y indeed, we should stay there till the
end of the war. We moped. When we went to bed we were tired with
standing still, or with walking too slowly. We should have liked to go
to the front.

Marcassin, housed in the company office, was never far away, and kept
an eye on us in silence. One day I was sharply rebuked by him for
having turned the water on in the lavatory at a time other than
placarded. Detected, I had to stand before him at attention. He asked
me in coarse language if I knew how to read, talked of punishment, and
added, "Don't do it again!" This tirade, perhaps justified on the
whole, but tactlessly uttered by the quondam Petrolus, humiliated me
deeply and left me gloomy all the day. Some other incidents showed me
that I no longer belonged to myself.

* * * * * *

One day, after morning parade, when the company was breaking off, a
Parisian of our section went up to Marcassin and asked him, "Adjutant,
we should like to know if we are going away."

The officer took it in bad part. "To know? Always wanting to know!"
he cried; "it's a disease in France, this wanting to know. Get it well
into your heads that you _won't_ know! We shall do the knowing for
you! Words are done with. There's something else beginning, and
that's discipline and silence."

The zeal we had felt for going to the front cooled off in a few days.
One or two well-defined cases of shirking were infectious, and you
heard this refrain again and again: "As long as the others are
dodging, I should be an ass not to do it, too."

But there was quite a multitude who never said anything.

At last a reinforcement draft was posted; old and young
promiscuously--a list worked out in the office amidst a seesaw of
intrigue. Protests were raised, and fell back again into the
tranquillity of the depot.

I abode there forty-five days. Towards the middle of September, we
were allowed to go out after the evening meal and Sundays as well. We
used to go in the evening to the Town Hall to read the despatches
posted there; they were as uniform and monotonous as rain. Then a
friend and I would go to the cafe, keeping step, our arms similarly
swinging, exchanging some words, idle, and vaguely divided into two
men. Or we went into it in a body, which isolated me. The saloon of
the cafe enclosed the same odors as Fontan's; and while I stayed there,
sunk in the soft seat, my boots grating on the tiled floo