with its low houses with red chimney pots, and
+blue slate roofs and its irregular yellowish cobbles. A clock
+somewhere was striking four with deep booming strokes, Andrews
+laughed. He had to be in hospital at six. Already he was tired;
+his legs ached.
+
+The window of a pastry shop appeared invitingly before him,
+denuded as it was by wartime. A sign in English said: "Tea."
+Walking in, he sat down in a fussy little parlor where the tables
+had red cloths, and a print, in pinkish and greenish colors, hung
+in the middle of the imitation brocade paper of each wall. Under a
+print of a poster bed with curtains in front of which eighteen to
+twenty people bowed, with the title of "Secret d'Amour," sat three
+young officers, who cast cold, irritated glances at this private
+with a hospital badge on who invaded their tea shop. Andrews
+stared back at them, flaming with dull anger.
+
+Sipping the hot, fragrant tea, he sat with a blank sheet of music
+paper before him, listening in spite of himself to what the
+officers were saying. They were talking about Ronsard. It was with
+irritated surprise that Andrews heard the name. What right had
+they to be talking about Ronsard? He knew more about Ronsard than
+they did. Furious, conceited phrases kept surging up in his mind.
+He was as sensitive, as humane, as intelligent, as well-read as
+they were; what right had they to the cold suspicious glance with
+which they had put him in his place when he had come into the
+room? Yet that had probably been as unconscious, as unavoidable as
+was his own biting envy. The thought that if one of those men
+should come over to him, he would have to stand up and salute and
+answer humbly, not from civility, but from the fear of being
+punished, was bitter as wormwood, filled him with a childish
+desire--to prove his worth to them, as when older boys had ill-
+treated him at school and he had prayed to have the house burn
+down so that he might heroically save them all. There was a piano
+in an inner room, where in the dark the chairs, upside down,
+perched dismally on the table tops. He almost obeyed an impulse to
+go in there and start playing, by the brilliance of his playing to
+force these men, who thought of him as a coarse automaton,
+something between a man and a dog, to recognize him as an equal, a
+superior.
+
+"But the war's over. I want to start living. Red wine, streets of
+the nightingale cries to the rose," said one of the officers.
+
+"What do you say we go A.W.O.L. to Paris?"
+
+"Dangerous."
+
+"Well, what can they do? We are not enlisted men; they can only
+send us home. That's just what I want."
+
+"I'll tell you what; we'll go to the Cochon Bleu and have a
+cocktail and think about it."
+
+"The lion and the lizard keep their courts where...what the devil
+was his name? Anyway, we'll glory and drink deep, while Major
+Peabody keeps his court in Dijon to his heart's content."
+
+Spurs jingled as the three officers went out. A fierce disgust
+took possession of John Andrews. He was ashamed of his spiteful
+irritation. If, when he had been playing the piano to a roomful of
+friends in New York, a man dressed as a laborer had shambled in,
+wouldn't he have felt a moment of involuntary scorn? It was
+inevitable that the fortunate should hate the unfortunate because
+they feared them. But he was so tired of all those thoughts.
+Drinking down the last of his tea at a gulp, he went into the shop
+to ask the old woman, with little black whiskers over her
+bloodless lips, who sat behind the white desk at the end of the
+counter, if she minded his playing the piano.
+
+In the deserted tea room, among the dismal upturned chairs,
+his crassened fingers moved stiffly over the keys. He forgot
+everything else. Locked doors in his mind were swinging wide,
+revealing forgotten sumptuous halls of his imagination. The Queen
+of Sheba, grotesque as a satyr, white and flaming with worlds of
+desire, as the great implacable Aphrodite, stood with her hand on
+his shoulder sending shivers of warm sweetness rippling through
+his body, while her voice intoned in his ears all the
+inexhaustible voluptuousness of life.
+
+An asthmatic clock struck somewhere in the obscurity of the room.
+"Seven!" John Andrews paid, said good-bye to the old woman with
+the mustache, and hurried out into the street. "Like Cinderella at
+the ball," he thought. As he went towards the hospital, down
+faintly lighted streets, his steps got slower and slower. "Why go
+back?" a voice kept saying inside him. "Anything is better than
+that." Better throw himself in the river, even, than go back. He
+could see the olive-drab clothes in a heap among the dry
+bullrushes on the river bank.... He thought of himself crashing
+naked through the film of ice into water black as Chinese lacquer.
+And when he climbed out numb and panting on the other side,
+wouldn't he be able to take up life again as if he had just been
+born? How strong he would be if he could begin life a second time!
+How madly, how joyously he would live now that there was no more
+war.... He had reached the door of the hospital. Furious shudders
+of disgust went through him.
+
+He  was   standing  dumbly  humble  while a sergeant bawled him
+out for being late.
+
+
+
+Andrews stared for a long while at the line of shields that
+supported the dark ceiling beams on the wall opposite his cot. The
+emblems had been erased and the grey stone figures that crowded
+under the shields,--the satyr with his shaggy goat's legs, the
+townsman with his square hat, the warrior with the sword between
+his legs,--had been clipped and scratched long ago in other wars.
+In the strong afternoon light they were so dilapidated he could
+hardly make them out. He wondered how they had seemed so vivid to
+him when he had lain in his cot, comforted by their comradeship,
+while his healing wounds itched and tingled. Still he glanced
+tenderly at the grey stone figures as he left the ward.
+
+Downstairs in the office where the atmosphere was stuffy with a
+smell of varnish and dusty papers and cigarette smoke, he waited a
+long time, shifting his weight restlessly from one foot to the
+other.
+
+"What do you want?" said a red-haired sergeant, without looking up
+from the pile of papers on his desk.
+
+"Waiting for travel orders."
+
+"Aren't you the guy I told to come back at three?"
+
+"It is three."
+
+"H'm!" The sergeant kept his eyes fixed on the papers, which
+rustled as he moved them from one pile to another. In the end of
+the room a typewriter clicked slowly and jerkily. Andrews  could
+see the dark back of a head between bored shoulders in a woolen
+shirt leaning over the machine. Beside the cylindrical black stove
+against the wall a man with large mustaches and the complicated
+stripes of a hospital sergeant was reading a novel in a red cover.
+After a long silence the red-headed sergeant looked up from his
+papers and said suddenly:
+
+"Ted."
+
+The man at the typewriter turned slowly round, showing a large red
+face and blue eyes.
+
+"We-ell," he drawled.
+
+"Go in an' see if the loot has signed them papers yet."
+
+The man got up, stretched himself deliberately, and slouched out
+through a door beside the stove. The red-haired sergeant leaned
+back in his swivel chair and lit a cigarette.
+
+"Hell," he said, yawning.
+
+The man with the mustache beside the stove let the book slip from
+his knees to the floor, and yawned too.
+
+"This goddam armistice sure does take the ambition out of a
+feller," he said.
+
+"Hell of a note," said the red-haired sergeant. "D'you know that
+they had my name in for an O.T.C.? Hell of a note goin' home
+without a Sam Browne."
+
+The other man came back and sank down into his chair in front of
+the typewriter again. The slow, jerky clicking recommenced.
+
+Andrews made a scraping noise with his foot on the ground.
+
+"Well, what about that travel order?" said the red-haired
+sergeant.
+
+"Loot's out," said the other man, still typewriting.
+
+"Well, didn't he leave it on his desk?" shouted the red-haired
+sergeant angrily.
+
+"Couldn't find it."
+
+"I suppose I've got to go look for it.... God!" The red-haired
+sergeant stamped out of the room. A moment later he came back with
+a bunch of papers in his hand.
+
+"Your name Jones?" he snapped to Andrews.
+
+"No."
+
+"Snivisky?"
+
+"No.... Andrews, John."
+
+"Why the hell couldn't you say so?"
+
+The man with the mustaches beside the stove got to his feet
+suddenly. An alert, smiling expression came over his face.
+
+"Good afternoon, Captain Higginsworth," he said cheerfully.
+
+An oval man with a cigar slanting out of his broad mouth came into
+the room. When he talked the cigar wobbled in his mouth. He wore
+greenish kid gloves, very tight for his large hands, and his
+puttees shone with a dark lustre like mahogany.
+
+The red-haired sergeant turned round and half-saluted.
+
+"Goin' to another swell party, Captain?" he asked.
+
+The Captain grinned.
+
+"Say, have you boys got any Red Cross cigarettes? I ain't only got
+cigars, an' you can't hand a cigar to a lady, can you?" The
+Captain grinned again. An appreciative giggle went round.
+
+"Will a couple of packages do you? Because I've got some here,"
+said the red-haired sergeant reaching in the drawer of his desk.
+
+"Fine." The captain slipped them into his pocket and swaggered out
+doing up the buttons of his buff-colored coat.
+
+The sergeant settled himself at his desk again with an important
+smile.
+
+"Did you find the travel order?" asked Andrews timidly. "I'm
+supposed to take the train at four-two."
+
+"Can't make it.... Did you say your name was Anderson?"
+
+"Andrews.... John Andrews."
+
+"Here it is.... Why didn't you come earlier?"
+
+
+
+The sharp air of the ruddy winter evening, sparkling in John
+Andrews's nostrils, vastly refreshing after the stale odors of the
+hospital, gave him a sense of liberation. Walking with rapid steps
+through the grey streets of the town, where in windows lamps
+already glowed orange, he kept telling himself that another epoch
+was closed. It was with relief that he felt that he would never
+see the hospital again or any of the people in it. He thought of
+Chrisfield. It was weeks and weeks since Chrisfield had come to
+his mind at all. Now it was with a sudden clench of affection that
+the Indiana boy's face rose up before him. An oval, heavily-tanned
+face with a little of childish roundness about it yet, with black
+eyebrows and long black eyelashes. But he did not even know if
+Chrisfield were still alive. Furious joy took possession of him.
+He, John Andrews, was alive; what did it matter if everyone he
+knew died? There were jollier companions than ever he had known,
+to be found in the world, cleverer people to talk to, more
+vigorous people to learn from. The cold air circulated through his
+nose and lungs; his arms felt strong and supple; he could feel the
+muscles of his legs stretch and contract as he walked, while his
+feet beat jauntily on the irregular cobblestones of the street.
+The waiting room at the station was cold and stuffy, full of a
+smell of breathed air and unclean uniforms. French soldiers
+wrapped in their long blue coats, slept on the benches or stood
+about in groups, eating bread and drinking from their canteens. A
+gas lamp in the center gave dingy light. Andrews settled himself
+in a corner with despairing resignation. He had five hours to wait
+for a train, and already his legs ached and he had a side feeling
+of exhaustion. The exhilaration of leaving the hospital and
+walking free through wine-tinted streets in the sparkling evening
+air gave way gradually to despair. His life would continue to be
+this slavery of unclean bodies packed together in places where the
+air had been breathed over and over, cogs in the great slow-moving
+Juggernaut of armies. What did it matter if the fighting had
+stopped? The armies would go on grinding out lives with lives,
+crushing flesh with flesh. Would he ever again stand free and
+solitary to live out joyous hours which would make up for all the
+boredom of the treadmill? He had no hope. His life would continue
+like this dingy, ill-smelling waiting room where men in uniform
+slept in the fetid air until they should be ordered-out to march
+or to stand in motionless rows, endlessly, futilely, like toy
+soldiers a child has forgotten in an attic.
+
+Andrews got up suddenly and went out on the empty platform. A cold
+wind blew. Somewhere out in the freight yards an engine puffed
+loudly, and clouds of white steam drifted through the faintly
+lighted station. He was walking up and down with his chin sunk
+into his coat and his hands in his pockets, when somebody ran into
+him.
+
+"Damn," said a voice, and the figure darted through a grimy glass
+door that bore the sign: "Buvette." Andrews followed absent-mindedly.
+
+"I'm sorry I ran into you.... I thought you were an M.P., that's
+why I beat it." When he spoke, the man, an American private,
+turned and looked searchingly in Andrews's face. He had very red
+cheeks and an impudent little brown mustache. He spoke slowly with
+a faint Bostonian drawl.
+
+"That's nothing," said Andrews.
+
+"Let's have a drink," said the other man. "I'm A.W.O.L. Where are
+you going?"
+
+"To some place near Bar-le-Duc, back to my Division. Been in
+hospital."
+
+"Long?"
+
+"Since October."
+
+"Gee.... Have some Curacoa. It'll do you good. You look pale....
+My name's Henslowe. Ambulance with the French Army."
+
+They sat down at an unwashed marble table where the soot from the
+trains made a pattern sticking to the rings left by wine and
+liqueur glasses.
+
+"I'm going to Paris," said Henslowe. "My leave expired three days
+ago. I'm going to Paris and get taken ill with peritonitis or
+double pneumonia, or maybe I'll have a cardiac lesion.... The
+army's a bore."
+
+"Hospital isn't any better," said Andrews with a sigh. "Though I
+shall never forget the night with which I realized I was wounded
+and out of it. I thought I was bad enough to be sent home."
+
+"Why, I wouldn't have missed a minute of the war.... But now that
+it's over...Hell! Travel is the password now. I've just had two
+weeks in the Pyrenees. Nimes, Arles, Les Baux, Carcassonne,
+Perpignan, Lourdes, Gavarnie, Toulouse! What do you think of that
+for a trip?... What were you in?"
+
+"Infantry."
+
+"Must have been hell."
+
+"Been! It is."
+
+"Why don't you come to Paris with me?"
+
+"I don't want to be picked up," stammered Andrews.
+
+"Not a chance.... I know the ropes.... All you have to do is keep
+away from the Olympia and the railway stations, walk fast and keep
+your shoes shined...and you've got wits, haven't you?"
+
+"Not many.... Let's drink a bottle of wine. Isn't there anything
+to eat to be got here?"
+
+"Not a damn thing, and I daren't go out of the station on account
+of the M.P. at the gate.... There'll be a diner on the Marseilles
+express."
+
+"But I can't go to Paris."
+
+"Sure.... Look, how do you call yourself?"
+
+"John Andrews."
+
+"Well, John Andrews, all I can say is that you've let 'em get your
+goat. Don't give in. Have a good time, in spite of 'em. To hell
+with 'em." He brought the bottle down so hard on the table that it
+broke and the purple wine flowed over the dirty marble and dripped
+gleaming on the floor.
+
+Some French soldiers who stood in a group round the bar turned
+round.
+
+"V'la un gars qui gaspille le bon vin," said a tall red-faced man,
+with long sloping whiskers.
+
+"Pour vingt sous j'mangerai la bouteille," cried a little man
+lurching forward and leaning drunkenly over the table.
+
+"Done," said Henslowe. "Say, Andrews, he says he'll eat the bottle
+for a franc."
+
+He placed a shining silver franc on the table beside the remnants
+of the broken bottle. The man seized the neck of the bottle in a
+black, claw-like hand and gave it a preparatory flourish. He was a
+cadaverous little man, incredibly dirty, with mustaches and beard
+of a moth-eaten tow-color, and a purple flush on his cheeks. His
+uniform was clotted with mud. When the others crowded round him
+and tried to dissuade him, he said: "M'en fous, c'est mon metier,"
+and rolled his eyes so that the whites flashed in the dim light
+like the eyes of dead codfish.
+
+"Why, he's really going to do it," cried Henslowe.
+
+The man's teeth flashed and crunched down on the jagged edge of
+the glass. There was a terrific crackling noise. He flourished the
+bottle-end again.
+
+"My God, he's eating it," cried Henslowe, roaring with laughter,
+"and you're afraid to go to Paris."
+
+An engine rumbled into the station, with a great hiss of escaping
+steam.
+
+"Gee, that's the Paris train! Tiens!" He pressed the franc into
+the man's dirt-crusted hand.
+
+"Come along, Andrews."
+
+As they left the buvette they heard again the crunching crackling
+noise as the man bit another piece off the bottle.
+
+Andrews followed Henslowe across the steam-filled platform to the
+door of a first-class carriage. They climbed in. Henslowe
+immediately pulled down the black cloth over the half globe of the
+light. The compartment was empty. He threw himself down with a
+sigh of comfort on the soft buff-colored cushions of the seat.
+
+"But what on earth?" stammered Andrews.
+
+"M'en fous, c'est mon metier," interrupted Henslowe.
+
+The train pulled out of the station.
+
+
+
+                               III
+
+Henslowe poured wine from a brown earthen crock into the glasses,
+where it shimmered a bright thin red, the color of currants.
+Andrews leaned back in his chair and looked through half-closed
+eyes at the table with its white cloth and little burnt umber
+loaves of bread, and out of the window at the square dimly lit by
+lemon-yellow gas lamps and at the dark gables of the little houses
+that huddled round it.
+
+At a table against the wall opposite a lame boy, with white
+beardless face and gentle violet-colored eyes, sat very close to
+the bareheaded girl who was with him and who never took her eyes
+off his face, leaning on his crutch all the while. A stove hummed
+faintly in the middle of the room, and from the half-open kitchen
+door came ruddy light and the sound of something frying. On the
+wall, in brownish colors that seemed to have taken warmth from all
+the rich scents of food they had absorbed since the day of their
+painting, were scenes of the Butte as it was fancied to have once
+been, with windmills and wide fields.
+
+"I want to travel," Henslowe was saying, dragging out his words
+drowsily. "Abyssinia, Patagonia, Turkestan, the Caucasus, anywhere
+and everywhere. What do you say you and I go out to New Zealand
+and raise sheep?"
+
+"But why not stay here? There can't be anywhere as wonderful as
+this."
+
+"Then I'll put off starting for New Guinea for a week. But hell,
+I'd go crazy staying anywhere after this. It's got into my
+blood...all this murder. It's made a wanderer of me, that's what
+it's done. I'm an adventurer."
+
+"God, I wish it had made me into anything so interesting."
+
+"Tie a rock on to your scruples and throw 'em off the Pont Neuf
+and set out.... O boy, this is the golden age for living by your
+wits."
+
+"You're not out of the army yet."
+
+"I should worry.... I'll join the Red Cross."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I've got a tip about it."
+
+A girl with oval face and faint black down on her upper lip
+brought them soup, a thick greenish colored soup, that steamed
+richly into their faces.
+
+"If you tell me how I can get out of the army you'll probably save
+my life," said Andrews seriously.
+
+"There are two ways...Oh, but let me tell you later. Let's talk
+about something worth while...So you write music do you?"
+
+Andrews nodded.
+
+An omelet lay between them, pale golden-yellow with flecks of
+green; a few amber bubbles of burnt butter still clustered round
+the edges.
+
+"Talk about tone-poems," said Henslowe.
+
+"But, if you are an adventurer and have no scruples, how is it you
+are still a private?"
+
+Henslowe took a gulp of wine and laughed uproariously.
+
+"That's the joke."
+
+They ate in silence for a little while. They could hear the couple
+opposite them talking in low soft voices. The stove purred, and
+from the kitchen came a sound of something being beaten in a bowl.
+Andrews leaned back in his chair.
+
+"This is so wonderfully quiet and mellow," he said.... It is so
+easy to forget that there's any joy at all in life."
+
+"Rot...It's a circus parade."
+
+"Have you ever seen anything drearier than a circus parade? One of
+those jokes that aren't funny."
+
+"Justine, encore du vin," called Henslowe.
+
+"So you know her name?"
+
+"I live here.... The Butte is the boss on the middle of the
+shield. It's the axle of the wheel. That's why it's so quiet, like
+the centre of a cyclone, of a vast whirling rotary circus parade!"
+
+Justine, with her red hands that had washed so many dishes off
+which other people had dined well, put down between them a scarlet
+langouste, of which claws and feelers sprawled over the table-
+cloth that already had a few purplish stains of wine. The sauce
+was yellow and fluffy like the breast of a canary bird.
+
+"D'you know," said Andrews suddenly talking fast and excitedly
+while he brushed the straggling yellow hair off his forehead, "I'd
+almost be willing to be shot at the end of a year if I could live
+up here all that time with a piano and a million sheets of music
+paper...It would be worth it."
+
+"But this is a place to come back to. Imagine coming back here
+after the highlands of Thibet, where you'd nearly got drowned and
+scalped and had made love to the daughter of an Afghan chief...
+who had red lips smeared with loukoumi so that the sweet taste
+stayed in your mouth." Henslowe stroked softly his little brown
+mustache.
+
+"But what's the use of just seeing and feeling things if you can't
+express them?"
+
+"What's the use of living at all? For the fun of it, man; damn
+ends."
+
+"But the only profound fun I ever have is that..." Andrews's voice
+broke. "O God, I would give up every joy in the world if I could
+turn out one page that I felt was adequate.... D'you know it's
+years since I've talked to anybody?"
+
+They both stared silently out of the window at the fog that was
+packed tightly against it like cotton wool, only softer, and a
+greenish-gold color.
+
+"The M.P.'s sure won't get us tonight," said Henslowe, banging his
+fist jauntily on the table. "I've a great mind to go to Rue St.
+Anne and leave my card on the Provost Marshal.... God damn! D'you
+remember that man who took the bite out of our wine-bottle ...He
+didn't give a  hoot in hell, did he? Talk about expression. Why
+don't you express that? I think that's the turning point of your
+career. That's what made you come to Paris; you can't deny it."
+
+They both laughed loudly rolling about on their chairs.
+
+Andrews caught glints of contagion in the pale violet eyes of the
+lame boy and in the dark eyes of the girl.
+
+"Let's tell them about it," he said still laughing, with his face,
+bloodless after the months in hospital, suddenly flushed.
+
+"Salut," said Henslowe turning round and elevating his glass.
+"Nous rions parceque nous sommes gris de vin gris." Then he told
+them about the man who ate glass. He got to his feet and recounted
+slowly in his drawling voice, with gestures. Justine stood by with
+a dish full of stuffed tomatoes of which the red skins showed
+vaguely through a mantle of dark brown sauce. When she smiled her
+cheeks puffed out and gave her face a little of the look of a
+white cat's.
+
+"And you live here?" asked Andrews after they had all laughed.
+
+"Always. It is not often that I go down to town.... It's so
+difficult.... I have a withered leg." He smiled brilliantly like a
+child telling about a new toy.
+
+"And you?"
+
+"How could I be anywhere else?" answered the girl. "It's a
+misfortune, but there it is." She tapped with the crutch on the
+floor, making a sound like someone walking with it. The boy
+laughed and tightened his arm round her shoulder.
+
+"I should like to live here," said Andrews simply.
+
+"Why don't you?"
+
+"But don't you see he's a soldier," whispered the girl hurriedly.
+
+A frown wrinkled the boy's forehead.
+
+"Well, it wasn't by choice, I suppose," he said.
+
+Andrews was silent. Unaccountable shame took possession of him
+before these people who had never been soldiers, who would never
+be soldiers.
+
+"The Greeks used to say," he said bitterly, using as phrase that
+had been a long time on his mind, "that when a man became a slave,
+on the first day he lost one-half of his virtue."
+
+"When a man becomes a slave," repeated the lame boy softly, "on
+the first day he loses one-half of his virtue."
+
+"What's the use of virtue? It is love you need," said the girl.
+
+"I've eaten your tomato, friend Andrews," said Henslowe. "Justine
+will get us some more." He poured out the last of the wine that
+half filled each of the glasses with its thin sparkle, the color
+of red currants.
+
+Outside the fog had blotted everything out in even darkness which
+grew vaguely yellow and red near the sparsely scattered street
+lamps. Andrews and Henslowe felt their way blindly down the long
+gleaming flights of steps that led from the quiet darkness of the
+Butte towards the confused lights and noises of more crowded
+streets. The fog caught in their throats and tingled in their
+noses and brushed against their cheeks like moist hands.
+
+"Why did we go away from that restaurant? I'd like to have talked
+to those people some more," said Andrews.
+
+"We  haven't had  any  coffee  either.... But,  man, we're in
+Paris. We're not going to be here long. We can't afford to stay
+all the time in one place.... It's nearly closing time
+already...."
+
+"The boy was a painter. He said he lived by making toys; he
+whittles out wooden elephants and camels for Noah's Arks.... Did
+you hear that?"
+
+They were walking fast down a straight, sloping street. Below them
+already appeared the golden glare of a boulevard.
+
+Andrews went on talking, almost to himself. "What a wonderful life
+that would be to live up here in a small room that would overlook
+the great rosy grey expanse of the city, to have some absurd work
+like that to live on, and to spend all your spare time working and
+going to concerts.... A quiet mellow existence.... Think of my
+life beside it. Slaving in that iron, metallic, brazen New York to
+write ineptitudes about music in the Sunday paper. God! And this."
+
+They were sitting down at a table in a noisy cafe, full of yellow
+light flashing in eyes and on glasses and bottles, of red lips
+crushed against the thin hard rims of glasses.
+
+"Wouldn't you like to just rip it off?" Andrews jerked at his
+tunic with both hands where it bulged out over his chest. "Oh, I'd
+like to make the buttons fly all over the cafe, smashing the
+liqueur glasses, snapping in the faces of all those dandified
+French officers who look so proud of themselves that they survived
+long enough to be victorious."
+
+"The coffee's famous here," said Henslowe. "The only place I ever
+had it better was at a bistro in Nice on this last permission."
+
+"Somewhere else again!"
+
+"That's it.... For ever and ever, somewhere else! Let's have some
+prunelle. Before the war prunelle."
+
+The waiter was a solemn man, with a beard cut like a prime
+minister's. He came with the bottle held out before him,
+religiously lifted. His lips pursed with an air of intense
+application, while he poured the white glinting liquid into the
+glasses. When he had finished he held the bottle upside down with
+a tragic gesture; not a drop came out.
+
+"It is the end of the good old times," he said.
+
+"Damnation to the good old times," said Henslowe. "Here's to the
+good old new roughhousy circus parades."
+
+"I wonder how many people they are good for, those circus parades
+of yours," said Andrews.
+
+"Where are you going to spend the night?" said Henslowe.
+
+"I don't know.... I suppose I can find a hotel or something."
+
+"Why don't you come with me and see Berthe; she probably has
+friends."
+
+"I want to wander about alone, not that I scorn Berthe's friends,"
+said Andrews...."But I am so greedy for solitude."
+
+
+
+John Andrews was walking alone down streets full of drifting fog.
+Now and then a taxi dashed past him and clattered off into the
+obscurity. Scattered groups of people, their footsteps hollow in
+the muffling fog, floated about him. He did not care which way he
+walked, but went on and on, crossing large crowded avenues where
+the lights embroidered patterns of gold and orange on the fog,
+rolling in wide deserted squares, diving into narrow streets where
+other steps sounded sharply for a second now and then and faded
+leaving nothing in his ears when he stopped still to listen but
+the city's distant muffled breathing. At last he came out along
+the river, where the fog was densest and coldest and where he
+could hear faintly the sound of water gurgling past the piers of
+bridges. The glow of the lights glared and dimmed, glared and
+dimmed, as he walked along, and sometimes he could make out the
+bare branches of trees blurred across the halos of the lamps. The
+fog caressed him soothingly and shadows kept flicking past him,
+giving him glimpses of smooth curves of cheeks and glints of eyes
+bright from the mist and darkness. Friendly, familiar people
+seemed to fill the fog just out of his sight. The muffled murmur
+of the city stirred him like the sound of the voices of friends.
+
+"From the girl at the cross-roads singing under her street-lamp to
+the patrician pulling roses to pieces from the height of her
+litter... all the imagining of your desire...."
+
+The murmur of life about him kept forming itself into long
+modulated sentences in his ears,--sentences that gave him by their
+form a sense of quiet well-being as if he were looking at a low
+relief of people dancing, carved out of Parian in some workshop in
+Attica.
+
+Once he stopped and leaned for a long while against the moisture-
+beaded stern of a street-lamp. Two shadows defined, as they
+strolled towards him, into the forms of a pale boy and a
+bareheaded girl, walking tightly laced in each other's arms. The
+boy limped a little and his violet eyes were contracted to
+wistfulness. John Andrews was suddenly filled with throbbing
+expectation, as if those two would come up to him and put their
+hands on his arms and make some revelation of vast import to his
+life. But when they reached the full glow of the lamp, Andrews saw
+that he was mistaken. They were not the boy and girl he had talked
+to on the Butte.
+
+He walked off hurriedly and plunged again into tortuous streets,
+where he strode over the cobblestone pavements, stopping now and
+then to peer through the window of a shop at the light in the rear
+where a group of people sat quietly about a table under a light,
+or into a bar where a tired little boy with heavy eyelids and
+sleeves rolled up from thin grey arms was washing glasses, or an
+old woman, a shapeless bundle of black clothes, was swabbing the
+floor. From doorways he heard talking and soft laughs. Upper
+windows sent yellow rays of light across the fog.
+
+In one doorway the vague light from a lamp bracketed in the wall
+showed two figures, pressed into one by their close embrace. As
+Andrews walked past, his heavy army boots clattering loud on the
+wet pavement, they lifted their heads slowly. The boy had violet
+eyes and pale beardless cheeks; the girl was bareheaded and kept
+her brown eyes fixed on the boy's face. Andrews's heart thumped
+within him. At last he had found them. He made a step towards
+them, and then strode on losing himself fast in the cool effacing
+fog. Again he had been mistaken. The fog swirled about him, hiding
+wistful friendly faces, hands ready to meet his hands, eyes ready
+to take fire with his glance, lips cold with the mist, to be
+crushed under his lips. "From the girl at the singing under her
+street-lamp..."
+
+And he walked on alone through the drifting fog.
+
+
+
+                              IV
+
+Andrews left the station reluctantly, shivering in the raw grey
+mist under which the houses of the village street and the rows of
+motor trucks and the few figures of French soldiers swathed in
+long formless coats, showed as vague dark blurs in the confused
+dawnlight. His body felt flushed and sticky from a night spent
+huddled in the warm fetid air of an overcrowded compartment. He
+yawned and stretched himself and stood irresolutely in the middle
+of the street with his pack biting into his shoulders. Out of
+sight, behind the dark mass, in which a few ruddy lights glowed,
+of the station buildings, the engine whistled and the train
+clanked off into the distance. Andrews listened to its faint
+reverberation through the mist with a sick feeling of despair. It
+was the train that had brought him from Paris back to his
+division.
+
+As he stood shivering in the grey mist he remembered the curious
+despairing reluctance he used to suffer when he went back to
+boarding school after a holiday. How he used to go from the
+station to the school by the longest road possible, taking frantic
+account of every moment of liberty left him. Today his feet had
+the same leaden reluctance as when they used to all but refuse to
+take him up the long sandy hill to the school.
+
+He wandered aimlessly for a while about the silent village hoping
+to find a cafe where he could sit for a few minutes to take a last
+look at himself before plunging again into the grovelling
+promiscuity of the army. Not a light showed. All the shutters of
+the shabby little brick and plaster houses were closed. With dull
+springless steps he walked down the road they had pointed out to
+him from the R. T. O.
+
+Overhead the sky was brightening giving the mist that clung to the
+earth in every direction ruddy billowing outlines. The frozen road
+gave out a faint hard resonance under his footsteps. Occasionally
+the silhouette of a tree by the roadside loomed up in the mist
+ahead, its uppermost branches clear and ruddy with sunlight.
+
+Andrews was telling himself that the war was over, and that in a
+few months he would be free in any case. What did a few months
+more or less matter? But the same thoughts were swept recklessly
+away in the blind panic that was like a stampede of wild steers
+within him. There was no arguing. His spirit was contorted with
+revolt so that his flesh twitched and dark splotches danced before
+his eyes. He wondered vaguely whether he had gone mad. Enormous
+plans kept rising up out of the tumult of his mind and dissolving
+suddenly like smoke in a high wind. He would run away and if they
+caught him, kill himself. He would start a mutiny in his company,
+he would lash all these men to frenzy by his words, so that they
+too should refuse to form into Guns, so that they should laugh
+when the officers got red in the face shouting orders at them, so
+that the whole division should march off over the frosty hills,
+without arms, without flags, calling all the men of all the armies
+to join them, to march on singing, to laugh the nightmare out of
+their blood. Would not some lightning flash of vision sear
+people's consciousness into life again? What was the good of
+stopping the war if the armies continued?
+
+But that was just rhetoric. His mind was flooding itself with
+rhetoric that it might keep its sanity. His mind was squeezing out
+rhetoric like a sponge that he might not see dry madness face to
+face.
+
+And all the while his hard footsteps along the frozen road beat in
+his ears bringing him nearer to the village where the division was
+quartered. He was climbing a long hill. The mist thinned about him
+and became brilliant with sunlight. Then he was walking in the
+full sun over the crest of a hill with pale blue sky above his
+head. Behind him and before him were mist-filled valleys and
+beyond other ranges of long hills, with reddish-violet patches of
+woodland, glowing faintly in the sunlight. In the valley at his
+feet he could see, in the shadow of the hill he stood on, a church
+tower and a few roofs rising out of the mist, as out of water.
+
+Among the houses bugles were blowing mess-call.
+
+The jauntiness of the brassy notes ringing up through the silence
+was agony to him. How long the day would be. He looked at his
+watch. It was seven thirty. How did they come to be having mess so
+late?
+
+The mist seemed doubly cold and dark when he was buried in it
+again after his moment of sunlight. The sweat was chilled on his
+face and streaks of cold went through his clothes, soaked from the
+effort of carrying the pack. In the village street Andrews met a
+man he did not know and asked him where the office was. The man,
+who was chewing something, pointed silently to a house with green
+shutters on the opposite side of the street.
+
+At a desk sat Chrisfield smoking a cigarette. When he jumped up
+Andrews noticed that he had a corporal's two stripes on his arm.
+
+"Hello, Andy."
+
+They shook hands warmly.
+
+"A' you all right now, ole boy?"
+
+"Sure, I'm fine," said Andrews. A sudden constraint fell upon
+them.
+
+"That's good," said Chrisfield.
+
+"You're a corporal now. Congratulations."
+
+"Um hum. Made me more'n a month ago."
+
+They were silent. Chrisfield sat down in his chair again.
+
+"What sort of a town is this?"
+
+"It's a hell-hole, this dump is, a hell-hole."
+
+"That's nice."
+
+"Goin' to move soon, tell me.... Army o' Occupation. But Ah hadn't
+ought to have told you that.... Don't tell any of the fellers."
+
+"Where's the outfit quartered?"
+
+"Ye won't know it; we've got fifteen new men. No account all of
+'em. Second draft men."
+
+"Civilians in the town?"
+
+"You bet.... Come with me, Andy, an Ah'll tell 'em to give you
+some grub at the cookshack. No...wait a minute an' you'll miss the
+hike.... Hikes every day since the goddam armistice. They sent out
+a general order telling 'em to double up on the drill."
+
+They heard a voice shouting orders outside and the narrow street
+filled up suddenly with a sound of boots beating the ground in
+unison. Andrews kept his back to the window. Something in his legs
+seemed to be tramping in time with the other legs.
+
+"There they go," said Chrisfield. "Loot's with 'em today.... Want
+some grub? If it ain't been punk since the armistice."
+
+
+
+The "Y" hut was empty and dark; through the grimy windowpanes
+could be seen fields and a leaden sky full of heavy ocherous
+light, in which the leafless trees and the fields full of stubble
+were different shades of dead, greyish brown. Andrews sat at the
+piano without playing. He was thinking how once he had thought to
+express all the cramped boredom of this life; the thwarted limbs
+regimented together, lashed into straight lines, the monotony of
+servitude. Unconsciously as he thought of it, the fingers of one
+hand sought a chord, which jangled in the badly-tuned piano. "God,
+how silly!" he muttered aloud, pulling his hands away. Suddenly he
+began to play snatches of things he knew, distorting them,
+willfully mutilating the rhythm, mixing into them snatches of
+ragtime. The piano jangled under his hands, filling the empty hut
+with clamor. He stopped suddenly, letting his fingers slide from
+bass to treble, and began to play in earnest.
+
+There was a cough behind him that had an artificial, discreet ring
+to it. He went on playing without turning round. Then a voice
+said:
+
+"Beautiful, beautiful."
+
+Andrews turned to find himself staring into a face of vaguely
+triangular shape with a wide forehead and prominent eyelids over
+protruding brown eyes. The man wore a Y. M. C. A. uniform which
+was very tight for him, so that there were creases running from
+each button across the front of his tunic.
+
+"Oh, do go on playing. It's years since I heard any Debussy."
+
+"It wasn't Debussy."
+
+"Oh, wasn't it? Anyway it was just lovely. Do go on. I'll just
+stand here and listen."
+
+Andrews went on playing for a moment, made a mistake, started
+over, made the same mistake, banged on the keys with his fist and
+turned round again.
+
+"I can't play," he said peevishly.
+
+"Oh, you can, my boy, you can.... Where did you learn? I would
+give a million dollars to play like that, if I had it."
+
+Andrews glared at him silently.
+
+"You are one of the men just back from hospital, I presume."
+
+"Yes, worse luck."
+
+"Oh, I don't blame you. These French towns are the dullest places;
+though I just love France, don't you?" The "Y" man had a faintly
+whining voice.
+
+"Anywhere's dull in the army."
+
+"Look, we must get to know each other real well. My name's Spencer
+Sheffield...Spencer B. Sheffield.... And between you and me
+there's not a soul in the division you can talk to. It's dreadful
+not to have intellectual people about one. I suppose you're from
+New York."
+
+Andrews nodded.
+
+"Um hum, so am I. You're probably read some of my things in Vain
+Endeavor.... What, you've never read Vain Endeavor? I guess you
+didn't go round with the intellectual set.... Musical people often
+don't.... Of course I don't mean the Village. All anarchists and
+society women there...."
+
+"I've never gone round with any set, and I never..."
+
+"Never mind, we'll fix that when we all get back to New York. And
+now you just sit down at that piano and play me Debussy's
+'Arabesque.'... I know you love it just as much as I do. But first
+what's your name?"
+
+"Andrews."
+
+"Folks come from Virginia?"
+
+"Yes." Andrews got to his feet.
+
+"Then you're related to the Penneltons."
+
+"I may be related to the Kaiser for all I know."
+
+"The Penneltons...that's it. You see my mother was a Miss Spencer
+from Spencer Falls, Virginia, and her mother was a Miss Pennelton,
+so you and I are cousins. Now isn't that a coincidence?"
+
+"Distant cousins. But I must go back to the barracks."
+
+"Come in and see me any time," Spencer B. Sheffield shouted after
+him. "You know where; back of the shack; And knock twice so I'll
+know it's you."
+
+Outside the house where he was quartered Andrews met the new top
+sergeant, a lean man with spectacles and a little mustache of the
+color and texture of a scrubbing brush.
+
+"Here's a letter for you," the top sergeant said. "Better look at
+the new K. P. list I've just posted."
+
+The letter was from Henslowe. Andrews read it with a smile of
+pleasure in the faint afternoon light, remembering Henslowe's
+constant drawling talk about distant places he had never been to,
+and the man who had eaten glass, and the day and a half in Paris.
+
+"Andy," the letter began, "I've got the dope at last. Courses
+begin in Paris February fifteenth. Apply at once to your C. O. to
+study somethin' at University of Paris. Any amount of lies will
+go. Apply all pull possible via sergeants, lieutenants and their
+mistresses and laundresses. Yours, Henslowe."
+
+His heart thumping, Andrews ran after the sergeant, passing, in
+his excitement, a lieutenant without saluting him.
+
+"Look here," snarled the lieutenant.
+
+Andrews saluted, and stood stiffly at attention.
+
+"Why didn't you salute me?"
+
+"I was in a hurry, sir, and didn't see you. I was going on very
+urgent company business, sir."
+
+"Remember that just because the armistice is signed you needn't
+think you're out of the army; at ease."
+
+Andrews saluted. The lieutenant saluted, turned swiftly on his
+heel and walked away.
+
+Andrews caught up to the sergeant.
+
+"Sergeant Coffin. Can I speak to you a minute?"
+
+"I'm in a hell of a hurry."
+
+"Have you heard anything about this army students' corps to send
+men to universities here in France? Something the Y. M. C. A.'s
+getting up."
+
+"Can't be for enlisted men. No I ain't heard a word about it.
+D'you want to go to school again?"
+
+"If I get a chance. To finish my course."
+
+"College man, are ye? So am I. Well, I'll let you know if I get
+any general order about it. Can't do anything without getting a
+general order about it. Looks to me like it's all bushwa."
+
+"I guess you're right."
+
+The street was grey dark. Stung by a sense of impotence, surging
+with despairing rebelliousness, Andrews hurried back towards the
+buildings where the company was quartered. He would be late for
+mess. The grey street was deserted. From a window here and there
+ruddy light streamed out to make a glowing oblong on the wall of a
+house opposite.
+
+
+
+"Goddam it, if ye don't believe me, you go ask the lootenant....
+Look here, Toby, didn't our outfit see hotter work than any goddam
+engineers?"
+
+Toby had just stepped into the cafe, a tall man with a brown
+bulldog face and a scar on his left cheek. He spoke rarely and
+solemnly with a Maine coast Yankee twang.
+
+"I reckon so," was all he said. He sat down on the bench beside
+the other man who went on bitterly:
+
+"I guess you would reckon so.... Hell, man, you ditch diggers
+ain't in it."
+
+"Ditch diggers!" The engineer banged his fist down on the table.
+His lean pickled face was a furious red. "I guess we don't dig
+half so many ditches as the infantry does...an' when we've dug
+'em we don't crawl into 'em an' stay there like goddam
+cottontailed jackrabbits."
+
+"You guys don't git near enough to the front...."
+
+"Like goddam cottontailed jackrabbits," shouted the pickle-faced
+engineer again, roaring with laughter. "Ain't that so?" He looked
+round the room for approval. The benches at the two long tables
+were filled with infantry men who looked at him angrily. Noticing
+suddenly that he had no support, he moderated his voice.
+
+"The infantry's damn necessary, I'll admit that; but where'd you
+fellers be without us guys to string the barbed wire for you?"
+
+"There warn't no barbed wire strung in the Oregon forest where we
+was, boy. What d'ye want barbed wire when you're advancin' for?"
+
+"Look here...I'll bet you a bottle of cognac my company had more
+losses than yourn did."
+
+"Tek him up, Joe," said Toby, suddenly showing an interest in the
+conversation.
+
+"All right, it's a go."
+
+"We had fifteen killed and twenty wounded," announced the engineer
+triumphantly.
+
+"How badly wounded?"
+
+"What's that to you? Hand over the cognac?"
+
+"Like hell. We had fifteen killed and twenty wounded too, didn't
+we, Toby?"
+
+"I reckon you're right," said Toby.
+
+"Ain't I right?" asked the other man, addressing the company
+generally.
+
+"Sure, goddam right," muttered voices.
+
+"Well, I guess it's all off, then," said the engineer.
+
+"No, it ain't," said Toby, "reckon up yer wounded. The feller
+who's got the worst wounded gets the cognac. Ain't that fair?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"We've had seven fellers sent home already," said the engineer.
+
+"We've had eight. Ain't we?"
+
+"Sure," growled everybody in the room.
+
+"How bad was they?"
+
+"Two of 'em was blind," said Toby.
+
+"Hell," said the engineer, jumping to his feet as if taking a
+trick at poker. "We had a guy who was sent home without arms nor
+legs, and three fellers got t.b. from bein' gassed."
+
+John Andrews had been sitting in a corner of the room. He got up.
+Something had made him think of the man he had known in the
+hospital who had said that was the life to make a feller feel fit.
+Getting up at three o'clock in the morning, you jumped out of bed
+just like a cat.... He remembered how the olive-drab trousers had
+dangled, empty from the man's chair.
+
+"That's nothing; one of our sergeants had to have a new nose
+grafted on...."
+
+The village street was dark and deeply rutted with mud. Andrews
+wandered up and down aimlessly. There was only one other cafe.
+That would be just like this one. He couldn't go back to the
+desolate barn where he slept. It would be too early to go to
+sleep. A cold wind blew down the street and the sky was full of
+vague movement of dark clouds. The partly-frozen mud clotted about
+his feet as he walked along; he could feel the water penetrating
+his shoes. Opposite the Y. M. C. A. hut at the end of the street
+he stopped. After a moment's indecision he gave a little laugh,
+and walked round to the back where the door of the "Y" man's room
+was.
+
+He knocked twice, half hoping there would be no reply.
+
+Sheffield's whining high-pitched voice said: "Who is it?"
+
+"Andrews."
