cendo of anger, "I
shall know what to say to them!"

"We shan't see them again," says Blaire.

"In eight days from now, p'raps we shall be laid out," says Volpatte.

In the approaches to the square we run into a mob of people flowing out
from the Hotel de Ville and from another big public building which
displays the columns of a temple supporting a pediment. Offices are
closing, and pouring forth civilians of all sorts and all ages, and
military men both young and old, who seem at a distance to be dressed
pretty much like us; but when nearer they stand revealed as the
shirkers and deserters of the war, in spite of being disguised as
soldiers, in spite of their brisques. [note 1]

Women and children are waiting for them, in pretty and happy clusters.
The commercial people are shutting up their shops with complacent
content and a smile for both the day ended and for the morrow, elated
by the lively and constant thrills of profits increased, by the growing
jingle of the cash-box. They have stayed behind in the heart of their
own firesides; they have only to stoop to caress their children. We see
them beaming in the first starlights of the street, all these rich folk
who are becoming richer, all these tranquil people whose tranquillity
increases every day, people who are full, you feel, and in spite of
all, of an unconfessable prayer. They all go slowly, by grace of the
fine evening, and settle themselves in perfected homes, or in cafes
where they are waited upon. Couples are forming, too, young women and
young men, civilians or soldiers, with some badge of their preservation
embroidered on their collars. They make haste into the shadows of
security where the others go, where the dawn of lighted rooms awaits
them; they hurry towards the night of rest and caresses.

And as we pass quite close to a ground-floor window which is half open,
we see the breeze gently inflate the lace curtain and lend it the light
and delicious form of lingerie--and the advancing throng drives us
back, poor strangers that we are!

We wander along the pavement, all through the twilight that begins to
glow with gold--for in towns Night adorns herself with jewels. The
sight of this world has revealed a great truth to us at last, nor could
we avoid it: a Difference which becomes evident between human beings, a
Difference far deeper than that of nations and with defensive trenches
more impregnable; the clean-cut and truly unpardonable division tha