nd. I shut my eyes, bemused, and think of a bygone merry-making; and
I remember that I once saw, at the end of a hunt, against the operatic
background of a forest, a child-animal whose life gushed out amid
general delight.

A voice is speaking beside me.

No doubt the moon has come out--I cannot see as high as the cloud
escarpments, as high as the sky's opening. But that blenching light is
making the corpses shine like tombstones.

I try to find the low voice. There are two bodies, one above the
other. The one underneath must be gigantic--his arms are thrown
backward in a hurricane gesture; his stiff, disheveled hair has crowned
him with a broken crown. His eyes are opaque and glaucous, like two
expectorations, and his stillness is greater than anything one may
dream of. On the other the moon's beams are setting points and lines
a-sparkle and silvering gold. It is he who is talking to me, quietly
and without end. But although his low voice is that of a friend, his
words are incoherent. He is mad--I am abandoned by him! No matter, I
will drag myself up to him to begin with. I look at him again. I
shake myself and blink my eyes, so as to look better. He wears on his
body a uniform accursed! Then with a start, and my hand claw-wise, I
stretch myself towards the glittering prize to secure it. But I cannot
go nearer him; it seems that I no longer have a body. He has looked at
me. He has recognized my uniform, if it is recognizable, and my cap,
if I have it still. Perhaps he has recognized the indelible seal of my
race that I carry printed on my features. Yes, on my face he has
recognized that stamp. Something like hatred has blotted out the face
that I saw dawning so close to me. Our two hearts make a desperate
effort to hurl ourselves on each other. But we can no more strike each
other than we can separate ourselves.

But has he seen me? I cannot say now. He is stirred by fever as by
the wind; he is choked with blood. He writhes, and that shows me the
beaten-down wings of his black cloak.

Close by, some of the wounded have cried out; and farther away one
would say they are singing--beyond the low stakes so twisted and
shriveled that they look as if guillotined.

He does not know what he is saying. He does not even know that he is
speaking, that his thoughts are coming out. The night is torn into
rags by sudden bursts; it fills again at random with clusters of
flashes; and his delirium ente