+
+"Come right in.... You're just the man I wanted to see." Andrews
+stood with his hand on the knob.
+
+"Do sit down and make yourself right at home."
+
+Spencer Sheffield was sitting at a little desk in a room with
+walls of unplaned boards and one small window. Behind the desk
+were piles of cracker boxes and cardboard cases of cigarettes and
+in the midst of them a little opening, like that of a railway
+ticket office, in the wall through which the "Y" man sold his
+commodities to the long lines of men who would stand for hours
+waiting meekly in the room beyond.
+
+Andrews was looking round for a chair.
+
+"Oh, I just forgot. I'm sitting in the only chair," said Spencer
+Sheffield, laughing, twisting his small mouth into a shape like a
+camel's mouth and rolling about his large protruding eyes.
+
+"Oh, that's all right. What I wanted to ask you was: do you know
+anything about...?"
+
+"Look, do come with me to my room," interrupted Sheffield. "I've
+got such a nice sitting-room with an open fire, just next to
+Lieutenant Bleezer.... An' there we'll talk...about everything.
+I'm just dying to talk to somebody about the things of the
+spirit."
+
+"Do you know anything about a scheme for sending enlisted men to
+French universities? Men who have not finished their courses."
+
+"Oh, wouldn't that be just fine. I tell you, boy, there's nothing
+like the U. S. government to think of things like that."
+
+"But have you heard anything about it?"
+
+"No; but I surely shall.... D'you mind switching the light off?...
+That's it. Now just follow me. Oh, I do need a rest. I've been
+working dreadfully hard since that Knights of Columbus man came
+down here. Isn't it hateful the way they try to run down the
+'Y'?... Now we can have a nice long talk. You must tell me all
+about yourself."
+
+"But don't you really know anything about that university scheme?
+They say it begins February fifteenth," Andrews said in a low
+voice.
+
+"I'll ask Lieutenant Bleezer if he knows anything about it," said
+Sheffield soothingly, throwing an arm around Andrews's shoulder
+and pushing him in the door ahead of him.
+
+They went through a dark hall to a little room where a fire burned
+brilliantly in the hearth, lighting up with tongues of red and
+yellow a square black walnut table and two heavy armchairs with
+leather backs and bottoms that shone like lacquer.
+
+"This is wonderful," said Andrews involuntarily.
+
+"Romantic I call it. Makes you think of Dickens, doesn't it, and
+Locksley Hall."
+
+"Yes," said Andrews vaguely.
+
+"Have you been in France long?" asked Andrews settling himself in
+one of the chairs and looking into the dancing flames of the log
+fire. "Will you smoke?" He handed Sheffield a crumpled cigarette.
+
+"No, thanks, I only smoke special kinds. I have a weak heart.
+That's why I was rejected from the army.... Oh, but I think it was
+superb of you to join as a private; It was my dream to do that, to
+be one of the nameless marching throng."
+
+"I think it was damn foolish, not to say criminal," said Andrews
+sullenly, still staring into the fire.
+
+"You can't mean that. Or do you mean that you think you had
+abilities which would have been worth more to your country in
+another position?... I have many friends who felt that."
+
+"No.... I don't think it's right of a man to go back on
+himself.... I don't think butchering people ever does any good
+...I have acted as if I did think it did good...out of
+carelessness or cowardice, one or the other; that I think bad."
+
+"You mustn't talk that way" said Sheffield hurriedly. "So you are
+a musician, are you?" He asked the question with a jaunty
+confidential air.
+
+"I used to play the piano a little, if that's what you mean," said
+Andrews.
+
+"Music has never been the art I had most interest in. But many
+things have moved me intensely.... Debussy and those beautiful
+little things of Nevin's. You must know them.... Poetry has been
+more my field. When I was young, younger than you are, quite a
+lad...Oh, if we could only stay young; I am thirty-two."
+
+"I don't see that youth by itself is worth much. It's the most
+superb medium there is, though, for other things," said Andrews.
+"Well, I must go," he said. "If you do hear anything about that
+university scheme, you will let me know, won't you?"
+
+"Indeed I shall, dear boy, indeed I shall."
+
+They shook hands in jerky dramatic fashion and Andrews stumbled
+down the dark hall to the door. When he stood out in the raw night
+air again he drew a deep breath. By the light that streamed out
+from a window he looked at his watch. There was time to go to the
+regimental sergeant-major's office before tattoo.
+
+At the opposite end of the village street from the Y. M. C. A. hut
+was a cube-shaped house set a little apart from the rest in the
+middle of a broad lawn which the constant crossing and recrossing
+of a staff of cars and trains of motor trucks had turned into a
+muddy morass in which the wheel tracks crisscrossed in every
+direction. A narrow board walk led from the main road to the door.
+In the middle of this walk Andrews met a captain and automatically
+got off into the mud and saluted.
+
+The regimental office was a large room that had once been
+decorated by wan and ill-drawn mural paintings in the manner of
+Puvis de Chavannes, but the walls had been so chipped and soiled
+by five years of military occupation that they were barely
+recognisable. Only a few bits of bare flesh and floating drapery
+showed here and there above the maps and notices that were tacked
+on the walls. At the end of the room a group of nymphs in Nile
+green and pastel blue could be seen emerging from under a French
+War Loan poster. The ceiling was adorned with an oval of flowers
+and little plaster cupids in low relief which had also suffered
+and in places showed the laths. The office was nearly empty. The
+littered desks and silent typewriters gave a strange air of
+desolation to the gutted drawing-room. Andrews walked boldly to
+the furthest desk, where a little red card leaning against the
+typewriter said "Regimental Sergeant-Major."
+
+Behind the desk, crouched over a heap of typewritten reports, sat
+a little man with scanty sandy hair, who screwed up his eyes and
+smiled when Andrews approached the desk.
+
+"Well, did you fix it up for me?" he asked.
+
+"Fix what?" said Andrews.
+
+"Oh, I thought you were someone else." The smile left the
+regimental sergeant-major's thin lips. "What do you want?"
+
+"Why, Regimental Sergeant-Major, can you tell me anything about a
+scheme to send enlisted men to colleges over here? Can you tell me
+who to apply to?"
+
+"According to what general orders? And who told you to come and
+see me about it, anyway?"
+
+"Have you heard anything about it?"
+
+"No, nothing definite. I'm busy now anyway. Ask one of your own
+non-coms to find out about it." He crouched once more over the
+papers.
+
+Andrews was walking towards the door, flushing with annoyance,
+when he saw that the man at the desk by the window was jerking his
+head in a peculiar manner, just in the direction of the regimental
+sergeant-major and then towards the door. Andrews smiled at him
+and nodded. Outside the door, where an orderly sat on a short
+bench reading a torn Saturday Evening Post, Andrews waited. The
+hall was part of what must have been a ballroom, for it had a
+much-scarred hardwood floor and big spaces of bare plaster framed
+by gilt-and lavender-colored mouldings, which had probably held
+tapestries. The partition of unplaned boards that formed other
+offices cut off the major part of a highly decorated ceiling where
+cupids with crimson-daubed bottoms swam in all attitudes in a sea
+of pink-and blue-and lavender-colored clouds, wreathing themselves
+coyly in heavy garlands of waxy hothouse flowers, while
+cornucopias spilling out squashy fruits gave Andrews a feeling of
+distinct insecurity as he looked up from below.
+
+"Say are you a Kappa Mu?"
+
+Andrews looked down suddenly and saw in front of him the man who
+had signalled to him in the regimental sergeant-major's office.
+
+"Are you a Kappa Mu?" he asked again.
+
+"No, not that I know of," stammered Andrews puzzled.
+
+"What school did you go to?"
+
+"Harvard."
+
+"Harvard.... Guess we haven't got a chapter there.... I'm from
+North Western. Anyway you want to go to school in France here if
+you can. So do I."
+
+"Don't you want to come and have a drink?"
+
+The man frowned, pulled his overseas cap down over his forehead,
+where the hair grew very low, and looked about him mysteriously.
+"Yes," he said.
+
+They splashed together down the muddy village street. "We've got
+thirteen minutes before tattoo.... My name's Walters, what's
+yours?" He spoke in a low voice in short staccato phrases.
+
+"Andrews."
+
+"Andrews, you've got to keep this dark. If everybody finds out
+about it we're through. It's a shame you're not a Kappa Mu, but
+college men have got to stick together, that's the way I look at
+it."
+
+"Oh, I'll keep it dark enough," said Andrews.
+
+"It's too good to be true. The general order isn't out yet, but
+I've seen a preliminary circular. What school d'you want to go
+to?"
+
+"Sorbonne, Paris."
+
+"That's the stuff. D'you know the back room at Baboon's?"
+
+Walters turned suddenly to the left up an alley, and broke through
+a hole in a hawthorn hedge.
+
+"A guy's got to keep his eyes and ears open if he wants to get
+anywhere in this army," he said.
+
+As they ducked in the back door of a cottage, Andrews caught a
+glimpse of the billowy line of a tile roof against the lighter
+darkness of the sky. They sat down on a bench built into a chimney
+where a few sticks made a splutter of flames.
+
+"Monsieur desire?" A red-faced girl with a baby in her arms came
+up to them.
+
+"That's Babette; Baboon I call her," said Walters with a laugh.
+
+"Chocolat," said Walters.
+
+"That'll suit me all right. It's my treat, remember."
+
+"I'm not forgetting it. Now let's get to business. What you do is
+this. You write an application. I'll make that out for you on the
+typewriter tomorrow and you meet me here at eight tomorrow night
+and I'll give it to you.... You sign it at once and hand it in to
+your sergeant. See?"
+
+"This'll just be a preliminary application; when the order's out
+you'll have to make another."
+
+The woman, this time without the baby, appeared out of the
+darkness of the room with a candle and two cracked bowls from
+which steam rose, faint primrose-color in the candle light.
+Walters drank his bowl down at a gulp, grunted and went on
+talking.
+
+"Give me a cigarette, will you?... You'll have to make it out darn
+soon too, because once the order's out every son of a gun in the
+division'll be making out to be a college man. How did you get
+your tip?"
+
+"From a fellow in Paris."
+
+"You've been to Paris, have you?" said Walters admiringly. "Is it
+the way they say it is? Gee, these French are immoral. Look at
+this woman here. She'll sleep with a feller soon as not. Got a
+baby too!"
+
+"But who do the applications go in to?"
+
+"To the colonel, or whoever he appoints to handle it. You a
+Catholic?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Neither am I. That's the hell of it. The regimental sergeant-
+major is."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I guess you haven't noticed the way things run up at divisional
+headquarters. It's a regular cathedral. Isn't a mason in it....
+But I must beat it.... Better pretend you don't know me if you
+meet me on the street; see?"
+
+"All right."
+
+Walters hurried out of the door. Andrews sat alone looking at the
+flutter of little flames about the pile of sticks on the hearth,
+while he sipped chocolate from the warm bowl held between the
+palms of both hands.
+
+He remembered a speech out of some very bad romantic play he had
+heard when he was very small.
+
+"About your head I fling...the curse of Ro-me."
+
+He started to laugh, sliding back and forth on the smooth bench
+which had been polished by the breeches of generations warming
+their feet at the fire. The red-faced woman stood with her hands
+on her hips looking at him in astonishment, while he laughed and
+laughed.
+
+"Mais quelle gaite, quelle gaite," she kept saying.
+
+
+
+The straw under him rustled faintly with every sleepy movement
+Andrews made in his blankets. In a minute the bugle was going to
+blow and he was going to jump out of his blankets, throw on his
+clothes and fall into line for roll call in the black mud of the
+village street. It couldn't be that only a month had gone by since
+he had got back from hospital. No, he had spent a lifetime in this
+village being dragged out of his warm blankets every morning by
+the bugle, shivering as he stood in line for roll call, shuffling
+in a line that moved slowly past the cookshack, shuffling along in
+another line to throw what was left of his food into garbage cans,
+to wash his mess kit in the greasy water a hundred other men had
+washed their mess kits in; lining up to drill, to march on along
+muddy roads, splattered by the endless trains of motor trucks;
+lining up twice more for mess, and at last being forced by another
+bugle into his blankets again to sleep heavily while a smell hung
+in his nostrils of sweating woolen clothing and breathed-out air
+and dusty blankets. In a minute the bugle was going to blow, to
+snatch him out of even these miserable thoughts, and throw him
+into an automaton under other men's orders. Childish spiteful
+desires surged into his mind. If the bugler would only die. He
+could picture him, a little man with a broad face and putty-
+colored cheeks, a small rusty mustache and bow-legs lying like a
+calf on a marble slab in a butcher's shop on top of his blankets.
+What nonsense! There were other buglers. He wondered how many
+buglers there were in the army. He could picture them all, in
+dirty little villages, in stone barracks, in towns, in great camps
+that served the country for miles with rows of black warehouses
+and narrow barrack buildings standing with their feet a little
+apart; giving their little brass bugles a preliminary tap before
+putting out their cheeks and blowing in them and stealing a
+million and a half (or was it two million or three million) lives,
+and throwing the warm sentient bodies into coarse automatons who
+must be kept busy, lest they grow restive, till killing time began
+again.
+
+The bugle blew with the last jaunty notes, a stir went through the
+barn.
+
+Corporal Chrisfield stood on the ladder that led up from the yard,
+his head on a level with the floor shouting:
+
+"Shake it up, fellers! If a guy's late to roll call, it's K. P. for
+a week."
+
+As Andrews, while buttoning his tunic, passed him on the ladder,
+he whispered:
+
+"Tell me we're going to see service again, Andy... Army o'
+Occupation."
+
+While he stood stiffly at attention waiting to answer when the
+sergeant called his name, Andrews's mind was whirling in crazy
+circles of anxiety. What if they should leave before the General
+Order came on the University plan? The application would certainly
+be lost in the confusion of moving the Division, and he would be
+condemned to keep up this life for more dreary weeks and months.
+Would any years of work and happiness in some future existence
+make up for the humiliating agony of this servitude?
+
+"Dismissed!"
+
+He ran up the ladder to fetch his mess kit and in a few minutes
+was in line again in the rutted village street where the grey
+houses were just forming outlines as light crept slowly into the
+leaden sky, while a faint odor of bacon and coffee came to him,
+making him eager for food, eager to drown his thoughts in the
+heaviness of swiftly-eaten greasy food and in the warmth of watery
+coffee gulped down out of a tin-curved cup. He was telling himself
+desperately that he must do something--that he must make an effort
+to save himself, that he must fight against the deadening routine
+that numbed him.
+
+Later, while he was sweeping the rough board floor of the
+company's quarters, the theme came to him which had come to him
+long ago, in a former incarnation it seemed, when he was smearing
+windows with soap from a gritty sponge along the endless side of
+the barracks in the training camp. Time and time again in the past
+year he had thought of it, and dreamed of weaving it into a fabric
+of sound which would express the trudging monotony of days bowed
+under the yoke. "Under the Yoke"; that would be a title for it. He
+imagined the sharp tap of the conductor's baton, the silence of a
+crowded hall, the first notes rasping bitterly upon the tense ears
+of men and women. But as he tried to concentrate his mind on the
+music, other things intruded upon it, blurred it. He kept feeling
+the rhythm of the Queen of Sheba slipping from the shoulders of
+her gaudily caparisoned elephant, advancing towards him through
+the torchlight, putting her hand, fantastic with rings and long
+gilded fingernails, upon his shoulders so that ripples of delight,
+at all the voluptuous images of his desire, went through his whole
+body, making it quiver like a flame with yearning for unimaginable
+things. It all muddled into fantastic gibberish--into sounds of
+horns and trombones and double basses blown off key while a
+piccolo shrilled the first bars of "The Star Spangled Banner."
+
+He had stopped sweeping and looked about him dazedly. He was
+alone. Outside, he heard a sharp voice call "Atten-shun!" He ran
+down the ladder and fell in at the end of the line under the angry
+glare of the lieutenant's small eyes, which were placed very close
+together on either side of a lean nose, black and hard, like the
+eyes of a crab.
+
+The company marched off through the mud to the drill field.
+
+
+
+After retreat Andrews knocked at the door at the back of the Y. M.
+C. A., but as there was no reply, he strode off with a long,
+determined stride to Sheffield's room.
+
+In the moment that elapsed between his knock and an answer, he
+could feel his heart thumping. A little sweat broke out on his
+temples.
+
+"Why, what's the matter, boy? You look all wrought up," said
+Sheffield, holding the door half open, and blocking, with his lean
+form, entrance to the room.
+
+"May I come in? I want to talk to you," said Andrews.
+
+"Oh, I suppose it'll be all right.... You see I have an officer
+with me..." then there was a flutter in Sheffield's voice. "Oh, do
+come in"; he went on, with sudden enthusiasm. "Lieutenant Bleezer
+is fond of music too.... Lieutenant, this is the boy I was telling
+you about. We must get him to play for us. If he had the
+opportunities, I am sure he'd be a famous musician."
+
+Lieutenant Bleezer was a dark youth with a hooked nose and pince-
+nez. His tunic was unbuttoned and he held a cigar in his hand. He
+smiled in an evident attempt to put this enlisted man at his ease.
+
+"Yes, I am very fond of music, modern music," he said, leaning
+against the mantelpiece. "Are you a musician by profession?"
+
+"Not exactly...nearly." Andrews thrust his hands into the bottoms
+of his trouser pockets and looked from one to the other with a
+certain defiance.
+
+"I suppose you've played in some orchestra? How is it you are not
+in the regimental band?"
+
+"No, except the Pierian."
+
+"The Pierian? Were you at Harvard?"
+
+Andrews nodded.
+
+"So was I."
+
+"Isn't that a coincidence?" said Sheffield. "I'm so glad I just
+insisted on your coming in."
+
+"What year were you?" asked Lieutenant Bleezer, with a faint
+change of tone, drawing a finger along his scant black moustache.
+
+"Fifteen."
+
+"I haven't graduated yet," said the lieutenant with a laugh.
+
+"What I wanted to ask you, Mr. Sheffield...."
+
+"Oh, my boy; my boy, you know you've known me long enough to call
+me Spence," broke in Sheffield.
+
+"I want to know," went on Andrews speaking slowly, "can you help
+me to get put on the list to be sent to the University of
+Paris?... I know that a list has been made out, although the
+General Order has not come yet. I am disliked by most of the non-
+coms and I don't see how I can get on without somebody's help...I
+simply can't go this life any longer." Andrews closed his lips
+firmly and looked at the ground, his face flushing.
+
+"Well, a man of your attainments certainly ought to go," said
+Lieutenant Bleezer, with a faint tremor of hesitation in his
+voice. "I'm going to Oxford myself."
+
+"Trust me, my boy," said Sheffield. "I'll fix it up for you, I
+promise. Let's shake hands on it." He seized Andrews's hand and
+pressed it warmly in a moist palm. "If it's within human power,
+within human power," he added.
+
+"Well, I must go," said Lieutenant Bleezer, suddenly striding to
+the door. "I promised the Marquise I'd drop in. Good-bye.... Take
+a cigar, won't you?" He held out three cigars in the direction of
+Andrews.
+
+"No, thank you."
+
+"Oh, don't you think the old aristocracy of France is just too
+wonderful? Lieutenant Bleezer goes almost every evening to call on
+the Marquise de Rompemouville. He says she is just too spirituelle
+for words.... He often meets the Commanding Officer there."
+
+Andrews had dropped into a chair and sat with his face buried in
+his hands, looking through his fingers at the fire, where a few
+white fingers of flame were clutching intermittently at a grey
+beech log. His mind was searching desperately for expedients.
+
+He got to his feet and shouted shrilly:
+
+"I can't go this life any more, do you hear that? No possible
+future is worth all this. If I can get to Paris, all right. If
+not, I'll desert and damn the consequences."
+
+"But I've already promised I'll do all I can...."
+
+"Well, do it now," interrupted Andrews brutally.
+
+"All right, I'll go and see the colonel and tell him what a great
+musician you are."
+
+"Let's go together, now."
+
+"But that'll look queer, dear boy."
+
+"I don't give a damn, come along.... You can talk to him. You seem
+to be thick with all the officers."
+
+"You must wait till I tidy up," said Sheffield.
+
+"All right."
+
+Andrews strode up and down in the mud in front of the house,
+snapping his fingers with impatience, until Sheffield came out,
+then they walked off in silence.
+
+"Now wait outside a minute," whispered Sheffield when they came to
+the white house with bare grapevines over the front, where the
+colonel lived.
+
+After a wait, Andrews found himself at the door of a brilliantly-
+lighted drawing room. There was a dense smell of cigar smoke. The
+colonel, an elderly man with a benevolent beard, stood before him
+with a coffee cup in his hand. Andrews saluted punctiliously.
+
+"They tell me you are quite a pianist.... Sorry I didn't know it
+before," said the colonel in a kindly tone. "You want to go to
+Paris to study under this new scheme?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What a shame I didn't know before. The list of the men going is
+all made out.... Of course perhaps at the last minute...if
+somebody else doesn't go...your name can go in."
+
+The colonel smiled graciously and turned back into the room.
+
+"Thank you, Colonel," said Andrews, saluting.
+
+Without a word to Sheffield, he strode off down the dark village
+street towards his quarters.
+
+
+
+Andrews stood on the broad village street, where the mud was
+nearly dry, and a wind streaked with warmth ruffled the few
+puddles; he was looking into the window of the cafe to see if
+there was anyone he knew inside from whom he could borrow money
+for a drink. It was two months since he had had any pay, and his
+pockets were empty. The sun had just set on a premature spring
+afternoon, flooding the sky and the grey houses and the
+tumultuous tiled roofs with warm violet light. The faint
+premonition of the stirring of life in the cold earth, that came
+to Andrews with every breath he drew of the sparkling wind, stung
+his dull boredom to fury. It was the first of March, he was
+telling himself over and over again. The fifteenth of February, he
+had expected to be in Paris, free, or half-free; at least able to
+work. It was the first of March and here he was still helpless,
+still tied to the monotonous wheel of routine, incapable of any
+real effort, spending his spare time wandering like a lost dog up
+and down this muddy street, from the Y. M. C. A. hut at one end of
+the village to the church and the fountain in the middle, and to
+the Divisional Headquarters at the other end, then back again,
+looking listlessly into windows, staring in people's faces without
+seeing them. He had given up all hope of being sent to Paris. He
+had given up thinking about it or about anything; the same dull
+irritation of despair droned constantly in his head, grinding
+round and round like a broken phonograph record.
+
+After looking a long while in the window of the cafe of the Braves
+Allies, he walked a little down the street and stood in the same
+position staring into the Repos du Poilu, where a large sign
+"American spoken" blocked up half the window. Two officers passed.
+His hand snapped up to the salute automatically, like a mechanical
+signal. It was nearly dark. After a while he began to feel serious
+coolness in the wind, shivered and started to wander aimlessly
+down the street.
+
+He recognised Walters coming towards him and was going to pass him
+without speaking when Walters bumped into him, muttered in his ear
+"Come to Baboon's," and hurried off with his swift business-like
+stride. Andrews, stood irresolutely for a while with his head
+bent, then went with unresilient steps up the alley, through the
+hole in the hedge and into Babette's kitchen. There was no fire.
+He stared morosely at the grey ashes until he heard Walters's
+voice beside him:
+
+"I've got you all fixed up."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Mean...are you asleep, Andrews? They've cut a name off the school
+list, that's all. Now if you shake a leg and somebody doesn't get
+in ahead of you, you'll be in Paris before you know it."
+
+"That's damn decent of you to come and tell me."
+
+"Here's your application," said Walters, drawing a paper out of
+his pocket. "Take it to the colonel; get him to O. K. it and then
+rush it up to the sergeant-major's office yourself. They are
+making out travel orders now. So long."
+
+Walters had vanished. Andrews was alone again, staring at the grey
+ashes. Suddenly he jumped to his feet and hurried off towards
+headquarters. In the anteroom to the colonel's office he waited a
+long while, looking at his boots that were thickly coated with
+mud. "Those boots will make a bad impression; those boots will
+make a bad impression," a voice was saying over and over again
+inside of him. A lieutenant was also waiting to see the colonel, a
+young man with pink cheeks and a milky-white forehead, who held
+his hat in one hand with a pair of khaki-colored kid gloves, and
+kept passing a hand over his light well-brushed hair. Andrews felt
+dirty and ill-smelling in his badly-fitting uniform. The sight of
+this perfect young man in his whipcord breeches, with his
+manicured nails and immaculately polished puttees exasperated him.
+He would have liked to fight him, to prove that he was the better
+man, to outwit him, to make him forget his rank and his important
+air.... The lieutenant had gone in to see the colonel. Andrews
+found himself reading a chart of some sort tacked up on the wall.
+There were names and dates and figures, but he could not make out
+what it was about.
+
+"All right! Go ahead," whispered the orderly to him; and he was
+standing with his cap in his hand before the colonel who was
+looking at him severely, fingering the papers he had on the desk
+with a heavily veined hand.
+
+Andrews saluted. The colonel made an impatient gesture.
+
+"May I speak to you, Colonel, about the school scheme?"
+
+"I suppose you've got permission from somebody to come to me."
+
+"No, sir." Andrews's mind was struggling to find something to say.
+
+"Well, you'd better go and get it."
+
+"But, Colonel, there isn't time; the travel orders are being made
+out at this minute. I've heard that there's been a name crossed
+out on the list."
+
+"Too late."
+
+"But, Colonel, you don't know how important it is. I am a musician
+by trade; if I can't get into practice again before being
+demobilized, I shan't be able to get a job.... I have a mother and
+an old aunt dependent on me. My family has seen better days, you
+see, sir. It's only by being high up in my profession that I can
+earn enough to give them what they are accustomed to. And a man in
+your position in the world, Colonel, must know what even a few
+months of study in Paris mean to a pianist."
+
+The colonel smiled.
+
+"Let's see your application," he said.
+
+Andrews handed it to him with a trembling hand. The colonel made a
+few marks on one corner with a pencil.
+
+"Now if you can get that to the sergeant-major in time to have
+your name included in the orders, well and good."
+
+Andrews saluted, and hurried out. A sudden feeling of nausea had
+come over him. He was hardly able to control a mad desire to tear
+the paper up. "The sons of bitches...the sons of bitches," he
+muttered to himself. Still he ran all the way to the square,
+isolated building where the regimental office was.
+
+He stopped panting in front of the desk that bore the little red
+card, Regimental Sergeant-Major. The regimental sergeant-major
+looked up at him enquiringly.
+
+"Here's an application for School at the Sorbonne, Sergeant.
+Colonel Wilkins told me to run up to you with it, said he was very
+anxious to have it go in at once."
+
+"Too late," said the regimental sergeant-major.
+
+"But the colonel said it had to go in."
+
+"Can't help it.... Too late," said the regimental sergeant-major.
+
+Andrews felt the room and the men in their olive-drab shirt
+sleeves at the typewriters and the three nymphs creeping from
+behind the French War Loan poster whirl round his head. Suddenly
+he heard a voice behind him:
+
+"Is the name Andrews, John, Sarge?"
+
+"How the hell should I know?" said the regimental sergeant-major.
+
+"Because I've got it in the orders already.... I don't know how it
+got in." The voice was Walters's voice, staccatto and business-
+like.
+
+"Well, then, why d'you want to bother me about it? Give me that
+paper." The regimental sergeant-major jerked the paper out of
+Andrews's hand and looked at it savagely.
+
+"All right, you leave tomorrow. A copy of the orders'll go to your
+company in the morning," growled the regimental sergeant-major.
+
+Andrews looked hard at Walters as he went out, but got no glance
+in return. When he stood in the air again, disgust surged up
+within him, bitterer than before. The fury of his humiliation made
+tears start in his eyes. He walked away from the village down the
+main road, splashing carelessly through the puddles, slipping in
+the wet clay of the ditches. Something within him, like the voice
+of a wounded man swearing, was whining in his head long strings of
+filthy names. After walking a long while he stopped suddenly with
+his fists clenched. It was completely dark, the sky was faintly
+marbled by a moon behind the clouds. On both sides of the road
+rose the tall grey skeletons of poplars. When the sound of his
+footsteps stopped, he heard a faint lisp of running water.
+Standing still in the middle of the road, he felt his feelings
+gradually relax. He said aloud in a low voice several times: "You
+are a damn fool, John Andrews," and started walking slowly and
+thoughtfully back to the village.
+
+
+
+                              V
+
+Andrews felt an arm put round his shoulder.
+
+"Ah've been to hell an' gone lookin' for you, Andy," said
+Chrisfield's voice in his ear, jerking him out of the reverie he
+walked in. He could feel in his face Chrisfield's breath, heavy
+with cognac.
+
+"I'm going to Paris tomorrow, Chris," said Andrews.
+
+"Ah know it, boy. Ah know it. That's why I was that right smart to
+talk to you.... You doan want to go to Paris.... Why doan ye come
+up to Germany with us? Tell me they live like kings up there."
+
+"All right," said Andrews, "let's go to the back room at
+Babette's."
+
+Chrisfield hung on his shoulder, walking unsteadily beside him. At
+the hole in the hedge Chrisfield stumbled and nearly pulled them
+both down. They laughed, and still laughing staggered into the
+dark kitchen, where they found the red-faced woman with her baby
+sitting beside the fire with no other light than the flicker of
+the rare flames that shot up from a little mass of wood embers.
+The baby started crying shrilly when the two soldiers stamped in.
+The woman got up and, talking automatically to the baby all the
+while, went off to get a light and wine.
+
+Andrews looked at Chrisfield's face by the firelight. His cheeks
+had lost the faint childish roundness they had had when Andrews
+had first talked to him, sweeping up cigarette butts off the walk
+in front of the barracks at the training camp.
+
+"Ah tell you, boy, you ought to come with us to Germany...
+nauthin' but whores in Paris."
+
+"The trouble is, Chris, that I don't want to live like a king, or
+a sergeant or a major-general.... I want to live like John
+Andrews."
+
+"What yer goin' to do in Paris, Andy?"
+
+"Study music."
+
+"Ah guess some day Ah'll go into a movie show an' when they turn
+on the lights, who'll Ah see but ma ole frien' Andy raggin' the
+scales on the pyaner."
+
+"Something like that.... How d'you like being a corporal, Chris?"
+
+"O, Ah doan know." Chrisfield spat on the floor between his feet.
+"It's funny, ain't it? You an' me was right smart friends onct....
+Guess it's bein' a non-com."
+
+Andrews did not answer.
+
+Chrisfield sat silent with his eyes on the fire.
+
+"Well, Ah got him.... Gawd, it was easy," he said suddenly.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Ah got him, that's all."0000
+
+"You mean...?"
+
+Chrisfield nodded.
+
+"Um-hum, in the Oregon forest," he said.
+
+Andrews said nothing. He felt suddenly very tired. He thought of
+men he had seen in attitudes of death.
+
+"Ah wouldn't ha' thought it had been so easy," said Chrisfield.
+
+The woman came through the door at the end of the kitchen with a
+candle in her hand. Chrisfield stopped speaking suddenly.
+
+"Tomorrow I'm going to Paris," cried Andrews boisterously. "It's
+the end of soldiering for me."
+
+"Ah bet it'll be some sport in Germany, Andy.... Sarge says we'll
+be goin' up to Coab...what's its name?"
+
+"Coblenz."
+
+Chrisfield poured a glass of wine out and drank it off,
+smacking his lips after it and wiping his mouth on the back of his
+hand.
+
+"D'ye remember, Andy, we was both of us brushin' cigarette butts
+at that bloody trainin' camp when we first met up with each
+other?"
+
+"Considerable water has run under the bridge since then."
+
+"Ah reckon we won't meet up again, mos' likely."
+
+"Hell, why not?"
+
+They were silent again, staring at the fading embers of the fire.
+In the dim edge of the candlelight the woman stood with her hands
+on her hips, looking at them fixedly.
+
+"Reckon a feller wouldn't know what to do with himself if he did
+get out of the army...now, would he, Andy?"
+
+"So long, Chris. I'm beating it," said Andrews in a harsh voice,
+jumping to his feet.
+
+"So long, Andy, ole man.... Ah'll pay for the drinks." Chrisfield
+was beckoning with his hand to the red-faced woman, who advanced
+slowly through the candlelight.
+
+"Thanks, Chris."
+
+Andrews strode away from the door. A cold, needle-like rain was
+falling. He pulled up his coat collar and ran down the muddy
+village street towards his quarters.
+
+
+
+
+                              VI
+
+In the opposite corner of the compartment Andrews could see
+Walters hunched up in an attitude of sleep, with his cap pulled
+down far over his eyes. His mouth was open, and his head wagged
+with the jolting of the train. The shade over the light plunged
+the compartment in dark-blue obscurity, which made the night sky
+outside the window and the shapes of trees and houses, evolving
+and pirouetting as they glided by, seem very near. Andrews felt no
+desire to sleep; he had sat a long time leaning his head against
+the frame of the window, looking out at the fleeing shadows and
+the occasional little red-green lights that darted by and the glow
+of the stations that flared for a moment and were lost in dark
+silhouettes of unlighted houses and skeleton trees and black
+hillsides. He was thinking how all the epochs in his life seemed
+to have been marked out by railway rides at night. The jolting
+rumble of the wheels made the blood go faster through his veins;
+made him feel acutely the clattering of the train along the
+gleaming rails, spurning fields and trees and houses, piling up
+miles and miles between the past and future. The gusts of cold
+night air when he opened the window and the faint whiffs of steam
+and coal gas that tingled in his nostrils excited him like a smile
+on a strange face seen for a moment in a crowded street. He did
+not think of what he had left behind. He was straining his eyes
+eagerly through the darkness towards the vivid life he was going
+to live. Boredom and abasement were over. He was free to work and
+hear music and make friends. He drew deep breaths; warm waves of
+vigor seemed flowing constantly from his lungs and throat to his
+finger tips and down through his body and the muscles of his legs.
+He looked at his watch: "One." In six hours he would be in Paris.
+For six hours he would sit there looking out at the fleeting
+shadows of the countryside, feeling in his blood the eager throb
+of the train, rejoicing in every mile the train carried him away
+from things past.
+
+Walters still slept, half slipping off the seat, with his mouth
+open and his overcoat bundled round his head. Andrews looked out
+of the window, feeling in his nostrils the tingle of steam and
+coal gas. A phrase out of some translation of the Iliad came to
+his head: "Ambrosial night, Night ambrosial unending." But better
+than sitting round a camp fire drinking wine and water and
+listening to the boastful yarns of long-haired Achaeans, was this
+hustling through the countryside away from the monotonous whine of
+past unhappiness, towards joyousness and life.
+
+Andrews began to think of the men he had left behind. They were
+asleep at this time of night, in barns and barracks, or else
+standing on guard with cold damp feet, and cold hands which the
+icy rifle barrel burned when they tended it. He might go far away
+out of sound of the tramp of marching, away from the smell of
+overcrowded barracks where men slept in rows like cattle, but he
+would still be one of them. He would not see an officer pass him
+without an unconscious movement of servility, he would not hear a
+bugle without feeling sick with hatred. If he could only express
+these thwarted lives, the miserable dullness of industrialized
+slaughter, it might have been almost worth while--for him; for the
+others, it would never be worth while. "But you're talking as if
+you were out of the woods; you're a soldier still, John Andrews."
+The words formed themselves in his mind as vividly as if he had
+spoken them. He smiled bitterly and settled himself again to watch
+silhouettes of trees and hedges and houses and hillsides fleeing
+against the dark sky.
+
+When he awoke the sky was grey. The train was moving slowly,
+clattering loudly over switches, through a town of wet slate roofs
+that rose in fantastic patterns of shadow above the blue mist.
+Walters was smoking a cigarette.
+
+"God! These French trains are rotten," he said when he noticed
+that Andrews was awake. "The most inefficient country I ever was
+in anyway."
+
+"Inefficiency be damned," broke in Andrews, jumping up and
+stretching himself. He opened the window. "The heating's too
+damned efficient.... I think we're near Paris."
+
+The cold air, with a flavor of mist in it, poured into the stuffy
+compartment. Every breath was joy. Andrews felt a crazy buoyancy
+bubbling up in him. The rumbling clatter of the train wheels sang
+in his ears. He threw himself on his back on the dusty blue seat
+and kicked his heels in the air like a colt.
+
+"Liven up, for God's sake, man," he shouted. "We're getting near
+Paris."
+
+"We are lucky bastards," said Walters, grinning, with the
+cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth. "I'm going to
+see if I can find the rest of the gang."
+
+Andrews, alone in the compartment, found himself singing at the
+top of his lungs.
+
+As the day brightened the mist lifted off the flat linden-green
+fields intersected by rows of leafless poplars. Salmon-colored
+houses with blue roofs wore already a faintly citified air. They
+passed brick-kilns and clay-quarries, with reddish puddles of
+water in the bottom of them; crossed a jade-green river where a
+long file of canal boats with bright paint on their prows moved
+slowly. The engine whistled shrilly. They clattered through a
+small freight yard, and rows of suburban houses began to form, at
+first chaotically in broad patches of garden-land, and then in
+orderly ranks with streets between and shops at the corners. A
+dark-grey dripping wall rose up suddenly and blotted out the view.
+The train slowed down and went through several stations crowded
+with people on their way to work,--ordinary people in varied
+clothes with only here and there a blue or khaki uniform. Then
+there was more dark-grey wall, and the obscurity of wide bridges
+under which dusty oil lamps burned orange and red, making a gleam
+on the wet wall above them, and where the wheels clanged loudly.
+More freight yards and the train pulled slowly past other trains
+full of faces and silhouettes of people, to stop with a jerk in a
+station. And Andrews was standing on the grey cement platform,
+sniffing smells of lumber and merchandise and steam. His ungainly
+pack and blanket-roll he carried on his shoulder like a cross. He
+had left his rifle and cartridge belt carefully tucked out of
+sight under the seat.
+
+Walters and five other men straggled along the platform towards
+him, carrying or dragging their packs.
+
+There was a look of apprehension on Walters's face.
+
+"Well, what do we do now?" he said.
+
+"Do!" cried Andrews, and he burst out laughing.
+
+
+
+Prostrate bodies in olive drab hid the patch of tender green grass
+by the roadside. The company was resting. Chrisfield sat on a
+stump morosely whittling at a stick with a pocket knife. Judkins
+was stretched out beside him.
+
+"What the hell do they make us do this damn hikin' for, Corp?"
+
+"Guess they're askeered we'll forgit how to walk."
+
+"Well, ain't it better than loafin' around yer billets all day,
+thinkin' an' cursin' an' wishin' ye was home?" spoke up the man who
+sat the other side, pounding down the tobacco in his pipe with a
+thick forefinger.
+
+"It makes me sick, trampin' round this way in ranks all day with
+the goddam frawgs starin' at us an'..."
+
+"They're laughin' at us, I bet," broke in another voice.
+
+"We'll be movin' soon to the Army o' Occupation," said Chrisfield
+cheerfully. "In Germany it'll be a reglar picnic."
+
+"An' d'you know what that means?" burst out Judkins, sitting bolt
+upright. "D'you know how long the troops is goin' to stay in
+Germany? Fifteen years."
+
+"Gawd, they couldn't keep us there that long, man."
+
+"They can do anythin' they goddam please with us. We're the guys
+as is gettin' the raw end of this deal. It ain't the same with an'
+edicated guy like Andrews or Sergeant Coffin or them. They can
+suck around after 'Y' men, an' officers an' get on the inside
+track, an' all we can do is stand up an' salute an' say 'Yes,
+lootenant' an' 'No, lootenant' an' let 'em ride us all they goddam
+please. Ain't that gospel truth, corporal?"
+
+"Ah guess you're right, Judkie; we gits the raw end of the stick."
+
+"That damn yellar dawg Andrews goes to Paris an' gets schoolin'
+free an' all that."
+
+"Hell, Andy waren't yellar, Judkins."
+
+"Well, why did he go bellyachin' around all the time like he knew
+more'n the lootenant did?"
+
+"Ah reckon he did," said Chrisfield.
+
+"Anyway, you can't say that those guys who went to Paris did a
+goddam thing more'n any the rest of us did.... Gawd, I ain't even
+had a leave yet."
+
+"Well, it ain't no use crabbin'."
+
+"No, onct we git home an' folks know the way we've been treated,
+there'll be a great ole investigation. I can tell you that," said
+one of the new men.
+
+"It makes you mad, though, to have something like that put over on
+ye.... Think of them guys in Paris, havin' a hell of a time with
+wine an' women, an' we stay out here an' clean our guns an'
+drill.... God, I'd like to get even with some of them guys."
+
+The whistle blew. The patch of grass became unbroken green again
+as the men lined up along the side of the road.
+
+"Fall in!" called the Sergeant.
+
+"Atten-shun!"
+
+"Right dress!"
+
+"Front! God, you guys haven't got no snap in yer.... Stick yer
+belly in, you. You know better than to stand like that."
+
+"Squads, right! March! Hep, hep, hep!"
+
+The Company tramped off along the muddy road. Their steps were all
+the same length. Their arms swung in the same rhythm. Their faces
+were cowed into the same expression, their thoughts were the same.
+The tramp, tramp of their steps died away along the road.
+
+Birds were singing among the budding trees. The young grass by the
+roadside kept the marks of the soldiers' bodies.
+
+
+
+
+                   PART FIVE: THE WORLD OUTSIDE
+
+                             I
+
+Andrews, and six other men from his division, sat at a table
+outside the cafe opposite the Gare de l'Est. He leaned back in his
+chair with a cup of coffee lifted, looking across it at the stone
+houses with many balconies. Steam, scented of milk and coffee,
+rose from the cup as he sipped from it. His ears were full of a
+rumble of traffic and a clacking of heels as people walked briskly
+by along the damp pavements. For a while he did not hear what the
+men he was sitting with were saying. They talked and laughed, but
+he looked beyond their khaki uniforms and their boat-shaped caps
+unconsciously. He was taken up with the smell of the coffee and of
+the mist. A little rusty sunshine shone on the table of the cafe
+and on the thin varnish of wet mud that covered the asphalt
+pavement. Looking down the Avenue, away from the station, the
+houses, dark grey tending to greenish in the shadow and to violet
+in the sun, faded into a soft haze of distance. Dull gilt
+lettering glittered along black balconies. In the foreground were
+men and women walking briskly, their cheeks whipped a little into
+color by the rawness of the morning. The sky was a faintly roseate
+grey.
+
+Walters was speaking:
+
+"The first thing I want to see is the Eiffel Tower."
+
+"Why d'you want to see that?" said the small sergeant with a black
+mustache and rings round his eyes like a monkey.
+
+"Why, man, don't you know that everything begins from the Eiffel
+Tower? If it weren't for the Eiffel Tower, there wouldn't be any
+sky-scrapers...."
+
+"How about the Flatiron Building and Brooklyn Bridge? They were
+built before the Eiffel Tower, weren't they?" interrupted the man
+from New York.
+
+"The Eiffel Tower's the first piece of complete girder
+construction in the whole world," reiterated Walters dogmatically.
+
+"First thing I'm going to do's go to the Folies Berd-jairs; me for
+the w.w.'s."
+
+"Better lay off the wild women, Bill," said Walters.
+
+"I ain't goin' to look at a woman," said the sergeant with the
+black mustache. "I guess I seen enough women in my time,
+anyway.... The war's over, anyway."
+
+"You just wait, kid, till you fasten your lamps on a real
+Parizianne," said a burly, unshaven man with a corporal's stripes
+on his arm, roaring with laughter.
+
+Andrews lost track of the talk again, staring dreamily through
+half-closed eyes down the long straight street, where greens and
+violets and browns merged into a bluish grey monochrome at a
+little distance. He wanted to be alone, to wander at random
+through the city, to stare dreamily at people and things, to talk
+by chance to men and women, to sink his life into the misty
+sparkling life of the streets. The smell of the mist brought a
+memory to his mind. For a long while he groped for it, until
+suddenly he remembered his dinner with Henslowe and the faces of
+the boy and girl he had talked to on the Butte. He must find
+Henslowe at once. A second's fierce resentment went through him
+against all these people about him. Christ! He must get away from
+them all; his freedom had been hard enough won; he must enjoy it
+to the uttermost.
+
+"Say, I'm going to stick to you, Andy." Walters's voice broke into
+his reverie. "I'm going to appoint you the corps of interpreters."
