it half up, and shout with all the breath
that remained within me. Men were passing along in the distance picking up
the wounded; they ran to us and placed us side by side on a stretcher.

"Comrade," the colonel said to me during the journey, "Death will not have
us. I owe you my life; I will pay my debt, whenever you have need of me.
Give me your hand."

I placed my hand in his, and it was thus that we reached the ambulances.
They had lighted torches; the surgeons were cutting and sawing, amidst
frightful yells; a sickly smell came from the blood-stained linen, whilst
the torches cast dark rosy flakes into the basins.

The colonel bore the amputation of his arm with courage; I only saw his
lips turn pale and a film come over his eyes. When it was my turn, a
surgeon examined my shoulder.

"A shell did that for you," he said; "an inch lower and your shoulder
would have been carried away. The flesh, only, has suffered."

And when I asked the assistant, who was dressing my wound, whether it was
serious, he answered me with a laugh:

"Serious! you will have to keep to your bed for three weeks, and make new
blood."

I turned my face to the wall, not wishing to show my tears. And with my
heart's eyes I perceived Babet and my uncle Lazare stretching out their
arms towards me. I had finished with the sanguinary struggles of my summer
day.

III

AUTUMN

It was nearly fifteen years since I had married Babet In my uncle Lazare's
little church. We had sought happiness in our dear valley. I had made
myself a farmer; the Durance, my first sweetheart, was now a good mother
to me, who seemed to take pleasure in making my fields rich and fertile.
Little by little, by following the new methods of agriculture, I became
one of the wealthiest landowners in the neighbourhood.

We had purchased the oak-tree walk and the meadows bordering on the river,
at the death of my wife's parents. I had had a modest house built on this
land, but we were soon obliged to enlarge it; each year I found a means of
rounding off our property by the addition of some neighbouring field, and
our granaries were too small for our harvests.

Those first fifteen years were uneventful and happy. They passed away in
serene joy, and all they have left within me is the remembrance of calm
and continued happiness. My uncle Lazare, on retiring to our home, had
realised his dream; his advanced age did not permit of his reading his
breviary of a morning; he som