taneous change in his property impressed him
more than the ravages of death, making him realize the Cyclopean power
of the blind, avenging forces raging around him. The vital force that
had been concentrated in his eyes, now spread to his feet . . . and he
started to run without knowing whither, feeling the same necessity to
hide himself as had those men enchained by discipline who were trying to
flatten themselves into the earth in imitation of the reptile's pliant
invisibility.

His instinct was pushing him toward the lodge, but half way up the
avenue, he was stopped by another lot of astounding transformations. An
unseen hand had just snatched away half of the cottage roof. The entire
side wall doubled over, forming a cascade of bricks and dust. The
interior rooms were now exposed to view like a theatrical setting--the
kitchen where he had eaten, the upper floor with the room in which he
descried his still unmade bed. The poor women! . . .

He turned around, running now toward the castle, trying to make the
sub-cellar in which he had been fastened for the night; and when he
finally found himself under those dusty cobwebs, he felt as though
he were in the most luxurious salon, and he devoutly blessed the good
workmanship of the castle builders.

The subterranean silence began gradually to bring back his sense of
hearing. The cannonading of the Germans and the bursting of the French
shells sounded from his retreat like a distant tempest. There came into
his mind the eulogies which he had been accustomed to lavish upon the
cannon of '75 without knowing anything about it except by hearsay. Now
he had witnessed its effects. "It shoots TOO well!" he muttered. In a
short time it would finish destroying his castle--he was finding such
perfection excessive.

But he soon repented of these selfish lamentations. An idea, tenacious
as remorse, had fastened itself in his brain. It now seemed to him that
all he was passing through was an expiation for the great mistake of
his youth. He had evaded the service of his country, and now he was
enveloped in all the horrors of war, with the humiliation of a passive
and defenseless being, without any of the soldier's satisfaction of
being able to return the blows. He was going to die--he was sure of
that--but a shameful death, unknown and inglorious. The ruins of his
mansion were going to become his sepulchre. . . . And the certainty of
dying there in the darkness, like a rat that sees