+
+Andrews laughed.
+
+"D'you know the way to the School Headquarters?"
+
+"The R. T. O. said take the subway."
+
+"I'm going to walk," said Andrews.
+
+"You'll get lost, won't you?"
+
+"No danger, worse luck," said Andrews, getting to his feet. "I'll
+see you fellows at the School Headquarters, whatever those are....
+So long."
+
+"Say, Andy, I'll wait for you there," Walters called after him.
+
+Andrews darted down a side street. He could hardly keep from
+shouting aloud when he found himself alone, free, with days and
+days ahead of him to work and think, gradually to rid his limbs of
+the stiff attitudes of the automaton. The smell of the streets,
+and the mist, indefinably poignant, rose like incense smoke in
+fantastic spirals through his brain, making him hungry and
+dazzled, making his arms and legs feel lithe and as ready for
+delight as a crouching cat for a spring. His heavy shoes beat out
+a dance as they clattered on the wet pavements under his springy
+steps. He was walking very fast, stopping suddenly now and then to
+look at the greens and oranges and crimsons of vegetables in a
+push cart, to catch a vista down intricate streets, to look into
+the rich brown obscurity of a small wine shop where workmen stood
+at the counter sipping white wine. Oval, delicate faces, bearded
+faces of men, slightly gaunt faces of young women, red cheeks of
+boys, wrinkled faces of old women, whose ugliness seemed to have
+hidden in it, stirringly, all the beauty of youth and the tragedy
+of lives that had been lived; the faces of the people he passed
+moved him like rhythms of an orchestra. After much walking,
+turning always down the street which looked pleasantest, he came
+to an oval with a statue of a pompous personage on a ramping
+horse. "Place des Victoires," he read the name, which gave him a
+faint tinge of amusement. He looked quizzically at the heroic
+features of the sun king and walked off laughing. "I suppose they
+did it better in those days, the grand manner," he muttered. And
+his delight redoubled in rubbing shoulders with the people whose
+effigies would never appear astride ramping-eared horses in
+squares built to commemorate victories. He came out on a broad
+straight avenue, where there were many American officers he had to
+salute, and M. P.'s and shops with wide plate-glass windows, full
+of objects that had a shiny, expensive look. "Another case of
+victories," he thought, as he went off into a side street, taking
+with him a glimpse of the bluish-grey pile of the Opera, with its
+pompous windows and its naked bronze ladies holding lamps.
+
+He was in a narrow street full of hotels and fashionable barber
+shops, from which came an odor of cosmopolitan perfumery, of
+casinos and ballrooms and diplomatic receptions, when he noticed
+an American officer coming towards him, reeling a little,--a tall,
+elderly man with a red face and a bottle nose. He saluted.
+
+The officer stopped still, swaying from side to side, and said in
+a whining voice:
+
+"Shonny, d'you know where Henry'sh Bar is?"
+
+"No, I don't, Major," said Andrews, who felt himself enveloped in
+an odor of cocktails.
+
+"You'll help me to find it, shonny, won't you?... It's dreadful
+not to be able to find it.... I've got to meet Lootenant Trevors
+in Henry'sh Bar." The major steadied himself by putting a hand on
+Andrews' shoulder. A civilian passed them.
+
+"Dee-donc," shouted the major after him, "Dee-donc, Monshier, ou
+ay Henry'sh Bar?"
+
+The man walked on without answering.
+
+"Now isn't that like a frog, not to understand his own language?"
+said the major.
+
+"But there's Henry's Bar, right across the street," said Andrews
+suddenly.
+
+"Bon, bon," said the major.
+
+They crossed the street and went in. At the bar the major, still
+clinging to Andrews' shoulder, whispered in his ear: "I'm
+A. W. O. L., shee?... Shee?.... Whole damn Air Service is
+A. W. O. L. Have a drink with me.... You enlisted man? Nobody
+cares here.... Warsh over, Sonny.... Democracy is shafe for
+the world."
+
+Andrews was just raising a champagne cocktail to his lips, looking
+with amusement at the crowd of American officers and civilians who
+crowded into the small mahogany barroom, when a voice behind him
+drawled out:
+
+"I'll be damned!"
+
+Andrews turned and saw Henslowe's brown face and small silky
+mustache. He abandoned his major to his fate.
+
+"God, I'm glad to see you.... I was afraid you hadn't been able to
+work it."...Said Henslowe slowly, stuttering a little.
+
+"I'm about crazy, Henny, with delight. I just got in a couple of
+hours ago...." Laughing, interrupting each other, they chattered
+in broken sentences.
+
+"But how in the name of everything did you get here?"
+
+"With the major?" said Andrews, laughing.
+
+"What the devil?"
+
+"Yes; that major," whispered Andrews in his friend's ear, "rather
+the worse for wear, asked me to lead him to Henry's Bar and just
+fed me a cocktail in the memory of Democracy, late defunct.... But
+what are you doing here? It's not exactly...exotic."
+
+"I came to see a man who was going to tell me how I could get to
+Rumania with the Red Cross.... But that can wait.... Let's get out
+of here. God, I was afraid you hadn't made it."
+
+"I had to crawl on my belly and lick people's boots to do
+it.... God, it was low!... But here I am."
+
+They were out in the street again, walking and gesticulating.
+
+"But 'Libertad, Libertad, allons, ma femme!' as Walt Whitman would
+have said," shouted Andrews.
+
+"It's one grand and glorious  feeling.... I've been here three
+days. My section's gone home; God bless them."
+
+"But what do you have to do?"
+
+"Do? Nothing," cried Henslowe. "Not a blooming bloody goddam
+thing! In fact, it's no use trying...the whole thing is such a
+mess you couldn't do anything if you wanted to."
+
+"I want to go and talk to people at the Schola Cantorum."
+
+"There'll be time for that. You'll never make anything out of
+music if you get serious-minded about it."
+
+"Then, last but not least, I've got to get some money from
+somewhere."
+
+"Now you're talking!" Henslowe pulled a burnt leather pocket book
+out of the inside of his tunic. "Monaco," he said, tapping the
+pocket book, which was engraved with a pattern of dull red
+flowers. He pursed up his lips and pulled out some hundred franc
+notes, which he pushed into Andrews's hand.
+
+"Give me one of them," said Andrews.
+
+"All or none.... They last about five minutes each."
+
+"But it's so damn much to pay back."
+
+"Pay it back--heavens!... Here take it and stop your talking. I
+probably won't have it again, so you'd better make hay this time.
+I warn you it'll be spent by the end of the week."
+
+"All right. I'm dead with hunger."
+
+"Let's sit down on the Boulevard and think about where we'll have
+lunch to celebrate Miss Libertad.... But let's not call her that,
+sounds like Liverpool, Andy, a horrid place."
+
+"How about Freiheit?" said Andrews, as they sat down in basket
+chairs in the reddish yellow sunlight.
+
+"Treasonable...off with your head."
+
+"But think of it, man," said Andrews, "the butchery's over, and
+you and I and everybody else will soon be human beings again.
+Human; all too human!"
+
+"No more than eighteen wars going," muttered Henslowe.
+
+"I haven't seen any papers for an age.... How do you mean?"
+
+"People are fighting to beat the cats everywhere except on the'
+western front," said Henslowe. "But that's where I come in. The
+Red Cross sends supply trains to keep them at it.... I'm going to
+Russia if I can work it."
+
+"But what about the Sorbonne?"
+
+"The Sorbonne can go to Ballyhack."
+
+"But, Henny, I'm going to croak on your hands if you don't take me
+somewhere to get some food."
+
+"Do you want a solemn place with red plush or with salmon pink
+brocade?"
+
+"Why have a solemn place at all?"
+
+"Because solemnity and good food go together. It's only a
+religious restaurant that has a proper devotion to the belly. O, I
+know, we'll go over to Brooklyn."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"To the Rive Gauche. I know a man who insists on calling it
+Brooklyn. Awfully funny man...never been sober in his life. You
+must meet him."
+
+"Oh, I want to.... It's a dog's age since I met anyone new, except
+you. I can't live without having a variegated crowd about, can
+you?"
+
+"You've got that right on this boulevard. Serbs, French, English,
+Americans, Australians, Rumanians, Tcheco-Slovaks; God, is there
+any uniform that isn't here?... I tell you, Andy, the war's been a
+great thing for the people who knew how to take advantage of it.
+Just look at their puttees."
+
+"I guess they'll know how to make a good thing of the Peace too."
+
+"Oh, that's going to be the best yet.... Come along. Let's be
+little devils and take a taxi."
+
+"This certainly is the main street of Cosmopolis."
+
+They threaded their way through the crowd, full of uniforms and
+glitter and bright colors, that moved in two streams up and down
+the wide sidewalk between the cafes and the boles of the bare
+trees. They climbed into a taxi, and lurched fast through streets
+where, in the misty sunlight, grey-green and grey-violet mingled
+with blues and pale lights as the colors mingle in a pigeon's
+breast feathers. They passed the leafless gardens of the Tuileries
+on one side, and the great inner Courts of the Louvre, with their
+purple mansard roofs and their high chimneys on the other, and saw
+for a second the river, dull jade green, and the plane trees
+splotched with brown and cream color along the quais, before they
+were lost in the narrow brownish-grey streets of the old quarters.
+
+"This is Paris; that was Cosmopolis," said Henslowe.
+
+"I'm not particular, just at present," cried Andrews gaily.
+
+The square in front of the Odeon was a splash of white and the
+collonade a blur of darkness as the cab swerved round the corner
+and along the edge of the Luxembourg, where, through the black
+iron fence, many brown and reddish colors in the intricate
+patterns of leafless twigs opened here and there on statues and
+balustrades and vistas of misty distances. The cab stopped with a
+jerk.
+
+"This is the Place des Medicis," said Henslowe.
+
+At the end of a slanting street looking very flat, through the
+haze, was the dome of the Pantheon. In the middle of the square
+between the yellow trams and the green low busses, was a quiet
+pool, where the shadow of horizontals of the house fronts was
+reflected.
+
+They sat beside the window looking out at the square.
+
+Henslowe ordered.
+
+"Remember how sentimental history books used to talk about
+prisoners who were let out after years in dungeons, not being able
+to stand it, and going back to their cells?"
+
+"D'you like sole meuniere?"
+
+"Anything, or rather everything! But take it from me, that's all
+rubbish. Honestly I don't think I've ever been happier in my
+life.... D'you know, Henslowe, there's something in you that is
+afraid to be happy."
+
+"Don't be morbid.... There's only one real evil in the world:
+being somewhere without being able to get away;... I ordered beer.
+This is the only place in Paris where it's fit to drink."
+
+"And I'm going to every blooming concert...Colonne-Lamoureux on
+Sunday, I know that.... The only evil in the world is not to be
+able to hear music or to make it.... These oysters are fit for
+Lucullus."
+
+"Why not say fit for John Andrews and Bob Henslowe, damn
+it?... Why the ghosts of poor old dead Romans should be dragged in
+every time a man eats an oyster, I don't see. We're as fine
+specimens as they were. I swear I shan't let any old turned-to-
+clay Lucullus outlive me, even if I've never eaten a lamprey."
+
+"And why should you eat a lamp--chimney, Bob?" came a hoarse voice
+beside them.
+
+Andrews looked up into a round, white face with large grey eyes
+hidden behind thick steel-rimmed spectacles. Except for the eyes,
+the face had a vaguely Chinese air.
+
+"Hello, Heinz! Mr. Andrews, Mr. Heineman," said Henslowe.
+
+"Glad to meet you," said Heineman in a jovially hoarse voice. "You
+guys seem to be overeating, to reckon by the way things are piled
+up on the table." Through the hoarseness Andrews could detect a
+faint Yankee tang in Heineman's voice.
+
+"You'd better sit down and help us," said Henslowe.
+
+"Sure....D'you know my name for this guy?" He turned to
+Andrews.... "Sinbad!"
+
+"Sinbad was in bad in Tokio and Rome,
+ In bad in Trinidad
+ And twice as bad at home."
+
+He sang the words loudly, waving a bread stick to keep time.
+
+"Shut up, Heinz, or you'll get us run out of here the way you got
+us run out of the Olympia that night."
+
+They both laughed.
+
+"An' d'you remember Monsieur Le Guy with his coat?
+
+"Do I? God!" They laughed till the tears ran down their cheeks.
+Heineman took off his glasses and wiped them. He turned to
+Andrews.
+
+"Oh, Paris is the best yet. First absurdity: the Peace Conference
+and its nine hundred and ninety-nine branches. Second absurdity:
+spies. Third: American officers A.W.O.L. Fourth: The seven sisters
+sworn to slay." He broke out laughing again, his chunky body
+rolling about on the chair.
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"Three of them have sworn to slay Sinbad, and four of them have
+sworn to slay me.... But that's too complicated to tell at lunch
+time.... Eighth: there are the lady relievers, Sinbad's specialty.
+Ninth: there's Sinbad...."
+
+"Shut up, Heinz, you're getting me maudlin," spluttered Henslowe.
+
+"O Sinbad was in bad all around,"
+
+chanted Heineman. "But no one's given me anything to drink," he
+said suddenly in a petulant voice. "Garcon, une bouteille de
+Macon, pour un Cadet de Gascogne.... What's the next? It ends with
+vergogne. You've seen the play, haven't you? Greatest play
+going.... Seen it twice sober and seven other times."
+
+"Cyrano de Bergerac?"
+
+"That's it. Nous sommes les Cadets de Gasgogne, rhymes with
+ivrogne and sans vergogne.... You see I work in the Red Cross....
+You know Sinbad, old Peterson's a brick.... I'm supposed to be
+taking photographs of tubercular children at this minute.... The
+noblest of my professions is that of artistic photographer....
+Borrowed the photographs from the rickets man. So I have nothing
+to do for three months and five hundred francs travelling
+expenses. Oh, children, my only prayer is 'give us this day our
+red worker's permit' and the Red Cross does the rest." Heineman
+laughed till the glasses rang on the table. He took off his
+glasses and wiped them with a rueful air.
+
+"So now I call the Red Cross the Cadets!" cried Heineman, his
+voice a thin shriek from laughter.
+
+Andrews was drinking his coffee in little sips, looking out of the
+window at the people that passed. An old woman with a stand of
+flowers sat on a small cane chair at the corner. The pink and
+yellow and blue-violet shades of the flowers seemed to intensify
+the misty straw color and azured grey of the wintry sun and shadow
+of the streets. A girl in a tight-fitting black dress and black
+hat stopped at the stand to buy a bunch of pale yellow daisies,
+and then walked slowly past the window of the restaurant in the
+direction of the gardens. Her ivory face and slender body and her
+very dark eyes sent a sudden flush through Andrews's whole frame
+as he looked at her. The black erect figure disappeared in the
+gate of the gardens.
+
+Andrews got to his feet suddenly.
+
+"I've got to go," he said in a strange voice.... "I just remember a
+man was waiting for me at the School Headquarters."
+
+"Let him wait."
+
+"Why, you haven't had a liqueur yet," cried Heineman.
+
+"No...but where can I meet you people later?"
+
+"Cafe de Rohan at five...opposite the Palais Royal."
+
+"You'll never find it."
+
+"Yes I will," said Andrews.
+
+"Palais Royal metro station," they shouted after him as he dashed
+out of the door.
+
+He hurried into the gardens. Many people sat on benches in the
+frail sunlight. Children in bright-colored clothes ran about
+chasing hoops. A woman paraded a bunch of toy balloons in carmine
+and green and purple, like a huge bunch of parti-colored grapes
+inverted above her head. Andrews walked up and down the alleys,
+scanning faces. The girl had disappeared. He leaned against a grey
+balustrade and looked down into the empty pond where traces of the
+explosion of a Bertha still subsisted. He was telling himself that
+he was a fool. That even if he had found her he could not have
+spoken to her; just because he was free for a day or two from the
+army he needn't think the age of gold had come back to earth.
+Smiling at the thought, he walked across the gardens, wandered
+through some streets of old houses in grey and white stucco with
+slate mansard roofs and fantastic complications of chimney-pots
+till he came out in front of a church with a new classic facade of
+huge columns that seemed toppling by their own weight.
+
+He asked a woman selling newspapers what the church's name was.
+"Mais, Monsieur, c'est Saint Sulpice," said the woman in a
+surprised tone.
+
+Saint Sulpice. Manon's songs came to his head, and the sentimental
+melancholy of eighteenth century Paris with its gambling houses in
+the Palais Royal where people dishonored themselves in the
+presence of their stern Catonian fathers, and its billets doux
+written at little gilt tables, and its coaches lumbering in
+covered with mud from the provinces through the Porte d'Orleans
+and the Porte de Versailles; the Paris of Diderot and Voltaire and
+Jean-Jacques, with its muddy streets and its ordinaries where one
+ate bisques and larded pullets and souffles; a Paris full of
+mouldy gilt magnificence, full of pompous ennui of the past and
+insane hope of the future.
+
+He walked down a narrow, smoky street full of antique shops and
+old bookshops and came out unexpectedly on the river opposite the
+statue of Voltaire. The name on the corner was quai Malaquais.
+Andrews crossed and looked down for a long time at the river.
+Opposite, behind a lace-work of leafless trees, were the purplish
+roofs of the Louvre with their high peaks and their ranks and
+ranks of chimneys; behind him the old houses of the quai and the
+wing, topped by a balustrade with great grey stone urns of a domed
+building of which he did not know the name. Barges were coming
+upstream, the dense green water spuming under their blunt bows,
+towed by a little black tugboat with its chimney bent back to pass
+under the bridges. The tug gave a thin shrill whistle. Andrews
+started walking downstream. He crossed by the bridge at the corner
+of the Louvre, turned his back on the arch Napoleon built to
+receive the famous horses from St. Marc's,--a pinkish pastry-like
+affair--and walked through the Tuileries which were full of people
+strolling about or sitting in the sun, of doll-like children and
+nursemaids with elaborate white caps, of fluffy little dogs
+straining at the ends of leashes. Suddenly a peaceful sleepiness
+came over him. He sat down in the sun on a bench, watching, hardly
+seeing them, the people who passed to and fro casting long
+shadows. Voices and laughter came very softly to his ears above
+the distant stridency of traffic. From far away he heard for a few
+moments notes of a military band playing a march. The shadows of
+the trees were faint blue-grey in the ruddy yellow gravel. Shadows
+of people kept passing and repassing across them. He felt very
+languid and happy.
+
+Suddenly he started up; he had been dozing. He asked an old man
+with a beautifully pointed white beard the way to rue du Faubourg
+St. Honore.
+
+After losing his way a couple of times, he walked listlessly up
+some marble steps where a great many men in khaki were talking.
+Leaning against the doorpost was Walters. As he drew near Andrews
+heard him saying to the man next to him:
+
+"Why, the Eiffel tower was the first piece of complete girder
+construction ever built.... That's the first thing a feller who's
+wide awake ought to see."
+
+"Tell me the Opery's the grandest thing to look at," said the man
+next it.
+
+"If there's wine an' women there, me for it."
+
+"An' don't forget the song."
+
+"But that isn't interesting like the Eiffel tower is," persisted
+Walters.
+
+"Say, Walters, I hope you haven't been waiting for me," stammered
+Andrews.
+
+"No, I've been waiting in line to see the guy about courses.... I
+want to start this thing right."
+
+"I guess I'll see them tomorrow," said Andrews.
+
+"Say have you done anything about a room, Andy? Let's you and me
+be bunkies."
+
+"All right.... But maybe you won't want to room where I do,
+Walters."
+
+"Where's that? In the Latin Quarter?... You bet. I want to see
+some French life while I am about it."
+
+"Well, it's too late to get a room to-day."
+
+"I'm going to the 'Y' tonight anyway."
+
+"I'll get a fellow I know to put me up.... Then tomorrow, we'll
+see. Well, so long," said Andrews, moving away.
+
+"Wait. I'm coming with you.... We'll walk around town together."
+
+"All right," said Andrews.
+
+
+
+The rabbit was rather formless, very fluffy and had a glance of
+madness in its pink eye with a black center. It hopped like a
+sparrow along the pavement, emitting a rubber tube from its back,
+which went up to a bulb in a man's hand which the man pressed to
+make the rabbit hop. Yet the rabbit had an air of organic
+completeness. Andrews laughed inordinately when he first saw it.
+The vendor, who had a basket full of other such rabbits on his
+arm, saw Andrews laughing and drew timidly near to the table; he
+had a pink face with little, sensitive lips rather like a real
+rabbit's, and large frightened eyes of a wan brown.
+
+"Do you make them yourself?" asked Andrews, smiling.
+
+The man dropped his rabbit on the table with a negligent air.
+
+"Oh, oui, Monsieur, d'apres la nature."
+
+He made the rabbit turn a somersault by suddenly pressing the bulb
+hard. Andrews laughed and the rabbit man laughed.
+
+"Think of a big strong man making his living that way," said
+Walters, disgusted.
+
+"I do it all...de matiere premiere au profit de l'accapareur,"
+said the rabbit man.
+
+"Hello, Andy...late as hell.... I'm sorry," said Henslowe,
+dropping down into a chair beside them. Andrews introduced
+Walters, the rabbit man took off his hat, bowed to the company and
+went off, making the rabbit hop before him along the edge of the
+curbstone.
+
+"What's happened to Heineman?"
+
+"Here he comes now," said Henslowe.
+
+An open cab had driven up to the curb in front of the cafe. In it
+sat Heineman with a broad grin on his face and beside him a woman
+in a salmon-colored dress, ermine furs and an emerald-green hat.
+The cab drove off and Heineman, still grinning, walked up to the
+table.
+
+"Where's the lion cub?" asked Henslowe.
+
+"They say it's got pneumonia."
+
+"Mr. Heineman. Mr. Walters."
+
+The grin left Heineman's face; he said: "How do you do?" curtly,
+cast a furious glance at Andrews and settled himself in a chair.
+
+The sun had set. The sky was full of lilac and bright purple and
+carmine. Among the deep blue shadows lights were coming on,
+primrose-colored street lamps, violet arc lights, ruddy sheets of
+light poured out of shop windows.
+
+"Let's go inside. I'm cold as hell," said Heineman crossly, and
+they filed in through the revolving door, followed by a waiter
+with their drinks.
+
+"I've been in the Red Cross all afternoon, Andy.... I think I am
+going to work that Roumania business.... Want to come?" said
+Henslowe in Andrews' ear.
+
+"If I can get hold of a piano and some lessons and the concerts
+keep up you won't be able to get me away from Paris with wild
+horses. No, sir, I want to see what Paris is like.... It's going
+to my head so it'll be weeks before I know what I think about it."
+
+"Don't think about it.... Drink," growled Heineman, scowling
+savagely.
+
+"That's two things I'm going to keep away from in Paris; drink and
+women.... And you can't have one without the other," said Walters.
+
+"True enough.... You sure do need them both," said Heineman.
+
+Andrews was not listening to their talk; twirling the stem of his
+glass of vermouth in his fingers, he was thinking of the Queen of
+Sheba slipping down from off the shoulders of her elephant,
+glistening fantastically with jewels in the light of crackling,
+resinous torches. Music was seeping up through his mind as the
+water seeps into a hole dug in the sand of the seashore. He could
+feel all through his body the tension of rhythms and phrases
+taking form, not quite to be seized as yet, still hovering on the
+borderland of consciousness. "From the girl at the cross-roads
+singing under her street-lamp to the patrician pulling roses to
+pieces from the height of her litter....All the imaginings of your
+desire...." He thought of the girl with skin like old ivory he had
+seen in the Place de Medicis. The Queen of Sheba's face was like
+that now in his imaginings, quiet and inscrutable. A sudden
+cymbal-clanging of joy made his heart thump hard. He was free now
+of the imaginings of his desire, to loll all day at cafe tables
+watching the tables move in changing patterns before him, to fill
+his mind and body with a reverberation of all the rhythms of men
+and women moving in the frieze of life before his eyes; no more
+like wooden automatons knowing only the motions of the drill
+manual, but supple and varied, full of force and tragedy.
+
+"For Heaven's sake let's beat it from here.... Gives me a pain
+this place does." Heineman beat his fist on the table.
+
+"All right," said Andrews, getting up with a yawn.
+
+Henslowe and Andrews walked off, leaving Walters to follow them
+with Heineman.
+
+"We're going to dine at Le Rat qui Danse," said Henslowe, "an
+awfully funny place.... We just have time to walk there
+comfortably with an appetite."
+
+They followed the long dimly-lighted Rue de Richelieu to the
+Boulevards, where they drifted a little while with the crowd. The
+glaring lights seemed to powder the air with gold. Cafes and the
+tables outside were crowded. There was an odor of vermouth and
+coffee and perfume and cigarette smoke mixed with the fumes of
+burnt gasoline from taxicabs.
+
+"Isn't this mad?" said Andrews.
+
+"It's always carnival at seven on the Grands Boulevards."
+
+They started climbing the steep streets to Montmartre. At a corner
+they passed a hard-faced girl with rouge-smeared lips and over-
+powdered cheeks, laughing on the arm of an American soldier, who
+had a sallow face and dull-green eyes that glittered in the
+slanting light of a street-lamp.
+
+"Hello, Stein," said Andrews.
+
+"Who's that?"
+
+"A fellow from our division, got here with me this morning."
+
+"He's got curious lips for a Jew," said Henslowe.
+
+At the fork of two slanting streets, they went into a restaurant
+that had small windows pasted over with red paper, through which
+the light came dimly. Inside were crowded oak tables and oak
+wainscoting with a shelf round the top, on which were shell-cans,
+a couple of skulls, several cracked majolica plates and a number
+of stuffed rats. The only people there were a fat woman and a man
+with long grey hair and beard who sat talking earnestly over two
+small glasses in the center of the room. A husky-looking waitress
+with a Dutch cap and apron hovered near the inner door from which
+came a great smell of fish frying in olive oil.
+
+"The cook here's from Marseilles," said Henslowe, as they settled
+themselves at a table for four.
+
+"I wonder if the rest of them lost the way," said Andrews.
+
+"More likely old Heinz stopped to have a drink," said Henslowe.
+"Let's have some hors d'oeuvre while we are waiting."
+
+The waitress brought a collection of boat-shaped plates of red
+salads and yellow salads and green salads and two little wooden
+tubs with herrings and anchovies.
+
+Henslowe stopped her as she was going, saying: "Rien de plus?"
+
+The waitress contemplated the array with a tragic air, her arms
+folded over her ample bosom. "Que voulez-vous, Monsieur, c'est
+l'armistice."
+
+"The greatest fake about all this war business is the peace. I
+tell you, not till the hors d'oeuvre has been restored to its
+proper abundance and variety will I admit that the war's over."
+
+The waitress tittered.
+
+"Things aren't what they used to be," she said, going back to the
+kitchen.
+
+Heineman burst into the restaurant at that moment, slamming the
+door behind him so that the glass rang, and the fat woman and the
+hairy man started violently in their chairs. He tumbled into a
+place, grinning broadly.
+
+"And what have you done to Walters?"
+
+Heineman wiped his glasses meticulously.
+
+"Oh, he died of drinking raspberry shrub," he said.... "Dee-dong
+peteet du ving de  Bourgogne," he  shouted towards the waitress in
+his nasal French. Then he added: "Le Guy is coming in a minute, I
+just met him."
+
+The restaurant was gradually filling up with men and women of very
+various costumes, with a good sprinkling of Americans in uniform
+and out.
+
+"God I hate people who don't drink," cried Heineman, pouring out
+wine. "A man who don't drink just cumbers the earth."
+
+"How are you going to take it in America when they have
+prohibition?"
+
+"Don't talk about it; here's le Guy. I wouldn't have him know I
+belong to a nation that prohibits good liquor.... Monsieur le Guy,
+Monsieur Henslowe et Monsieur Andrews," he continued getting up
+ceremoniously. A little man with twirled mustaches and a small
+vandyke beard sat down at the fourth place. He had a faintly red
+nose and little twinkling eyes.
+
+"How glad I am," he said, exposing his starched cuffs with a
+curious gesture, "to have some one to dine with! When one begins
+to get old loneliness is impossible. It is only youth that dares
+think.... Afterwards  one has only one thing to think about: old
+age."
+
+"There's always work," said Andrews.
+
+"Slavery. Any work is slavery. What is the use of freeing your
+intellect if you sell yourself again to the first bidder?"
+
+"Rot!" said Heineman, pouring out from a new bottle.
+
+Andrews had begun to notice the girl who sat at the next table, in
+front of a pale young soldier in French-blue who resembled her
+extraordinarily. She had high cheek bones and a forehead in which
+the modelling of the skull showed through the transparent,
+faintly-olive skin. Her heavy chestnut hair was coiled carelessly
+at the back of her head. She spoke very quietly, and pressed her
+lips together when she smiled. She ate quickly and neatly, like a
+cat.
+
+The restaurant had gradually filled up with people. The waitress
+and the patron, a fat man with a wide red sash coiled tightly
+round his waist, moved with difficulty among the crowded tables. A
+woman at a table in the corner, with dead white skin and drugged
+staring eyes, kept laughing hoarsely, leaning her head, in a hat
+with bedraggled white plumes, against the wall. There was a
+constant jingle of plates and glasses, and an oily fume of food
+and women's clothes and wine.
+
+"D'you want to know what I really did with your friend?" said
+Heineman, leaning towards Andrews.
+
+"I hope you didn't push him into the Seine."
+
+"It was damn impolite.... But hell, it was damn impolite of him
+not to drink.... No use wasting time with a man who don't drink. I
+took him into a cafe and asked him to wait while I telephoned. I
+guess he's still waiting. One of the whoreiest cafes on the whole
+Boulevard Clichy." Heineman laughed uproariously and started ex-
+plaining it in nasal French to M. le Guy.
+
+Andrews flushed with annoyance for a moment, but soon started
+laughing. Heineman had started singing again.
+
+"O, Sinbad was in bad in Tokio and Rome,
+ In bad in Trinidad
+ And twice as bad at home,
+ O, Sinbad was in bad all around!"
+
+Everybody clapped. The white-faced woman in the corner cried
+"Bravo, Bravo," in a shrill nightmare voice.
+
+Heineman bowed, his big grinning face bobbing up and down like the
+face of a Chinese figure in porcelain.
+
+"Lui est Sinbad," he cried, pointing with a wide gesture towards
+Henslowe.
+
+"Give 'em some more, Heinz. Give them some more," said Henslowe,
+laughing.
+
+"Big brunettes with long stelets
+ On the shores of Italee,
+ Dutch girls with golden curls
+ Beside the Zuyder Zee..."
+
+Everybody cheered again; Andrews kept looking at the girl at the
+next table, whose face was red from laughter. She had a
+handkerchief pressed to her mouth, and kept saying in a low voice:
+
+"O qu'il est drole, celui-la.... O qu'il est drole."
+
+Heineman picked up a glass and waved it in the air before drinking
+it off. Several people got up and filled it up from their bottles
+with white wine and red. The French soldier at the next table
+pulled an army canteen from under his chair and hung it round
+Heineman's neck.
+
+Heineman, his face crimson, bowed to all sides, more like a
+Chinese porcelain figure than ever, and started singing in all
+solemnity this time.
+
+"Hulas and hulas would pucker up their lips,
+ He fell for their ball-bearing hips
+ For they were pips ..."
+
+His chunky body swayed to the ragtime. The woman in the corner
+kept time with long white arms raised above her head.
+
+"Bet she's a snake charmer," said Henslowe.
+
+"O, wild woman loved that child
+ He would drive ten women wild!
+ O, Sinbad was in bad all around!"
+
+Heineman waved his arms, pointed again to Henslowe, and sank into
+his chair saying in the tones of a Shakespearean actor:
+
+"C'est lui Sinbad."
+
+The girl hid her face on the tablecloth, shaken with laughter.
+Andrews could hear a convulsed little voice saying:
+
+"O qu'il est rigolo...."
+
+Heineman took off the canteen and handed it back to the French
+soldier.
+
+"Merci, Camarade," he said solemnly.
+
+"Eh bien, Jeanne, c'est temps de ficher le camp," said the French
+soldier to the girl. They got up. He shook hands with the
+Americans. Andrews caught the girl's eye and they both started
+laughing convulsively again. Andrews noticed how erect and supple
+she walked as his eyes followed her to the door.
+
+Andrews's party followed soon after.
+
+"We've got to hurry if we want to get to the Lapin Agile before
+closing...and I've got to have a drink," said Heineman, still
+talking in his stagey Shakespearean voice.
+
+"Have you ever been on the stage?" asked Andrews.
+
+"What stage, sir? I'm in the last stages now, sir.... I am an
+artistic photographer and none other.... Moki and I are going into
+the movies together when they decide to have peace."
+
+"Who's Moki?"
+
+"Moki Hadj is the lady in the salmon-colored dress," said
+Henslowe, in a loud stage whisper in Andrews's ear. "They have a
+lion cub named Bubu."
+
+"Our first born," said Heineman with a wave of the hand.
+
+The streets were deserted. A thin ray of moonlight, bursting now
+and then through the heavy clouds, lit up low houses and roughly-
+cobbled streets and the flights of steps with rare dim lamps
+bracketed in house walls that led up to the Butte.
+
+There was a gendarme in front of the door of the Lapin Agile. The
+street was still full of groups that had just come out, American
+officers and Y.M.C.A, women with a sprinkling of the inhabitants
+of the region.
+
+"Now look, we're late," groaned Heineman in a tearful voice.
+
+"Never mind, Heinz," said Henslowe, "le Guy'll take us to see de
+Clocheville like he did last time, n'est pas, le Guy?" Then
+Andrews heard him add, talking to a man he had not seen before,
+"Come along Aubrey, I'll introduce you later."
+
+They climbed further up the hill. There was a scent of wet gardens
+in the air, entirely silent except for the clatter of their feet
+on the cobbles. Heineman was dancing a sort of a jig at the head
+of the procession. They stopped before a tall cadaverous house and
+started climbing a rickety wooden stairway.
+
+"Talk about inside dope.... I got this from a man who's actually
+in the room when the Peace Conference meets." Andrews heard
+Aubrey's voice with a Chicago burr in the r's behind him in the
+stairs.
+
+"Fine, let's hear it," said Henslowe.
+
+"Did you say the Peace Conference took dope?" shouted Heineman,
+whose puffing could be heard as he climbed the dark stairs ahead
+of them.
+
+"Shut up, Heinz."
+
+They stumbled over a raised doorstep into a large garret room with
+a tile floor, where a tall lean man in a monastic-looking dressing
+gown of some brown material received them. The only candle made
+all their shadows dance fantastically on the slanting white walls
+as they moved about. One side of the room had three big windows,
+with an occasional cracked pane mended with newspaper, stretching
+from floor to ceiling. In front of them were two couches with rugs
+piled on them. On the opposite wall was a confused mass of
+canvases piled one against the other, leaning helter skelter
+against the slanting wall of the room.
+
+"C'est le bon vin, le bon vin,
+ C'est la chanson du vin,"
+
+chanted Heineman. Everybody settled themselves on couches. The
+lanky man in the brown dressing gown brought a table out of the
+shadow, put some black bottles and heavy glasses on it, and drew
+up a camp stool for himself.
+
+"He lives that way.... They say he never goes out. Stays here and
+paints, and when friends come in, he feeds them wine and charges
+them double," said Henslowe. "That's how he lives."
+
+The lanky man began taking bits of candle out of a drawer of the
+table and lighting them. Andrews saw that his feet and legs were
+bare below the frayed edge of the dressing gown. The candle light
+lit up the men's flushed faces and the crude banana yellows and
+arsenic greens of the canvases along the walls, against which jars
+full of paint brushes cast blurred shadows.
+
+"I was going to tell you, Henny," said Aubrey, "the dope is that
+the President's going to leave the conference, going to call them
+all damn blackguards to their faces and walk out, with the band
+playing the 'Internationale.'"
+
+"God, that's news," cried Andrews.
+
+"If he does that he'll recognize the Soviets," said Henslowe. "Me
+for the first Red Cross Mission that goes to save starving
+Russia.... Gee, that's great. I'll write you a postal from Moscow,
+Andy, if they haven't been abolished as delusions of the
+bourgeoisie."
+
+"Hell, no.... I've got five hundred dollars' worth of Russian
+bonds that girl Vera gave me.... But worth five million, ten
+million, fifty million if the Czar gets back.... I'm backing the
+little white father," cried Heineman. "Anyway Moki says he's
+alive; that Savaroffs got him locked up in a suite in the Ritz....
+And Moki knows."
+
+"Moki knows a damn lot, I'll admit that," said Henslowe.
+
+"But just think of it," said Aubrey, "that means world revolution
+with the United States at the head of it. What do you think of
+that?"
+
+"Moki doesn't think so," said Heineman. "And Moki knows."
+
+"She just knows what a lot of reactionary warlords tell her," said
+Aubrey. "This man I was talking with at the Crillon--I wish I
+could tell you his name--heard it directly from...Well, you know
+who." He turned to Henslowe, who smiled knowingly. "There's a
+mission in Russia at this minute making peace with Lenin."
+
+"A goddam outrage!" cried Heineman, knocking a bottle off the
+table. The lanky man picked up the pieces patiently, without
+comment.
+
+"The new era is opening, men, I swear it is..." began Aubrey. "The
+old order is dissolving. It is going down under a weight of misery
+and crime.... This will be the first great gesture towards a newer
+and better world. There is no alternative. The chance will never
+come back. It is either for us to step courageously forward, or
+sink into unbelievable horrors of anarchy and civil war.... Peace
+or the dark ages again."
+
+Andrews had felt for some time an uncontrollable sleepiness coming
+over him. He rolled himself on a rug and stretched out on the
+empty couch. The voices arguing, wrangling, enunciating emphatic
+phrases, dinned for a minute in his ears. He went to sleep.
+
+When Andrews woke up he found himself staring at the cracked
+plaster of an unfamiliar ceiling. For some moments he could not
+guess where he was. Henslowe was sleeping, wrapped in another rug,
+on the couch beside him. Except for Henslowe's breathing, there
+was complete silence. Floods of silvery-grey light poured in
+through the wide windows, behind which Andrews could see a sky
+full of bright dove-colored clouds. He sat up carefully. Some time
+in the night he must have taken off his tunic and boots and
+puttees, which were on the floor beside the couch. The tables with
+the bottles had gone and the lanky man was nowhere to be seen.
+
+Andrews went to the window in his stockinged feet. Paris way a
+slate-grey and dove-color lay spread out like a Turkish carpet,
+with a silvery band of mist where the river was, out of which the
+Eiffel Tower stood up like a man  wading. Here and there blue
+smoke and brown spiralled up to lose itself in the faint canopy of
+brown fog that hung high above the houses. Andrews stood a long
+while leaning against the window frame, until he heard Henslowe's
+voice behind him:
+
+"Depuis le jour ou je me suis donnee."
+
+"You look like 'Louise.'"
+
+Andrews turned round.
+
+Henslowe was sitting on the edge of the bed with his hair in
+disorder, combing his little silky mustache with a pocket comb.
+
+"Gee, I have a head," he said. "My tongue feels like a nutmeg
+grater.... Doesn't yours?"
+
+"No. I feel like a fighting cock."
+
+"What do you say we go down to the Seine and have a bath in Benny
+Franklin's bathtub?"
+
+"Where's that? It sounds grand."
+
+"Then we'll have the biggest breakfast ever."
+
+"That's the right spirit.... Where's everybody gone to?"
+
+"Old Heinz has gone to his Moki, I guess, and Aubrey's gone to
+collect more dope at the Crillon. He says four in the morning when
+the drunks come home is the prime time for a newspaper man."
+
+"And the Monkish man?"
+
+"Search me."
+
+The streets were full of men and girls hurrying to work.
+Everything sparkled, had an air of being just scrubbed. They
+passed bakeries from which came a rich smell of fresh-baked bread.
+From cafes came whiffs of roasting coffee. They crossed through
+the markets that were full of heavy carts lumbering to and fro,
+and women with net bags full of vegetables. There was a pungent
+scent of crushed cabbage leaves and carrots and wet clay. The mist
+was raw and biting along the quais, and made the blood come into
+their cheeks and their hands stiff with cold.
+
+The bathhouse was a huge barge with a house built on it in a
+lozenge shape. They crossed to it by a little gangplank on which
+were a few geraniums in pots. The attendant gave them two rooms
+side by side on the lower deck, painted grey, with steamed over
+windows, through which Andrews caught glimpses of hurrying green
+water. He stripped his clothes off quickly. The tub was of copper
+varnished with some white metal inside. The water flowed in
+through two copper swans' necks. When Andrews stepped into the hot
+green water, a little window in the partition flew open and
+Henslowe shouted in to him:
+
+"Talk about modern conveniences. You can converse while you
+bathe!"
+
+Andrews scrubbed himself jauntily with a square piece of pink
+soap, splashing the water about like a small boy. He stood up and
+lathered himself all over and then let himself slide into the
+water, which splashed out over the floor.
+
+"Do you think you're a performing seal?" shouted Henslowe.
+
+"It's all so preposterous," cried Andrews, going off into
+convulsions of laughter. "She has a lion cub named Bubu and
+Nicolas Romanoff lives in the Ritz, and the Revolution is
+scheduled for day after tomorrow at twelve noon."
+
+"I'd put it about the first of May," answered Henslowe, amid a
+sound of splashing. "Gee, it'd be great to be a people's
+Commissary.... You could go and revolute the grand Llama of
+Thibet."
+
+"O, it's too deliciously preposterous," cried Andrews, letting
+himself slide a second time into the bathtub.
+
+
+
+                              II
+
+Two M.P.'s passed outside the window. Andrews watched the yellow
+pigskin revolver cases until they were out of sight. He felt
+joyfully secure from them. The waiter, standing by the door with a
+napkin on his arm, gave him a sense of security so intense it made
+him laugh. On the marble table before him were a small glass of
+beer, a notebook full of ruled sheets of paper and a couple of
+yellow pencils. The beer, the color of topaz in the clear grey
+light that streamed in through the window, threw a pale yellow
+glow with a bright center on the table. Outside was the boulevard
+with a few people walking hurriedly. An empty market wagon passed
+now and then, rumbling loud. On a bench a woman in a black knitted
+shawl, with a bundle of newspapers in her knees, was counting sous
+with loving concentration.
+
+Andrews looked at his watch. He had an hour before going to the
+Schola Cantorum.
+
+He got to his feet, paid the waiter and strolled down the center
+of the boulevard, thinking smilingly of pages he had written, of
+pages he was going to write, filled with a sense of leisurely
+well-being. It was a grey morning with a little yellowish fog in
+the air. The pavements were damp, reflected women's dresses and
+men's legs and the angular outlines of taxicabs. From a flower
+stand with violets and red and pink carnations irregular blotches
+of color ran down into the brownish grey of the pavement. Andrews
+caught a faint smell of violets in the smell of the fog as he
+passed the flower stand and remembered suddenly that spring was
+coming. He would not miss a moment of this spring, he told
+himself; he would follow it step by step, from the first violets.
+Oh, how fully he must live now to make up for all the years he had
+wasted in his life.
+
+He kept on walking along the boulevard. He was remembering how he
+and the girl the soldier had called Jeanne had both kindled with
+uncontrollable laughter when their eyes had met that night in the
+restaurant. He wished he could go down the boulevard with a girl
+like that, laughing through the foggy morning.
+
+He wondered vaguely what part of Paris he was getting to, but was
+too happy to care. How beautifully long the hours were in the
+early morning!
+
+At a concert at the Salle Gaveau the day before he had heard
+Debussy's Nocturnes and Les  Sirenes. Rhythms from them were the
+warp of all his thoughts. Against the background of the grey
+street and the brownish fog that hung a veil at the end of every
+vista he began to imagine rhythms of his own, modulations and
+phrases that grew brilliant and faded, that flapped for a while
+like gaudy banners above his head through the clatter of the
+street.
+
+He noticed that he was passing a long building with blank rows of
+windows, at the central door of which stood groups of American
+soldiers smoking. Unconsciously he hastened his steps, for fear of
+meeting an officer he would have to salute. He passed the men
+without looking at them.
+
+A voice detained him. "Say, Andrews."
+
+When he turned he saw that a short man with curly hair, whose
+face, though familiar, he could not place, had left the group at
+the door and was coming towards him. "Hello, Andrews.... Your
+name's  Andrews, ain't it?"
