't he be a deep one?"

I presume to think--suppose it was all untrue? Yet it seemed a
formidable task to upset on the spot one of the oldest and most deeply
rooted creeds in our town. But I risk it. "Perhaps he's innocent."

Crillon jumps, and shouts, "What! You suspect him of being innocent!"
His face is convulsed and he explodes with an enormous laugh, a laugh
irresistible as a tidal wave, the laugh of all!

"Talking about Termite," says Crillon a moment later, "it seems it
wasn't him that did the poaching."

The military convalescents are leaving the tavern. Crillon watches
them go away with their parallel movements and their sticks.

"Yes, there's wounded here and there's dead there!" he says; "all those
who hadn't got a privilential situation! Ah, la, la! The poor devils,
when you think of it, eh, what they must have suffered! And at this
moment, all the time, there's some dying. And we stand it very well,
an' hardly think of it. They didn't need to kill so many, that's
certain--there's been faults and blunders, as everybody knows of. But
fortunately," he adds, with animation, putting on my shoulder the hand
that is big as a young animal, "the soldiers' deaths and the chief's
blunders, that'll all disappear one fine day, melted away and forgotten
in the glory of the victorious Commander!"

* * * * * *

There has been much talk in our quarter of a Memorial Festival.

I am not anxious to be present and I watch Marie set off. Then I feel
myself impelled to go there, as if it were a duty.

I cross the bridge. I stop at the corner of the Old Road, on the edge
of the fields. Two steps away there is the cemetery, which is hardly
growing, since nearly all those who die now are not anywhere.

I lift my eyes and take in the whole spectacle together. The hill
which rises in front of me is full of people. It trembles like a swarm
of bees. Up above, on the avenue of trimmed limetrees, it is crowned
by the sunshine and by the red platform, which scintillates with the
richness of dresses and uniforms and musical instruments.

Then there is a red barrier. On this side of that barrier, lower down,
the public swarms and rustles.

I recognize the great picture of the past. I remember this ceremony,
spacious as a season, which has been regularly staged here so many
times in the course of my childhood and youth, and with almost the same
rites and forms. It was like thi