of the Exchange, of Food Control, of Enlistment,
of the Pay Department, and other administrations whose names one cannot
remember. The priests are swarming in the two hospitals; on the faces
of orderlies, cyclist messengers, doorkeepers and porters you can read
their origin. For myself, I have never seen a parson in the front
lines wearing the uniform of the ordinary fighting soldier, the uniform
of those who make up the fatigue parties and fight as well against
perfect misery!

My thought turns to what the man once said to me who was by me among
the straw of a stable, "Why is there no more justice?" By the little
that I know and have seen and am seeing, I can tell what an enormous
rush sprang up, at the same time as the war, against the equality of
the living. And if that injustice, which was turning the heroism of
the others into a cheat has not been openly extended, it is because the
war has lasted too long, and the scandal became so glaring that they
were forced to look into it. It seems that it is only through fear
that they have ended by deciding so much.

* * * * * *

I go into Fontan's. Crillon is with me--I picked him up from the
little glass cupboard of his shop as I came out. He is finding it
harder and harder to keep going; he has aged a lot, and his frame, so
powerfully bolted together, cracks with rheumatism.

We sit down. Crillon groans and bends so low in his hand-to-hand
struggle with the pains which beset him that I think his forehead is
going to strike the marble-topped table.

He tells me in detail of his little business, which is going badly, and
how he has confused glimpses of the bare and empty future which awaits
him--when a sergeant with a fair mustache and eyeglasses makes his
entry. This personage, whose collar shows white thunderbolts,[1]
instead of a number, comes and sits near us. He orders a port wine and
Victorine serves it with a smile. She smiles at random, and
indistinctly, at all the men, like Nature.

[Footnote 1: Distinctive badge for Staff officers and others.--Tr.]

The newcomer takes off his cap, looks at the windows and yawns. "I'm
bored," he says.

He comes nearer and freely offers us his talk. He sets himself
chattering with spirited and easy grace, of men and things. He works
at the Town Hall and knows a lot of secrets which he lets us into. He
points to a couple of sippers at a table in the corner reserved for
comme