+
+"Yes." Andrews shook his hand, trying to remember.
+
+"I'm Fuselli.... Remember? Last time I saw you you was goin' up to
+the lines on a train with Chrisfield.... Chris we used to call
+him.... At Cosne, don't you remember?"
+
+"Of course I do."
+
+"Well, what's happened to Chris?"
+
+"He's a corporal now," said Andrews.
+
+"Gee he is.... I'll be goddamned.... They was goin' to make me a
+corporal once."
+
+Fuselli wore stained olive-drab breeches and badly rolled puttees;
+his shirt was open at the neck. From his blue denim jacket came a
+smell of stale grease that Andrews recognised; the smell of army
+kitchens. He had a momentary recollection of standing in line cold
+dark mornings and of the sound the food made slopping into mess
+kits.
+
+"Why didn't they make you a corporal, Fuselli?" Andrcws said,
+after a pause, in a constrained voice.
+
+"Hell, I got in wrong, I suppose."
+
+They were leaning against the dusty house wall. Andrews looked at
+his feet. The mud of the pavement, splashing up on the wall, made
+an even dado along the bottom, on which Andrews scraped the toe of
+his shoe up and down.
+
+"Well, how's everything?" Andrews asked looking up suddenly.
+
+"I've been in a labor battalion. That's how everything is."
+
+"God, that's tough luck!"
+
+Andrews wanted to go on. He had a sudden fear that he would be
+late. But he did not know how to break away.
+
+"I got sick," said Fuselli grinning. "I guess I am yet, G. O. 42.
+It's a hell of a note the way they treat a feller...like he was
+lower than the dirt."
+
+"Were you at Cosne all the time? That's damned rough luck,
+Fuselli."
+
+"Cosne sure is a hell of a hole.... I guess you saw a lot of
+fighting. God! you must have been glad not to be in the goddam
+medics."
+
+"I don't know that I'm glad I saw fighting.... Oh, yes, I suppose
+I am."
+
+"You see, I had it a hell of a time before they found out. Court-
+martial was damn stiff...after the armistice too.... Oh, God! why
+can't they let a feller go home?"
+
+A woman in a bright blue hat passed them. Andrews caught a glimpse
+of a white over-powdered face; her hips trembled like jelly under
+the blue skirt with each hard clack of her high heels on the
+pavement.
+
+"Gee, that looks like Jenny.... I'm glad she didn't see me...."
+Fuselli laughed. "Ought to 'a seen her one night last week. We
+were so dead drunk we just couldn't move."
+
+"Isn't that bad for what's the matter with you?"
+
+"I don't give a damn now; what's the use?"
+
+"But God; man!" Andrews stopped himself suddenly. Then he said in
+a different voice, "What outfit are you in now?"
+
+"I'm on the permanent K.P. here," Fuselli jerked his thumb towards
+the door of the building. "Not a bad job, off two days a week; no
+drill, good eats.... At least you get all you want.... But it
+surely has been hell emptying ash cans and shovelling coal an' now
+all they've done is dry me up."
+
+"But you'll be goin' home soon now, won't you? They can't
+discharge you till they cure you."
+
+"Damned if I know.... Some guys say a guy never can be cured...."
+
+"Don't you find K.P. work pretty damn dull?"
+
+"No worse than anything else. What are you doin" in Paris?"
+
+"School detachment."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Men who wanted to study in the university, who managed to work
+it."
+
+"Gee, I'm glad I ain't goin' to school again."
+
+"Well, so long, Fuselli."
+
+"So long, Andrews."
+
+Fuselli turned and slouched back to the group of men at the door.
+Andrews hurried away. As he turned the corner he had a glimpse of
+Fuselli with his hands in his pockets and his legs crossed leaning
+against the wall behind the door of the barracks.
+
+
+
+                              III
+
+The darkness, where the rain fell through the vague halos of light
+round the street lamps, glittered with streaks of pale gold.
+Andrews's ears were full of the sound of racing gutters and
+spattering waterspouts, and of the hard unceasing beat of the rain
+on the pavements. It was after closing time. The corrugated
+shutters were drawn down, in front of cafe windows. Andrews's cap
+was wet; water trickled down his forehead and the sides of his
+nose, running into his eyes. His feet were soaked and he could
+feel the wet patches growing on his knees where they received the
+water running off his overcoat. The street stretched wide and dark
+ahead of him, with an occasional glimmer of greenish reflection
+from a lamp. As he walked, splashing with long strides through the
+rain, he noticed that he was keeping pace with a woman under an
+umbrella, a slender person who was hurrying with small resolute
+steps up the boulevard. When he saw her, a mad hope flamed
+suddenly through him. He remembered a vulgar little theatre and
+the crude light of a spot light. Through the paint and powder a
+girl's golden-brown skin had shone with a firm brilliance that
+made him think of wide sun-scorched uplands, and dancing figures
+on Greek vases. Since he had seen her two nights ago, he had
+thought of nothing else. He had feverishly found out her name.
+"Naya Selikoff!" A mad hope flared through him that this girl he
+was walking beside was the girl whose slender limbs moved in an
+endless frieze through his thoughts. He peered at her with eyes
+blurred with rain. What an ass he was! Of course it couldn't be;
+it was too early. She was on the stage at this minute. Other
+hungry eyes were staring at her slenderness, other hands were
+twitching to stroke her golden-brown skin. Walking under the
+steady downpour that stung his face and ears and sent a tiny cold
+trickle down his back, he felt a sudden dizziness of desire come
+over him. His hands, thrust to the bottom of his coat pockets,
+clutched convulsively. He felt that he would die, that his
+pounding blood vessels would burst. The bead curtains of rain
+rustled and tinkled about him, awakening his nerves, making his
+skin flash and tingle. In the gurgle of water in gutters and water
+spouts he could imagine he heard orchestras droning libidinous
+music. The feverish excitement of his senses began to create
+frenzied rhythms in his ears:
+
+"O ce pauvre poilu! Qu'il doit etre mouille" said a small
+tremulous voice beside him.
+
+He turned.
+
+The girl was offering him part of her umbrella.
+
+"O c'est un Americain!" she said again, still speaking as if to
+herself.
+
+"Mais ca ne vaut pas la peine."
+
+"Mais oui, mais oui."
+
+He stepped under the umbrella beside her.
+
+"But you must let me hold it."
+
+"Bien."
+
+As he took the umbrella he caught her eye. He stopped still in his
+tracks.
+
+"But you're the girl at the Rat qui Danse."
+
+"And you were at the next table with the man who sang?"
+
+"How amusing!"
+
+"Et celui-la! O il etait rigolo...." She burst out laughing; her
+head, encased in a little round black hat, bobbed up and down
+under the umbrella. Andrews laughed too. Crossing the Boulevard
+St. Germain, a taxi nearly ran them down and splashed a great wave
+of mud over them. She clutched his arm and then stood roaring with
+laughter.
+
+"O quelle horreur! Quelle horreur!" she kept exclaiming.
+
+Andrews laughed and laughed.
+
+"But hold the umbrella over us.... You're letting the rain in on
+my best hat," she said again.
+
+"Your name is Jeanne," said Andrews.
+
+"Impertinent! You heard my brother call me that.... He went back
+to the front that night, poor little chap.... He's only nineteen
+...he's very clever.... O, how happy I am now that the war's
+over."
+
+"You are older than he?"
+
+"Two years.... I am the head of the family.... It is a dignified
+position."
+
+"Have you always lived in Paris?"
+
+"No, we are from Laon.... It's the war."
+
+"Refugees?"
+
+"Don't call us that.... We work."
+
+Andrews laughed.
+
+"Are you going far?" she asked peering in his face.
+
+"No, I live up here.... My name is the same as yours."
+
+"Jean? How funny!"
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"Rue Descartes.... Behind St. Etienne."
+
+"I live near you."
+
+"But you mustn't come. The concierge is a tigress.... Etienne
+calls her Mme. Clemenceau."
+
+"Who? The saint?"
+
+"No, you silly--my brother. He is a socialist. He's a typesetter
+at l'Humanite."
+
+"Really? I often read l'Humanite."
+
+"Poor boy, he used to swear he'd never go in the army. He thought
+of going to America."
+
+"That wouldn't do him any good now," said Andrews bitterly. "What
+do you do?"
+
+"I?" a gruff bitterness came into her voice. "Why should I tell
+you? I work at a dressmaker's."
+
+"Like Louise?"
+
+"You've heard Louise? Oh, how I cried."
+
+"Why did it make you sad?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know.... But I'm learning stenography.... But here we
+are!"
+
+The great bulk of the Pantheon stood up dimly through the rain
+beside them. In front the tower of St. Etienne-du-Mont was just
+visible. The rain roared about them.
+
+"Oh, how wet I am!" said Jeanne.
+
+"Look, they are giving Louise day after tomorrow at the Opera
+Comique.... Won't you come; with me?"
+
+"No, I should cry too much."
+
+"I'll cry too."
+
+"But it's not..."
+
+"Cest l'armistice," interrupted Andrews.
+
+They both laughed!
+
+"All right! Meet me at the cafe at the end of the Boul' Mich' at a
+quarter past seven.... But you probably won't come."
+
+"I swear I will," cried Andrews eagerly.
+
+"We'll see!" She darted away down the street beside St. Etienne-
+du-Mont. Andrews was left alone amid the seethe of the rain and
+the tumultuous gurgle of water-spouts. He felt calm and tired.
+
+When he got to his room, he found he had no matches in his pocket.
+No light came from the window through which he could hear the
+hissing clamor of the rain in the court. He stumbled over a chair.
+
+"Are you drunk?" came Walters's voice swathed in bedclothes.
+"There are matches on the table."
+
+"But where the hell's the table?"
+
+At last his hand, groping over the table, closed on the matchbox.
+
+The match's red and white flicker dazzled him. He blinked his
+eyes; the lashes were still full of raindrops. When he had lit a
+candle and set it amongst the music papers upon the table, he tore
+off his dripping clothes.
+
+"I just met the most charming girl, Walters," Andrews stood naked
+beside the pile of his clothes, rubbing himself with a towel.
+"Gee! I was wet.... But she was the most charming person I've met
+since I've been in Paris."
+
+"I thought you said you let the girls alone."
+
+"Whores, I must have said."
+
+"Well! Any girl you could pick up on the street...."
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"I guess they are all that way in this damned country.... God, it
+will do me good to see a nice sweet wholesome American girl."
+
+Andrews did not answer. He blew out the light and got into bed.
+
+"But I've got a new job," Walters went on. "I'm working in the
+school detachment office."
+
+"Why the hell do that? You came here to take courses in the
+Sorbonne, didn't you?"
+
+"Sure. I go to most of them now. But in this army I like to be in
+the middle of things, see? Just so they can't put anything over on
+me."
+
+"There's something in that."
+
+"There's a damn lot in it, boy. The only way is to keep in right
+and not let the man higher up forget you.... Why, we may start
+fighting again. These damn Germans ain't showin' the right spirit
+at all...after all the President's done for them. I expect to get
+my sergeantcy out of it anyway."
+
+"Well, I'm going to sleep," said Andrews sulkily.
+
+
+
+John Andrews sat at a table outside the cafe de Rohan. The sun had
+just set on a ruddy afternoon, flooding everything with violet-
+blue light and cold greenish shadow. The sky was bright lilac
+color, streaked with a few amber clouds. The lights were on in all
+the windows of the Magazin du Louvre opposite, so that the windows
+seemed bits of polished glass in the afterglow. In the colonnade
+of the Palais Royal the shadows were deepening and growing colder.
+A steady stream of people poured in and out of the Metro. Green
+buses stuffed with people kept passing. The roar of the traffic
+and the clatter of footsteps and the grumble of voices swirled
+like dance music about Andrews's head. He noticed all at once that
+the rabbit man stood in front of him, a rabbit dangling forgotten
+at the end of its rubber tube.
+
+"Et ca va bien? le commerce," said Andrews.
+
+"Quietly, quietly," said the rabbit man, distractedly making the
+rabbit turn a somersault at his feet. Andrews watched the people
+going into the Metro.
+
+"The gentleman amuses himself in Paris?" asked the rabbit man
+timidly.
+
+"Oh, yes; and you?"
+
+"Quietly," the rabbit man smiled. "Women are very beautiful at
+this hour of the evening," he said again in his very timid tone.
+
+"There is nothing more beautiful than this moment of the
+evening...in Paris."
+
+"Or Parisian women." The eyes of the rabbit man glittered. "Excuse
+me, sir," he went on. "I must try and sell some rabbits."
+
+"Au revoir," said Andrews holding out his hand.
+
+The rabbit man shook it with sudden vigor and went off, making a
+rabbit hop before him along the curbstone. He was hidden by the
+swiftly moving crowds.
+
+In the square, flaring violet arclights were flickering on,
+lighting up their net-covered globes that hung like harsh moons
+above the pavement.
+
+Henslowe sat down on a chair beside Andrews.
+
+"How's Sinbad?"
+
+"Sinbad, old boy, is functioning.... Aren't yon frozen?"
+
+"How do you mean, Henslowe?"
+
+"Overheated, you chump, sitting out here in polar weather."
+
+"No, but I mean.... How are you functioning?" said Andrews
+laughing.
+
+"I'm going to Poland tomorrow."
+
+"How?"
+
+"As guard on a Red Cross supply train. I think you might make it
+if you want to come, if we beat it right over to the Red Cross
+before Major Smithers goes. Or we might take him out to dinner."
+
+"But, Henny, I'm staying."
+
+"Why the hell stay in this hole?"
+
+"I like it. I'm getting a better course in orchestration than I
+imagined existed, and I met a girl the other day, and I'm crazy
+over Paris."
+
+"If you go and get entangled, I swear I'll beat your head in with
+a Polish shillaughly.... Of course you've met a girl--so have I--
+lots. We can meet some more in Poland and dance polonaises with
+them."
+
+"No, but this girl's charming.... You've seen her. She's the girl
+who was with the poilu at the Rat qui Danse the first night I was
+in Paris. We went to Louise together."
+
+"Must have been a grand sentimental party.... I swear.... I may
+run after a Jane now and again but I never let them interfere with
+the business of existence," muttered Henslowe crossly.
+
+They were both silent.
+
+"You'll be as bad as Heinz with his Moki and the lion cub named
+Bubu.... By the way, it's dead.... Well,  where shall we have
+dinner?"
+
+"I'm dining with Jeanne.... I'm going to meet her in half an
+hour.... I'm awfully sorry, Henny. We might all dine together."
+
+"A fat chance! No, I'll have to go and find that ass Aubrey, and
+hear all about the Peace Conference.... Heinz can't leave Moki
+because she's having hysterics on account of Bubu. I'll probably
+be driven to going to see Berthe in the end.... You're a nice
+one."
+
+"We'll have a grand seeing-off party for you tomorrow, Henny."
+
+"Look! I forgot! You're to meet Aubrey at the Crillon at five
+tomorrow, and he's going to take you to see Genevieve Rod?"
+
+"Who the hell's Genevieve Rod?"
+
+"Darned if I know. But Aubrey said you'd got to come. She is an
+intellectual, so Aubrey says."
+
+"That's the last thing I want to meet."
+
+"Well, you can't help yourself. So long!"
+
+Andrews sat a while more at the table outside the cafe. A cold
+wind was blowing. The sky was blue-black and the ashen white arc
+lamps cast a mortuary light over everything. In the Colonnade of
+the Palais Royal the shadows were harsh and inky. In the square
+the people were gradually thinning. The lights in the Magazin du
+Louvre had gone out. From the cafe behind him, a faint smell of
+fresh-cooked food began to saturate the cold air of the street.
+
+Then he saw Jeanne advancing across the ash-grey pavement of the
+square, slim and black under the arc lights. He ran to meet her.
+
+
+
+The cylindrical stove in the middle of the floor roared softly. In
+front of it the white cat was rolled into a fluffy ball in which
+ears and nose made tiny splashes of pink like those at the tips of
+the petals of certain white roses. One side of the stove at the
+table against the window, sat an old brown man with a bright red
+stain on each cheek bone, who wore formless corduroy clothes, the
+color of his skin. Holding the small spoon in a knotted hand he
+was stirring slowly and continuously a liquid  that was yellow and
+steamed in a glass. Behind him was the window with sleet beating
+against it in the leaden light of a wintry afternoon. The other
+side of the stove was a zinc bar with yellow bottles and green
+bottles and a water spigot with a neck like a giraffe's that rose
+out of the bar beside a varnished wood pillar that made the
+decoration of the corner, with a terra cotta pot of ferns on top
+of it. From where Andrews sat on the padded bench at the back of
+the room the fern fronds made a black lacework against the left-
+hand side of the window, while against the other was the brown
+silhouette of the old man's head, and the slant of his cap. The
+stove hid the door and the white cat, round and symmetrical,
+formed the center of the visible universe. On the marble table
+beside Andrews were some pieces of crisp bread with butter on
+them, a saucer of damson jam and a bowl with coffee and hot milk
+from which the steam rose in a faint spiral. His tunic was
+unbuttoned and he rested his head on his two hands, staring
+through his fingers at a thick pile of ruled paper full of hastily
+drawn signs, some in ink and some in pencil, where now and then he
+made a mark with a pencil. At the other edge of the pile of papers
+were two books, one yellow and one white with coffee stains on it.
+
+The fire roared and the cat slept and the old brown man stirred
+and stirred, rarely stopping for a moment to lift the glass to his
+lips. Occasionally the scratching of sleet upon the windows became
+audible, or there was a distant sound of dish pans through the
+door in the back.
+
+The sallow-faced clock that hung above the mirror that backed the
+bar, jerked out one jingly strike, a half hour. Andrews did not
+look up. The cat still slept in front of the stove which roared
+with a gentle singsong. The old brown man still stirred the yellow
+liquid in his glass. The clock was ticking uphill towards the
+hour.
+
+Andrews's hands were cold. There was a nervous flutter in his
+wrists and in his chest. Inside of him was a great rift of light,
+infinitely vast and infinitely distant. Through it sounds poured
+from somewhere, so that he trembled with them to his finger tips,
+sounds modulated into rhythms that washed back and forth and
+crossed each other like sea waves in a cove, sounds clotted into
+harmonies.
+
+Behind everything the Queen of Sheba, out of Flaubert, held her
+fantastic hand with its long, gilded finger nails on his shoulder;
+and he was leaning forward over the brink of life. But the image
+was vague, like a shadow cast on the brilliance of his mind.
+
+The clock struck four.
+
+The white fluffy ball of the cat unrolled very slowly. Its eyes
+were very round and yellow. It put first one leg and then the
+other out before it on the tiled floor, spreading wide the pinkey-
+grey claws. Its tail rose up behind it straight as the mast of a
+ship. With slow processional steps the cat walked towards the
+door.
+
+The old brown man drank down the yellow liquid and smacked his
+lips twice, loudly, meditatively.
+
+Andrews raised his head, his blue eyes looking straight before him
+without seeing anything. Dropping the pencil, he leaned back
+against the wall and stretched his arms out. Taking the coffee
+bowl between his two hands, he drank s little. It was cold. He
+piled some jam on a piece of bread and ate it, licking a little
+off his fingers afterwards. Then he looked towards the old brown
+man and said:
+
+"On est bien ici, n'est ce pas, Monsieur Morue?"
+
+"Oui, on est bien ici," said the old brown man in a voice so gruff
+it seemed to rattle. Very slowly he got to his feet.
+
+"Good. I am going to the barge," he said. Then he called,
+"Chipette!"
+
+"Oui, m'sieu."
+
+A little girl in a black apron with her hair in two tight pigtails
+that stood out behind her tiny bullet head as she ran, came
+through the door from the back part of the house.
+
+"There, give that to your mother," said the old brown man, putting
+some coppers in her hand.
+
+"Oui, m'sieu."
+
+"You'd better stay here where it's warm," said Andrews yawning.
+
+"I have to work. It's only soldiers don't have to work," rattled
+the old brown man.
+
+When the door opened a gust of raw air circled about the wine
+shop, and a roar of wind and hiss of sleet came from the slush-
+covered quai outside. The cat took refuge beside the stove, with
+its back up and its tail waving. The door closed and the old brown
+man's silhouette, slanted against the wind, crossed the grey
+oblong of the window.
+
+Andrews settled down to work again.
+
+"But you work a lot a lot, don't you; M'sieu Jean?" said Chipette,
+putting her chin on the table beside the books and looking up into
+his eyes with little eyes like black beads.
+
+"I wonder if I do."
+
+"When I'm grown up I shan't work a bit. I'll drive round in a
+carriage."
+
+Andrews laughed. Chipette looked at him for a minute and then went
+into the other room carrying away the empty coffee bowl.
+
+In front of the stove the cat sat on its haunches, licking a paw
+rhythmically with a pink curling tongue like a rose petal.
+
+Andrews whistled a few bars, staring at the cat.
+
+"What d'you think of that, Minet? That's la reine de Saba...la
+reine de Saba."
+
+The cat curled into a ball again with great deliberation and went
+to sleep.
+
+Andrews began thinking of Jeanne and the thought gave him a sense
+of quiet well-being. Strolling with her in the evening through the
+streets full of men and women walking significantly together sent
+a languid calm through his jangling nerves which he had never
+known in his life before. It excited him to be with her, but very
+suavely, so that he forgot that his limbs were swathed stiffly in
+an uncomfortable uniform, so that his feverish desire seemed to
+fly out of him until with her body beside him, he seemed to drift
+effortlessly in the stream of the lives of all the people he
+passed, so languid, from the quiet loves that streamed up about
+him that the hard walls of his personality seemed to have melted
+entirely into the mistiness of twilight streets. And for a moment
+as he thought of it a scent of flowers, heavy with pollen, and
+sprouting grass and damp moss and swelling sap, seemed to tingle
+in his nostrils. Sometimes, swimming in the ocean on a rough day,
+he had felt that same reckless exhilaration when, towards the
+shore, a huge seething wave had caught him up and sped him forward
+on its crest. Sitting quietly in the empty wine shop that grey
+afternoon, he felt his blood grumble and swell in his veins as the
+new life was grumbling and swelling in the sticky buds of the
+trees, in the tender green quick under their rough bark, in the
+little furry animals of the woods and in the sweet-smelling cattle
+that tramped into mud the lush meadows. In the premonition of
+spring was a resistless wave of force that carried him and all of
+them with it tumultuously.
+
+The clock struck five.
+
+Andrews jumped to his feet and still struggling into his overcoat
+darted out of the door.
+
+A raw wind blew on the square. The river was a muddy grey-green,
+swollen and rapid. A hoarse triumphant roaring came from it. The
+sleet had stopped; but the pavements were covered with slush and
+in the gutters were large puddles which the wind ruffled.
+Everything,--houses, bridges, river and sky,--was in shades of
+cold grey-green, broken by one jagged ochre-colored rift across
+the sky against which the bulk of Notre Dame and the slender spire
+of the crossing rose dark and purplish. Andrews walked with long
+strides, splashing through the puddles, until, opposite the low
+building of the Morgue, he caught a crowded green bus.
+
+Outside the Hotel Crillon were many limousines, painted olive-
+drab, with numbers in white letters on the doors; the drivers, men
+with their olive-drab coat collars turned up round their red
+faces, stood in groups under the portico. Andrews passed the
+sentry and went through the revolving doors into the lobby, which
+was vividly familiar. It had the smell he remembered having smelt
+in the lobbies of New York hotels,--a smell of cigar smoke and
+furniture polish. On one side a door led to a big dining room
+where many men and women were having tea, from which came a smell
+of pastry and rich food. On the expanse of red carpet in front of
+him officers and civilians stood in groups talking in low voices.
+There was a sound of jingling spurs and jingling dishes from the
+restaurant, and near where Andrews stood shifting his weight from
+one foot to the other, sprawled in a leather chair a fat man with
+a black felt hat over his eyes and a large watch chain dangling
+limply over his bulbous paunch. He cleared his  throat
+occasionally with a  rasping noise  and  spat loudly into the
+spittoon beside him.
+
+At last Andrews caught sight of Aubrey, who was dapper with white
+cheeks and tortoise shell glasses.
+
+"Come along," he said, seizing Andrews by the arm.
+
+"You are late." Then, he went on, whispering in Andrews's ear as
+they went out through the revolving doors: "Great things happened
+in the Conference today.... I can tell you that, old man."
+
+They crossed the bridge  towards  the  portico of   the Chamber of
+Deputies with its high pediment and its grey columns. Down the
+river they could see faintly the Eiffel Tower with a drift of mist
+athwart it, like a section of spider web spun between the city and
+the clouds.
+
+"Do we have to go to see these people, Aubrey?"
+
+"Yes, you can't back out now. Genevieve Rod wants to know about
+American music."
+
+"But what on earth can I tell her about American music?"
+
+"Wasn't there a man named MacDowell who went mad or something?"
+Andrews laughed.
+
+"But you know I haven't any social graces.... I suppose I'll have
+to say I think Foch is a little tin god."
+
+"You needn't say anything if you don't want to.... They're very
+advanced, anyway."
+
+"Oh, rats!"
+
+They were going up a brown-carpeted stair that had engravings on
+the landings, where there was a faint smell of stale food and
+dustpans. At the top landing Aubrey rang the bell at a varnished
+door. In a moment a girl opened it. She had a cigarette in her
+hand, her face was pale under a mass of reddish-chestnut hair, her
+eyes very large, a pale brown, as large as the eyes of women in
+those paintings of Artemisias and Berenikes found in tombs in the
+Fayum. She wore a plain black dress.
+
+"Enfin!" she said, and held out her hand to Aubrey.
+
+"There's my friend Andrews."
+
+She held out her hand to him absently, still looking at Aubrey.
+
+"Does he speak French?... Good.... This way." They went into a
+large room with a piano where an elderly woman, with grey hair and
+yellow teeth and the same large eyes as her daughter, stood before
+the fireplace.
+
+"Maman...enfin ils arrivent, ces messieurs."
+
+"Genevieve was afraid you weren't coming," Mme. Rod said to
+Andrews, smiling. "Monsieur Aubrey gave us such a picture of your
+playing that we have been excited all day.... We adore music."
+
+"I wish I could do something more to the point with it than adore
+it," said Genevieve Rod hastily, then she went on with a laugh:
+"But I forget..... Monsieur Andreffs.... Monsieur Ronsard." She
+made a gesture with her hand from Andrews to a young Frenchman in
+a cut-away coat, with small mustaches and a very tight vest, who
+bowed towards Andrews.
+
+"Now we'll have tea," said Genevieve Rod. "Everybody talks sense
+until they've had tea.... It's only after tea that anyone is ever
+amusing." She pulled open some curtains that covered the door into
+the adjoining room.
+
+"I understand why Sarah Bernhardt is so fond of curtains," she
+said. "They give an air of drama to existence.... There is nothing
+more heroic than curtains."
+
+She sat at the head of an oak table where were china platters with
+vari-colored pastries, an old pewter kettle under which an alcohol
+lamp burned, a Dresden china teapot in pale yellows and greens,
+and cups and saucers and plates with a double-headed eagle design
+in dull vermilion. "Tout ca," said Genevieve, waving her hand
+across the table, "c'est Boche.... But we haven't any others, so
+they'll have to do."
+
+The older woman, who sat beside her, whispered something in her
+ear and laughed.
+
+Genevieve put on a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles and starting
+pouring out tea.
+
+"Debussy once drank out of that cup..... It's cracked," she said,
+handing a cup to John Andrews. "Do you know anything of
+Moussorgski's you can play to us after tea?"
+
+"I can't play anything any more.... Ask me three months from now."
+
+"Oh, yes; but nobody expects you to do any tricks with it. You can
+certainly make it intelligible. That's all I want."
+
+"I have my doubts."
+
+Andrews sipped his tea slowly, looking now and then at Genevieve
+Rod who had suddenly begun talking very fast to Ronsard. She held
+a cigarette between the fingers of a long thin hand. Her large
+pale-brown eyes kept their startled look of having just opened on
+the world; a little smile appeared and disappeared maliciously in
+the curve of her cheek away from her small firm lips. The older
+woman beside her kept looking round the table with a jolly air of
+hospitality, and showing her yellow teeth in a smile.
+
+Afterwards they went back to the sitting room and Andrews sat down
+at the piano. The girl sat very straight on a little chair beside
+the piano. Andrews ran his fingers up and down the keys.
+
+"Did you say you knew Debussy?" he said suddenly. "I? No; but he
+used to come to see my father when I was a little girl.... I have
+been brought up in the middle of music.... That shows how silly it
+is to be a woman. There is no music in my head. Of course I am
+sensitive to it, but so are the tables and chairs in this
+apartment, after all they've heard."
+
+ Andrews started playing Schumann. He stopped suddenly.
+
+"Can you sing?" he said.
+
+"No."
+
+"I'd like to do the Proses Lyriques.... I've never heard them."
+
+"I once tried to sing Le Soir," she said.
+
+"Wonderful. Do bring it out."
+
+"But, good Lord, it's too difficult."
+
+"What is the use of being fond of music if you aren't willing to
+mangle it for the sake of producing it?... I swear I'd rather hear
+a man picking out Aupres de ma Blonde on a trombone that Kreisler
+playing Paganini impeccably enough to make you ill."
+
+"But there is a middle ground."
+
+He interrupted her by starting to play again. As he played without
+looking at her, he felt that her eyes were fixed on him, that she
+was standing tensely behind him. Her hand touched his shoulder. He
+stopped playing.
+
+"Oh, I am dreadfully sorry," she said.
+
+"Nothing. I am finished."
+
+"You were playing something of your own?"
+
+"Have you ever read La Tentation de Saint Antoine?" he asked in a
+low voice.
+
+"Flaubert's?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It's not his best work. A very interesting failure though," she
+said.
+
+Andrews got up from the piano with difficulty, controlling a
+sudden growing irritation.
+
+"They seem to teach everybody to say that," he muttered.
+
+Suddenly he realized that other people were in the room. He went
+up to Mme. Rod.
+
+"You must excuse me," he said, "I have an engagement.... Aubrey,
+don't let me drag you away. I am late, I've got to run."
+
+"You must come to see us again."
+
+"Thank you," mumbled Andrews.
+
+Genevieve Rod went with him to the door. "We must know each other
+better," she said. "I like you for going off in a huff."
+
+Andrews flushed.
+
+"I was badly brought up," he said, pressing her thin cold hand.
+"And you French must always remember that we are barbarians....
+Some are repentant barbarians.... I am not."
+
+She laughed, and John Andrews ran down the stairs and out into the
+grey-blue streets, where the lamps were blooming into primrose
+color. He had a confused feeling that he had made a fool of
+himself, which made him writhe with helpless anger. He walked with
+long strides through the streets of the Rive Gauche full of people
+going home from work, towards the little wine shop on the Quai de
+la Tournelle.
+
+
+
+It was a Paris Sunday morning. Old women in black shawls were
+going into the church of St. Etienne-du-Mont. Each time the
+leather doors opened it let a little whiff of incense out into the
+smoky morning air. Three pigeons walked about the cobblestones,
+putting their coral feet one before the other with an air of
+importance. The pointed facade of the church and its slender tower
+and cupola cast a bluish shadow on the square in front of it, into
+which the shadows the old women trailed behind them vanished as
+they hobbled towards the church. The opposite side of the square
+and the railing of the Pantheon and its tall brownish-gray flank
+were flooded with dull orange-colored sunlight.
+
+Andrews walked back and forth in front of the church, looking at
+the sky and the pigeons and the facade of the Library of Ste.
+Genevieve, and at the rare people who passed across the end of the
+square, noting forms and colors and small comical aspects of
+things with calm delight, savoring everything almost with
+complacency. His music, he felt, was progressing now that,
+undisturbed, he lived all day long in the rhythm of it; his mind
+and his fingers were growing supple. The hard moulds that had
+grown up about his spirit were softening. As he walked back and
+forth in front of the church waiting for Jeanne, he took an
+inventory of his state of mind; he was very happy.
+
+"Eh bien?"
+
+Jeanne had come up behind him. They ran like children hand in hand
+across the sunny square.
+
+"I have not had any coffee yet," said Andrews.
+
+"How late you must get up!... But you can't have any till we get
+to the Porte Maillot, Jean."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I say you can't."
+
+"But that's cruelty."
+
+"It won't be long."
+
+"But I am dying with hunger. I will die in your hands."
+
+"Can't you understand? Once we get to the Porte Maillot we'll be
+far from your life and my life. The day will be ours. One must not
+tempt fate."
+
+"You funny girl."
+
+The Metro was not crowded, Andrews and Jeanne sat opposite each
+other without talking. Andrews was looking at the girl's hands,
+limp on her lap, small overworked hands with places at the tips of
+the fingers where the skin was broken and scarred, with chipped
+uneven nails. Suddenly she caught his glance. He flushed, and she
+said jauntily:
+
+"Well, we'll all be rich some day, like princes and princesses in
+fairy tales." They both laughed.
+
+As they were leaving the train at the terminus, he put his arm
+timidly round her waist. She wore no corsets. His fingers trembled
+at the litheness of the flesh under her clothes. Feeling a sort of
+terror go through him he took away his arm.
+
+"Now," she said quietly as they emerged into the sunlight and the
+bare trees of the broad avenue, "you can have all the cafe-au-lait
+you want."
+
+"You'll have some too."
+
+"Why be extravagant? I've had my petit dejeuner."
+
+"But I'm going to be extravagant all day.... We might as well
+start now. I don't know exactly why, but I am very happy. We'll
+eat brioches."
+
+"But, my dear, it's only profiteers who can eat brioches now-a-
+days."
+
+"You just watch us."
+
+They went into a patisserie. An elderly woman with a lean yellow
+face and thin hair waited on them, casting envious glances up
+through her eyelashes as she piled the rich brown brioches on a
+piece of tissue paper.
+
+"You'll pass the day in the country?" she asked in a little
+wistful voice as she handed Andrews the change.
+
+"Yes," he said, "how well you guessed."
+
+As they went out of the door they heard her muttering, "O la
+jeunesse, la jeunesse."
+
+They found a table in the sun at a cafe opposite the gate from
+which they could watch people and automobiles and carriages coming
+in and out. Beyond, a grass-grown bit of fortifications gave an
+1870 look to things.
+
+"How jolly it is at the Porte Maillot!" cried Andrews.
+
+She looked at him and laughed.
+
+"But how gay he is to-day."
+
+"No. I always like it here. It's the spot in Paris where you
+always feel well.... When you go out you have all the fun of
+leaving town, when you go in you have all the fun of coming back
+to town.... But you aren't eating any brioches?"
+
+"I've eaten one. You eat them. You are hungry."
+
+"Jeanne, I don't think I have ever been so happy in my life....
+It's almost worth having been in the army for the joy your freedom
+gives you. That frightful life.... How is Etienne?"
+
+"He is in Mayence. He's bored."
+
+"Jeanne, we must live very much, we who are free to make up for
+all the people who are still...bored."
+
+"A lot of good it'll do them," she cried laughing.
+
+"It's funny, Jeanne, I threw myself into the army. I was so sick
+of being free and not getting anywhere. Now I have learnt that
+life is to be used, not just held in the hand like a box of
+bonbons that nobody eats."
+
+She looked at him blankly.
+
+"I mean, I don't think I get enough out of life," he said. "Let's
+go."
+
+They got to their feet.
+
+"What do you mean?" she said slowly. "One takes what life gives,
+that is all, there's no choice.... But look, there's the Malmaison
+train.... We must run."
+
+Giggling and breathless they climbed on the trailer, squeezing
+themselves on the back platform where everyone was pushing and
+exclaiming. The car began to joggle its way through Neuilly. Their
+bodies were pressed together by the men and women about them.
+Andrews put his arm firmly round Jeanne's waist and looked down at
+her pale cheek that was pressed against his chest. Her little
+round black straw hat with a bit of a red flower on it was just
+under his chin.
+
+"I can't see a thing," she gasped, still giggling.
+
+"I'll describe the landscape," said Andrews. "Why, we are crossing
+the Seine already."
+
+"Oh, how pretty it must be!"
+
+An old gentleman with a pointed white beard who stood beside them
+laughed benevolently.
+
+"But don't you think the Seine's pretty?" Jeanne looked up at him
+impudently.
+
+"Without a doubt, without a doubt.... It was the way you said it,"
+said the old gentleman.... "You are going to St. Germain?" he
+asked Andrews.
+
+"No, to Malmaison."
+
+"Oh, you should go to St. Germain. M. Reinach's prehistoric museum
+is there. It is very beautiful. You should not go home to your
+country without seeing it."
+
+"Are there monkeys in it?" asked Jeanne.
+
+"No," said the old gentleman turning away.
+
+"I adore monkeys," said Jeanne.
+
+The car was going along a broad empty boulevard with trees and
+grass plots and rows of low store-houses and little dilapidated
+rooming houses along either side. Many people had got out and
+there was plenty of room, but Andrews kept his arm round the
+girl's waist. The constant contact with her body made him feel
+very languid.
+
+"How good it smells!" said Jeanne.
+
+"It's the spring."
+
+"I want to lie on the grass and eat violets.... Oh, how good you
+were to bring me out like this, Jean. You must know lots of fine
+ladies you could have brought out, because you are so well
+educated. How is it you are only an ordinary soldier?"
+
+"Good God! I wouldn't be an officer."
+
+"Why? It must be rather nice to be an officer."
+
+"Does Etienne want to be an officer?"
+
+"But he's a socialist, that's different."
+
+"Well, I suppose I must be a socialist too, but let's talk of
+something else."
+
+Andrews moved over to the other side of the platform. They were
+passing little villas with gardens on the road where yellow and
+pale-purple crocuses bloomed. Now and then there was a scent of
+violets in the moist air. The sun had disappeared under soft
+purplish-grey clouds. There was occasionally a rainy chill in the
+wind.
+
+Andrews suddenly thought of Genevieve Rod. Curious how vividly he
+remembered her face, her wide, open eyes and her way of smiling
+without moving her firm lips. A feeling of annoyance went through
+him. How silly of him to go off rudely like that! And he became
+very anxious to talk to her again; things he wanted to say to her
+came to his mind.
+
+"Well, are you asleep?" said Jeanne tugging at his arm. "Here we
+are."
+
+Andrews flushed furiously.
+
+"Oh, how nice it is here, how nice it is here!" Jeanne was saying.
+
+"Why, it is eleven o'clock," said Andrews.
+
+"We must see the palace before lunch," cried Jeanne, and she
+started running up a lane of linden trees, where the fat buds were
+just bursting into little crinkling fans of green. New grass was
+sprouting in the wet ditches on either side. Andrews ran after
+her, his feet pounding hard in the moist gravel road. When he
+caught up to her he threw his arms round her recklessly and kissed
+her panting mouth. She broke away from him and strode demurely
+arranging her hat.
+
+"Monster," she said, "I trimmed this hat specially to come out
+with you and you do your best to wreck it."
+
+"Poor little hat," said Andrews, "but it is so beautiful today,
+and you are very lovely, Jeanne."
+
+"The great Napoleon must have said that to the Empress Josephine
+and you know what he did to her," said Jeanne almost solemnly.
+
+"But she must have been awfully bored with him long before."
+
+"No," said Jeanne, "that's how women are."
+
+They  went  through  big  iron  gates   into  the  palace grounds.
+
+Later they sat at a table in the garden of a little restaurant.
+The sun, very pale, had just showed itself, making the knives and
+forks and the white wine in their glasses gleam faintly. Lunch had
+not come yet. They sat looking at each other silently. Andrews
+felt weary and melancholy. He could think of nothing to say.
+Jeanne was playing with some tiny white daisies with pink tips to
+their petals, arranging them in circles and crosses on the table-
+cloth.
+
+"Aren't they slow?" said Andrews.
+
+"But it's nice here, isn't it?" Jeanne smiled brilliantly. "But
+how glum he looks now." She threw some daisies at him. Then, after
+a pause, she added mockingly: "It's hunger, my dear. Good Lord,
+how dependent men are on food!"
+
+Andrews drank down his wine at a gulp. He felt that if he could
+only make an effort he could lift off the stifling melancholy that
+was settling down on him like a weight that kept growing heavier.
+
+A man in khaki, with his face and neck scarlet, staggered into the
+garden dragging beside him a mud-encrusted bicycle. He sank into
+an iron chair, letting the bicycle fall with a clatter at his
+feet.
+
+"Hi, hi," he called in a hoarse voice.
+
+A waiter appeared and contemplated him suspiciously. The man in
+khaki had hair as red as his face, which was glistening with
+sweat. His shirt was torn, and he had no coat. His breeches and
+puttees were invisible for mud.
+
+"Gimme a beer," croaked the man in khaki.
+
+The waiter shrugged his shoulders and walked away.
+
+"Il demande une biere," said Andrews.
+
+"Mais Monsieur...."
+
+"I'll pay. Get it for him."
+
+The waiter disappeared.
+
+"Thankee, Yank," roared the man in khaki.
+
+The waiter brought a tall narrow yellow glass. The man in khaki
+took it from his hand, drank it down at a draught and handed back
+the empty glass. Then he spat, wiped his mouth on the back of his
+hand, got with difficulty to his feet and shambled towards
+Andrews's table.
+
+"Oi presoom the loidy and you don't mind, Yank, if Oi parley wi'
+yez a bit. Do yez?"
+
+"No, come along; where did you come from?"
+
+The man in khaki dragged an iron chair behind him to a spot near
+the table. Before sitting down he bobbed his head in the direction
+of Jeanne with an air of solemnity tugging at the same time at a
+lock of his red hair. After some fumbling he got a red-bordered
+handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his face with it, leaving
+a long black smudge of machine oil on his forehead.
+
+"Oi'm a bearer of important secret messages, Yank," he said,
+leaning back in the little iron chair. "Oi'm a despatch-rider."
+
+"You look all in."
+
+"Not a bit of it. Oi just had a little hold up, that's all, in a
+woodland lane. Some buggers tried to do me in."
+
+"What d'you mean?"
+
+"Oi guess they had a little information...that's all. Oi'm
+carryin' important messages from our headquarters in Rouen to your
+president. Oi was goin' through a bloody thicket past this side.
+Oi don't know how you pronounce the bloody town.... Oi was on my
+bike making about thoity for the road was all a-murk when Oi saw
+four buggers standing acrost the road...lookter me suspicious-
+like, so Oi jus' jammed the juice into the boike and made for the
+middle 'un. He dodged all right. Then they started shootin' and a
+bloody bullet buggered the boike.... It was bein' born with a caul
+that saved me.... Oi picked myself up outer the ditch an lost 'em
+in the woods. Then Oi got to another bloody town and commandeered
+this old sweatin' machine.... How many kills is there to Paris,
+Yank?"
+
+"Fifteen or sixteen, I think,"
+
+"What's he saying, Jean?"
+
+"Some men tried to stop him on the road. He's a despatch-rider."
+
+"Isn't he ugly? Is he English?"
+
+"Irish."
+
+"You bet you, miss; Hirlanday; that's me.... You picked a good
+looker this toime, Yank. But wait till Oi git to Paree. Oi clane
+up a good hundre' pound on this job in bonuses. What part d'ye
+come from, Yank?"
+
+"Virginia. I live in New York."
+
+"Oi been in Detroit; goin' back there to git in the
+automoebile business soon as Oi clane up a few more bonuses.
+Europe's dead an stinkin', Yank. Ain't no place for a young
+fellow. It's dead an stinkin', that's what it is."
+
+"It's pleasanter to live here than in America.... Say, d'you often
+get held up that way?"
+
+"Ain't happened to me before, but it has to pals o' moine."
+
+"Who d'you think it was?
+
+"Oi dunno; 'Unns or some of these bloody secret agents round the
+Peace Conference.... But Oi got to go; that despatch won't keep."
+
+"All right. The beer's on me."
+
+"Thank ye, Yank." The man got to his feet, shook hands with
+Andrews and Jeanne, jumped on the bicycle and rode out of the
+garden to the road, threading his way through the iron chairs and
+tables.
+
+"Wasn't he a funny customer?" cried Andrews, laughing. "What a
+wonderful joke things are!"
+
+The waiter arrived with the omelette that began their lunch.
+
+"Gives you an idea of how the old lava's bubbling in the volcano.
