he soldiers
used to say that on the whole they lived in peace.

Marie would write to me, "The Piots have been saying nice things about
you," or "The Trompsons' son is a second lieutenant," or "If you knew
all the contrivances people have been up to, to hide their gold since
it's been asked for so loudly! If you knew what ugly tales there are!"
or "Everything is just the same."

* * * * * *

Once, when we were coming back from the lines and were entering our
usual village, we did not stop there; to the great distress of the men
who were worn out and yielding to the force of the knapsack. We
continued along the road through the evening with lowered heads; and
one hour later we dropped off around dark buildings--mournful tokens of
an unknown place--and they put us away among shadows which had new
shapes. From that time onwards, they changed the village at every
relief, and we never knew what it was until we were there. I was
lodged in barns, into which one wriggled by a ladder; in spongy and
steamy stables; in cellars where undisturbed draughts stirred up the
moldy smells that hung there; in frail and broken hangars which seemed
to brew bad weather; in sick and wounded huts; in villages remade
athwart their phantoms; in trenches and in caves--a world upside down.
We received the wind and the rain in our sleep. Sometimes we were too
brutally rescued from the pressure of the cold by braziers, whose
poisonous heat split one's head. And we forgot it all at each change
of scene. I had begun to note the names of places we were going to,
but I lost myself in the black swarm of words when I tried to recall
them. And the diversity and the crowds of the men around me were such
that I managed only with difficulty to attach fleeting names to their
faces.

My companions did not look unfavorably on me, but I was no more than
another to them. In intervals among the occupations of the rest-camp,
I wandered spiritless, blotted out by the common soldiers' miserable
uniform, familiarly addressed by any one and every one, and stopping no
glance from a woman, by reason of the non-coms.

I should never be an officer, like the Trompsons' son. It was not so
easy in my sector as in his. For that, it would be necessary for
things to happen which never would happen. But I should have liked to
be taken into the office. Others were there who were not so clearly
indicated as I for that work. I rega