disappeared at both ends, swallowed up in distance. Sections of trains
and complete trains were staggering in great horizontal columns,
leaving their places, then taking them again. On every side one heard
the regular hammering on the armored ground, piercing whistles, the
ringing of warning bells, the solid metallic crash of the colossal
cubes telescoping their steel stumps, with the counter-blows of chains
and the rattle of the long carcases' vertebrae. On the ground floor of
the building that arises in the middle of the station like a town ball,
the hurried bell of telegraph and telephone was at work, punctuated by
vocal noises. All about on the dusty ground were the goods sheds, the
low stores through whose doors one could dimly see the stacked
interiors--the pointsmen's cabins, the bristling switches, the
hydrants, the latticed iron posts whose wires ruled the sky like
music-paper; here and there the signals, and rising naked over this
flat and gloomy city, two steam cranes, like steeples.

Farther away, on waste ground and vacant sites in the environs of the
labyrinth of platforms and buildings, military carts and lorries were
standing idle, and rows of horses, drawn out farther than one could see.

"Talk about the job this is going to be!"--"A whole army corps
beginning to entrain this evening!"--"Tiens, they're coming now!"

A cloud which overspread a noisy vibration of wheels and the rumble of
horses' hoofs was coming near and getting bigger in the approach to the
station formed by converging buildings.

"There are already some guns on board." On some flat trucks down there,
between two long pyramidal dumps of chests, we saw indeed the outline
of wheels, and some slender muzzles. Ammunition wagons, guns and wheels
were streaked and blotched with yellow, brown, and green.

"They're camoufles. [note 1] Down there, there are even horses painted.
Look! spot that one, there, with the big feet as if he had trousers on.
Well, he was white, and they've slapped some paint on to change his
color."

The horse in question was standing apart from the others, which seemed
to mistrust it, and displayed a grayish yellow tone, obviously with
intent to deceive. "Poor devil!" said Tulacque.

"You see," said Paradis, "we not only take 'em to get killed, but mess
them about first!"

"It's for their good, any way!"

"Eh oui, and us too, it's for our good!"

Towards evening soldiers arrived. From all sides they flowed towa