+There's nowhere on earth a man can dance so well as on a volcano."
+
+"But don't talk that way," said Jeanne laying down her knife and
+fork. "It's terrible. We will waste our youth to no purpose. Our
+fathers enjoyed themselves when they were young.... And if there
+had been no war we should have been so happy, Etienne and I. My
+father was a small manufacturer of soap and perfumery. Etienne
+would have had a splendid situation. I should never have had to
+work. We had a nice house. I should have been married...."
+
+"But this way, Jeanne, haven't you more freedom?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders. Later she burst out: "But what's the
+good of freedom? What can you do with it? What one wants is to
+live well and have a beautiful house and be respected by people.
+Oh, life was so sweet in France before the war."
+
+"In that case it's not worth living," said Andrews in a savage
+voice, holding himself in.
+
+They went on eating silently. The sky became overcast. A few drops
+splashed on the table-cloth.
+
+"We'll have to take coffee inside," said Andrews.
+
+"And you think it is funny that people shoot at a man on a
+motorcycle going through a wood. All that seems to me terrible,
+terrible," said Jeanne.
+
+"Look out. Here comes the rain!"
+
+They ran into the restaurant through the first hissing sheet of
+the shower and sat at a table near a window watching the rain
+drops dance and flicker on the green iron tables. A scent of wet
+earth and the mushroom-like odor of sodden leaves came in borne on
+damp gusts through the open door. A waiter closed the glass doors
+and bolted them.
+
+"He wants to keep out the spring. He can't," said Andrews.
+
+They smiled at each other over their coffee cups. They were  in
+sympathy again.
+
+When the rain stopped they walked across wet fields by a foot path
+full of little clear puddles that reflected the blue sky and the
+white-and amber-tinged clouds where the shadows were light
+purplish-grey. They walked slowly arm in arm, pressing their
+bodies together. They were very tired, they did not know why and
+stopped often to rest leaning against the damp boles of trees.
+Beside a pond pale blue and amber and silver from the reflected
+sky, they  found under a big beech tree a patch of wild violets,
+which Jeanne picked greedily, mixing them with the little crimson-
+tipped daisies in the tight bouquet. At the suburban railway
+station, they sat silent, side by side on a bench, sniffing the
+flowers now and then, so sunk in languid weariness that they could
+hardly summon strength to climb into a seat on top of a third
+class coach, which was crowded with people coming home from a day
+in the country. Everybody had violets and crocuses and twigs with
+buds on them. In people's stiff, citified clothes lingered a smell
+of wet fields and sprouting woods. All the girls shrieked and
+threw their arms round the men when the train went through a
+tunnel or under a bridge. Whatever happened, everybody laughed.
+When the train arrived in the station, it was almost with
+reluctance that they left it, as if they felt that from that
+moment their work-a-day lives began again. Andrews and Jeanne
+walked down the platform without touching each other. Their
+fingers were stained and sticky from touching buds and crushing
+young sappy leaves and grass stalks. The air of the city seemed
+dense and unbreathable after the scented moisture of the fields.
+
+They dined at a little restaurant on the Quai Voltaire and
+afterwards walked slowly towards the Place St. Michel, feeling the
+wine and the warmth of the food sending new vigor into their tired
+bodies. Andrews had his arm round her shoulder and they talked in
+low intimate voices, hardly moving their lips, looking long at the
+men and women they saw sitting twined in each other's arms on
+benches, at the couples of boys and girls that kept passing them,
+talking slowly and quietly, as they were, bodies pressed together
+as theirs were.
+
+"How many lovers there are," said Andrews.
+
+"Are we lovers?" asked Jeanne with a curious little laugh.
+
+"I wonder.... Have you ever been crazily in love, Jeanne?"
+
+"I don't know. There was a boy in Laon named Marcelin. But I was a
+little fool then. The last news of him was from Verdun."
+
+"Have you had many...like I am?"
+
+"How sentimental we are," she cried laughing.
+
+"No. I wanted to know. I know so little of life," said
+Andrews.
+
+"I have amused myself, as best I could," said Jeanne in a serious
+tone. "But I am not frivolous.... There have been very few men I
+have liked.... So I have had few friends...do you want to call
+them lovers? But lovers are what married women have on the
+stage.... All that sort of thing is very silly."
+
+"Not so very long ago," said Andrews, "I used to dream
+of being romantically in love, with people climbing up the
+ivy on castle walls, and fiery kisses on balconies in the
+moonlight."
+
+"Like at the Opera Comique," cried Jeanne laughing.
+
+"That was all very silly. But even now, I want so much more of
+life than life can give."
+
+They leaned over the parapet and listened to the hurrying swish of
+the river, now soft and now loud, where the reflections of the
+lights on the opposite bank writhed like golden snakes.
+
+Andrews noticed that there was someone beside them. The faint,
+greenish glow from the lamp on the quai enabled him to recognize
+the lame boy he had talked to months ago on the Butte.
+
+"I wonder if you'll remember me," he said.
+
+"You are the American who was in the Restaurant, Place du Terte, I
+don't remember when, but it was long ago."
+
+They shook hands.
+
+"But you are alone," said Andrews.
+
+"Yes, I am always alone," said the lame boy firmly. He held out
+his hand again.
+
+"Au revoir," said Andrews.
+
+"Good luck!" said the lame boy. Andrews heard his crutch tapping
+on the pavement as he went away along the quai.
+
+"Jeanne," said Andrews, suddenly, "you'll come home with me, won't
+you?"
+
+"But you have a friend living with you."
+
+"He's gone to Brussels. He won't be back till tomorrow."
+
+"I suppose one must pay for one's dinner," said Jeanne
+maliciously.
+
+"Good God, no." Andrews buried his face in his hands. The singsong
+of the river pouring through the bridges, filled his ears. He
+wanted desperately to cry. Bitter desire that was like hatred made
+his flesh tingle, made his hands ache to crush her hands in them.
+
+"Come along," he said gruffly.
+
+"I didn't mean to say that," she said in a gentle, tired voice.
+"You know, I'm not a very nice person." The greenish glow of the
+lamp lit up the contour of one of her cheeks as she tilted her
+head up, and glimmered in her eyes. A soft sentimental sadness
+suddenly took hold of Andrews; he felt as he used to feel when, as
+a very small child, his mother used to tell him Br' Rabbit
+stories, and he would feel himself drifting helplessly on the
+stream of her soft voice, narrating, drifting towards something
+unknown and very sad, which he could not help.
+
+They started walking again, past the Pont Neuf, towards the glare
+of the Place St. Michel. Three names had come into Andrews's head,
+"Arsinoe, Berenike, Artemisia." For a little while he puzzled over
+them, and then he remembered that Genevieve Rod had the large eyes
+and the wide, smooth forehead and the firm little lips the women
+had in the portraits that were sewn on the mummy cases in the
+Fayum. But those patrician women of Alexandria had not had
+chestnut hair with a glimpse of burnished copper in it; they might
+have dyed it, though!
+
+"Why are you laughing?" asked Jeanne.
+
+"Because things are so silly."
+
+"Perhaps you mean people are silly," she said, looking up at him
+out of the corners of her eyes.
+
+"You're right."
+
+They walked in silence till they reached Andrews's door.
+
+"You go up first and see that there's no one there," said Jeanne
+in a business-like tone.
+
+Andrews's hands were cold. He felt his heart thumping while he
+climbed the stairs.
+
+The room was empty. A fire was ready to light in the small
+fireplace. Andrews hastily tidied up the table and kicked under
+the bed some soiled clothes that lay in a heap in a corner. A
+thought came to him: how like his performances in his room at
+college when he had heard that a relative was coming to see him.
+
+He tiptoed downstairs.
+
+"Bien. Tu peux venir, Jeanne," he said.
+
+She sat down rather stiffly in the straight-backed armchair beside
+the fire.
+
+"How pretty the fire is," she said.
+
+"Jeanne, I think I'm crazily in love with you," said Andrews in an
+excited voice.
+
+"Like at the Opera Comique." She shrugged her shoulders. "The
+room's nice," she said. "Oh, but, what a big bed!"
+
+"You're the first woman who's been up here in my time,
+Jeanne.... Oh, but this uniform is frightful."
+
+Andrews thought suddenly of all the tingling bodies constrained
+into the rigid attitudes of automatons in uniforms like this one;
+of all the hideous farce of making men into machines. Oh, if some
+gesture of his could only free them all for life and freedom and
+joy. The thought drowned everything else for the moment.
+
+"But you pulled a button off," cried Jeanne laughing hysterically.
+"I'll just have to sew it on again."
+
+"Never mind. If you knew how I hated them."
+
+"What white skin you have, like a woman's. I suppose that's
+because you are blond," said Jeanne.
+
+
+
+The sound of the door being shaken vigorously woke Andrews. He got
+up and stood in the middle of the floor for a moment without being
+able to collect his wits. The shaking of the door continued, and
+he heard Walters's voice crying "Andy, Andy." Andrews felt shame
+creeping up through him like nausea. He felt a passionate disgust
+towards himself and Jeanne and Walters. He had an impulse to move
+furtively as if he had stolen something. He went to the door and
+opened it a little.
+
+"Say, Walters, old man," he said, "I can't let you in.... I've got
+a girl with me. I'm sorry.... I thought you wouldn't get back till
+tomorrow."
+
+"You're kidding, aren't you?" came Walters's voice out of the dark
+hall.
+
+"No." Andrews shut the door decisively and bolted it again.
+
+Jeanne was still asleep. Her black hair had come undone and spread
+over the pillow. Andrews pulled the covers up about her carefully.
+
+Then he got into the other bed, where he lay awake a long time,
+staring at the ceiling.
+
+
+
+                                                IV
+
+People walking along the boulevard looked curiously through the
+railing at the line of men in olive-drab that straggled round the
+edge of the courtyard. The line moved slowly, past a table where
+an officer and two enlisted men sat poring over big lists of names
+and piles of palely tinted banknotes and silver francs that
+glittered white. Above the men's heads a thin haze of cigarette
+smoke rose into the sunlight. There was a sound of voices and of
+feet shuffling on the gravel. The men who had been paid went off
+jauntily, the money jingling in their pockets.
+
+The men at the table had red faces and tense, serious expressions.
+They pushed the money into the soldiers' hands with a rough jerk
+and pronounced the names as if they were machines clicking.
+
+Andrews saw that one of the men at the table was Walters; he
+smiled and whispered "Hello" as he came up to him. Walters kept
+his eyes fixed on the list.
+
+While Andrews was waiting for the man ahead of him to be paid, he
+heard two men in the line talking.
+
+"Wasn't that a hell of a place? D'you remember the lad that died
+in the barracks one day?"
+
+"Sure, I was in the medicks there too. There was a hell of a
+sergeant in that company tried to make the kid get up, and the
+loot came and said he'd court-martial him, an' then they found out
+that he'd cashed in his checks."
+
+"What'd 'ee die of?"
+
+"Heart failure, I guess. I dunno, though, he never did take to the
+life."
+
+"No. That place Cosne was enough to make any guy cash in his
+checks."
+
+Andrews got his money. As he was walking away, he strolled up to
+the two men he had heard talking.
+
+"Were you fellows in Cosne?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"Did you know a fellow named Fuselli?"
+
+"I dunno...."
+
+"Sure, you do," said the other man. "You remember Dan Fuselli, the
+little wop thought he was goin' to be corporal."
+
+"He had another think comin'." They both laughed.
+
+Andrews walked off, vaguely angry. There were many soldiers on the
+Boulevard Montparnasse. He turned into a side street, feeling
+suddenly furtive and humble, as if he would hear any minute the
+harsh voice of a sergeant shouting orders at him.
+
+The silver in his breeches pocket jingled with every step.
+
+
+
+Andrews leaned on the balustrade of the balcony, looking down into
+the square in front of the Opera Comique. He was dizzy with the
+beauty of the music he had been hearing. He had a sense somewhere
+in the distances of his mind of the great rhythm of the sea.
+People chattered all about him on the wide, crowded balcony, but
+he was only conscious of the blue-grey mistiness of the night
+where the lights made patterns in green-gold and red-gold. And
+compelling his attention from everything else, the rhythm swept
+through him like sea waves.
+
+"I thought you'd be here," said Genevieve Rod in a quiet voice
+beside him.
+
+Andrews felt strangely tongue-tied.
+
+"It's nice to see you," he blurted out, after looking at her
+silently for a moment.
+
+"Of course you love Pelleas."
+
+"It is the first time I've heard it."
+
+"Why haven't you been to see us? It's two weeks.... We've been
+expecting you."
+
+"I didn't know...Oh,  I'll certainly come. I don't know anyone at
+present I can talk music to."
+
+"You know me."
+
+"Anyone else, I should have said."
+
+"Are you working?"
+
+"Yes.... But this hinders frightfully." Andrews yanked at the
+front of his tunic. "Still, I expect to be free very soon. I'm
+putting in an application for discharge."
+
+"I suppose you will feel you can do so much better.... You will be
+much stronger now that you have done your duty."
+
+"No...by no means."
+
+"Tell me, what was that you played at our house?"
+
+"'The Three Green Riders on Wild Asses,'" said Andrews smiling.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"It's a prelude to the 'Queen of Sheba,'" said Andrews. "If you
+didn't think the same as M. Emile Faguet and everyone else about
+St. Antoine, I'd tell you what I mean."
+
+"That was very silly of me.... But if you pick up all the silly
+things people say accidentally...well, you must be angry most of
+the time."
+
+In the dim light he could not see her eyes. There was a little
+glow on the curve of her cheek coming from under the dark of her
+hat to her rather pointed chin. Behind it he could see other faces
+of men and women crowded on the balcony talking, lit up crudely by
+the gold glare that came out through the French windows from the
+lobby.
+
+"I have always been tremendously fascinated by the place in La
+Tentation where the Queen of Sheba visited Antoine, that's all,"
+said Andrews gruffly.
+
+"Is that the first thing you've done? It made me think a little of
+Borodine."
+
+"The first that's at all pretentious. It's probably just a steal
+from everything I've ever heard."
+
+"No, it's good. I suppose you had it in your head all through
+those dreadful and glorious days at the front.... Is it for piano
+or orchestra?"
+
+"All that's finished is for piano. I hope to orchestrate it
+eventually.... Oh, but it's really silly to talk this way. I don't
+know enough.... I need years of hard work before I can do
+anything.... And I have wasted so much time.... That is the most
+frightful thing. One has so few years of youth!"
+
+"There's the bell, we must scuttle back to our seats. Till the
+next intermission." She slipped through the glass doors and
+disappeared. Andrews went back to his seat very excited, full of
+unquiet exultation. The first strains of the orchestra were pain,
+he felt them so acutely.
+
+After the last act they walked in silence down a dark street,
+hurrying to get away from the crowds of the Boulevards.
+
+When they reached the Avenue de l'Opera, she said: "Did you say
+you were going to stay in France?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, if I can. I am going tomorrow to put in an
+application for discharge in France."
+
+"What will you do then?"
+
+"I shall have to find a job of some sort that will let me study at
+the Schola Cantorum. But I have enough money to last a little
+while."
+
+"You are courageous."
+
+"I forgot to ask you if you would rather take the Metro."
+
+"No; let's walk."
+
+They went under the arch of the Louvre. The air was full of a fine
+wet mist, so that every street lamp was surrounded by a blur of
+light.
+
+"My blood is full of the music of Debussy," said Genevieve Rod,
+spreading out her arms.
+
+"It's no use trying to say what one feels about it. Words aren't
+much good, anyway, are they?"
+
+"That depends."
+
+They walked silently along the quais. The mist was so thick they
+could not see the Seine, but whenever they came near a bridge they
+could hear the water rustling through the arches.
+
+"France is stifling," said Andrews, all of a sudden. "It stifles
+you very slowly, with beautiful silk bands.... America beats your
+brains out with a policeman's billy."
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked, letting pique chill her voice.
+
+"You know so much in France. You have made the world so neat...."
+
+"But you seem to want to stay here," she said with a laugh.
+
+"It's that there's nowhere else. There is nowhere except Paris
+where one can find out things about music, particularly.... But I
+am one of those people who was not made to be contented."
+
+"Only sheep are contented."
+
+"I think I have been happier this month in Paris than ever before
+in my life. It seems six, so much has happened in it."
+
+"Poissac is where I am happiest."
+
+"Where is that?"
+
+"We have a country house there, very old and very tumbledown. They
+say that Rabelais used to come to the village. But our house is
+from later, from the time of Henri Quatre. Poissac is not far from
+Tours. An ugly name, isn't it? But to me it is very beautiful. The
+house has orchards all round it, and yellow roses with flushed
+centers poke themselves in my window, and there is a little tower
+like Montaigne's."
+
+"When I get out of the army, I shall go somewhere in the country
+and work and work."
+
+"Music should be made in the country, when the sap is rising in
+the trees."
+
+"'D'apres nature,' as the rabbit man said."
+
+"Who's the rabbit man?"
+
+"A very pleasant person," said Andrews, bubbling with laughter.
+"You shall meet him some day. He sells little stuffed rabbits that
+jump, outside the Cafe de Rohan."
+
+"Here we are.... Thank you for coming home with me."
+
+"But how soon. Are you sure it is the house? We can't have got
+there as soon as this."
+
+"Yes, it's my house," said Genevieve Rod laughing. She held out
+her hand to him and he shook it eagerly. The latchkey clicked in
+the door.
+
+"Why don't you have a cup of tea with us here tomorrow?" she said.
+
+"With pleasure."
+
+The big varnished door with its knocker in the shape of a ring
+closed behind her. Andrews walked away with a light step, feeling
+jolly and exhilarated.
+
+As he walked down the mist-filled quai towards the Place St.
+Michel, his ears were filled with the lisping gurgle of the river
+past the piers of the bridges.
+
+Walters was asleep. On the table in his room was a card from
+Jeanne. Andrews read the card holding it close to the candle.
+
+"How long it is since I saw you!" it read. "I shall pass the Cafe
+de Rohan Wednesday at seven, along the pavement opposite the
+Magazin du Louvre."
+
+It was a card of Malmaison.
+
+Andrews flushed. Bitter melancholy throbbed through him. He walked
+languidly to the window and looked out into the dark court. A
+window below his spilled a warm golden haze into the misty night,
+through which he could make out vaguely some pots of ferns
+standing on the wet flagstones. From somewhere came a dense smell
+of hyacinths. Fragments of thought slipped one after another
+through his mind. He thought of himself washing windows long ago
+at training camp, and remembered the way the gritty sponge scraped
+his hands. He could not help feeling shame when he thought of
+those days. "Well, that's all over now," he told himself. He
+wondered, in a half-irritated way, about Genevieve Rod. What sort
+of a person was she? Her face, with its wide eyes and pointed chin
+and the reddish-chestnut hair, unpretentiously coiled above the
+white forehead, was very vivid in his mind, though when he tried
+to remember what it was like in profile, he could not. She had
+thin hands, with long fingers that ought to play the piano well.
+When she grew old would she be yellow-toothed and jolly, like her
+mother? He could not think of her old; she was too vigorous; there
+was too much malice in her passionately-restrained gestures. The
+memory of her faded, and there came to his mind Jeanne's
+overworked little hands, with callous places, and the tips of the
+fingers grimy and scarred from needlework. But the smell of
+hyacinths that came up from the mist-filled courtyard was like a
+sponge wiping all impressions from his brain. The dense sweet
+smell in the damp air made him feel languid and melancholy.
+
+He took off his clothes slowly and got into bed. The smell of the
+hyacinths came to him very faintly, so that he did not know
+whether or not he was imagining it.
+
+
+
+The major's office was a large white-painted room, with elaborate
+mouldings and mirrors in all four walls, so that while Andrews
+waited, cap in hand, to go up to the desk, he could see the small
+round major with his pink face and bald head repeated to infinity
+in two directions in the grey brilliance of the mirrors.
+
+"What do you want?" said the major, looking up from some papers he
+was signing.
+
+Andrews stepped up to the desk. On both sides of the room a skinny
+figure in olive-drab, repeated endlessly, stepped up to endless
+mahogany desks, which faded into each other in an endless dusty
+perspective.
+
+"Would you mind O.K.-ing this application for discharge, Major?"
+
+"How many dependents?" muttered the major through his teeth,
+poring over the application.
+
+"None. It's for discharge in France to study music."
+
+"Won't do. You need an affidavit that you can support yourself,
+that you have enough money to continue your studies. You want to
+study music, eh? D'you think you've got talent? Needs a very great
+deal of talent to study music."
+
+"Yes, sir.... But is there anything else I need except the
+affidavit?"
+
+"No.... It'll go through in short order. We're glad to release
+men.... We're glad to release any man with a good military
+record.... Williams!"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+A sergeant came over from a small table by the door.
+
+"Show this man what he needs to do to get discharged in France."
+
+Andrews saluted. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the figures
+in the mirror, saluting down an endless corridor.
+
+When he got out on the street in front of the great white building
+where the major's office was, a morose feeling of helplessness
+came over him. There were many automobiles of different sizes and
+shapes, limousines, runabouts, touring cars, lined up along the
+curb, all painted olive-drab and neatly stenciled with numbers in
+white. Now and then a personage came out of the white marble
+building, puttees and Sam Browne belt gleaming, and darted into an
+automobile, or a noisy motorcycle stopped with a jerk in front of
+the wide door to let out an officer in goggles and mud-splattered
+trench coat, who disappeared immediately through revolving doors.
+Andrews could  imagine him striding along halls, where from every
+door came an imperious clicking of typewriters, where papers were
+piled high on yellow varnished desks, where sallow-faced clerks in
+uniform loafed in rooms, where the four walls were covered from
+floor to ceiling with card catalogues. And every day they were
+adding to the paper, piling up more little drawers with index
+cards. It seemed to Andrews that the shiny white marble building
+would have to burst with all the paper stored up within it, and
+would flood the broad avenue with avalanches of index cards.
+
+"Button yer coat," snarled a voice in his ear.
+
+Andrews looked up suddenly. An M. P. with a raw-looking face in
+which was a long sharp nose, had come up to him.
+
+Andrews buttoned up his overcoat and said nothing.
+
+"Ye can't hang around here this way," the M. P. called after him.
+
+Andrews flushed and walked away without turning his head. He was
+stinging with humiliation; an angry voice inside him kept telling
+him that he was a coward, that he should make some futile gesture
+of protest. Grotesque pictures of revolt flamed through his mind,
+until he remembered that when he was very small, the same tumul-
+tuous pride had seethed and ached in him whenever he had been
+reproved by an older person. Helpless despair fluttered about
+within him like a bird beating against the wires of a cage. Was
+there no outlet, no gesture of expression, would he have to go on
+this way day after day, swallowing the bitter gall of indignation,
+that every new symbol of his slavery brought to his lips?
+
+He was walking in an agitated way across the Jardin des Tuileries,
+full of little children and women with dogs on leashes and
+nursemaids with starched white caps, when he met Genevieve Rod and
+her mother. Genevieve was dressed in pearl grey, with an elegance
+a little too fashionable to please Andrews. Mme. Rod wore black.
+In front of them a black and tan terrier ran from one side to the
+other, on nervous little legs that trembled like steel springs.
+
+"Isn't it lovely this morning?" cried Genevieve.
+
+"I didn't know you had a dog."
+
+"Oh, we never go out without Santo, a protection to two lone
+women, you know," said Mme. Rod, laughing. "Viens, Santo, dis
+bonjour au Monsieur."
+
+"He usually lives at Poissac," said Genevieve.
+
+The little dog barked furiously at Andrews, a shrill bark like a
+child squalling.
+
+"He knows he ought to be suspicious of soldiers.... I imagine most
+soldiers would change with him if they had a chance.... Viens
+Santo, viens Santo.... Will you change lives with me, Santo?"
+
+"You look as if you'd been quarrelling with somebody," said
+Genevieve Rod lightly.
+
+"I have, with myself.... I'm going to write a book on slave
+psychology. It would be very amusing," said Andrews in a gruff,
+breathless voice.
+
+"But we must hurry, dear, or we'll be late to the tailor's," said
+Mme. Rod. She held out her black-gloved hand to Andrews.
+
+"We'll be in at tea time this afternoon. You might play me some
+more of the 'Queen of Sheba,'" said Genevieve.
+
+"I'm afraid I shan't be able to, but you never can tell.... Thank
+you."
+
+He was relieved to have left them. He had been afraid he would
+burst out into some childish tirade. What a shame old Henslowe
+hadn't come back yet. He could have poured out all his despair to
+him; he had often enough before; and Henslowe was out of the army
+now. Wearily Andrews decided that he would have to start scheming
+and intriguing again as he had schemed and intrigued to come to
+Paris in the first place. He thought of the white marble
+building and the officers with shiny puttees going in and out, and
+the typewriters clicking in every room, and the understanding of
+his helplessness before all that complication made him shiver.
+
+An idea came to him. He ran down the steps of a metro station.
+Aubrey would know someone at the Crillon who could help him.
+
+But when the train reached the Concorde station, he could not
+summon the will power to get out. He felt a harsh repugnance to
+any effort. What was the use of humiliating himself and begging
+favors of people? It was hopeless anyway. In a fierce burst of
+pride a voice inside of him was shouting that he, John Andrews,
+should have no shame, that he should force people to do things for
+him, that he, who lived more acutely than the rest, suffering more
+pain and more joy, who had the power to express his pain and his
+joy so that it would impose itself on others, should force his
+will on those around him. "More of the psychology of slavery,"
+said Andrews to himself, suddenly smashing the soap-bubble of his
+egoism.
+
+The train had reached the Porte Maillot.
+
+Andrews stood in the sunny boulevard in front of the metro
+station, where the plane trees were showing tiny gold-brown
+leaves, sniffing the smell of a flower-stall in front of which a
+woman stood, with a deft abstracted gesture tying up bunch after
+bunch of violets. He felt a desire to be out in the country, to be
+away from houses and people. There was a line of men and women
+buying tickets for St. Germain; still indecisive, he joined it,
+and at last, almost without intending it, found himself jolting
+through Neuilly in the green trailer of the electric car, that
+waggled like a duck's tail when the car went fast.
+
+He remembered his last trip on that same car with Jeanne, and
+wished mournfully that he might have fallen in love with her, that
+he might have forgotten himself and the army and everything in
+crazy, romantic love.
+
+When he got off the car at St. Germain, he had stopped formulating
+his thoughts; soggy despair throbbed in him like an infected
+wound.
+
+He sat for a while at the cafe opposite the Chateau looking at the
+light red walls and the strong stone-bordered windows and the
+jaunty turrets and chimneys that rose above the classic balustrade
+with its big urns on the edge of the roof. The park, through the
+tall iron railings, was full of russet and pale lines, all mist of
+new leaves. Had they really lived more vividly, the people of the
+Renaissance? Andrews could almost see men with plumed hats and
+short cloaks and elaborate brocaded tunics swaggering with a hand
+at the sword hilt, about the quiet square in front of the gate of
+the Chateau. And he thought of the great, sudden wind of freedom
+that had blown out of Italy, before which dogmas and slaveries had
+crumbled to dust. In contrast, the world today seemed pitifully
+arid. Men seemed to have shrunk in stature before the vastness of
+the mechanical contrivances they had invented. Michael Angelo, da
+Vinci, Aretino, Cellini; would the strong figures of men ever so
+dominate the world again? Today everything was congestion, the
+scurrying of crowds; men had become ant-like. Perhaps it was
+inevitable that the crowds should sink deeper and deeper in
+slavery. Whichever won, tyranny from above, or spontaneous
+organization from below, there could be no individuals.
+
+He went through the gates into the park, laid out with a few
+flower beds where pansies bloomed; through the dark ranks of elm
+trunks, was brilliant sky, with here and there a moss-green statue
+standing out against it. At the head of an alley he came out on a
+terrace. Beyond the strong curves of the pattern of the iron
+balustrade was an expanse of country, pale green, falling to blue
+towards the horizon, patched with pink and slate-colored houses
+and carved with railway tracks. At his feet the Seine shone like a
+curved sword blade.
+
+He walked with long strides along the terrace, and followed a road
+that turned into the forest, forgetting the monotonous tread mill
+of his thoughts, in the flush that the fast walking sent through
+his whole body, in the rustling silence of the woods, where the
+moss on the north side of the boles of the trees was emerald, and
+where the sky was soft grey through a lavender lacework of
+branches. The green gnarled woods made him think of the first act
+of Pelleas. With his tunic unbuttoned and his shirt open at the
+neck and his hands stuck deep in his pockets, he went along
+whistling like a school boy.
+
+After an hour he came out of the woods on a highroad, where he
+found himself walking beside a two-wheeled cart, that kept pace
+with him exactly, try as he would to get ahead of it. After a
+while, a boy leaned out:
+
+"Hey, l'Americain, vous voulez monter?"
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"Conflans-Ste.-Honorine."
+
+"Where's that?"
+
+The boy flourished his whip vaguely towards the horse's head.
+
+"All right," said Andrews.
+
+"These are potatoes," said the boy, "make yourself comfortable.''
+Andrews offered him a cigarette, which he took with muddy fingers.
+He had a broad face, red cheeks and chunky features. Reddish-brown
+hair escaped spikily from under a mud-spattered beret.
+
+"Where did you say you were going?"
+
+"Conflans-Ste.-Honorine. Silly all these saints, aren't they?"
+
+Andrews laughed.
+
+"Where are you going?" the boy asked.
+
+"I don't know. I was taking a walk."
+
+The boy leaned over to Andrews and whispered in his car:
+"Deserter?"
+
+"No.... I had a day off and wanted to see the country."
+
+"I just thought, if you were a deserter, I might be able to help
+you. Must be silly to be a soldier. Dirty life.... But you like
+the country. So do I. You can't call this country. I'm not from
+this part; I'm from Brittany. There we have real country. It's
+stifling near Paris here, so many people, so many houses."
+
+"It seems mighty fine to me."
+
+"That's because you're a soldier, better than barracks, hein?
+Dirty life that. I'll never be a soldier. I'm going into the navy.
+Merchant marine, and then if I have to do service I'll do it on
+the sea."
+
+"I suppose it is pleasanter."
+
+"There's more freedom. And the sea.... We Bretons, you know, we
+all die of the sea or of liquor."
+
+They laughed.
+
+"Have you been long in this part of the country?" asked Andrews.
+
+"Six months. It's very dull, this farming work. I'm head of a gang
+in a fruit orchard, but not for long. I have a brother shipped on
+a sailing vessel. When he comes back to Bordeaux, I'll ship on the
+same boat."
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"South America, Peru; how should I know?"
+
+"I'd like to ship on a sailing vessel," said Andrews.
+
+"You would? It seems very fine to me to travel, and see new
+countries. And perhaps I shall stay over there."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"How should I know? If I like it, that is.... Life is very bad in
+Europe."
+
+"It is stifling, I suppose," said Andrews slowly, "all these
+nations, all these hatreds, but still...it is very beautiful. Life
+is very ugly in America."
+
+"Let's have something to drink. There's a bistro!"
+
+The boy jumped down from the cart and tied the horse to a tree.
+They went into a small wine shop with a counter and one square oak
+table.
+
+"But won't you be late?" said Andrews.
+
+"I don't care. I like talking, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, indeed."
+
+They ordered wine of an old woman in a green apron, who had three
+yellow teeth that protruded from her mouth when she spoke.
+
+"I haven't had anything to eat," said Andrews.
+
+"Wait a minute." The boy ran out to the cart and came back with a
+canvas bag, from which he took half a loaf of bread and some
+cheese.
+
+"My name's Marcel," the boy said when they had sat for a while
+sipping wine.
+
+"Mine is Jean...Jean Andre."
+
+"I have a brother named Jean, and my father's name is Andre.
+That's pleasant, isn't it?"
+
+"But it must be a splendid job, working in a fruit orchard," said
+Andrews, munching bread and cheese.
+
+"It's well paid; but you get tired of being in one place all the
+time. It's not as it is in Brittany...." Marcel paused. He sat,
+rocking a little on the stool, holding on to the seat between his
+legs. A curious brilliance came into his grey eyes. "There," he
+went on in a soft voice, "it is so quiet in the fields, and from
+every hill you look at the sea.... I like that, don't you?" he
+turned to Andrews, with a smile.
+
+"You are lucky to be free," said Andrews bitterly. He felt as if
+he would burst into tears.
+
+"But you will be demobilized soon; the butchery is over. You will
+go home to your family. That will be good, hein?"
+
+"I wonder. It's not far enough away. Restless!"
+
+"What do you expect?"
+
+A fine rain was falling. They climbed in on the potato sacks and
+the horse started a jog trot; its lanky brown shanks glistened a
+little from the rain.
+
+"Do you come out this way often?" asked Marcel.
+
+"I shall. It's the nicest place near Paris."
+
+"Some Sunday you must come and I'll take you round. The Castle is
+very fine. And then there is Malmaison, where the great Emperor
+lived with the Empress Josephine."
+
+Andrews suddenly remembered Jeanne's card. This was Wednesday. He
+pictured her dark figure among the crowd of the pavement in front
+of the Cafe de Rohan. Of course it had to be that way. Despair, so
+helpless as to be almost sweet, came over him.
+
+"And girls," he said suddenly to Marcel, "are they pretty round
+here?"
+
+Marcel shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"It's not women that we lack, if a fellow has money," he said.
+
+Andrews felt a sense of shame, he did not exactly know why.
+
+"My brother writes that in South America the women are very brown
+and very passionate," added Marcel with a wistful smile. "But
+travelling and reading books, that's what I like.... But look, if
+you want to take the train back to Paris...." Marcel pulled up the
+horse to a standstill. "If you want to take the train, cross that
+field by the foot path and keep right along the road to the left
+till you come to the river. There's a ferryman. The town's
+Herblay, and there's a station.... And any Sunday before noon I'll
+be at 3 rue des Eveques, Reuil. You must come and we'll take a
+walk together."
+
+They shook hands, and Andrews strode off across the wet fields.
+Something strangely sweet and wistful that he could not analyse
+lingered in his mind from Marcel's talk. Somewhere, beyond
+everything, he was conscious of the great free rhythm of the sea.
+
+Then he thought of the Major's office that morning, and of his own
+skinny figure in the mirrors, repeated endlessly, standing
+helpless and humble before the shining mahogany desk. Even out
+here in these fields where the wet earth seemed to heave with the
+sprouting of new growth, he was not free. In those office
+buildings, with white marble halls full of the clank of officers'
+heels, in index cards and piles of typewritten papers, his real
+self, which they had power to kill if they wanted to, was in his
+name and his number, on lists with millions of other names and
+other numbers. This sentient body of his, full of possibilities
+and hopes and desires, was only a pale ghost that depended on the
+other self, that suffered for it and cringed for it. He could not
+drive out of his head the picture of himself, skinny, in an ill-
+fitting uniform, repeated endlessly in the two mirrors of the
+Major's white-painted office.
+
+All of a sudden, through bare poplar trees, he saw the Seine.
+
+He hurried along the road, splashing now and then in a shining
+puddle, until he came to a landing place. The river was very wide,
+silvery, streaked with pale-green and violet, and straw-color from
+the evening sky. Opposite were bare poplars and behind them
+clusters of buff-colored houses climbing up a green hill to a
+church, all repeated upside down in the color-streaked river. The
+river was very full, and welled up above its banks, the way the
+water stands up above the rim of a glass filled too full. From the
+water came an indefinable rustling, flowing sound that rose and
+fell with quiet rhythm in Andrews's ears.
+
+Andrews forgot everything in the great wave of music that rose
+impetuously through him, poured with the hot blood through his
+veins, with the streaked colors of the river and the sky through
+his eyes, with the rhythm of the flowing river through his ears.
+
+
+
+                              V
+
+"So I came without," said Andrews, laughing.
+
+"What fun!" cried Genevieve. "But anyway they couldn't do anything
+to you. Chartres is so near. It's at the gates of Paris."
+
+They were alone in the compartment. The train had pulled out of
+the station and was going through suburbs where the trees were in
+leaf in the gardens, and fruit trees foamed above the red brick
+walls, among the box-like villas.
+
+"Anyway," said Andrews, "it was an opportunity not to be missed."
+
+"That must be one of the most amusing things about being a
+soldier, avoiding regulations. I wonder whether Damocles didn't
+really enjoy his sword, don't you think so?"
+
+They laughed.
+
+"But mother was very doubtful about my coming with you this way.
+She's such a dear, she wants to be very modern and liberal, but
+she always gets frightened at the last minute. And my aunt will
+think the world's end has come when we appear."
+
+They went through some tunnels, and when the train stopped at
+Sevres, had a glimpse of the Seine valley, where the blue mist
+made a patina over the soft pea-green of new leaves. Then the
+train came out on wide plains, full of the glaucous shimmer of
+young oats and the golden-green of fresh-sprinkled wheat fields,
+where the mist on the horizon was purplish. The train's shadow,
+blue, sped along beside them over the grass and fences.
+
+"How beautiful it is to go out of the city this way in the early
+morning!... Has your aunt a piano?"
+
+"Yes, a very old and tinkly one."
+
+"It would be amusing to play you all I have done at the 'Queen of
+Sheba.' You say the most helpful things."
+
+"It is that I am interested. I think you will do something some
+day."
+
+Andrews shrugged his shoulders.
+
+They sat silent, their ears filled up by the jerking rhythm  of
+wheels over rails, now and then looking at each other, almost
+furtively. Outside, fields and hedges and patches of blossom, and
+poplar trees faintly powdered with green, unrolled, like a scroll
+before them, behind the nicker of telegraph poles and the
+festooned wires on which the sun gave glints of red copper.
+Andrews discovered all at once that the coppery glint on the
+telegraph wires was the same as the glint in Genevieve's hair.
+"Berenike, Artemisia, Arsinoe," the names lingered in his mind. So
+that as he looked out of the window at the long curves of the
+telegraph wires that seemed to rise and fall as they glided past,
+he could imagine her face, with its large, pale brown eyes and its
+small mouth and broad smooth forehead, suddenly stilled into the
+encaustic painting on the mummy case of some Alexandrian girl.
+
+"Tell me,"  she said,  "when did you begin to write music?"
+
+Andrews brushed the light, disordered hair off his forehead.
+
+"Why, I think I forgot to brush my hair this morning," he said.
+"You see, I was so excited by the idea of coming to Chartres with
+you."
+
+They laughed.
+
+"But my mother taught me to play the piano when I was very small,"
+he went on seriously. "She and I lived alone in an old house
+belonging to her family in Virginia. How different all that was
+from anything you have ever lived. It would not be possible in
+Europe to be as isolated as we were in Virginia.... Mother was
+very unhappy. She had led a dreadfully thwarted life...that unre-
+lieved hopeless misery that only a woman can suffer. She used to
+tell me stories, and I used to make up little tunes about them,
+and about anything. The great success," he laughed, "was, I
+remember, to a dandelion.... I can remember so well the way Mother
+pursed up her lips as she leaned over the writing desk.... She was
+very tall, and as it was dark in our old sitting room, had to lean
+far over to see.... She used to spend hours making beautiful
+copies of tunes I made up. My mother is the only person who has
+ever really had any importance in my life.... But I lack technical
+training terribly."
+
+"Do you think it is so important?" said Genevieve, leaning towards
+him to make herself heard above the clatter of the train.
+
+"Perhaps it isn't. I don't know."
+
+"I think it always comes sooner or later, if you feel intensely
+enough."
+
+"But it is so frightful to feel all you want to express getting
+away beyond you. An idea comes into your head, and you feel it
+grow stronger and stronger and you can't grasp it; you have no
+means to express it. It's like standing on a street corner and
+seeing a gorgeous procession go by without being able to join it,
+or like opening a bottle of beer and having it foam all over you
+without having a glass to pour it into."
+
+Genevieve burst out laughing.
+
+"But you can drink from the bottle, can't you?" she said, her eyes
+sparkling.
+
+"I'm trying to," said Andrews.
+
+"Here we are. There's the cathedral. No, it's hidden," cried
+Genevieve.
+
+They got to their feet. As they left the station, Andrews said:
+"But after all, it's only freedom that matters. When I'm out of
+the army!..."
+
+"Yes, I suppose you are right...for you that is. The artist should
+be free from any sort of entanglement."
+
+"I don't see what difference there is between an artist and any
+other sort of workman," said Andrews savagely.
+
+"No, but look."
+
+From the square where they stood, above the green blur of a little
+park, they could see the cathedral, creamy yellow and rust color,
+with the sober tower and the gaudy tower, and the great rose
+window between, the whole pile standing nonchalantly, knee deep in
+the packed roofs of the town.
+
+They stood shoulder to shoulder, looking at it without
+speaking.
+
+In the afternoon they walked down the hill towards the river, that
+flowed through a quarter of tottering, peak-gabled houses and
+mills, from which came a sound of grinding wheels. Above them,
+towering over gardens full of pear trees in bloom, the apse of the
+cathedral bulged against the pale sky. On a narrow and very
+ancient bridge they stopped and looked at the water, full of a
+shimmer of blue and green and grey from the sky and from the vivid
+new leaves of the willow trees along the bank.
+
+Their senses glutted with the beauty of the day and the intricate
+magnificence of the cathedral, languid with all they had seen and
+said, they were talking of the future with quiet voices.
+
+"It's all in forming a habit of work," Andrews was saying. "You
+have to be a slave to get anything done. It's all a question of
+choosing your master, don't you think so?"
+
+"Yes. I suppose all the men who have left their imprint on
+people's lives have been slaves in a sense," said Genevieve
+slowly. "Everyone has to give up a great deal of life to live
+anything deeply. But it's worth, it." She looked Andrews full in
+the eyes.
+
+"Yes, I think it's worth it," said Andrews. "But you must help me.
+Now I am like a man who has come up out of a dark cellar. I'm
+almost too dazzled by the gorgeousness of everything. But at least
+I am out of the cellar."
+
+"Look, a fish jumped," cried Genevieve. "I wonder if we could hire
+a boat anywhere.... Don't you think it'd be fun to go out in a
+boat?"
+
+A voice broke in on Genevieve's answer: "Let's see your pass, will
+you?"
+
+Andrews turned round. A soldier with a round brown face and red
+cheeks stood beside him on the bridge. Andrews looked at him
+fixedly. A little zigzag scar above his left eye showed white on
+his heavily tanned skin.
+
+"Let's see your pass," the man said again; he had a high pitched,
+squeaky voice.
+
+Andrews felt the blood thumping in his ears. "Are you an M. P.?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well I'm in the Sorbonne Detachment."
+
+"What the hell's that?" said the M. P., laughing thinly.
+
+"What does he say?" asked Genevieve, smiling.
+
+"Nothing. I'll have to go see the officer and explain," said
+Andrews in a breathless voice. "You go back to your Aunt's and
+I'll come as soon as I've arranged it."
+
+"No, I'll come with you."
+
+"Please go back. It may be serious. I'll come as soon as I can,"
+said Andrews harshly.
+
+She walked up the hill with swift decisive steps, without turning
+round.
+
+"Tough luck, buddy," said the M. P. "She's a good-looker. I'd like
+to have a half-hour with her myself."
+
+"Look here. I'm in the Sorbonne School Detachment in Paris, and I
+came down here without a pass. Is there anything I can do about
+it?"
+
+"They'll fix you up, don't worry," cried the M. P. shrilly. "You
+ain't a member of the General Staff in disguise, are ye? School
+Detachment! Gee, won't Bill Huggis laugh when he hears that? You
+pulled the best one yet, buddy.... But come along," he added in a
+confidential tone. "If you come quiet I won't put the handcuffs on
+ye."
+
+"How do I know you're an M. P.?"
+
+"You'll know soon enough."
+
+They turned down a narrow street between grey stucco walls leprous
+with moss and water stains.
+
+At a chair inside the window of a small wine shop a man with a red
+M. P. badge sat smoking. He got up when he saw them pass and
+opened the door with one hand on his pistol holster.
+
+"I got one bird, Bill," said the man, shoving Andrews roughly in
+the door.
+
+"Good for you, Handsome; is he quiet?"
+
+"Um." Handsome grunted.
+
+"Sit down there. If you move you'll git a bullet in your guts."
+
+The M. P. stuck out a square jaw; he had a sallow skin, puffy
+under the eyes that were grey and lustreless.
