t
there is in a country's inhabitants between those who gain and those
who grieve, those who are required to sacrifice all, all, to give their
numbers and strength and suffering to the last limit, those upon whom
the others walk and advance, smile and succeed.

Some items of mourning attire make blots in the crowd and have their
message for us, but the rest is of merriment, not mourning.

"It isn't one single country, that's not possible," suddenly says
Volpatte with singular precision, "there are two. We're divided into
two foreign countries. The Front, over there, where there are too many
unhappy, and the Rear, here, where there are too many happy."

"How can you help it? It serves its end--it's the background--but
afterwards--"

"Yes, I know; but all the same, all the same, there are too many of
them, and they're too happy, and they're always the same ones, and
there's no reason--"

"What can you do?" says Tirette.

"So much the worse," adds Blaire, still more simply.

"In eight days from now p'raps we shall have snuffed it!" Volpatte is
content to repeat as we go away with lowered heads.

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

[note 1] See p. 117.

XXIII

The Fatigue-Party

EVENING is falling upon the trench. All through the day it has been
drawing near, invisible as fate, and now it encroaches on the banks of
the long ditches like the lips of a wound infinitely great.

We have talked, eaten, slept, and written in the bottom of the trench
since the morning. Now that evening is here, an eddying springs up in
the boundless crevice; it stirs and unifies the torpid disorder of the
scattered men. It is the hour when we arise and work.

Volpatte and Tirette approach each other. "Another day gone by, another
like the rest of 'em," says Volpatte, looking at the darkening sky.

"You're off it; our day isn't finished," replies Tirette, whose long
experience of calamity has taught him that one must not jump to
conclusions, where we are, even in regard to the modest future of a
commonplace evening that has already begun.

"Allons! Muster!" We join up with the laggard inattention of custom.
With himself each man brings his rifle, his pouches of cartridges, his
water-bottle, and a pouch that contains a lump of bread. Volpatte is
still eating, with protruding and palpitating cheek. Paradis, with
purple nose and chattering teeth, growls. Fouillade trails his rifle
along like a broom. Marthereau looks at a mournful handkerchief,