under burdens incongruous, but apparently overwhelming.

One can no longer remain anywhere. Everywhere we are in the way. We go
forward, we scatter, we retire in the turmoil.

"In addition, I tell you," continues Cocon, tranquil as a scientist,
"there are the Divisions, each organized pretty much like an Army
Corps--"

"Oui, we know it; miss the deal!"

"He makes a fine to-do about it all, that mountebank in the horse-box
on casters. What a mother-in-law he'd make!"

"I'll bet that's the Major's wrong-headed horse, the one that the vet
said was a calf in process of becoming a cow."

"It's well organized, all the same, all that, no doubt about it," says
Lamuse admiringly, forced back by a wave of artillerymen carrying boxes.

"That's true," Marthereau admits; "to get all this lot on the way,
you've not got to be a lot of turnip-heads nor a lot of custards--Bon
Dieu, look where you're putting your damned boots, you black-livered
beast!"

"Talk about a flitting! When I went to live at Marcoussis with my
family, there was less fuss than this. But then I'm not built that way
myself."

We are silent; and then we hear Cocon saying, "For the whole French
Army that holds the lines to go by--I'm not speaking of those who are
fixed up at the rear, where there are twice as many men again, and
services like the ambulance that cost nine million francs and can clear
you seven thousand cases a day--to see them go by in trains of sixty
coaches each, following each other without stopping, at intervals of a
quarter of an hour, it would take forty days and forty nights."

"Ah!" they say. It is too much effort for their imagination; they lose
interest and sicken of the magnitude of these figures. They yawn, and
with watering eyes they follow, in the confusion of haste and shouts
and smoke, of roars and gleams and flashes, the terrible line of the
armored train that moves in the distance, with fire in the sky behind
it.

------------

[note 1:] The word is likely to become of international usage. It
stands for the use of paint in blotches of different colors, and of
branches and other things to disguise almost any object that may be
visible to hostile aircraft.--Tr.

[note 2:] Non-combatant.--Tr.

[note 3:] Akin to the British A.S.C.--Tr.

VIII

On Leave

EUDORE sat down awhile, there by the roadside well, before taking the
path over the fields that led to the trenches, his hands crossed over
one knee, his pa