+
+"He says he's in some goddam School Detachment. First time that's
+been pulled, ain't it?"
+
+"School Detachment. D'you mean an O. T. C?" Bill sank laughing
+into his chair by the window, spreading his legs out over the
+floor.
+
+"Ain't that rich?" said Handsome, laughing shrilly again.
+
+"Got any papers on ye? Ye must have some sort of papers."
+
+Andrews searched his pockets. He flushed.
+
+"I ought to have a school pass."
+
+"You sure ought. Gee, this guy's simple," said Bill, leaning far
+back in the chair and blowing smoke through his nose.
+
+"Look at his dawg-tag, Handsome."
+
+The man strode over to Andrews and jerked open the top of his
+tunic. Andrews pulled his body away.
+
+"I haven't got any on. I forgot to put any on this morning."
+
+"No tag, no insignia."
+
+"Yes, I have, infantry."
+
+"No papers.... I bet he's been out a hell of a time," said
+Handsome meditatively.
+
+"Better put the cuffs on him," said Bill in the middle of a yawn.
+
+"Let's wait a while. When's the loot coming?"
+
+"Not till night."
+
+"Sure?"
+
+"Yes. Ain't no train."
+
+"How about a side car?"
+
+"No, I know he ain't comin'," snarled Bill.
+
+"What d'you say we have a little liquor, Bill? Bet this bloke's
+got money. You'll set us up to a glass o' cognac, won't you,
+School Detachment?"
+
+Andrews sat very stiff in his chair, staring at them.
+
+"Yes," he said, "order up what you like."
+
+"Keep an eye on him, Handsome. You never can tell what this quiet
+kind's likely to pull off on you."
+
+Bill Huggis strode out of the room with heavy steps. In a moment
+he came back swinging a bottle of cognac in his hand.
+
+"Tole the Madame you'd pay, Skinny," said the man as he passed
+Andrews's chair. Andrews nodded.
+
+The two M. P.'s drew up to the table beside which Andrews sat.
+Andrews could not keep his eyes off them. Bill Huggis hummed as he
+pulled the cork out of the bottle.
+
+"It's the smile that makes you happy,
+ It's the smile that makes you sad."
+
+Handsome watched him, grinning.
+
+Suddenly they both burst out laughing.
+
+"An" the damn fool thinks he's in a school battalion," said
+Handsome in his shrill voice.
+
+"It'll be another kind of a battalion you'll be in, Skinny," cried
+Bill Huggis. He stifled his laughter with a long drink from the
+bottle.
+
+He smacked his lips.
+
+"Not so goddam bad," he said. Then he started humming again:
+
+"It's the smile that makes you happy,
+ It's the smile that makes you sad."
+
+"Have some, Skinny?" said Handsome, pushing the bottle towards
+Andrews.
+
+"No, thanks," said Andrews.
+
+"Ye won't be gettin' good cognac where yer goin', Skinny, not by a
+damn sight," growled Bill Huggis in the middle of a laugh.
+
+"All right, I'll take a swig." An idea had suddenly come into
+Andrews's head.
+
+"Gee, the bastard kin drink cognac," cried Handsome.
+
+"Got enough money to buy us another bottle?"
+
+Andrews nodded. He wiped his mouth absently with his handkerchief;
+he had drunk the raw cognac without tasting it.
+
+"Get another bottle, Handsome," said Bill Huggis carelessly. A
+purplish flush had appeared in the lower part of his cheeks. When
+the other man came back, he burst out laughing.
+
+"The last cognac this Skinny guy from the school detachment'll get
+for many a day. Better drink up strong, Skinny.... They don't have
+that stuff down on the farm.... School Detachment; I'll be
+goddamned!" He leaned back in his chair, shaking with laughter.
+
+Handsome's face was crimson. Only the zigzag scar over his eye
+remained white. He was swearing in a low voice as he worked the
+cork out of the bottle.
+
+Andrews could not keep his eyes off the men's faces. They went
+from one to the other, in spite of him. Now and then, for an
+instant, he caught a glimpse of the yellow and brown squares of
+the wall paper and the bar with a few empty bottles behind it.
+He tried to count the bottles; "one, two, three..." but he was
+staring in the lustreless grey eyes of Bill Huggis, who lay back
+in his chair, blowing smoke out of his nose, now and then reaching
+for the cognac bottle, all the while humming faintly, under his
+breath:
+
+"It's the smile that makes you happy,
+ It's the smile that makes you sad."
+
+Handsome sat with his elbows on the table, and his chin in his
+beefy hands. His face was flushed crimson, but the skin was softly
+moulded, like a woman's.
+
+The light in the room was beginning to grow grey.
+
+Handsome and Bill Huggis stood up. A young officer, with clearly-
+marked features and a campaign hat worn a little on one side, came
+in, stood with his feet wide apart in the middle of the floor.
+
+Andrews went up to him.
+
+"I'm in the Sorbonne Detachment, Lieutenant, stationed in Paris."
+
+"Don't you know enough to salute?" said the officer, looking him
+up and down. "One of you men teach him to salute," he said slowly.
+
+Handsome made a step towards Andrews and hit him with his fist
+between the eyes. There was a flash of light and the room swung
+round, and there was a splitting crash as his head struck the
+floor. He got to his feet. The fist hit him in the same place,
+blinding him, the three figures and the bright oblong of the
+window swung round. A chair crashed down with him, and a hard rap
+in the back of his skull brought momentary blackness.
+
+"That's enough, let him be," he heard a voice far away at the end
+of a black tunnel.
+
+A great weight seemed to be holding him down as he struggled to
+get up, blinded by tears and blood. Rending pains darted like
+arrows through his head. There were handcuffs on his wrists.
+
+"Git up," snarled a voice.
+
+He got to his feet, faint light came through the streaming tears
+in his eyes. His forehead flamed as if hot coals were being
+pressed against it.
+
+"Prisoner, attention!" shouted the officer's voice. "March!"
+
+Automatically, Andrews lifted one foot and then the other. He felt
+in his face the cool air of the street. On either side of him were
+the hard steps of the M. P.'s. Within him a nightmare voice was
+shrieking, shrieking.
+
+
+
+                     PART SIX: UNDER THE WHEELS
+
+                              I
+
+The uncovered garbage  cans clattered  as they were thrown one by
+one into the truck. Dust, and a smell of putrid things, hung in
+the  air about the men  as  they worked. A guard stood by with his
+legs wide apart, and his rifle-butt on the pavement between them.
+The early mist hung low, hiding the upper windows of the hospital.
+From the door beside which the garbage cans were ranged came a
+thick odor of carbolic. The last garbage can rattled into place on
+the truck, the four prisoners and the guard clambered on, finding
+room as best they could among the cans, from which dripped bloody
+bandages, ashes, and bits of decaying food, and the truck rumbled
+off towards the incinerator, through the   streets of Paris that
+sparkled with the gaiety of early morning.
+
+The prisoners wore no tunics; their shirts and breeches had dark
+stains of grease and dirt; on their hands were torn canvas gloves.
+The guard was a sheepish, pink-faced youth, who kept grinning
+apologetically, and had trouble keeping his balance when the truck
+went round corners.
+
+"How many days do they keep a guy on this job, Happy?" asked a boy
+with mild blue eyes and a creamy complexion, and reddish curly
+hair.
+
+"Damned if I know, kid; as long as they please, I guess," said the
+bull-necked man next him, who had a lined prize fighter's face,
+with a heavy protruding jaw.
+
+Then, after looking at the boy for a minute, with his face
+twisted into an astonished sort of grin, he went on: "Say, kid,
+how in hell did you git here? Robbin' the cradle, Oi call it, to
+send you here, kid."
+
+"I stole a Ford," the boy answered cheerfully.
+
+"Like hell you did!"
+
+"Sold it for five hundred francs."
+
+Happy laughed, and caught hold of an ash can to keep from being
+thrown out of the jolting truck.
+
+"Kin ye beat that, guard?" he cried. "Ain't that somethin'?"
+
+The guard sniggered.
+
+"Didn't send me to Leavenworth 'cause I was so young," went on the
+kid placidly.
+
+"How old are you, kid?" asked Andrews, who was leaning against the
+driver's seat.
+
+"Seventeen," said the boy, blushing and casting his eyes down.
+
+"He must have lied like hell to git in this goddam army," boomed
+the deep voice of the truck driver, who had leaned over to spit s
+long squirt of tobacco juice.
+
+The truck driver jammed the brakes on. The garbage cans banged
+against each other.
+
+The Kid cried out in pain: "Hold your horses, can't you? You
+nearly broke my leg."
+
+The truck driver was swearing in a long string of words.
+
+"Goddam these dreamin', skygazin' sons of French bastards. Why
+don't they get out of your way? Git out an' crank her up, Happy."
+
+"Guess a feller'd be lucky if he'd break his leg or somethin';
+don't you think so, Skinny?" said the fourth prisoner in a low
+voice.
+
+"It'll take mor'n a broken leg to git you out o' this labor
+battalion, Hoggenback. Won't it, guard?" said Happy, as he climbed
+on again.
+
+The truck jolted away, trailing a haze of cinder dust and a sour
+stench of garbage behind it. Andrews noticed all at once that they
+were going down the quais along the river. Notre Dame was rosy in
+the misty sunlight, the color of lilacs in full bloom. He looked
+at it fixedly a moment, and then looked away. He felt very far
+from it, like a man looking at the stars from the bottom of a pit.
+
+"My mate, he's gone to Leavenworth for five years," said the Kid
+when they had been silent some time listening to the rattle of the
+garbage cans as the trucks jolted over the cobbles.
+
+"Helped yer steal the Ford, did he?" asked Happy.
+
+"Ford nothin'! He sold an ammunition train. He was a railroad man.
+He was a mason, that's why he only got five years."
+
+"I guess five years in Leavenworth's enough for anybody,"
+muttered Hoggenback, scowling. He was a square-shouldered dark
+man, who always hung his head when he worked.
+
+"We didn't meet up till we got to Paris; we was on a hell of a
+party together at the Olympia. That's where they picked us up.
+Took us to the Bastille. Ever been in the Bastille?"
+
+"I have," said Hoggenback.
+
+"Ain't no joke, is it?"
+
+"Christ!" said Hoggenback. His face flushed a furious red. He
+turned away and looked at the civilians walking briskly along the
+early morning streets, at the waiters in shirt sleeves swabbing
+off the cafe tables, at the women pushing handcarts full of
+bright-colored vegetables over the cobblestones.
+
+"I guess they ain't nobody gone through what we guys go through
+with," said Happy. "It'd be better if the ole war was still a'
+goin', to my way o' thinkin'. They'd chuck us into the trenches
+then. Ain't so low as this."
+
+"Look lively," shouted the truck driver, as the truck stopped in a
+dirty yard full of cinder piles. "Ain't got all day. Five more
+loads to get yet."
+
+The guard stood by with angry face and stiff limbs; for he feared
+there were officers about, and the prisoners started unloading the
+garbage cans; their nostrils were full of the stench of
+putrescence; between their lips was a gritty taste of cinders.
+
+
+
+The air in the dark mess shack was thick with steam from the
+kitchen at one end. The men filed past the counter, holding out
+their mess kits, into which the K. P.'s splashed the food.
+Occasionally someone stopped to ask for a larger helping in an
+ingratiating voice. They ate packed together at long tables of
+roughly planed boards, stained from the constant spilling of
+grease and coffee and still wet from a perfunctory scrubbing.
+Andrews sat at the end of a bench, near the door through which
+came the glimmer of twilight, eating slowly, surprised at the
+relish with which he ate the greasy food, and at the exhausted
+contentment that had come over him almost in spite of himself.
+Hoggenback sat opposite him.
+
+"Funny," he said to Hoggenback, "it's not really as bad as I
+thought it would be."
+
+"What d'you mean, this labor battalion? Hell, a feller can put up
+with anything; that's one thing you learn in the army."
+
+"I guess people would rather put up with things than make an
+effort to change them."
+
+"You're goddam right. Got a butt?"
+
+Andrews handed him a cigarette. They got to their feet and walked
+out into the twilight, holding their mess kits in front of them.
+As they were washing their mess kits in a tub of greasy water,
+where bits of food floated in a thick scum, Hoggenback suddenly
+said in a low voice:
+
+"But it all piles up, Buddy; some day there'll be an accountin'.
+D'you believe in religion?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Neither do I. I come of folks as done their own accountin'. My
+father an' my gran'father before him. A feller can't eat his bile
+day after day, day after day."
+
+"I'm afraid he can, Hoggenback," broke in Andrews. They walked
+towards the barracks.
+
+"Goddam it, no," cried Hoggenback aloud. "There comes a point
+where you can't eat yer bile any more, where it don't do no good
+to cuss. Then you runs amuck." Hanging his head he went slowly
+into the barracks.
+
+Andrews leaned against the outside of the building, staring up at
+the sky. He was trying desperately to think, to pull together a
+few threads of his life in this moment of respite from the
+nightmare.  In five minutes the bugle would din in his ears, and
+he would be driven into the barracks. A tune came to his head that
+he played with eagerly for a moment, and then, as memory came to
+him, tried to efface with a shudder of disgust.
+
+"There's the smile that makes you happy,
+ There's the smile that makes you sad."
+
+It was almost dark. Two men walked slowly by in front of him.
+
+"Sarge, may I speak to you?" came a voice in a whisper.
+
+The sergeant grunted.
+
+"I think there's two guys trying to break loose out of here."
+
+"Who? If you're wrong it'll be the worse for you, remember that."
+
+"Surley an' Watson. I heard 'em talkin' about it behind the
+latrine."
+
+"Damn fools."
+
+"They was sayin' they'd rather be dead than keep up this life."
+
+"They did, did they?"
+
+"Don't talk so loud, Sarge. It wouldn't do for any of the fellers
+to know I was talkin' to yer. Say, Sarge..." the voice became
+whining, "don't you think I've nearly served my time down here?"
+
+"What do I know about that? 'Tain't my job."
+
+"But, Sarge, I used to be company clerk with my old outfit. Don't
+ye need a guy round the office?" Andrews strode past them into the
+barracks. Dull fury possessed him. He took off his clothes and got
+silently into his blankets.
+
+Hoggenback and Happy were talking beside his bunk.
+
+"Never you mind," said Hoggenback, "somebody'll get that guy
+sooner or later."
+
+"Git him, nauthin'! The fellers in that camp was so damn skeered
+they jumped if you snapped yer fingers at 'em. It's the
+discipline. I'm tellin' yer, it gits a feller in the end," said
+Happy.
+
+Andrews lay without speaking, listening to their talk, aching in
+every muscle from the crushing work of the day.
+
+"They court-martialled that guy, a feller told me," went on
+Hoggenback. "An' what d'ye think they did to him? Retired on half
+pay. He was a major."
+
+"Gawd, if I iver git out o' this army, I'll be so goddam glad,"
+began Happy. Hoggenback interrupted:
+
+"That you'll forgit all about the raw deal they gave you, an' tell
+everybody how fine ye liked it."
+
+Andrews felt the mocking notes of the bugle outside stabbing his
+ears. A non-com's voice roared: "Quiet," from the end of the
+building, and the lights went out. Already Andrews could hear the
+deep breathing of men asleep. He lay awake, staring into the
+darkness, his body throbbing with the monotonous rhythms of the
+work of the day. He seemed still to hear the sickening whine in
+the man's voice as he talked to the sergeant outside in the
+twilight. "And shall I be reduced to that?" he was asking himself.
+
+
+
+Andrews was leaving the latrine when he heard a voice call softly,
+"Skinny."
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"Come here, I want to talk to you." It was the Kid's voice. There
+was no light in the ill-smelling shack that served for a latrine.
+Outside they could hear the guard humming softly to himself as he
+went back and forth before the barracks door.
+
+"Let's you and me be buddies, Skinny."
+
+"Sure," said Andrews.
+
+"Say, what d'you think the chance is o' cuttin' loose?"
+
+"Pretty damn poor," said Andrews.
+
+"Couldn't you just make a noise like a hoop an' roll away?"
+
+They giggled softly.
+
+Andrews put his hand on the boy's arm.
+
+"But, Kid, it's too risky. I got in this fix by taking a risk. I
+don't feel like beginning over again, and if they catch you, it's
+desertion. Leavenworth for twenty years, or life. That'd be the
+end of everything."
+
+"Well, what the hell's this?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know; they've got to let us out some day."
+
+"Sh...sh...."
+
+Kid put his hand suddenly over Andrews's mouth. They stood rigid,
+so that they could hear their hearts pounding.
+
+Outside there was a brisk step on the gravel. The sentry halted
+and saluted. The steps faded into the distance, and the sentry's
+humming began again.
+
+"They put two fellers in the jug for a month for talking like we
+are.... In solitary," whispered Kid.
+
+"But, Kid, I haven't got the guts to try anything now."
+
+"Sure you have, Skinny. You an' me's got more guts than all the
+rest of 'em put together. God, if people had guts, you couldn't
+treat 'em like they were curs. Look, if I can ever get out o'
+this, I've got a hunch I can make a good thing writing movie
+scenarios. I want to get on in the world, Skinny."
+
+"But, Kid, you won't be able to go back to the States."
+
+"I don't care. New Rochelle's not the whole world. They got the
+movies in Italy, ain't they?"
+
+"Sure. Let's go to bed."
+
+"All right. Look, you an' me are buddies from now on, Skinny."
+
+Andrews felt the Kid's hand press his arm.
+
+In his dark, airless bunk, in the lowest of three tiers, Andrews
+lay awake a long time, listening to the snores and the heavy
+breathing about him. Thoughts fluttered restlessly in his head,
+but in his blank hopelessness he could only frown and bite his
+lips, and roll his head from side to side on the rolled-up tunic
+he used for a pillow, listening with desperate attention to the
+heavy breathing of the men who slept above him and beside him.
+
+When he fell asleep he dreamed that he was alone with Genevieve
+Rod in the concert hall of the Schola Cantorum, and that he was
+trying desperately hard to play some tune for her on the violin, a
+tune he kept forgetting, and in the agony of trying to remember,
+the tears streamed down his cheeks. Then he had his arms round
+Genevieve's shoulders and was kissing her, kissing her, until he
+found that it was a wooden board he was kissing, a wooden board on
+which was painted a face with broad forehead and great pale brown
+eyes, and small tight lips, and all the while a boy who seemed to
+be both Chrisfield and the Kid kept telling him to run or the
+M.P.'s would get him. Then he sat frozen in icy terror with a
+bottle in his hand, while a frightful voice behind him sang very
+loud:
+
+"There's the smile that makes you happy,
+ There's the smile that makes you sad."
+
+The bugle woke him, and he sat up with such a start that he hit
+his head hard against the bunk above him. He lay back cringing
+from the pain like a child. But he had to hurry desperately to get
+his clothes on in time for roll call. It was with a feeling of
+relief that he found that mess was not ready, and that men were
+waiting in line outside the kitchen shack, stamping their feet and
+clattering their mess kits as they moved about through the chilly
+twilight of the spring morning. Andrews found he was standing
+behind Hoggenback.
+
+"How's she comin', Skinny?" whispered Hoggenback, in his low
+mysterious voice.
+
+"Oh, we're all in the same boat," said Andrews with a laugh.
+
+"Wish it'd sink," muttered the other man. "D'ye know," he went on
+after a pause, "I kinder thought an edicated guy like you'd be
+able to keep out of a mess like this. I wasn't brought up without
+edication, but I guess I didn't have enough."
+
+"I guess most of 'em can; I don't sec that it's much to the point.
+A man suffers as much if he doesn't know how to read and write as
+if he had a college education."
+
+"I dunno, Skinny. A feller who's led a rough life can put up with
+an awful lot. The thing is, Skinny, I might have had a commission
+if I hadn't been so damned impatient.... I'm a lumberman by trade,
+and my dad's cleaned up a pretty thing in war contracts jus' a
+short time ago. He could have got me in the engineers if I hadn't
+gone off an' enlisted."
+
+"Why did you?"
+
+"I was restless-like. I guess I wanted to see the world. I didn't
+care about the goddam war, but I wanted to see what things was
+like over here."
+
+"Well, you've seen," said Andrews, smiling.
+
+"In the neck," said Hoggenback, as he pushed out his cup for
+coffee.
+
+
+
+In the truck that was taking them to work, Andrews and the Kid sat
+side by side on the jouncing backboard and tried to talk above the
+rumble of the exhaust.
+
+"Like Paris?" asked the Kid.
+
+"Not this way," said Andrews.
+
+"Say, one of the guys said you could parlay French real well. I
+want you to teach me. A guy's got to know languages to get along
+in this country."
+
+"But you must know some."
+
+"Bedroom French," said the Kid, laughing.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"But if I want to write a movie scenario for an Eytalian firm, I
+can't just write 'voulay-vous couchezavecmoa' over and over
+again."
+
+"But you'll have to learn Italian, Kid."
+
+"I'm goin' to. Say, ain't they taking us a hell of a ways today,
+Skinny?"
+
+"We're goin' to Passy Wharf to unload rock," said somebody in a
+grumbling voice.
+
+"No, it's a cement...cement for the stadium we're presentin' the
+French Nation. Ain't you read in the 'Stars and Stripes' about
+it?"
+
+"I'd present 'em with a swift kick, and a hell of a lot of other
+people, too."
+
+"So we have to sweat unloadin' cement all day," muttered
+Hoggenback, "to give these goddam frawgs a stadium."
+
+"If it weren't that it'd be somethin' else."
+
+"But, ain't we got folks at home to work for?" cried Hoggenback.
+"Mightn't all this sweat be doin' some good for us? Building a
+stadium! My gawd!"
+
+"Pile out there.... Quick!" rasped a voice from the driver's seat.
+
+Through the haze of choking white dust, Andrews got now and then a
+glimpse of the grey-green river, with its tugboats sporting their
+white cockades of steam and their long trailing plumes of smoke,
+and its blunt-nosed barges and its bridges, where people walked
+jauntily back and forth, going about their business, going where
+they wanted to go. The bags of cement were very heavy, and the
+unaccustomed work sent racking pains through his back. The biting
+dust stung under his finger nails, and in his mouth and eyes. All
+the morning a sort of refrain went through his head: "People have
+spent their lives...doing only this. People have spent their lives
+doing only this." As he crossed and recrossed the narrow plank
+from the barge to the shore, he looked at the black water speeding
+seawards and took extraordinary care not to let his foot slip. He
+did not know why, for one-half of him was thinking how wonderful
+it would be to drown, to forget in eternal black silence the
+hopeless struggle. Once he saw the Kid standing before the
+sergeant in charge in an attitude of complete exhaustion, and
+caught a glint of his blue eyes as he looked up appealingly,
+looking like a child begging out of a spanking. The sight amused
+him, and he said to himself: "If I had pink cheeks and cupid's bow
+lips, I might be able to go through life on my blue eyes"; and he
+pictured the Kid, a fat, cherubic old man, stepping out of a white
+limousine, the way people do in the movies, and looking about him
+with those same mild blue eyes. But soon he forgot everything in
+the agony of the heavy cement bags bearing down on his back and
+hips.
+
+In the truck on the way back to the mess the Kid, looking fresh
+and smiling among the sweating men, like ghosts from the white
+dust, talking hoarsely above the clatter of the truck, sidled up
+very close to Andrews.
+
+"D'you like swimmin', Skinny?"
+
+"Yes. I'd give a lot to get some of this cement dust off me," said
+Andrews, without interest.
+
+"I once won a boy's swimmin' race at Coney," said the Kid.
+Andrews did not answer.
+
+"Were you in the swimmin' team or anything like that, Skinny, when
+you went to school?"
+
+"No.... It would be wonderful to be in the water, though. I used
+to swim way out in Chesapeake Bay at night when the water was
+phosphorescent."
+
+Andrews suddenly found the Kid's blue eyes, bright as flames from
+excitement, staring into his.
+
+"God, I'm an ass," he muttered.
+
+He felt the Kid's fist punch him softly in the back. "Sergeant
+said they was goin' to work us late as hell tonight," the Kid was
+saying aloud to the men round him.
+
+"I'll be dead if they do," muttered Hoggenback.
+
+"An' you a lumberjack!"
+
+"It ain't that. I could carry their bloody bags two at a time if I
+wanted ter. A feller gets so goddam mad, that's all; so goddam
+mad. Don't he, Skinny?" Hoggenback turned to Andrews and smiled.
+
+Andrews nodded his head.
+
+After the first two or three bags Andrews carried in the
+afternoon, it seemed as if every one would be the last he could
+possibly lift. His back and thighs throbbed with exhaustion; his
+face and the tips of his fingers felt raw from the biting cement
+dust.
+
+When the river began to grow purple with evening, he noticed that
+two civilians, young men with buff-colored coats and canes, were
+watching the gang at work.
+
+"They says they's newspaper reporters, writing up how fast the
+army's being demobilized," said one man in an awed voice.
+
+"They come to the right place."
+
+"Tell 'em we're leavin' for home now. Loadin' our barracks bags on
+the steamer.
+
+The newspaper men were giving out cigarettes. Several men grouped
+round them. One shouted out:
+
+"We're the guys does the light work. Blackjack Pershing's own pet
+labor battalion."
+
+"They like us so well they just can't let us go."
+
+"Damn jackasses," muttered Hoggenback, as, with his eyes to the
+ground, he passed Andrews. "I could tell 'em some things'd make
+their goddam ears buzz."
+
+"Why don't you?"
+
+"What the hell's the use? I ain't got the edication to talk up to
+guys like that."
+
+The sergeant, a short, red-faced man with a mustache clipped very
+short, went up to the group round the newspaper men.
+
+"Come on, fellers, we've got a hell of a lot of this cement to get
+in before it rains," he said in a kindly voice; "the sooner we get
+it in, the sooner we get off."
+
+"Listen to that bastard, ain't he juss too sweet for pie when
+there's company?" muttered Hoggenback on his way from the barge
+with a bag of cement.
+
+The Kid brushed past Andrews without looking at him.
+
+"Do what I do, Skinny," he said.
+
+Andrews did not turn round, but his heart started thumping very
+fast. A dull sort of terror took possession of him. He tried
+desperately to summon his will power, to keep from cringing, but
+he kept remembering the way the room had swung round when the M.P.
+had hit him, and heard again the cold voice of the lieutenant
+saying: "One of you men teach him how to salute."
+Time dragged out interminably.
+
+At last, coming back to the edge of the wharf, Andrews saw that
+there were no more bags in the barge. He sat down on the plank,
+too exhausted to think. Blue-grey dusk was closing down on
+everything. The Passy bridge stood out, purple against a great
+crimson afterglow.
+
+The Kid sat down beside him, and threw an arm trembling with
+excitement round his shoulders.
+
+"The guard's lookin' the other way. They won't miss us till they
+get to the truck.... Come on, Skinny," he said in a low, quiet
+voice.
+
+Holding on to the plank, he let himself down into the speeding
+water. Andrews slipped after him, hardly knowing what he was
+doing. The icy water closing about his body made him suddenly feel
+awake and vigorous. As he was swept by the big rudder of the
+barge, he caught hold of the Kid, who was holding on to a rope.
+They worked their way without speaking round to the outer side of
+the rudder. The swift river tugging savagely at them made it hard
+to hold on.
+
+"Now they can't see us," said the Kid between clenched teeth. "Can
+you work your shoes an' pants off?"'
+
+Andrews started struggling with one boot, the Kid helping to hold
+him up with his free hand.
+
+"Mine are off," he said. "I was all fixed." He laughed, though his
+teeth were chattering.
+
+"All right. I've broken the laces," said Andrews.
+
+"Can you swim under water?"
+
+Andrews nodded.
+
+"We want to make for that bunch of barges the other side of the
+bridge. The barge people'll hide us."
+
+"How d'ye know they will?"
+
+The Kid had disappeared.
+
+Andrews hesitated a moment, then let go his hold and started
+swimming with the current for all his might.
+
+At first he felt strong and exultant, but very soon he began to
+feel the icy grip of the water bearing him down; his arms and legs
+seemed to stiffen. More than against the water, he was struggling
+against paralysis within him, so that he thought that every moment
+his limbs would go rigid. He came to the surface and gasped for
+air. He had a second's glimpse of figures, tiny like toy soldiers,
+gesticulating wildly on the deck of the barge. The report of a
+rifle snapped through the air. He dove again, without thinking, as
+if his body were working independently of his mind.
+
+The next time he came up, his eyes were blurred from the cold.
+There was a taste of blood in his mouth. The shadow of the bridge
+was just above him. He turned on his back for a second. There were
+lights on the bridge. A current swept him past one barge and then
+another. Certainty possessed him that he was going to be drowned.
+A voice seemed to sob in his ears grotesquely: "And so John
+Andrews was drowned in the Seine, drowned in the Seine, in the
+Seine."
+
+Then he was kicking and fighting in a furious rage against the
+coils about him that wanted to drag him down and away. The black
+side of a barge was slipping up stream beside him with lightning
+speed. How fast those barges go, he thought. Then suddenly he
+found that he had hold of a rope, that his shoulders were banging
+against the bow of a small boat, while in front of him, against
+the dull purple sky, towered the rudder of the barge. A strong
+warm hand grasped his shoulder from behind, and he was being drawn
+up and up, over the bow of the boat that hurt his numbed body like
+blows, out of the clutching coils of the water.
+
+"Hide me, I'm a deserter," he said over and over again in French.
+A brown and red face with a bristly white beard, a bulbous,
+mullioned sort of face, hovered over him in the middle of a
+pinkish mist.
+
+
+
+                             II
+
+"Oh, qu'il est propre! Oh, qu'il a la peau blanche!" Women's
+voices were shrilling behind the mist. A coverlet that felt soft
+and fuzzy against his skin was being put about him. He was very
+warm and torpid. But somewhere in his thoughts a black crawling
+thing like a spider was trying to reach him, trying to work its
+way through the pinkish veils of torpor. After a long while he
+managed to roll over, and looked about him.
+
+"Mais reste tranquille," came the woman's shrill voice again.
+
+"And the other one? Did you see the other one?" he asked in a
+choked whisper.
+
+"Yes, it's all right. I'm drying it by the stove," came another
+woman's voice, deep and growling, almost like a man's.
+
+"Maman's drying your money by the stove. It's all safe. How rich
+they are, these Americans!"
+
+"And to think that I nearly threw it overboard with the trousers,"
+said the other woman again.
+
+John Andrews began to look about him. He was in a dark low cabin.
+Behind him, in the direction of the voices, a yellow light
+flickered. Great dishevelled shadows of heads moved about on the
+ceiling. Through the close smell of the cabin came a warmth of
+food cooking. He could hear the soothing hiss of frying grease.
+
+"But didn't you see the Kid?" he asked in English, dazedly trying
+to pull himself together, to think coherently. Then he went on in
+French in a more natural voice:
+
+"There was another one with me."
+
+"We saw no one. Rosaline, ask the old man," said the older woman.
+
+"No, he didn't see anyone," came the girl's shrill voice. She
+walked over to the bed and pulled the coverlet round Andrews with
+an awkward gesture. Looking up at her, he had a glimpse of the
+bulge of her breasts and her large teeth that glinted in the
+lamplight, and very vague in the shadow, a mop of snaky,
+disordered hair.
+
+"Qu'il parle bien francais," she said, beaming at him. Heavy
+steps shuffled across the cabin as the older woman came up to the
+bed and peered in his face.
+
+"Il va mieux," she said, with a knowing air.
+
+She was a broad woman with a broad flat face and a swollen body
+swathed in shawls. Her eyebrows were very bushy, and she had thick
+grey whiskers that came down to a point on either side of her
+mouth, as well as a few bristling hairs on her chin. Her voice was
+deep and growling, and seemed to come from far down inside her
+huge body.
+
+Steps creaked somewhere, and the old man looked at him through
+spectacles placed on the end of his nose. Andrews recognized the
+irregular face full of red knobs and protrusions.
+
+"Thanks very much," he said.
+
+All three looked at him silently for some time. Then the old man
+pulled a newspaper out of his pocket, unfolded it carefully, and
+fluttered it above Andrews's eyes. In the scant light Andrews made
+out the name: "Libertaire."
+
+"That's why," said the old man, looking at Andrews fixedly,
+through his spectacles.
+
+"I'm a sort of a socialist," said Andrews.
+
+"Socialists are good-for-nothings," snarled the old man, every red
+protrusion on his face seeming to get redder.
+
+"But I have great sympathy for anarchist comrades," went on
+Andrews, feeling a certain liveliness of amusement go through him
+and fade again.
+
+"Lucky you caught hold of my rope, instead of getting on to the
+next barge. He'd have given you up for sure. Sont des royalistes,
+ces salauds-la."
+
+"We must give him something to eat; hurry, Maman.... Don't worry,
+he'll pay, won't you, my little American?"
+
+Andrews nodded his head.
+
+"All you want," he said.
+
+"No, if he says he's a comrade, he shan't pay, not a sou," growled
+the old man.
+
+"We'll see about that," cried the old woman, drawing her breath in
+with an angry whistling sound.
+
+"It's only that living's so dear nowadays," came the girl's voice.
+
+"Oh, I'll pay anything I've got," said Andrews peevishly, closing
+his eyes again.
+
+He lay a long while on his back without moving.
+
+A hand shoved in between his back and the pillow roused him. He
+sat up. Rosaline was holding a bowl of broth in front of him that
+steamed in his face.
+
+"Mange ca," she said.
+
+He looked into her eyes, smiling. Her rusty hair was neatly
+combed. A bright green parrot with a scarlet splash in its wings,
+balanced itself unsteadily on her shoulder, looking at Andrews out
+of angry eyes, hard as gems.
+
+"Il est jaloux, Coco," said Rosaline, with a shrill little giggle.
+
+Andrews took the bowl in his two hands and drank some of the
+scalding broth.
+
+"It's too hot," he said, leaning back against the girl's arm.
+
+The parrot squawked out a sentence that Andrews did not
+understand.
+
+Andrews heard the old man's voice answer from somewhere behind
+him:
+
+"Nom de Dieu!"
+
+The parrot squawked again.
+
+Rosaline laughed.
+
+"It's the old man who taught him that," she said. "Poor Coco, he
+doesn't know what he's saying."
+
+"What does he say?" asked Andrews.
+
+"'Les bourgeois a la lanterne, nom de dieu!' It's from a song,"
+said Rosaline. "Oh, qu'il est malin, ce Coco!"
+
+Rosaline was standing with her arms folded beside the bunk. The
+parrot stretched out his neck and rubbed it against her cheek,
+closing and unclosing his gem-like eyes. The girl formed her lips
+into a kiss, and murmured in a drowsy voice:
+
+"Tu m'aimes, Coco, n'est-ce pas, Coco? Bon Coco."
+
+"Could I have something more, I'm awfully hungry," said Andrews.
+
+"Oh, I was forgetting," cried Rosaline, running off with the empty
+bowl.
+
+In a moment she came back without the parrot, with the bowl in her
+hand full of a brown stew of potatoes and meat.
+
+Andrews ate it mechanically, and handed back the bowl.
+
+"Thank you," he said, "I am going to sleep."
+
+He settled himself into the bunk. Rosaline drew the covers up
+about him and tucked them in round his shoulders. Her hand seemed
+to linger a moment as it brushed past his cheek. But Andrews had
+already sunk into a torpor again, feeling nothing but the warmth
+of the food within him and a great stiffness in his legs and arms.
+
+When he woke up the light was grey instead of yellow, and a
+swishing sound puzzled him. He lay listening to it for a long
+time, wondering what it was. At last the thought came with a
+sudden warm spurt of joy that the barge must be moving.
+
+He lay very quietly on his back, looking up at the faint silvery
+light on the ceiling of the bunk, thinking of nothing, with only a
+vague dread in the back of his head that someone would come to
+speak to him, to question him.
+
+After a long time he began to think of Genevieve Rod. He was
+having a long conversation with her about his music, and in his
+imagination she kept telling him that he must finish the "Queen of
+Sheba," and that she would show it to Monsieur Gibier, who was a
+great friend of a certain concert director, who might get it
+played. How long ago it must be since they had talked about that.
+A picture floated through his mind of himself and Genevieve
+standing shoulder to shoulder looking at the Cathedral at Chartres,
+which stood up nonchalantly, above the tumultuous roofs of the
+town, with its sober tower and its gaudy towers and the great rose
+windows between. Inexorably his memory carried him forward, moment
+by moment, over that day, until he writhed with shame and revolt.
+Good god! Would he have to go on all his life remembering that?
+"Teach him how to salute," the officer had said, and Handsome had
+stepped up to him and hit him. Would he have to go on all his life
+remembering that?
+
+"We tied up the uniform with some stones, and threw it overboard,"
+said Rosaline, jabbing him in the shoulder to draw his attention.
+
+"That was a good idea."
+
+"Are you going to get up? It's nearly time to eat. How you have
+slept."
+
+"But I haven't anything to put on," said Andrews, laughing, and
+waved a bare arm above the bedclothes.
+
+"Wait, I'll find something of the old man's. Say, do all Americans
+have skin so white as that? Look."
+
+She put her brown hand, with its grimed and broken nails, on
+Andrews's arm, that was white with a few silky yellow hairs.
+
+"It's because I'm blond," said Andrews. "There are plenty of blond
+Frenchmen, aren't there?"
+
+Rosaline ran off giggling, and came back in a moment with a pair
+of corduroy trousers and a torn flannel shirt that smelt of pipe
+tobacco.
+
+"That'll do for now," she said. "It's warm today for April.
+Tonight we'll buy you some clothes and shoes. Where are you
+going?"
+
+"By God, I don't know."
+
+"We're going to Havre for cargo." She put both hands to her head
+and began rearranging her straggling rusty-colored hair. "Oh, my
+hair," she said, "it's the water, you know. You can't keep
+respectable-looking on these filthy barges. Say, American, why
+don't you stay with us a while? You can help the old man run the
+boat."
+
+He found suddenly that her eyes were looking into his with
+trembling eagerness.
+
+"I don't know what to do," he said carelessly. "I wonder if it's
+safe to go on deck."
+
+She turned away from him petulantly and led the way up the ladder.
+
+"Oh, v'la le camarade," cried the old man who was leaning with all
+his might against the long tiller of the barge. "Come and help
+me."
+
+The barge was the last of a string of four that were describing a
+wide curve in the midst of a reach of silvery river full of
+glittering patches of pale, pea-green lavender, hemmed in on
+either side by frail blue roots of poplars. The sky was a mottled
+luminous grey with occasional patches, the color of robins' eggs.
+Andrews breathed in the dank smell of the river and leaned against
+the tiller when he was told to, answering the old man's curt
+questions.
+
+He stayed with the tiller when the rest of them went down to the
+cabin to eat. The pale colors and the swishing sound of the water
+and the blue-green banks slipping by and unfolding on either hand,
+were as soothing as his deep sleep had been. Yet they seemed only
+a veil covering other realities, where men stood interminably in
+line and marched with legs made all the same length on the drill
+field, and wore the same clothes and cringed before the same
+hierarchy of polished belts and polished puttees and stiff-visored
+caps, that had its homes in vast offices crammed with index cards
+and card catalogues; a world full of the tramp of marching, where
+cold voices kept saying:--"Teach him how to salute." Like a bird
+in a net, Andrews's mind struggled to free itself from the
+obsession.
+
+Then he thought of his table in his room in Paris, with its piled
+sheets of ruled paper, and he felt he wanted nothing in the world
+except to work. It would not matter what happened to him if he
+could only have time to weave into designs the tangled skein of
+music that seethed through him as the blood seethed through his
+veins.
+
+There he stood, leaning against the long tiller, watching the
+blue-green poplars glide by, here and there reflected in the
+etched silver mirror of the river, feeling the moist river wind
+flutter his ragged shirt, thinking of nothing.
+
+After a while the old man came up out of the cabin, his face
+purplish, puffing clouds of smoke out of his pipe.
+
+"All right, young fellow, go down and eat," he said.
+
+
+
+Andrews lay flat on his belly on the deck, with his chin resting
+on the back of his two hands. The barge was tied up along the
+river bank among many other barges. Beside him, a small fuzzy dog
+barked furiously at a yellow mongrel on the shore. It was nearly
+dark, and through the pearly mist of the river came red oblongs of
+light from the taverns along the bank. A slip of a new moon,
+shrouded in haze, was setting behind the poplar trees. Amid the
+round of despairing thoughts, the memory of the Kid intruded
+itself. He had sold a Ford for five hundred francs, and gone on a
+party with a man who'd stolen an ammunition train, and he wanted
+to write for the Italian movies. No war could down people like
+that. Andrews smiled, looking into the black water. Funny, the Kid
+was dead, probably, and he, John Andrews, was alive and free. And
+he lay there moping, still whimpering over old wrongs. "For God's
+sake be a man!" he said to himself. He got to his feet.
+
+At the cabin door, Rosaline was playing with the parrot.
+
+"Give me a kiss, Coco," she was saying in a drowsy voice, "just a
+little kiss. Just a little kiss for Rosaline, poor little
+Rosaline."
+
+The parrot, which Andrews could hardly see in the dusk, leaned
+towards her, fluttering his feathers, making little clucking
+noises.
+
+Rosaline caught sight of Andrews.
+
+"Oh, I thought you'd gone to have a drink with the old man," she
+cried.
+
+"No. I stayed here."
+
+"D'you like it, this life?"
+
+Rosaline put the parrot back on his perch, where he swayed from
+side to side, squawking in protest: "Les bourgeois a la lanterne,
+nom de dieu!"
+
+They both laughed.
+
+"Oh, it must be a wonderful life. This barge seems like heaven
+after the army."
+
+"But they pay you well, you Americans."
+
+"Seven francs a day."
+
+"That's luxury, that."
+
+"And be ordered around all day long!"
+
+"But you have no expenses.... It's clear gain.... You men are
+funny. The old man's like that too.... It's nice here all by
+ourselves, isn't it, Jean?"
+
+Andrews did not answer. He was wondering what Genevieve Rod would
+say when she found out he was a deserter.
+
+"I hate it.... It's dirty and cold and miserable in winter," went
+on Rosaline. "I'd like to see them at the bottom of the river, all
+these barges.... And Paris women, did you have a good time with
+them?"
+
+"I only knew one. I go very little with women."
+
+"All the same, love's nice, isn't it?"
+
+They were sitting on the rail at the bow of the barge. Rosaline
+had sidled up so that her leg touched Andrews's leg along its
+whole length.
+
+The memory of Genevieve Rod became more and more vivid in his
+mind. He kept thinking of things she had said, of the intonations
+of her voice, of the blundering way she poured tea, and of her
+pale-brown eyes wide open on the world, like the eyes of a woman
+in an encaustic painting from a tomb in the Fayoum.
+
+"Mother's talking to the old woman at the Creamery. They're great
+friends. She won't be home for two hours yet," said Rosaline.
+
+"She's bringing my clothes, isn't she?"
+
+"But you're all right as you are."
+
+"But they're your father's."
+
+"What does that matter?"
+
+"I must go back to Paris soon. There is somebody I must see in
+Paris."
+
+"A woman?"
+
+Andrews nodded.
+
+"But it's not so bad, this life on the barge. I'm just lonesome
+and sick of the old people. That's why I talk nastily about
+it.... We could have good times together if you stayed with us a
+little."
+
+She leaned her head on his shoulder and put a hand awkwardly on
+his bare forearm.
+
+"How cold these Americans are!" she muttered, giggling drowsily.
+
+Andrews felt her hair tickle his cheek.
+
+"No, it's not a bad life on the barge, honestly. The only thing
+is, there's nothing but old people on the river. It isn't life to
+be always with old people.... I want to have a good time."
+
+She pressed her cheek against his. He could feel her breath heavy
+in his face.
+
+"After all, it's lovely in summer to drowse on the deck that's all
+warm with the sun, and see the trees and the fields and the little
+houses slipping by on either side.... If there weren't so many old
+people.... All the boys go away to the cities.... I hate old
+people; they're so dirty and slow. We mustn't waste our youth,
+must we?"
+
+Andrews got to his feet.
+
+"What's the matter?" she cried sharply.
+
+"Rosaline," Andrews said in a low, soft voice, "I can only think
+of going to Paris."
+
+"Oh, the Paris woman," said Rosaline scornfully. "But what does
+that matter? She isn't here now."
