t of it wearing red trousers and
carrying my civilian clothes, and a blue coat on my arm; and not daring
to put on either my hat or the military cap that I held in my hand.

We have dressed ourselves all alike. I look at the others since I
cannot look at myself, and thus I see myself dimly. Gloomily we eat
stew, by the miserable illumination of a candle, in the dull desert of
the mess room. Then, our mess-tins cleaned, we go down to the great
yard, gray and stagnant. Just as we pour out into it, there is the
clash of a closing gate and a tightened chain. An armed sentry goes up
and down before the gate. It is forbidden to go out under pain of
court-martial. To westward, beyond some indistinct land, we see the
buried station, reddening and smoking like a factory, and sending out
rusty flashes. On the other side is the trench of a street; and in its
extended hollow are the bright points of some windows and the radiance
of a shop. With my face between the bars of the gate, I look on this
reflection of the other life; then I go back to the black staircase,
the corridor and the dormitory, I who am something and yet am nothing,
like a drop of water in a river.

* * * * * *

We stretch ourselves on straw, in thin blankets. I go to sleep with my
head on the bundle of my civilian clothes. In the morning I find
myself again and throw off a long dream--all at once impenetrable.

My neighbor, sitting on his straw with his hair over his nose, is
occupied in scratching his feet. He yawns into tears, and says to me,
"I've dreamt about myself."

* * * * * *

Several days followed each other. We remained imprisoned in the
barracks, in ignorance. The only events were those related by the
newspapers which were handed to us through the gates in the morning.
The war got on very slowly; it immobilized itself, and we--we did
nothing, between the roll-calls, the parades, and from time to time
some cleaning fatigues. We could not go into the town, and we waited
for the evening--standing, sitting, strolling in the mess room (which
never seemed empty, so strong was the smell that filled it), wandering
about the dark stairs and the corridors dark as iron, or in the yard,
or as far as the gates, or the kitchens, which last were at the rear of
the buildings, and smelt in turns throughout the day of coffee-grounds
and grease.

We said that perhaps, undoubtedl