too now and then. That evening dark thoughts were flying about
in that smoky den, assailing me in crowds, and taking possession of my
mind; I could not drive them away. It was one of those moments--those
very fleeting moments!--when courage seems to fail, and one gives way
with a kind of bitter satisfaction. I remembered that months and
months had passed since I had seen any of those belonging to me, and I
conjured up in my mind the picture of the Christmas Eve they were
keeping, too, at that same hour, at the other end of France. And the
dear, good friends I had left in Paris and in Rouen--where were they
at that moment? What were they doing? Were they thinking of me? How I
should have liked to enjoy the wonderful power possessed by certain
heroes in the Arabian Nights, which would have allowed me to see at
that moment a vision of the loved ones far away. Were they talking
about me, sitting together round the fire? I thought that this war had
been a splendid thing to us Chasseurs as long as we were fighting as
cavalry, scouring the plains, searching the woods, galloping in
advance of our infantry, and bringing them information which enabled
them to deal their blows or parry those of the enemy, trying to come
up with the Prussian cavalry which fled before us. But this trench
warfare, this warfare in which one stays for days and days in the same
position, in which ground is gained yard by yard, in which artifice
tries to outdo artifice, in which each side clings to the ground it
has won, digs into it, buries itself in it, and dies in it sooner than
give it up! What warfare for cavalry! We have devoted ourselves to it
with all our hearts, and the chiefs who have had us under their
orders have never failed to commend us; but at times we feel very
weary, and during inaction and solitude our imaginations begin to
work. Then we recall our regiment in full gallop over field and plain;
we hear the clank of swords and bits; we see once more the flash of
the blades, the motley line of the horses; we evoke the well-known
figures of our chiefs on their chargers. That night my mind became
more restless than ever before; it broke loose, it leapt away, and
lived again the unforgettable stages of this war: Charleroi, Guise,
the Marne, the defence of the Jaulgonne bridge, Montmirail, Reims, ...
Belgium, Bixschoote; and then it fell back into the gloomy dug-out
where the flame of the single candle traced disquieting shadows on the
wall.