+
+"I don't know.... Perhaps I shall never see her again anyway,"
+said Andrews.
+
+"You're a fool. You must amuse yourself when you can in this life.
+And you a deserter.... Why, they may catch you and shoot you any
+time."
+
+"Oh, I know, you're right. You're right. But I'm not made like
+that, that's all."
+
+"She must be very good to you, your little Paris girl."
+
+"I've never touched her."
+
+Rosaline threw her head back and laughed raspingly.
+
+"But you aren't sick, are you?" she cried.
+
+"Probably I remember too vividly, that's all.... Anyway, I'm a
+fool, Rosaline, because you're a nice girl."
+
+There were steps on the plank that led to the shore. A shawl over
+her head and a big bundle under her arm, the old woman came up to
+them, panting wheezily. She looked from one to the other, trying
+to make out their faces in the dark.
+
+"It's a danger...like that...youth," she muttered between hard
+short breaths.
+
+"Did you find the clothes?" asked Andrews in a casual voice.
+
+"Yes. That leaves you forty-five francs out of your money, when
+I've taken out for your food and all that. Does that suit you?"
+
+"Thank you very much for your trouble."
+
+"You paid for it. Don't worry about that," said the old woman. She
+gave him the bundle. "Here are your clothes and the forty-five
+francs. If you want, I'll tell you exactly what each thing cost."
+
+"I'll put them on first," he said, with a laugh.
+
+He climbed down the ladder into the cabin.
+
+Putting on new, unfamiliar-shaped clothes made him suddenly feel
+strong and joyous. The old woman had bought him corduroy trousers,
+cheap cloth shoes, a blue cotton shirt, woollen socks, and a
+second-hand black serge jacket. When he came on deck she held up a
+lantern to look at him.
+
+"Doesn't he look fine, altogether French?" she said.
+
+Rosaline turned away without answering. A little later she picked
+up the perch and carried the parrot, that swayed sleepily on the
+crosspiece, down the ladder.
+
+"Les bourgeois a la lanterne, nom de dieu!" came the old man's
+voice singing on the shore.
+
+"He's drunk as a pig," muttered the old woman. "If only he doesn't
+fall off the gang plank."
+
+A swaying shadow appeared at the end of the plank, standing out
+against the haze of light from the houses behind the poplar trees.
+
+Andrews put out a hand to catch him, as he reached the side of the
+barge. The old man sprawled against the cabin.
+
+"Don't bawl me out, dearie," he said, dangling an arm round
+Andrews's neck, and a hand beckoning vaguely towards his wife.
+
+"I've found a comrade for the little American."
+
+"What's that?" said Andrews sharply. His mouth suddenly went dry
+with terror. He felt his nails pressing into the palms of his
+cold-hands.
+
+"I've found another American for you," said the old man in an
+important voice. "Here he comes." Another shadow appeared at the
+end of the gangplank.
+
+"Les bourgeois a la lanterne, nom de dieu!" shouted the old man.
+
+Andrews backed away cautiously towards the other side of the
+barge. All the little muscles of his thighs were trembling. A hard
+voice was saying in his head: "Drown yourself, drown yourself.
+Then they won't get you."
+
+The man was standing on the end of the plank. Andrews could see
+the contour of the uniform against the haze of light behind the
+poplar trees.
+
+"God, if I only had a pistol," he thought.
+
+"Say, Buddy, where are you?" came an American voice.
+
+The man advanced towards him across the deck.
+
+Andrews stood with every muscle taut.
+
+"Gee! You've taken off your uniform.... Say, I'm not an M.P. I'm
+A.W.O.L. too. Shake." He held out his hand.
+
+Andrews took the hand doubtfully, without moving from the edge of
+the barge.
+
+"Say, Buddy, it's a damn fool thing to take off your uniform.
+Ain't you got any? If they pick you up like that it's life, kid."
+
+"I can't help it. It's done now."
+
+"Gawd, you still think I'm an M.P., don't yer?... I swear I ain't.
+Maybe you are. Gawd, it's hell, this life. A feller can't put his
+trust in nobody."
+
+"What division are you from?"
+
+"Hell, I came to warn you this bastard frawg's got soused an' has
+been blabbin' in the gin mill there how he was an anarchist an'
+all that, an' how he had an American deserter who was an anarchist
+an' all that, an' I said to myself: 'That guy'll git nabbed if he
+ain't careful,' so I cottoned up to the old frawg an' said I'd go
+with him to see the camarade, an' I think we'd better both of us
+make tracks out o' this burg."
+
+"It's damn decent. I'm sorry I was so suspicious. I was scared
+green when I first saw you."
+
+"You were goddam right to be. But why did yous take yer uniform
+off?"
+
+"Come along, let's beat it. I'll tell you about that."
+
+Andrews shook hands with the old man and the old woman. Rosaline
+had disappeared.
+
+"Goodnight...Thank you," he said, and followed the other man
+across the gangplank.
+
+As they walked away along the road they heard the old man's voice
+roaring:
+
+"Les bourgeois a la lanterne, nom de dieu!"
+
+"My name's Eddy Chambers," said the American.
+
+"Mine's John Andrews."
+
+"How long've you been out?"
+
+"Two days."
+
+Eddy let the air out through his teeth in a whistle.
+
+"I got away from a labor battalion in Paris. They'd picked me up
+in Chartres without a pass."
+
+"Gee, I've been out a month an' more. Was you infantry too?"
+
+"Yes. I was in the School Detachment in Paris when I was picked
+up. But I never could get word to them. They just put me to work
+without a trial. Ever been in a labor battalion?"
+
+"No, thank Gawd, they ain't got my number yet."
+
+They were walking fast along a straight road across a plain under
+a clear star-powdered sky.
+
+"I been out eight weeks yesterday. What'd you think o' that?" said
+Eddy.
+
+"Must have had plenty of money to go on."
+
+"I've been flat fifteen days."
+
+"How d'you work it?"
+
+"I dunno. I juss work it though.... Ye see, it was this way. The
+gang I was with went home when I was in hauspital, and the damn
+skunks put me in class A and was goin' to send me to the Army of
+Occupation. Gawd, it made me sick, goin' out to a new outfit where
+I didn't know anybody, an' all the rest of my bunch home walkin'
+down Water Street with brass bands an' reception committees an'
+girls throwing kisses at 'em an' all that. Where are yous goin'?"
+
+"Paris."
+
+"Gee, I wouldn't. Risky."
+
+"But I've got friends there. I can get hold of some money."
+
+"Looks like I hadn't got a friend in the world. I wish I'd gone to
+that goddam outfit now.... I ought to have been in the engineers
+all the time, anyway."
+
+"What did you do at home?"
+
+"Carpenter."
+
+"But gosh, man, with a trade like that you can always make a
+living anywhere."
+
+"You're goddam right, I could, but a guy has to live underground,
+like a rabbit, at this game. If I could git to a country where I
+could walk around like a man, I wouldn't give a damn what
+happened. If the army ever moves out of here an' the goddam
+M.P.'s, I'll set up in business in one of these here little towns.
+I can parlee pretty well. I'd juss as soon marry a French girl an'
+git to be a regular frawg myself. After the raw deal they've given
+me in the army, I don't want to have nothin' more to do with their
+damn country. Democracy!"
+
+He cleared his throat and spat angrily on the road before him.
+They walked on silently. Andrews was looking at the sky, picking
+out constellations he knew among the glittering masses of stars.
+
+"Why don't you try Spain or Italy?" he said after a while.
+
+"Don't know the lingo. No, I'm going to Scotland."
+
+"But how can you get there?"
+
+"Crossing on the car ferries to England from Havre. I've talked to
+guys has done it."
+
+"But what'll you do when you do get there?"
+
+"How should I know? Live around best I can. What can a feller do
+when he don't dare show his face in the street?"
+
+"Anyway, it makes you feel as if you had some guts in you to be
+out on your own this way," cried Andrews boisterously.
+
+"Wait till you've been at it two months, boy, and you'll think
+what I'm tellin' yer.... The army's hell when you're in it; but
+it's a hell of a lot worse when you're out of it, at the wrong
+end."
+
+"It's a great night, anyway," said Andrews.
+
+"Looks like we ought to be findin' a haystack to sleep in."
+
+"It'd be different," burst out Andrews, suddenly, "if I didn't
+have friends here."
+
+"O, you've met up with a girl, have you?" asked Eddy ironically.
+
+"Yes. The thing is we really get along together, besides all the
+rest."
+
+Eddy snorted.
+
+"I bet you ain't ever even kissed her," he said. "Gee, I've had
+buddies has met up with that friendly kind. I know a guy married
+one, an' found out after two weeks."
+
+"It's silly to talk about it. I can't explain it.... It gives you
+confidence in anything to feel there's someone who'll always
+understand anything you do."
+
+"I s'pose you're goin' to git married."
+
+"I don't see why. That would spoil everything."
+
+Eddy whistled softly.
+
+They walked along briskly without speaking for a long time, their
+steps ringing on the hard road, while the dome of the sky
+shimmered above their heads. And from the ditches came the
+singsong shrilling of toads. For the first time in months Andrews
+felt himself bubbling with a spirit of joyous adventure. The
+rhythm of the three green horsemen that was to have been the
+prelude to the Queen of Sheba began rollicking through his head.
+
+"But, Eddy, this is wonderful. It's us against the universe," he
+said in a boisterous voice.
+
+"You wait," said Eddy.
+
+
+
+When Andrews walked by the M.P. at the Gare-St. Lazare, his hands
+were cold with fear. The M.P. did not look at him. He stopped on
+the crowded pavement a little way from the station and stared into
+a mirror in a shop window. Unshaven, with a check cap on the side
+of his head and his corduroy trousers, he looked like a young
+workman who had been out of work for a month.
+
+"Gee, clothes do make a difference," he said to himself. He smiled
+when he thought how shocked Walters would be when he turned up in
+that rig, and started walking with leisurely stride across Paris,
+where everything bustled and jingled with early morning, where
+from every cafe came a hot smell of coffee, and fresh bread
+steamed in the windows of the bakeries. He still had three francs
+in his pocket. On a side street the fumes of coffee roasting
+attracted him into a small bar. Several men were arguing
+boisterously at the end of the bar. One of them turned a ruddy,
+tow-whiskered face to Andrews, and said:
+
+"Et toi, tu vas chomer le premier mai?"
+
+"I'm on strike already," answered Andrews laughing.
+
+The man noticed his accent, looked at him sharply a second, and
+turned back to the conversation, lowering his voice as he did so.
+Andrews drank down his coffee and left the bar, his heart
+pounding. He could not help glancing back over his shoulder now
+and then to see if he was being followed. At a corner he stopped
+with his fists clenched and leaned a second against a house wall.
+
+"Where's your nerve. Where's your nerve?" He was saying to
+himself.
+
+He strode off suddenly, full of bitter determination not to turn
+round again. He tried to occupy his mind with plans. Let's see,
+what should he do? First he'd go to his room and look up old
+Henslowe and Walters. Then he would go to see Genevieve. Then he'd
+work, work, forget everything in his work, until the army should
+go back to America and there should be no more uniforms on the
+streets. And as for the future, what did he care about the future?
+
+When he turned the corner into the familiar street where his room
+was, a thought came to him. Suppose he should find M.P.'s waiting
+for him there? He brushed it aside angrily and strode fast up the
+sidewalk, catching up to a soldier who was slouching along in the
+same direction, with his hands in his pockets and eyes on the
+ground. Andrews stopped suddenly as he was about to pass the
+soldier and turned. The man looked up. It was Chrisfield.
+
+Andrews held out his hand.
+
+Chrisfield seized it eagerly and shook it for a long time.
+"Jesus Christ! Ah thought you was a Frenchman, Andy.... Ah guess
+you got yer dis-charge then. God, Ah'm glad."
+
+"I'm glad I look like a Frenchman, anyway.... Been on leave long,
+Chris?"
+
+Two buttons were off the front of Chrisfield's uniform; there were
+streaks of dirt on his face, and his puttees were clothed with
+mud. He looked Andrews seriously in the eyes, and shook his head.
+
+"No. Ah done flew the coop, Andy," he said in a low voice.
+
+"Since when?"
+
+"Ah been out a couple o' weeks. Ah'll tell you about it, Andy. Ah
+was comin' to see you now. Ah'm broke."
+
+"Well look, I'll be able to get hold of some money tomorrow ....
+I'm out too."
+
+"What d'ye mean?"
+
+"I haven't got a discharge. I'm through with it all. I've
+deserted."
+
+"God damn! That's funny that you an' me should both do it, Andy.
+But why the hell did you do it?"
+
+"Oh, it's too long to tell here. Come up to my. room."
+
+"There may be fellers there. Ever been at the Chink's?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I'm stayin' there. There're other fellers who's A.W. O.L. too.
+The Chink's got a gin mill."
+
+"Where is it."
+
+"Eight, rew day Petee Jardings."
+
+"Where's that?"
+
+"Way back of that garden where the animals are."
+
+"Look, I can find you there tomorrow morning, and I'll bring some
+money."
+
+"Ah'll wait for ye, Andy, at nine. It's a bar. Ye won't be able to
+git in without me, the kids is pretty scared of plainclothes men."
+
+"I think it'll be perfectly safe to come up to my place now."
+
+"Now, Ah'm goin' to git the hell out of here."
+
+"But Chris, why did you go A.W.O.L.?"
+
+"Oh, Ah doan know.... A guy who's in the Paris detachment got yer
+address for me."
+
+"But, Chris, did they say anything to him about me?"
+
+"No, nauthin'."
+
+"That's funny.... Well, Chris, I'll be there tomorrow, if I can
+find the place."
+
+"Man, you've got to be there."
+
+"Oh, I'll turn up," said Andrews with a smile.
+
+They shook hands nervously.
+
+"Say, Andy," said Chrisfield, still holding on to Andrews's hand,
+"Ah went A.W.O.L. 'cause a sergeant...God damn it; it's weighin'
+on ma mind awful these days.... There's a sergeant that knows."
+
+"What you mean?"
+
+"Ah told ye about Anderson...Ah know you ain't tole anybody,
+Andy." Chrisfield dropped Andrews's hand and looked at him in the
+face with an unexpected sideways glance. Then he went on through
+clenched teeth: "Ah swear to Gawd Ah ain't tole another livin'
+soul.... An' the sergeant in Company D knows."
+
+"For God's sake, Chris, don't lose your nerve like that."
+
+"Ah ain't lost ma nerve. Ah tell you that guy knows."
+
+Chrisfield's voice rose, suddenly shrill.
+
+"Look, Chris, we can't stand talking out here in the street like
+this. It isn't safe."
+
+"But mebbe you'll be able to tell me what to do. You think, Andy.
+Mebbe, tomorrow, you'll have thought up somethin' we can do...So
+long."
+
+Chrisfield walked away hurriedly. Andrews looked after him a
+moment, and then went in through the court to the house where his
+room was.
+
+At the foot of the stairs an old woman's voice startled him.
+
+"Mais, Monsieur Andre, que vous avez l'air etrange; how funny you
+look dressed like that."
+
+The concierge was smiling at him from her cubbyhole beside the
+stairs. She sat knitting with a black shawl round her head, a tiny
+old woman with a hooked bird-like nose and eyes sunk in
+depressions full of little wrinkles, like a monkey's eyes.
+
+"Yes, at the town where I was demobilized, I couldn't get anything
+else," stammered Andrews.
+
+"Oh, you're demobilized, are you? That's why you've been away so
+long. Monsieur Valters said he didn't know where you were.... It's
+better that way, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes," said Andrews, starting up the stairs.
+
+"Monsieur Valters is in now," went on the old woman, talking after
+him. "And you've got in just in time for the first of May."
+
+"Oh, yes, the strike," said Andrews, stopping half-way up the
+flight.
+
+"It'll be dreadful," said the old woman. "I hope you won't go out.
+Young folks are so likely to get into trouble...Oh, but all your
+friends have been worried about your being away so long."
+
+"Have they?'" said Andrews. He continued up the stairs.
+
+"Au revoir, Monsieur."
+
+"Au revoir, Madame."
+
+
+
+                              III
+
+"No, nothing can make me go back now. It's no use talking about
+it."
+
+"But you're crazy, man. You're crazy. One man alone can't buck the
+system like that, can he, Henslowe?"
+
+Walters was talking earnestly, leaning across the table beside the
+lamp. Henslowe, who sat very stiff on the edge of a chair, nodded
+with compressed lips. Andrews lay at full length on the bed, out
+of the circle of light.
+
+"Honestly, Andy," said Henslowe with tears in his voice, "I think
+you'd better do what Walters says. It's no use being heroic about
+it."
+
+"I'm not being heroic, Henny," cried Andrews, sitting up on the
+bed. He drew his feet under him, tailor fashion, and went on
+talking very quietly. "Look.. It's a purely personal matter. I've
+got to a point where I don't give a damn what happens to me. I
+don't care if I'm shot, or if I live to be eighty...I'm sick of
+being ordered round. One more order shouted at my head is not
+worth living to be eighty...to me. That's all. For God's sake
+let's talk about something else."
+
+"But how many orders have you had shouted at your head since you
+got in this School Detachment? Not one. You can put through your
+discharge application probably...." Walters got to his feet,
+letting the chair crash to the floor behind him. He stopped to
+pick it up. "Look here; here's my proposition," he went on. "I
+don't think you are marked A.W.O.L. in the School office. Things
+are so damn badly run there. You can turn up and say
+you've been sick and draw your back pay. And nobody'll say a
+thing. Or else I'll put it right up to the guy who's top sergeant.
+He's a good friend of mine. We can fix it up on the records some
+way. But for God's sake don't ruin your whole life on account of a
+little stubbornness, and some damn fool anarchistic ideas or other
+a feller like you ought to have had more sense than to pick
+up...."
+
+"He's right, Andy," said Henslowe in a low voice.
+
+"Please don't talk any more about it. You've told me all that
+before," said Andrews sharply. He threw himself back on the bed
+and rolled over towards the wall.
+
+They were silent a long time. A sound of voices and footsteps
+drifted up from the courtyard.
+
+"But, look here, Andy," said Henslowe nervously stroking his
+moustache. "You care much more about your work than any abstract
+idea of asserting your right of individual liberty. Even if you
+don't get caught.... I think the chances of getting caught are
+mighty slim if you use your head.... But even if you don't, you
+haven't enough money to live for long over here, you haven't...."
+
+"Don't you think I've thought of all that? I'm not crazy, you
+know. I've figured up the balance perfectly sanely. The only thing
+is, you fellows can't understand. Have you ever been in a labor
+battalion? Have you ever had a man you'd been chatting with five
+minutes before deliberately knock you down? Good God, you don't
+know what you are talking about, you two.... I've got to be free,
+now. I don't care at what cost. Being free's the only thing that
+matters."
+
+Andrews lay on his back talking towards the ceiling.
+
+Henslowe was on his feet, striding nervously about the room.
+
+"As if anyone was ever free," he muttered.
+
+"All right, quibble, quibble. You can argue anything away if you
+want to. Of course, cowardice is the best policy, necessary for
+survival. The man who's got most will to live is the most
+cowardly...go on." Andrews's voice was shrill and excited,
+breaking occasionally like a half-grown boy's voice.
+
+"Andy, what on earth's got hold of you?... God, I hate to go away
+this way," added Henslowe after a pause.
+
+"I'll pull through all right, Henny. I'll probably come to see you
+in Syria, disguised as an Arab sheik." Andrews laughed excitedly.
+
+"If I thought I'd do any good, I'd stay.... But there's nothing I
+can do. Everybody's got to settle their own affairs, in their own
+damn fool way. So long, Walters."
+
+Walters and Henslowe shook hands absently.
+
+Henslowe came over to the bed and held out his hand to Andrews.
+
+"Look, old man, you will be as careful as you can, won't you? And
+write me care American Red Cross, Jerusalem. I'll be damned
+anxious, honestly."
+
+"Don't you worry, we'll go travelling together yet," said Andrews,
+sitting up and taking Henslowe's hand.
+
+They heard Henslowe's steps fade down the stairs and then ring for
+a moment on the pavings of the courtyard.
+
+Walters moved his chair over beside Andrews's bed.
+
+"Now, look, let's have a man-to-man talk, Andrews. Even if you
+want to ruin your life, you haven't a right to. There's your
+family, and haven't you any patriotism?... Remember, there is such
+a thing as duty in the world."
+
+Andrews sat up and said in a low, furious voice, pausing between
+each word:
+
+"I can't explain it.... But I shall never put a uniform on
+again.... So for Christ's sake shut up."
+
+"All right, do what you goddam please; I'm through with you."
+
+Walters suddenly flashed into a rage. He began undressing
+silently. Andrews lay a long while flat on his back in the bed,
+staring at the ceiling, then he too undressed, put the light out,
+and got into bed.
+
+
+
+The rue des Petits-Jardins was a short street in a district of
+warehouses. A grey, windowless wall shut out the light along all
+of one side. Opposite was a cluster of three old houses leaning
+together as if the outer ones were trying to support the beetling
+mansard roof of the center house. Behind them rose a huge building
+with rows and rows of black windows. When Andrews stopped to look
+about him, he found the street completely deserted. The ominous
+stillness that had brooded over the city during all the walk from
+his room near the Pantheon seemed here to culminate in sheer
+desolation. In the silence he could hear the light padding noise
+made by the feet of a dog that trotted across the end of the
+street. The house with the mansard roof was number eight. The
+front of the lower storey had once been painted in chocolate-
+color, across the top of which was still decipherable the sign:
+"Charbon, Bois. Lhomond." On the grimed window beside the door,
+was painted in white: "Debit de Boissons."
+
+Andrews pushed on the door, which opened easily. Somewhere in the
+interior a bell jangled, startlingly loud after the silence of the
+street. On the wall opposite the door was a speckled mirror with a
+crack in it, the shape of a star, and under it a bench with three
+marble-top tables. The zinc bar filled up the third wall. In the
+fourth was a glass door pasted up with newspapers. Andrews walked
+over to the bar. The jangling of the bell faded to silence. He
+waited, a curious uneasiness gradually taking possession of him.
+Anyways, he thought, he was wasting his time; he ought to be doing
+something to arrange his future. He walked over to the street door.
+The bell jangled again when he opened it. At the same moment a man
+came out through the door the newspapers were pasted over. He was
+a stout man in a dirty white shirt stained to a brownish color
+round the armpits and caught in very tightly at the waist by the
+broad elastic belt that held up his yellow corduroy trousers. His
+face was flabby, of a greenish color; black eyes looked at Andrews
+fixedly through barely open lids, so that they seemed long slits
+above the cheekbones.
+
+"That's the Chink," thought Andrews.
+
+"Well," said the man, taking his place behind the bar with his
+legs far apart.
+
+"A beer, please," said Andrews.
+
+"There isn't any."
+
+"A glass of wine then."
+
+The man nodded his head, and keeping his eyes fastened on Andrews
+all the while, strode out of the door again.
+
+A moment later, Chrisfield came out, with rumpled hair, yawning,
+rubbing an eye with the knuckles of one fist.
+
+"Lawsie, Ah juss woke up, Andy. Come along in back."
+
+Andrews followed him through a small room with tables and benches,
+down a corridor where the reek of ammonia bit into his eyes, and
+up a staircase littered with dirt and garbage. Chrisfield opened a
+door directly on the stairs, and they stumbled into a large room
+with a window that gave on the court. Chrisfield closed the door
+carefully, and turned to Andrews with a smile.
+
+"Ah was right smart 'askeered ye wouldn't find it, Andy."
+
+"So this is where you live?"
+
+"Um hum, a bunch of us lives here."
+
+A wide bed without coverings, where a man in olive-drab slept
+rolled in a blanket, was the only furniture of the room.
+
+"Three of us sleeps in that bed," said Chrisfield.
+
+"Who's that?" cried the man in the bed, sitting up suddenly.
+
+"All right, Al, he's a buddy o' mine," said Chrisfield. "He's
+taken off his uniform."
+
+"Jesus, you got guts," said the man in the bed.
+
+Andrews looked at him sharply. A piece of towelling, splotched
+here and there with dried blood, was wrapped round his head, and a
+hand, swathed in bandages, was drawn up to his body. The man's
+mouth took on a twisted expression of pain as he let his head
+gradually down to the bed again.
+
+"Gosh, what did you do to yourself?" cried Andrews.
+
+"I tried to hop a freight at Marseilles."
+
+"Needs practice to do that sort o' thing," said Chrisfield, who
+sat on the bed, pulling his shoes off. "Ah'm go-in' to git back to
+bed, Andy. Ah'm juss dead tired. Ah chucked cabbages all night at
+the market. They give ye a job there without askin' no questions."
+
+"Have a cigarette." Andrews sat down on the foot of the bed and
+threw a cigarette towards Chrisfield. "Have one?" he asked Al.
+
+"No. I couldn't smoke. I'm almost crazy with this hand. One of the
+wheels went over it.... I cut what was left of the little finger
+off with a razor." Andrews could see the sweat rolling down his
+cheek as he spoke.
+
+"Christ, that poor beggar's been havin' a time, Andy. We was
+'askeert to get a doctor, and we all didn't know what to do."
+
+"I got some pure alcohol an' washed it in that. It's not infected.
+I guess it'll be all right."
+
+"Where are you from, Al?" asked Andrews.
+
+"'Frisco. Oh, I'm goin' to try to sleep. I haven't slept a wink
+for four nights."
+
+"Why don't you get some dope?"
+
+"Oh, we all ain't had a cent to spare for anythin', Andy."
+
+"Oh, if we had kale we could live like kings--not," said Al in the
+middle of a nervous little giggle.
+
+"Look, Chris," said Andrews, "I'll halve with you. I've got five
+hundred francs."
+
+"Jesus Gawd, man, don't kid about anything like that."
+
+"Here's two hundred and fifty.... It's not so much as it sounds."
+
+Andrews handed him five fifty-franc notes.
+
+"Say, how did you come to bust loose?" said Al, turning his head
+towards Andrews.
+
+"I got away from a labor battalion one night. That's all."
+
+"Tell me about it, buddy. I don't feel my hand so much when I'm
+talking to somebody.... I'd be home now if it wasn't for a gin
+mill in Alsace. Say, don't ye think that big headgear they sport
+up there is awful good looking? Got my goat every time I saw
+one.... I was comin' back from leave at Grenoble, an' I went
+through Strasburg. Some town. My outfit was in Coblenz. That's
+where I met up with Chris here. Anyway, we was raisin' hell round
+Strasburg, an' I went into a gin mill down a flight of steps. Gee,
+everything in that town's plumb picturesque, just like a kid I
+used to know at home whose folks were Eytalian used to talk about
+when he said how he wanted to come overseas. Well, I met up with a
+girl down there, who said she'd just come down to a place like
+that to look for her brother who was in the foreign legion."
+
+Andrews and Chrisfield laughed.
+
+"What you laughin' at?" went on Al in an eager taut voice. "Honest
+to Gawd. I'm goin' to marry her if I ever (fet out of this. She's
+the best little girl I ever met up with. She was waitress in a
+restaurant, an' when she was off duty she used to wear that there
+Alsatian costume.... Hell, I just stayed on. Every day, I thought
+I'd go away the next day.... Anyway, the war was over. I warn't a
+damn bit of use.... Hasn't a fellow got any rights at all? Then
+the M.P.'s started cleanin' up Strasburg after A.W.O.L.'s, an' I
+beat it out of there, an' Christ, it don't look as if I'd ever be
+able to get back."
+
+"Say, Andy," said Chrisfield, suddenly, "let's go down after some
+booze."
+
+"All right."
+
+"Say, Al, do you want me to get you anything at the drug store?"
+
+"No. I won't do anythin' but lay low and bathe it with alcohol now
+and then, against infection. Anyways, it's the first of May.
+You'll be crazy to go out. You might get pulled. They say there's
+riots going on."
+
+"Gosh, I forgot it was the first of May," cried Andrews. "They're
+running a general strike to protest against the war with Russia
+and...."
+
+"A guy told me," interrupted Al, in a shrill voice, "there might
+be a revolution."
+
+"Come along, Andy," said Chris from the door.
+
+On the stairs Andrews felt Chrisfield's hand squeezing his arm
+hard.
+
+"Say, Andy," Chris put his lips close to Andrews's ear and spoke
+in a rasping whisper. "You're the only one that knows...you know
+what. You an' that sergeant. Doan you say anythin' so that the
+guys here kin ketch on, d'ye hear?"
+
+"All right, Chris, I won't, but man alive, you oughtn't to lose
+your nerve about it. You aren't the only one who ever shot an..."
+
+"Shut yer face, d'ye hear?" muttered Chrisfield savagely.
+
+They went down the stairs in silence. In the room next, to the bar
+they found the Chink reading a newspaper.
+
+"Is he French?" whispered Andrews.
+
+"Ah doan know what he is. He ain't a white man, Ah'll wager that,"
+said Chris, "but he's square."
+
+"D'you know anything about what's going on?" asked Andrews in
+French, going up to the Chink.
+
+"Where?" The Chink got up, flashing a glance at Andrews out of the
+corners of his slit-like eyes.
+
+"Outside, in the streets, in Paris, anywhere where people are out
+in the open and can do things. What do you think about the
+revolution?"
+
+The Chink shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Anything's possible," he said.
+
+"D'you think they really can overthrow the army and the government
+in one day, like that?"
+
+"Who?" broke in Chrisfield.
+
+"Why, the people, Chris, the ordinary people like you and me, who
+are tired of being ordered round, who are tired of being trampled
+down by other people just like them, who've had the luck to get in
+right with the system."
+
+"D'you know what I'll do when the revolution comes?" broke in the
+Chink with sudden intensity, slapping himself on the chest with
+one hand. "I'll go straight to one of those jewelry stores, rue
+Royale, and fill my pockets and come home with my hands full of
+diamonds."
+
+"What good'll that do you?"
+
+"What good? I'll bury them back there in the court and wait. I'll
+need them in the end. D'you know what it'll mean, your revolution?
+Another system! When there's a system there are always men to be
+bought with diamonds. That's what the world's like."
+
+"But they won't be worth anything. It'll only be work that is
+worth anything."
+
+"We'll see," said the Chink.
+
+"D'you think it could happen, Andy, that there'd be a revolution,
+an' there wouldn't be any more armies, an' we'd be able to go
+round like we are civilians? Ah doan think so. Fellers like us
+ain't got it in 'em to buck the system, Andy."
+
+"Many a system's gone down before; it will happen again."
+
+"They're fighting the Garde Republicaine now before the Gare de
+l'Est," said the Chink in an expressionless voice. "What do you
+want down here? You'd better stay in the back. You never know what
+the police may put over on us."
+
+"Give us two bottles of vin blank, Chink," said Chrisfield.
+
+"When'll you pay?"
+
+"Right now. This guy's given me fifty francs."
+
+"Rich, are you?" said the Chink with hatred in his voice, turning
+to Andrews. "Won't last long at that rate. Wait here."
+
+He strode into the bar, closing the door carefully after him. A
+sudden jangling of the bell was followed by a sound of loud voices
+and stamping feet. Andrews and Chrisfield tiptoed into the dark
+corridor, where they stood a long time, waiting, breathing the
+foul air that stung their nostrils with the stench of plaster-damp
+and rotting wine. At last the Chink came back with three bottles
+of wine.
+
+"Well, you're right," he said to Andrews. "They are putting up
+barricades on the Avenue Magenta."
+
+On the stairs they met a girl sweeping. She had untidy hair that
+straggled out from under a blue handkerchief tied under her chin,
+and a pretty-colored fleshy face. Chrisfield caught her up to him
+and kissed her, as he passed.
+
+"We all calls her the dawg-faced girl," he said to Andrews in
+explanation. "She does our work. Ah like to had a fight with
+Slippery over her yisterday.... Didn't Ah, Slippery?"
+
+When he followed Chrisfield into the room, Andrews saw a man
+sitting on the window ledge smoking. He was dressed as a second
+lieutenant, his puttees were brilliantly polished, and he smoked
+through a long, amber cigarette-holder. His pink nails were
+carefully manicured.
+
+"This is Slippery, Andy," said Chrisfield. "This guy's an ole
+buddy o' mine. We was bunkies together a hell of a time, wasn't
+we, Andy?"
+
+"You bet we were."
+
+"So you've taken your uniform off, have you? Mighty foolish," said
+Slippery. "Suppose they nab you?"
+
+"It's all up now anyway. I don't intend to get nabbed," said
+Andrews.
+
+"We got booze," said Chrisfield.
+
+Slippery had taken dice from his pocket and was throwing them
+meditatively on the floor between his feet, snapping his fingers
+with each throw.
+
+"I'll shoot you one of them bottles, Chris," he said.
+
+Andrews walked over to the bed. Al was stirring uneasily, his face
+flushed and his mouth twitching.
+
+"Hello," he said. "What's the news?"
+
+"They say they're putting up barricades near the Gare de l'Est. It
+may be something."
+
+"God, I hope so. God, I wish they'd do everything here like they
+did in Russia; then we'd be free. We couldn't go back to the
+States for a while, but there wouldn't be no M.P.'s to hunt us
+like we were criminals.... I'm going to sit up a while and talk."
+Al giggled hysterically for a moment.
+
+"Have a swig of wine?" asked Andrews.
+
+"Sure, it may set me up a bit; thanks." He drank greedily from the
+bottle, spilling a little over his chin.
+
+"Say, is your face badly cut up, Al?"
+
+"No, it's just scotched, skin's off; looks like beefsteak, I
+reckon.... Ever been to Strasburg?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Man, that's the town. And the girls in that costume.... Whee!"
+
+"Say, you're from San Francisco, aren't you?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"Well, I wonder if you knew a fellow I knew at training camp, a
+kid named Fuselli from 'Frisco?"
+
+"Knew him! Jesus, man, he's the best friend I've got.... Ye don't
+know where he is now, do you?"
+
+"I saw him here in Paris two months ago."
+
+"Well, I'll be damned.... God, that's great!" Al's voice was
+staccato from excitement. "So you knew Dan at training camp? The
+last letter from him was 'bout a year ago. Dan'd just got to be
+corporal. He's a damn clever kid, Dan is, an' ambitious too, one
+of the guys always makes good.... Gawd, I'd hate to see him this
+way. D'you know, we used to see a hell of a lot of each other in
+'Frisco, an' he always used to tell me how he'd make good before I
+did. He was goddam right, too. Said I was too soft about girls....
+Did ye know him real well?"
+
+"Yes. I even remember that he used to tell me about a fellow he
+knew who was called Al.... He used to tell me about how you two
+used to go down to the harbor and watch the big liners come in at
+night, all aflare with lights through the Golden Gate. And he used
+to tell you he'd go over to Europe in one, when he'd made his
+pile."
+
+"That's why Strasburg made me think of him," broke in Al,
+tremendously excited. "'Cause it was so picturesque like.... But
+honest, I've tried hard to make good in this army. I've done
+everything a feller could. An' all I did was to get into a cushy
+job in the regimental office.... But Dan, Gawd, he may even be an
+officer by this time."
+
+"No, he's not that," said Andrews. "Look here, you ought to keep
+quiet with that hand of yours."
+
+"Damn my hand. Oh, it'll heal all right if I forget about it. You
+see, my foot slipped when they shunted a car I was just climbing
+into, an'...I guess I ought to be glad I wasn't killed. But, gee,
+when I think that if I hadn't been a fool about that girl I might
+have been home by now...."
+
+"The Chink says they're putting up barricades on the Avenue
+Magenta."
+
+"That means business, kid!"
+
+"Business nothin'," shouted Slippery from where he and Chrisfield
+leaned over the dice on the tile floor in front of the window.
+"One tank an' a few husky Senegalese'll make your goddam
+socialists run so fast they won't stop till they get to Dijon....
+You guys ought to have more sense." Slippery got to his feet and
+came over to the bed, jingling the dice in his hand. "It'll take
+more'n a handful o' socialists paid by the Boches to break the
+army. If it could be broke, don't ye think people would have done
+it long ago?"
+
+"Shut up a minute. Ah thought Ah heard somethin'," said Chrisfield
+suddenly, going to the window.
+
+They held their breath. The bed creaked as Al stirred uneasily in
+it.
+
+"No, warn't anythin'; Ah'd thought Ah'd heard people singin'."
+
+"The Internationale," cried Al.
+
+"Shut up," said Chrisfield in a low gruff voice.
+
+Through the silence of the room they heard steps on the stairs.
+
+"All right, it's only Smiddy," said Slippery, and he threw the
+dice down on the tiles again.
+
+The door opened slowly to let in a tall, stoop-shouldered man with
+a long face and long teeth.
+
+"Who's the frawg?" he asked in a startled way, with one hand on
+the door knob.
+
+"All right, Smiddy; it ain't a frawg; it's a guy Chris knows. He's
+taken his uniform off."
+
+"'Lo, buddy," said Smiddy, shaking Andrews's hand. "Gawd, you look
+like a frawg."
+
+"That's good," said Andrews.
+
+"There's hell to pay," broke out Smiddy breathlessly. "You know
+Gus Evans and the little black-haired guy goes 'round with him?
+They been picked up. I seen 'em myself with some M. P.'s at Place
+de la Bastille. An' a guy I talked to under the bridge where I
+slep' last night said a guy'd tole him they were goin' to clean
+the A. W. O. L.'s out o' Paris if they had to search through every
+house in the place."
+
+"If they come here they'll git somethin' they ain't lookin' for,"
+muttered Chrisfield.
+
+"I'm goin' down to Nice; getting too hot around here," said
+Slippery. "I've got travel orders in my pocket now."
+
+"How did you get "em?"
+
+"Easy as pie," said Slippery, lighting a cigarette and puffing
+affectedly towards the ceiling. "I met up with a guy, a second
+loot, in the Knickerbocker Bar. We gets drunk together, an' goes
+on a party with two girls I know. In the morning I get up bright
+an' early, and now I've got five thousand francs, a leave slip and
+a silver cigarette case, an' Lootenant J. B. Franklin's runnin'
+around sayin' how he was robbed by a Paris whore, or more likely
+keepin' damn quiet about it. That's my system."
+
+"But, gosh darn it, I don't see how you can go around with a guy
+an' drink with him, an' then rob him," cried Al from the bed.
+
+"No different from cleaning a guy up at craps."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"An' suppose that feller knew that I was only a bloody private.
+Don't you think he'd have turned me over to the M. P.'s like
+winkin'?"
+
+"No, I don't think so," said Al. "They're juss like you an me,
+skeered to death they'll get in wrong, but they won't light on a
+feller unless they have to."
+
+"That's a goddam lie," cried Chrisfield. "They like ridin' yer. A
+doughboy's less'n a dawg to 'em. Ah'd shoot anyone of 'em lake
+Ah'd shoot a nigger."
+
+Andrews was watching Chrisfield's face; it suddenly flushed red.
+He was silent abruptly. His eyes met Andrews's eyes with a flash
+of fear.
+
+"They're all sorts of officers, like they're all sorts of us," Al
+was insisting.
+
+"But you damn fools, quit arguing," cried Smiddy. "What the hell
+are we goin' to do? It ain't safe here no more, that's how I look
+at it."
+
+They were silent.
+
+At last Chrisfield said:
+
+"What you goin' to do, Andy?"
+
+"I hardly know. I think I'll go out to St. Germain to see a boy I
+know there who works on a farm to see if it's safe to take a job
+there. I won't stay in Paris. Then there's a girl here I want to
+look up. I must see her." Andrews broke off suddenly, and started
+walking back and forth across the end of the room.
+
+"You'd better be damn careful; they'll probably shoot you if they
+catch you," said Slippery.
+
+Andrews shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Well, I'd rather be shot than go to Leavenworth for twenty years,
+Gawd! I would," cried Al.
+
+"How do you fellers eat here?" asked Slippery.
+
+"We buy stuff an' the dawg-faced girl cooks it for us."
+
+"Got anything for this noon?"
+
+"I'll go see if I can buy some stuff," said Andrews. "It's safer
+for me to go out than for you."
+
+"All right, here's twenty francs," said Slippery, handing Andrews
+a bill with an offhand gesture.
+
+Chrisfield followed Andrews down the stairs. When they reached the
+passage at the foot of the stairs, he put his hand on Andrews's
+shoulder and whispered:
+
+"Say, Andy, d'you think there's anything in that revolution
+business? Ah hadn't never thought they could buck the system
+thataway."
+
+"They did in Russia."
+
+"Then we'd be free, civilians, like we all was before the draft.
+But that ain't possible, Andy; that ain't possible, Andy."
+
+"We'll see," said Andrews, as, he opened the door to the bar.
+
+He went up excitedly to the Chink, who sat behind the row of
+bottles along the bar.
+
+"Well, what's happening?"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"By the Gare de l'Est, where they were putting up barricades?"
+
+"Barricades!" shouted a young man in a red sash who was drinking
+at a table. "Why, they tore down some of the iron guards round the
+trees, if you call that barricades. But they're cowards. Whenever
+the cops charge they run. They're dirty cowards."
+
+"D'you think anything's going to happen?"
+
+"What can happen when you've got nothing but a bunch of dirty
+cowards?"
+
+"What d'you think about it?" said Andrews, turning to the Chink.
+
+The Chink shook his head without answering. Andrews went out.
+
+When he cams back he found Al and Chrisfield alone in their room.
+Chrisfield was walking up and down, biting his finger nails. On
+the wall opposite the window was a square of sunshine reflected
+from the opposite wall of the Court.
+
+"For God's sake beat it, Chris. I'm all right," Al was saying in a
+weak, whining voice, his face twisted up by pain.
+
+"What's the matter?" cried Andrews, putting down a large bundle.
+
+"Slippery's seen a M. P. nosin' around in front of the gin mill."
+
+"Good God!"
+
+"They've beat it.... The trouble is Al's too sick.... Honest to
+gawd, Ah'll stay with you, Al."
+
+"No. If you know somewhere to go, beat it, Chris. I'll stay here
+with Al and talk French to the M. P.'s if they come. We'll fool
+'em somehow." Andrews felt suddenly amused and joyous.
+
+"Honest to gawd, Andy, Ah'd stay if it warn't that that sergeant
+knows," said Chrisfield in a jerky voice.
+
+"Beat it, Chris. There may be no time to waste."
+
+"So long, Andy." Chrisfield slipped out of the door.
+
+"It's funny, Al," said Andrews, sitting on the edge of the bed and
+unwrapping the package of food, "I'm not a damn bit scared any
+more. I think I'm free of the army, Al.... How's your hand?"
+
+"I dunno. Oh, how I wish I was in my old bunk at Coblenz. I warn't
+made for buckin' against the world this way.... If we had old Dan
+with us.... Funny that you know Dan.... He'd have a million ideas
+for gettin' out of this fix. But I'm glad he's not here. He'd bawl
+me out so, for not havin' made good. He's a powerful ambitious
+kid, is Dan."
+
+"But it's not the sort of thing a man can make good in, Al," said
+Andrews slowly. They were silent. There was no sound in the
+courtyard, only very far away the clatter of a patrol of cavalry
+over cobblestones. The sky had become overcast and the room was
+very dark. The mouldy plaster peeling off the walls had streaks of
+green in it. The light from the courtyard had a greenish tinge
+that made their faces look pale and dead, like the faces of men
+that have long been shut up between damp prison walls.
+
+"And Fuselli had a girl named Mabe," said Andrews.
+
+"Oh, she married a guy in the Naval Reserve. They had a grand
+wedding," said Al.
+
+
+
+                             IV
+
+"At last I've got to you!"
+
+John Andrews had caught sight of Genevieve on a bench at the end
+of the garden under an arbor of vines. Her hair flamed bright in a
+splotch of sun as she got to her feet. She held out both hands to
+him.
+
+"How good-looking you are like that," she cried.
+
+He was conscious only of her hands in his hands and of her pale-
+brown eyes and of the bright sun-splotches and the green shadows
+fluttering all about them.
+
+"So you are out of prison," she said, "and demobilized. How
+wonderful! Why didn't you write? I have been very uneasy about
+you. How did you find me here?"
+
+"Your mother said you were here."
+
+"And how do you like it, my Poissac?"
+
+She made a wide gesture with her hand. They stood silent a moment,
+side by side, looking about them. In front of the arbor was a
+parterre of rounded box-bushes edging beds where disorderly roses
+hung in clusters of pink and purple and apricot-color. And beyond
+it a brilliant emerald lawn full of daisies sloped down to an old
+grey house with, at one end, a squat round tower that had an ex-
+tinguisher-shaped roof. Beyond the house were tall, lush-green
+poplars, through which glittered patches of silver-grey river and
+of yellow sand banks. From somewhere came a drowsy scent of mown
+grass.
+
+"How brown you are!" she said again. "I thought I had lost you....
+You might kiss me, Jean."
+
+The muscles of his arms tightened about her shoulders. Her hair
+flamed in his eyes. The wind that rustled through broad grape-
+leaves made a flutter of dancing light and shadow about them.
+
+"How hot you are with the sun!" she said. "I love the smell of the
+sweat of your body. You must have run very hard, coming here."
+
+"Do you remember one night in the spring we walked home from
+Pelleas and Melisande? How I should have liked to have kissed you
+then, like this!" Andrews's voice was strange, hoarse, as if he
+spoke with difficulty.
+
+"There is the chateau tres froid et tres profond," she said with a
+little laugh.
+
+"And your hair. 'Je les tiens dans les doits, je les tiens dans la
+bouche.... Toute ta chevelure, toute ta chevelure, Melisande, est
+tombee de la tour.... D'you remember?"
+
+"How wonderful you are."
+
+They sat side by side on the stone bench without touching each
+other.
+
+"It's silly," burst out Andrews excitedly. "We should have faith
+in our own selves. We can't live a little rag of romance without
+dragging in literature. We are drugged with literature so that we
+can never live at all, of ourselves."
+
+"Jean, how did you come down here? Have you been demobilized
+long?"'
+
+"I walked almost all the way from Paris. You see, I am very
+dirty."
+
+"How wonderful! But I'll be quiet. You must tell me everything
+from the moment you left me in Chartres."
+
+"I'll tell you about Chartres later," said Andrews gruffly. "It
+has been superb, one of the biggest weeks in my life, walking all
+day under the sun, with the road like a white ribbon in the sun
+over the hills and along river banks, where there were yellow
+irises blooming, and through woods full of blackbirds, and with
+the dust in a little white cloud round my feet, and all the time
+walking towards you, walking towards you."
+
+"And la Reine de Saba, how is it coming?"
+
+"I don't know. It's a long time since I thought of it.... You have
+been here long?"
+
+"Hardly a week. But what are you going to do?"
+
+"I have a room overlooking the river in a house owned by a very
+fat woman with a very red face and a tuft of hair on her chin...."
+
+"Madame Boncour."
+
+"Of course. You must know everybody.... It's so small."
+
+"And you're going to stay here a long time?"
+
+"Almost forever, and work, and talk to you; may I use your piano
+now and then?"
+
+"How wonderful!"
+
+Genevieve Rod jumped to her feet. Then she stood looking at him,
+leaning against one of the twisted stems of the vines, so that the
+broad leaves fluttered about her face, A white cloud, bright as
+silver, covered the sun, so that the hairy young leaves and the
+wind-blown grass of the lawn took on a silvery sheen. Two white
+butterflies fluttered for a second about the arbor.
+
+"You must always dress like that," she said after a while.
+
+Andrews laughed.
+
+"A little cleaner, I hope," he said. "But there can't be much
+change. I have no other clothes and ridiculously little money."
+
+"Who cares for money?" cried Genevieve. Andrews fancied he
+detected a slight affectation in her tone, but he drove the idea
+from his mind immediately.
+
+"I wonder if there is a farm round here where I could get work."
+
+"But you couldn't do the work of a farm labourer," cried
+Genevieve, laughing.
+
+"You just watch me."
+
+"It'll spoil your hands for the piano."
+
+"I don't care about that; but all that's later, much later. Before
+anything else I must finish a thing I am working on. There is a
+theme that came to me when I was first in the army, when I was
+washing windows at the training camp."
+
+"How funny you are, Jean! Oh, it's lovely to have you about again.
+But you're awfully solemn today. Perhaps it's because I made you
+kiss me."
+
+"But, Genevieve, it's not in one day that you can unbend a slave's
+back, but with you, in this wonderful place.... Oh, I've never
+seen such sappy richness of vegetation! And think of it, a week's
+walking first across those grey rolling uplands, and then at Blois
+down into the haze of richness of the Loire.... D'you know
+Vendome? I came by a funny little town from Vendome to Blois. You
+see, my feet.... And what wonderful cold baths I've had on the
+sand banks of the Loire.... No, after a while the rhythm of legs
+all being made the same length on drill fields, the hopeless caged
+dullness will be buried deep in me by the gorgeousness of this
+world of yours!"
+
+He got to his feet and crushed a leaf softly between his fingers.
+
+"You see, the little grapes are already forming.... Look up
+there," she said as she brushed the leaves aside just above his
+head. "These grapes here are the earliest; but I must show you my
+domain, and my cousins and the hen yard and everything."
+
+She took his hand and pulled him out of the arbor. They ran like
+children, hand in hand, round the box-bordered paths.
+
+"What I mean is this," he stammered, following her across the
+lawn. "If I could once manage to express all that misery in music,
+I could shove it far down into my memory. I should be free to live
+my own existence, in the midst of this carnival of summer."
+
+At the house she turned to him; "You see the very battered ladies
+over the door," she said. "They are said to be by a pupil of Jean
+Goujon."
+
+"They fit wonderfully in the landscape, don't they? Did I ever
+tell you about the sculptures in the hospital where I was when I
+was wounded?"
+
+"No, but I want you to look at the house now. See, that's the
+tower; all that's left of the old building. I live there, and
+right under the roof there's a haunted room I used to be terribly
+afraid of. I'm still afraid of it.... You see this Henri Quatre
+part of the house was just a fourth of the house as planned. This
+lawn would have been the court. We dug up foundations where the
+roses are. There are all sorts of traditions as to why the house
+was never finished."
+
+"You must tell me them."
+
+"I shall later; but now you must come and meet my aunt and my
+cousins."
+
+"Please, not just now, Genevieve.... I don't feel like talking to
+anyone except you. I have so much to talk to you about."
+
+"But it's nearly lunch time, Jean. We can have all that after
+lunch."
+
+"No, I can't talk to anyone else now. I must go and clean myself
+up a little anyway."
+
+"Just as you like.... But you must come this afternoon and play to
+us. Two or three people are coming to tea.... It would be very
+sweet of you, if you'd play to us, Jean."
+
+"But can't you understand? I can't see you with other people now."
+
+"Just as you like," said Genevieve, flushing, her hand on the iron
+latch of the door.
+
+"Can't I come to see you tomorrow morning? Then I shall feel more
+like meeting people, after talking to you a long while. You see,
+I...." He paused, with his eyes on the ground. Then he burst out
+in a low, passionate voice: "Oh, if I could only get it out of my
+mind...those tramping feet, those voices shouting orders."
+
+His hand trembled when he put it in Genevieve's hand. She looked
+in his eyes calmly with her wide brown eyes.
+
+"How strange you are today, Jean! Anyway, come back early
+tomorrow."
+
+She went in the door. He walked round the house, through the
+carriage gate, and went off with long strides down the road along
+the river that led under linden trees to the village.
+
+Thoughts swarmed teasingly through his head, like wasps about a
+rotting fruit. So at last he had seen Genevieve, and had held her
+in his arms and kissed her. And that was all. His plans for the
+future had never gone beyond that point. He hardly knew what he
+had expected, but in all the sunny days of walking, in all the
+furtive days in Paris, he had thought of nothing else. He would
+see Genevieve and tell her all about himself; he would unroll his
+life like a scroll before her eyes. Together they would piece
+together the future. A sudden terror took possession of him. She
+had failed him. Floods of denial seethed through his mind. It was
+that he had expected so much; he had expected her to understand
+him without explanation, instinctively. He had told her nothing.
+He had not even told her he was a deserter. What was it that had
+kept him from telling her? Puzzle as he would, he could not
+formulate it. Only, far within him, the certainty lay like an icy
+weight: she had failed him. He was alone. What a fool he had been
+to build his whole life on a chance of sympathy? No. It was rather
+this morbid playing at phrases that was at fault. He was like a
+touchy old maid, thinking imaginary results. "Take life at its
+face value," he kept telling himself. They loved each other
+anyway, somehow; it did not matter how. And he was free to work.
+Wasn't that enough?
+
+But how could he wait until tomorrow to see her, to tell her
+everything, to break down all the silly little barriers between
+them, so that they might look directly into each other's lives?
+
+The road turned inland from the river between garden walls at the
+entrance to the village. Through half-open doors Andrews got
+glimpses of neatly-cultivated kitchen-gardens and orchards where
+silver-leaved boughs swayed against the sky. Then the road swerved
+again into the village, crowded into a narrow paved street by the
+white and cream-colored houses with green or grey shutters and
+pale, red-tiled roofs. At the end, stained golden with lichen, the
+mauve-grey tower of the church held up its bells against the sky
+in a belfry of broad pointed arches. In front of the church
+Andrews turned down a little lane towards the river again, to come
+out in a moment on a quay shaded by skinny acacia trees. On the
+corner house, a ramshackle house with roofs and gables projecting
+in all directions, was a sign: "Rendezvous de la Marine." The room
+he stepped into was so low, Andrews had to stoop under the heavy
+brown beams as he crossed it. Stairs went up from a door behind a
+worn billiard table in the corner. Mme. Boncour stood between
+Andrews and the stairs. She was a flabby, elderly woman with round
+eyes and a round, very red face and a curious smirk about the
+lips.
+
+"Monsieur payera un petit peu d'advance, n'est-ce pas, Monsieur?"
+
+"All right," said Andrews, reaching for his pocketbook. "Shall I
+pay you a week in advance?"
+
+The woman smiled broadly.
+
+"Si Monsieur desire.... It's that life is so dear nowadays. Poor
+people like us can barely get along."
+
+"I know that only too well," said Andrews.
+
+"Monsieur est etranger...." began the woman in a wheedling tone,
+when she had received the money.
+
+"Yes. I was only demobilized a short time ago."
+
+"Aha! Monsieur est demobilise. Monsieur remplira la petite feuille
+pour la police, n'est-ce pas?"
+
+The woman brought from behind her back a hand that held a narrow
+printed slip.
+
+"All right. I'll fill it out now," said Andrews, his heart
+thumping.
+
+Without thinking what he was doing, he put the paper on the edge
+of the billiard table and wrote: "John Brown, aged 23. Chicago
+Ill., Etats-Unis. Musician. Holder of passport No. 1,432,286."
+
+"Merci, Monsieur. A bientot, Monsieur. Au revoir, Monsieur."
+
+The woman's singing voice followed him up the rickety stairs to
+his room. It was only when he had closed the door that he
+remembered that he had put down for a passport number his army
+number. "And why did I write John Brown as a name?" he asked
+himself.
+
+"John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
+ But his soul goes marching on.
+ Glory, glory, hallelujah!
+ But his soul goes marching on."
+
+He heard the song so vividly that he thought for an instant
+someone must be standing beside him singing it. He went to the
+window and ran his hand through his hair. Outside the Loire
+rambled in great loops towards the blue distance, silvery reach
+upon silvery reach, with here and there the broad gleam of a sand
+bank. Opposite were poplars and fields patched in various greens
+rising to hills tufted with dense shadowy groves. On the bare
+summit of the highest hill a windmill waved lazy arms against the
+marbled sky.
+
+Gradually John Andrews felt the silvery quiet settle about him. He
+pulled a sausage and a piece of bread out of the pocket of his
+coat, took a long swig of water from the pitcher on his washstand,
+and settled himself at the table before the window in front of a
+pile of ruled sheets of music paper. He nibbled the bread and the
+sausage meditatively for a long while, then wrote "Arbeit und
+Rhythmus" in a large careful hand at the top of the paper. After
+that he looked out of the window without moving, watching the
+plumed clouds sail like huge slow ships against the slate-blue
+sky. Suddenly he scratched out what he had written and scrawled
+above it: "The Body and Soul of John Brown." He got to his feet
+and walked about the room with clenched hands.
+
+"How curious that I should have written that name. How curious
+that I should have written that name!" he said aloud.
+
+He sat down at the table again and forgot everything in the music
+that possessed him.
+
+
+
+The next morning he walked out early along the river, trying to
+occupy himself until it should be time to go to see Genevieve. The
+memory of his first days in the army, spent washing windows at the
+training camp, was very vivid in his mind. He saw himself again
+standing naked in the middle of a wide, bare room, while the
+recruiting sergeant measured and prodded him. And now he was a
+deserter. Was there any sense to it all? Had his life led in any
+particular direction, since he had been caught haphazard in the
+treadmill, or was it all chance? A toad hopping across a road in
+front of a steam roller.
+
+He stood still, and looked about him. Beyond a clover field was
+the river with its sand banks and its broad silver reaches. A boy
+was wading far out in the river catching minnows with a net.
+Andrews watched his quick movements as he jerked the net through
+the water. And that boy, too, would be a soldier; the lithe body
+would be thrown into a mould to be made the same as other bodies,
+the quick movements would be standardized into the manual at arms,
+the inquisitive, petulant mind would be battered into servility.
+The stockade was built; not one of the sheep would escape. And
+those that were not sheep? They were deserters; every rifle muzzle
+held death for them; they would not live long. And yet other
+nightmares had been thrown off the shoulders of men. Every man who
+stood up courageously to die loosened the grip of the nightmare.
+
+Andrews walked slowly along the road, kicking his feet into the
+dust like a schoolboy. At a turning he threw himself down on the
+grass under some locust trees. The heavy fragrance of their
+flowers and the grumbling of the bees that hung drunkenly on the
+white racemes made him feel very drowsy. A cart passed, pulled by
+heavy white horses; an old man with his back curved like the top
+of a sunflower stalk hobbled after, using the whip as a walking
+stick. Andrews saw the old man's eyes turned on him suspiciously.
+A faint pang of fright went through him; did the old man know he
+was a deserter? The cart and the old man had already disappeared
+round the bend in the road. Andrews lay a long while listening to
+the jingle of the harness thin into the distance, leaving him
+again to the sound of the drowsy bees among the locust blossoms.
+
+When he sat up, he noticed that through a break in the hedge
+beyond the slender black trunks of the locusts, he could see
+rising above the trees the extinguisher-shaped roof of the tower
+of Genevieve Rod's house. He remembered the day he had first seen
+Genevieve, and the boyish awkwardness with which she poured tea.
+Would he and Genevieve ever find a moment of real contact? All at
+once a bitter thought came to him. "Or is it that she wants a tame
+pianist as an ornament to a clever young woman's drawing room?" He
+jumped to his feet and started walking fast towards the town
+again. He would go to see her at once and settle all that forever.
+The village clock had begun to strike; the clear notes vibrated
+crisply across the fields: ten.
+
+Walking back to the village he began to think of money. His room
+was twenty francs a week. He had in his purse a hundred and
+twenty-four francs. After fishing in all his pockets for silver,
+he found three francs and a half more. A hundred and twenty-seven
+francs fifty. If he could live on forty francs a week, he would
+have three weeks in which to work on the "Body and Soul of John
+Brown." Only three weeks; and then he must find work. In any case
+he would write Henslowe to send him money if he had any; this was
+no time for delicacy; everything depended on his having money. And
+he swore to himself that he would work for three weeks, that he
+would throw the idea that flamed within him into shape on paper,
+whatever happened. He racked his brains to think of someone in
+America he could write to for money, A ghastly sense of solitude
+possessed him. And would Genevieve fail him too?
+
+Genevieve was coming out by the front door of the house when he
+reached the carriage gate beside the road.
+
+She ran to meet him.
+
+"Good morning. I was on my way to fetch you."
+
+She seized his hand and pressed it hard.
+
+"How sweet of you!"
+
+"But, Jean, you're not coming from the village."
+
+"I've been walking."
+
+"How early you must get up!"
+
+"You see, the sun rises just opposite my window, and shines in on
+my bed. That makes me get up early."
+
+She pushed him in the door ahead of her. They went through the
+hall to a long high room that had a grand piano and many old high-
+backed chairs, and in front of the French windows that opened on
+the garden, a round table of black mahogany littered with books.
+Two tall girls in muslin dresses stood beside the piano.
+
+"These are my cousins.... Here he is at last. Monsieur Andrews, ma
+cousine Berthe et ma cousine Jeanne. Now you've got to play to us;
+we are bored to death with everything we know."
+
+"All right.... But I have a great deal to talk to you about
+later," said Andrews in a low voice.
+
+Genevieve nodded understandingly.
+
+"Why don't you play us La Reine de Saba, Jean?"
+
+"Oh, do play that," twittered the cousins.
+
+"If you don't mind, I'd rather play some Bach."
+
+"There's a lot of Bach in that chest in the corner," cried
+Genevieve. "It's ridiculous; everything in the house is jammed
+with music."
+
+They leaned over the chest together, so that Andrews felt her hair
+brush against his cheek, and the smell of her hair in his
+nostrils. The cousins remained by the piano.
+
+"I must talk to you alone soon," whispered Andrews.
+
+"All right," she said, her face reddening as she leaned over the
+chest.
+
+On top of the music was a revolver.
+
+"Look out, it's loaded," she said, when he picked it up.
+
+He looked at her inquiringly. "I have another in my room. You see
+Mother and I are often alone here, and then, I like firearms.
+Don't you?"
+
+"I hate them," muttered Andrews.
+
+"Here's tons of Bach."
+
+"Fine.... Look, Genevieve," he said suddenly, "lend me that
+revolver for a few days. I'll tell you why I want it later."
+
+"Certainly. Be careful, because it's loaded," she said in an
+offhand manner, walking over to the piano with two volumes under
+each arm. Andrews closed the chest and followed her, suddenly
+bubbling with gaiety. He opened a volume haphazard.
+
+"To a friend to dissuade him from starting on a journey," he read.
+"Oh, I used to know that."
+
+He began to play, putting boisterous vigor into the tunes. In a
+pianissimo passage he heard one cousin whisper to the other:
+"Qu'il a l'air interessant."
+
+"Farouche, n'est-ce pas? Genre revolutionnaire," answered the
+other cousin, tittering. Then he noticed that Mme. Rod was smiling
+at him. He got to his feet.
+
+"Mais ne vous derangez pas," she said.
+
+A man with white flannel trousers and tennis shoes and a man in
+black with a pointed grey beard and amused grey eyes had come into
+the room, followed by a stout woman in hat and veil, with long
+white cotton gloves on her arms. Introductions were made.
+Andrews's spirits began to ebb. All these people were making
+strong the barrier between him and Genevieve. Whenever he looked
+at her, some well-dressed person stepped in front of her with a
+gesture of politeness. He felt caught in a ring of well-dressed
+conventions that danced about him with grotesque gestures of
+politeness. All through lunch he had a crazy desire to jump to his
+feet and shout: "Look at me; I'm a deserter. I'm under the wheels
+of your system. If your system doesn't succeed in killing me, it
+will be that much weaker, it will have less strength to kill
+others." There was talk about his demobilization, and his music,
+and the Schola Cantorum. He felt he was being exhibited. "But they
+don't know what they're exhibiting," he said to himself with a
+certain bitter joy.
+
+After lunch they went out into the grape arbor, where coffee was
+brought. Andrews sat silent, not listening to the talk, which was
+about Empire furniture and the new taxes, staring up into the
+broad sun-splotched leaves of the grape vines, remembering how the
+sun and shade had danced about Genevieve's hair when they had been
+in the arbor alone the day before, turning it all to red flame.
+Today she sat in shadow, and her hair was rusty and dull. Time
+dragged by very slowly.
+
+At last Genevieve got to her feet.
+
+"You haven't seen my boat," she said to Andrews. "Let's go for a
+row. I'll row you about."
+
+Andrews jumped up eagerly.
+
+"Make her be careful, Monsieur Andrews, she's dreadfully
+imprudent,'" said Madame Rod.
+
+"You were bored to death," said Genevieve, as they walked out on
+the road.
+
+"No, but those people all seemed to be building new walls between
+you and me. God knows there are enough already."
+
+She looked him sharply in the eyes a second, but said nothing.
+
+They walked slowly through the sand of the river edge, till they
+came to an old flat-bottomed boat painted green with an orange
+stripe, drawn up among the reeds.
+
+"It will probably sink; can you swim?" she asked, laughing.
+
+Andrews smiled, and said in a stiff voice:
+
+"I can swim. It was by swimming that I got out of the army."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"When I deserted."
+
+"When you deserted?"
+
+Genevieve leaned over to pull on the boat. Their heads almost
+touching, they pulled the boat down to the water's edge, then
+pushed it half out on to the river.
+
+"And if you are caught?"
+
+"They might shoot me; I don't know. Still, as the war is over, it
+would probably be life imprisonment, or at least twenty years."
+
+"You can speak of it as coolly as that?"
+
+"It is no new idea to my mind."
+
+"What induced you to do such a thing?"
+
+"I was not willing to submit any longer to the treadmill."
+
+"Come let's go out on the river."
+
+Genevieve stepped into the boat and caught up the oars.
+
+"Now push her off, and don't fall in," she cried.
+
+The boat glided out into the water. Genevieve began pulling on the
+oars slowly and regularly. Andrews looked at her without speaking.
+
+"When you're tired, I'll row," he said after a while.
+
+Behind them the village, patched white and buff-color and russet
+and pale red with stucco walls and steep, tiled roofs, rose in an
+irregular pyramid to the church. Through the wide pointed arches
+of the belfry they could see the bells hanging against the sky.
+Below in the river the town was reflected complete, with a great
+rift of steely blue across it where the wind ruffled the water.
+The oars creaked rhythmically as Genevieve pulled on them.
+
+"Remember, when you are tired," said Andrews again after a long
+pause.
+
+Genevieve spoke through clenched teeth:
+
+"Of course, you have no patriotism."
+
+"As you mean it, none."
+
+They rounded the edge of a sand bank where the current ran hard.
+Andrews put his hands beside her hands on the oars, and pushed
+with her. The bow of the boat grounded in some reeds under
+willows.
+
+"We'll stay here," she said, pulling in the oars that flashed in
+the sun as she jerked them, dripping silver, out of the water.
+
+She clasped her hands round her knees and leaned over towards him.
+
+"So that is why you want my revolver.... Tell me all about it,
+from Chartres," she said, in a choked voice.
+
+"You see, I was arrested at Chartres and sent to a labor
+battalion, the equivalent for your army prison, without being able
+to get word to my commanding officer in the School Detachment...."
+He paused.
+
+A bird was singing in the willow tree. The sun was under a cloud;
+beyond the long pale green leaves that fluttered ever so slightly
+in the wind, the sky was full of silvery and cream-colored clouds,
+with here and there a patch the color of a robin's egg. Andrews
+began laughing softly.
+
+"But, Genevieve, how silly those words are, those pompous,
+efficient words: detachment, battalion, commanding officer. It
+would have all happened anyway. Things reached the breaking point;
+that was all. I could not submit any longer to the discipline....
+Oh, those long Roman words, what millstones they are about men's
+necks! That was silly, too; I was quite willing to help in the
+killing of Germans, I had no quarrel with, out of curiosity or
+cowardice.... You see, it has taken me so long to find out how the
+world is. There was no one to show me the way."
+
+He paused as if expecting her to speak. The bird in the willow
+tree was still singing.
+
+Suddenly a dangling twig blew aside a little so that Andrews could
+see him--a small grey bird, his throat all puffed out with song.
+
+"It seems to me," he said very softly, "that human society has
+been always that, and perhaps will be always that: organizations
+growing and stifling individuals, and individuals revolting
+hopelessly against them, and at last forming new societies to
+crush the old societies and becoming slaves again in their
+turn...."
+
+"I thought you were a socialist," broke in Genevieve sharply, in a
+voice that hurt him to the quick, he did not know why.
+
+"A man told me at the labor battalion," began Andrews again, "that
+they'd tortured a friend of his there once by making him swallow
+lighted cigarettes; well, every order shouted at me, every new
+humiliation before the authorities, was as great an agony to me.
+Can't you understand?" His voice rose suddenly to a tone of
+entreaty.
+
+She nodded her head. They were silent. The willow leaves shivered
+in a little wind. The bird had gone.
+
+"But tell me about the swimming part of it. That sounds exciting."
+
+"We were working unloading cement at Passy--cement to build the
+stadium the army is presenting to the French, built by slave
+labor, like the pyramids."
+
+"Passy's where Balzac lived. Have you ever seen his house there?"
+
+"There was a boy working with me, the Kid, 'le gosse,' it'd be in
+French. Without him, I should never have done it. I was completely
+crushed.... I suppose that he was drowned.... Anyway, we swam
+under water as far as we could, and, as it was nearly dark, I
+managed to get on a barge, where a funny anarchist family took
+care of me. I've never heard of the Kid since. Then I bought these
+clothes that amuse you so, Genevieve, and came back to Paris to
+find you, mainly."
+
+"I mean as much to you as that?" whispered Genevieve.
+
+"In Paris, too. I tried to find a boy named Marcel, who worked on
+a farm near St. Germain. I met him out there one day. I found he'd
+gone to sea.... If it had not been that I had to see you, I should
+have gone straight to Bordeaux or Marseilles. They aren't too
+particular who they take as a seaman now."
+
+"But in the army didn't you have enough of that dreadful life,
+always thrown among uneducated people, always in dirty, foul-
+smelling surroundings, you, a sensitive person, an artist? No
+wonder you are almost crazy after years of that." Genevieve spoke
+passionately, with her eyes fixed on his face.
+
+"Oh, it wasn't that," said Andrews with despair in his voice. "I
+rather like the people you call low. Anyway, the differences
+between people are so slight...." His sentence trailed away. He
+stopped speaking, sat stirring uneasily on the seat, afraid he
+would cry out. He noticed the hard shape of the revolver against
+his leg.
+
+"But isn't there something you can do about it? You must have
+friends," burst out Genevieve. "You were treated with horrible
+injustice. You can get yourself reinstated and properly
+demobilised. They'll see you are a person of intelligence. They
+can't treat you as they would anybody."
+
+"I must be, as you say, a little mad, Genevieve," said Andrews.
+
+"But now that I, by pure accident, have made a gesture, feeble as
+it is, towards human freedom, I can't feel that.... Oh, I suppose
+I'm a fool.... But there you have me, just as I am, Genevieve."
+
+He sat with his head drooping over his chest, his two hands
+clasping the gunwales of the boat. After a long while Genevieve
+said in a dry little voice:
+
+"Well, we must go back now; it's time for tea."
+
+Andrews looked up. There was a dragon fly poised on the top of a
+reed, with silver wings and a long crimson body.
+
+"Look just behind you, Genevieve."
+
+"Oh, a dragon fly! What people was it that made them the symbol of
+life? It wasn't the Egyptians. O, I've forgotten."
+
+"I'll row," said Andrews.
+
+The boat was hurried along by the current. In a very few minutes
+they had pulled it up on the bank in front of the Rods' house.
+
+"Come and have some tea," said Genevieve.
+
+"No, I must work."
+
+"You are doing something new, aren't you?"
+
+Andrews nodded.
+
+"What's its name?"
+
+"The Soul and Body of John Brown."
+
+"Who's John Brown?"
+
+"He was a madman who wanted to free people. There's a song about
+him."
+
+"It is based on popular themes?"
+
+"Not that I know of.... I only thought of the name yesterday. It
+came to me by a very curious accident."
+
+"You'll come tomorrow?"
+
+"If you're not too busy."
+
+"Let's see, the Boileaus are coming to lunch. There won't be
+anybody at tea time. We can have tea together alone."
+
+He took her hand and held it, awkward as a child with a new
+playmate.
+
+"All right, at about four. If there's nobody there, we'll play
+music," he said.
+
+She pulled her hand from him hurriedly, made a curious formal
+gesture of farewell, and crossed the road to the gate without
+looking back. There was one idea in his head, to get to his room
+and lock the door and throw himself face down on the bed. The idea
+amused some distant part of his mind. That had been what he had
+always done when, as a child, the world had seemed too much for
+him. He would run upstairs and lock the door and throw
+himself face downward on the bed. "I wonder if I shall cry?" he
+thought.
+
+Madame Boncour was coming down the stairs as he went up. He backed
+down and waited. When she got to the bottom, pouting a little, she
+said:
+
+"So you are a friend of Mme. Rod, Monsieur?"
+
+"How did you know that?"
+
+A dimple appeared near her mouth in either cheek.
+
+"You know, in the country, one knows everything," she said.
+
+"Au revoir," he said, starting up the stairs.
+
+"Mais, Monsieur. You should have told me. If I had known I should
+not have asked you to pay in advance. Oh, never. You must pardon
+me, Monsieur."
+
+"All right."
+
+"Monsieur est Americain? You see I know a lot." Her puffy cheeks
+shook when she giggled. "And Monsieur has known Mme. Rod et Mlle.
+Rod a long time. An old friend. Monsieur is a musician."
+
+"Yes. Bon soir." Andrews ran up the stairs.
+
+"Au revoir, Monsieur." Her chanting voice followed him up the
+stairs.
+
+He slammed the door behind him and threw himself on the bed.
+
+When Andrews awoke next morning, his first thought was how long he
+had to wait that day to see Genevieve. Then he remembered their
+talk of the day before. Was it worth while going to see her at
+all, he asked himself. And very gradually he felt cold despair
+taking hold of him. He felt for a moment that he was the only
+living thing in a world of dead machines; the toad hopping across
+the road in front of a steam roller. Suddenly he thought of
+Jeanne. He remembered her grimy, overworked fingers lying in her
+lap. He pictured her walking up and down in front of the Cafe de
+Rohan one Wednesday night, waiting for him. In the place of
+Genevieve, what would Jeanne have done? Yet people were always
+alone, really; however much they loved each other, there could be
+no real union. Those who rode in the great car could never feel as
+the others felt; the toads hopping across the road. He felt no
+rancour against Genevieve.
+
+These thoughts slipped from him while he was drinking the coffee
+and eating the dry bread that made his breakfast; and afterwards,
+walking back and forth along the river bank, he felt his mind and
+body becoming as if fluid, and supple, trembling, bent in the rush
+of his music like a poplar tree bent in a wind. He sharpened a
+pencil and went up to his room again.
+
+The sky was cloudless that day. As he sat at his table the square
+of blue through the window and the hills topped by their windmill
+and the silver-blue of the river, were constantly in his eyes.
+Sometimes he wrote notes down fast, thinking nothing, feeling
+nothing, seeing nothing; other times he sat for long periods
+staring at the sky and at the windmill vaguely happy, playing with
+unexpected thoughts that came and vanished, as now and then a moth
+fluttered in the window to blunder about the ceiling beams, and,
+at last, to disappear without his knowing how.
+
+When the clock struck twelve, he found he was very hungry. For two
+days he had eaten nothing but bread, sausage and cheese. Finding
+Madame Boncour behind the bar downstairs, polishing glasses, he
+ordered dinner of her. She brought him a stew and a bottle of wine
+at once, and stood over him watching him eat it, her arms akimbo
+and the dimples showing in her huge red cheeks.
+
+"Monsieur eats less than any young man I ever saw," she said.
+
+"I'm working hard," said Andrews, flushing.
+
+"But when you work you have to eat a great deal, a great deal."
+
+"And if the money is short?" asked Andrews with a smile.
+
+Something in the steely searching look that passed over her eyes
+for a minute startled him.
+
+"There are not many people here now, Monsieur, but you should see
+it on a market day.... Monsieur will take some dessert?"
+
+"Cheese and coffee."
+
+"Nothing more? It's the season of strawberries."
+
+"Nothing more, thank you."
+
+When Madame Boncour came back with the cheese, she said:
+
+"I had Americans here once, Monsieur. A pretty time I had with
+them, too. They were deserters. They went away without paying,
+with the gendarmes after them I hope they were caught and sent to
+the front, those good-for-nothings."
+
+"There are all sorts of Americans," said Andrews in a low voice.
+He was angry with himself because his heart beat so.
+
+"Well, I'm going for a little walk. Au revoir, Madame."
+
+"Monsieur is going for a little walk. Amusez-vous bien, Monsieur.
+Au revoir, Monsieur," Madame Boncour's singsong tones followed him
+out.
+
+A little before four Andrews knocked at the front door of the
+Rods' house. He could hear Santo, the little black and tan,
+barking inside. Madame Rod opened the door for him herself.
+
+"Oh, here you are," she said. "Come and have some tea. Did the
+work go well to-day?"
+
+"And Genevieve?" stammered Andrews.
+
+"She went out motoring with some friends. She left a note for you.
+It's on the tea-table."
+
+He found himself talking, making questions and answers, drinking
+tea, putting cakes into his mouth, all through a white dead mist.
+Genevieve's note said:
+
+"Jean:--I'm thinking of ways and means. You must get away to a
+neutral country. Why couldn't you have talked it over with me
+first, before cutting off every chance of going back. I'll be in
+tomorrow at the same time.
+
+"Bien a vous.
+                                                 G. R."
+
+"Would it disturb you if I played the piano a few minutes, Madame
+Rod?" Andrews found himself asking all at once.
+
+"No, go ahead. We'll come in later and listen to you."
+
+It was only as he left the room that he realized he had been
+talking to the two cousins as well as to Madame Rod.
+
+At the piano he forgot everything and regained his mood of vague
+joyousness. He found paper and a pencil in his pocket, and played
+the theme that had come to him while he had been washing windows
+at the top: of a step-ladder at training camp arranging it,
+modelling it, forgetting everything, absorbed in his rhythms and
+cadences. When he stopped work it was nearly dark. Genevieve Rod,
+a veil round her head, stood in the French window that led to the
+garden.
+
+"I heard you," she said. "Go on."
+
+"I'm through. How was your motor ride?"
+
+"I loved it. It's not often I get a chance to go motoring."
+
+"Nor is it often I get a chance to talk to you alone," cried
+Andrews bitterly.
+
+"You seem to feel you have rights of ownership over me. I resent
+it. No one has rights over me." She spoke as if it were not the
+first time she had thought of the phrase.
+
+He walked over and leaned against the window beside her.
+
+"Has it made such a difference to you, Genevieve, finding out that
+I am a deserter?"
+
+"No, of course not," she said hastily.
+
+"I think it has, Genevieve.... What do you want me to do? Do you
+think I should give myself up? A man I knew in Paris has given
+himself up, but he hadn't taken his uniform off. It seems that
+makes a difference. He was a nice fellow. His name was Al, he was
+from San Francisco. He had nerve, for he amputated his own little
+finger when his hand was crushed by a freight car."
+
+"Oh, no, no. Oh, this is so frightful. And you would have been a
+great composer. I feel sure of it."
+
+"Why, would have been? The stuff I'm doing now's better than any
+of the dribbling things I've done before, I know that."
+
+"Oh, yes, but you'll need to study, to get yourself known."
+
+"If I can pull through six months, I'm safe. The army will have
+gone. I don't believe they extradite deserters."
+
+"Yes, but the shame of it, the danger of being found out all the
+time."
+
+"I am ashamed of many things in my life, Genevieve. I'm rather
+proud of this."
+
+"But can't you understand that other people haven't your notions
+of individual liberty?"
+
+"I must go, Genevieve."
+
+"You must come in again soon."
+
+"One of these days."
+
+And he was out in the road in the windy twilight, with his music
+papers crumpled in his hand. The sky was full of tempestuous
+purple clouds; between them were spaces of clear claret-colored
+light, and here and there a gleam of opal. There were a few drops
+of rain in the wind that rustled the broad leaves of the lindens
+and filled the wheat fields with waves like the sea, and made the
+river very dark between rosy sand banks. It began to rain. Andrews
+hurried home so as not to drench his only suit. Once in his room
+he lit four candles and placed them at the corners of his table. A
+little cold crimson light still filtered in through the rain from
+the afterglow, giving the candles a ghostly glimmer. Then he lay
+on his bed, and staring up at the flickering light on the ceiling,
+tried to think.
+
+"Well, you're alone now, John Andrews," he said aloud, after a
+half-hour, and jumped jauntily to his feet. He stretched himself
+and yawned. Outside the rain pattered loudly and steadily. "Let's
+have a general accounting," he said to himself. "It'll be easily a
+month before I hear from old Howe in America, and longer before I
+hear from Henslowe, and already I've spent twenty francs on food.
+Can't make it this way. Then, in real possessions, I have one
+volume of Villon, a green book on counterpoint, a map of France
+torn in two, and a moderately well-stocked mind."
+
+He put the two books on the middle of the table before him, on top
+of his disorderly bundle of music papers and notebooks. Then he
+went on, piling his possessions there as he thought of them. Three
+pencils, a fountain pen. Automatically he reached for his watch,
+but he remembered he'd given it to Al to pawn in case he didn't
+decide to give himself up, and needed money. A toothbrush. A
+shaving set. A piece of soap. A hairbrush and a broken comb.
+Anything else? He groped in the musette that hung on the foot of
+the bed. A box of matches. A knife with one blade missing, and a
+mashed cigarette. Amusement growing on him every minute, he
+contemplated the pile. Then, in the drawer, he remembered, was a
+clean shirt and two pairs of soiled socks. And that was all,
+absolutely all. Nothing saleable there. Except Genevieve's
+revolver. He pulled it out of his pocket. The candlelight flashed
+on the bright nickel. No, he might need that; it was too valuable
+to sell. He pointed it towards himself. Under the chin was said to
+be the best place. He wondered if he would pull the trigger when
+the barrel was pressed against his chin. No, when his money gave
+out he'd sell the revolver. An expensive death for a starving man.
+He sat on the edge of the bed and laughed.
+
+Then he discovered he was very hungry. Two meals in one day;
+shocking! He said to himself. Whistling joyfully, like a
+schoolboy, he strode down the rickety stairs to order a meal of
+Madame Boncour.
+
+It was with a strange start that he noticed that the tune he was
+whistling was:
+
+"John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
+ But his soul goes marching on."
+
+
+
+The lindens were in bloom. From a tree beside the house great
+gusts of fragrance, heavy as incense, came in through the open
+window. Andrews lay across the table with his eyes closed and his
+cheek in a mass of ruled papers. He was very tired. The first
+movement of the "Soul and Body of John Brown" was down on paper.
+The village clock struck two. He got to his feet and stood a
+moment looking absently out of the window. It was a sultry
+afternoon of swollen clouds that hung low over the river. The
+windmill on the hilltop opposite was motionless. He seemed to hear
+Genevieve's voice the last time he had seen her, so long ago. "You
+would have been a great composer." He walked over to the table and
+turned over some sheets without looking at them. "Would have
+been!" He shrugged his shoulders. So you couldn't be a great
+composer and a deserter too in the year 1919. Probably Genevieve
+was right. But he must have something to eat.
+
+"But how late it is," expostulated Madame Boncour, when he asked
+for lunch.
+
+"I know it's very late. I have just finished a third of the work
+I'm doing.
+
+"And do you get paid a great deal, when that is finished?" asked
+Madame Boncour, the dimples appearing in her broad cheeks.
+
+"Some day, perhaps."
+
+"You will be lonely now that the Rods have left."
+
+"Have they left?"
+
+"Didn't  you  know?  Didn't you go to say goodby? They've gone to
+the seashore.... But I'll make you a little omelette."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+When Madame Boncour cams back with the omelette and fried
+potatoes, she said to him in a mysterious voice:
+
+"You didn't go to see the Rods as often these last weeks."
+
+"No."
+
+Madame Boncour stood staring at him, with her red arms folded
+round her breasts, shaking her head.
+
+When he got up to go upstairs again, she suddenly shouted:
+
+"And when are you going to pay me? It's two weeks since you have
+paid me."
+
+"But, Madame Boncour, I told you I had no money. If you wait a day
+or two, I'm sure to get some in the mail. It can't be more than a
+day or two."
+
+"I've heard that story before."
+
+"I've even tried to get work at several farms round here."
+
+Madame Boncour threw back her head and laughed, showing the
+blackened teeth of her lower jaw.
+
+"Look here," she said at length, "after this week, it's finished.
+You either pay me, or...And I sleep very lightly, Monsieur."
+Her voice took on suddenly its usual sleek singsong tone.
+
+Andrews broke away and ran upstairs to his room.
+
+"I must fly the coop tonight," he said to himself. But suppose
+then letters came with money the next day. He writhed in
+indecision all the afternoon.
+
+That evening he took a long walk. In passing the Rods' house he
+saw that the shutters were closed. It gave him a sort of relief to
+know that Genevieve no longer lived near him. His solitude was
+complete, now.
+
+And why, instead of writing music that would have been worth while
+if he hadn't been a deserter, he kept asking himself, hadn't he
+tried long ago to act, to make a gesture, however feeble, however
+forlorn, for other people's freedom? Half by accident he had
+managed to free himself from the treadmill. Couldn't he have
+helped others? If he only had his life to live over again. No; he
+had not lived up to the name of John Brown.
+
+It was dark when he got back to the village. He had decided to
+wait one more day.
+
+The next morning he started working on the second movement. The
+lack of a piano made it very difficult to get ahead, yet he said
+to himself that he should put down what he could, as it would be
+long before he found leisure again.
+
+One night he had blown out his candle and stood at the window
+watching the glint of the moon on the river. He heard a soft heavy
+step on the landing outside his room. A floorboard creaked, and
+the key turned in the lock. The step was heard again on the
+stairs. John Andrews laughed aloud. The window was only twenty
+feet from the ground, and there was a trellis. He got into bed
+contentedly. He must sleep well, for tomorrow night he would slip
+out of the window and make for Bordeaux.
+
+Another morning. A brisk wind blew, fluttering Andrews's papers as
+he worked. Outside the river was streaked blue and silver and
+slate-colored. The windmill's arms waved fast against the piled
+clouds. The scent of the lindens came only intermittently on the
+sharp wind. In spite of himself, the tune of "John Brown's Body"
+had crept in among his ideas. Andrews sat with a pencil at his
+lips, whistling softly, while in the back of his mind a vast
+chorus seemed singing:
+
+"John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
+ But his soul goes marching on.
+ Glory, glory, hallelujah!
+ But his soul goes marching on."
+
+If one could only find freedom by marching for it, came the
+thought.
+
+All at once he became rigid, his hands clutched the table edge.
+
+There was an American voice under his window:
+
+"D'you think she's kiddin' us, Charley?"
+
+Andrews was blinded, falling from a dizzy height. God, could
+things repeat themselves like that? Would everything be repeated?
+And he seemed to hear voices whisper in his ears: "One of you men
+teach him how to salute."
+
+He jumped to his feet and pulled open the drawer. It was empty.
+The woman had taken the revolver. "It's all planned, then. She
+knew," he said aloud in a low voice.
+
+He became suddenly calm.
+
+A man in a boat was passing down the river. The boat was painted
+bright green; the man wore a curious jacket of a burnt-brown
+color, and held a fishing pole.
+
+Andrews sat in his chair again. The boat was out of sight now, but
+there was the windmill turning, turning against the piled white
+clouds.
+
+There were steps on the stairs.
+
+Two swallows, twittering, curved past the window, very near, so
+that Andrews could make out the marking on their wings and the way
+they folded their legs against their pale-grey bellies.
+There was a knock.
+
+"Come in," said Andrews firmly.
+
+"I beg yer pardon," said a soldier with his hat, that had a band,
+in his hand. "Are you the American?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, the woman down there said she thought your papers wasn't in
+very good order." The man stammered with embarrassment.
+
+Their eyes met.
+
+"No, I'm a deserter," said Andrews.
+
+The M. P. snatched for his whistle and blew it hard. There was an
+answering whistle from outside the window.
+
+"Get your stuff together."
+
+"I have nothing."
+
+"All right, walk downstairs slowly in front of me."
+
+Outside the windmill was turning, turning, against the piled white
+clouds of the sky.
+
+Andrews turned his eyes towards the door. The M. P. closed the
+door after them, and followed on his heels down the steps.
+
+On John Andrews's writing table the brisk wind rustled among the
+broad sheets of paper. First one sheet, then another, blew off the
+table, until the floor was littered with them.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Three Soldiers, by John Dos Passos
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE SOLDIERS ***
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+This file should be named thsld10.txt or thsld10.zip
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, thsld11.txt
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+Etext transcribed by Eve Sobol, South Bend, IN, USA
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