women booted to the knee, with scarlet
mouths, and cruel little candy faces ... they are all satisfied ...
all is for the best!... "It will go on forever as it is!" Half the
world devouring the other half....

They went home. In the evening after dinner Clerambault was dying to
read his latest poem to Maxime. The idea of it was touching, if a
little absurd.--In his love for his son, he sought to be in spirit,
at least, the comrade of his glory and his sufferings, and he had
described them,--at a distance--in "Dawn in the Trenches." Twice he
got up to look for the MS., but with the sheets in his hand a sort of
shyness paralysed him, and he went back without them.

As the days went by they felt themselves closely knit together by ties
of the flesh, but their souls were out of touch. Neither would admit
it though each knew it well.

A sadness was between them, but they refused to see the real cause,
and preferred to ascribe it to the approaching reparation. From time
to time the father or the mother made a fresh attempt to re-open the
sources of intimacy, but each time came the same disappointment.
Maxime saw that he had no longer any way of communicating with them,
with anyone in the rear. They lived in different worlds ... could they
ever understand each other again?... Yet still he understood them, for
once he had himself undergone the influence which weighed on them,
and had only come to his senses "out there," in contact with real
suffering and death. But just because he had been touched himself, he
knew the impossibility of curing the others by process of reasoning;
so he let them talk, silent himself, smiling vaguely, assenting to be
knew not what. The preoccupations here behind the lines filled him
with disgust, weariness, and a profound pity for these people in
the rear--a strange race to him, with the outcries of the papers,
questions from such persons--old buffoons, worn-out, damaged
politicians!--patriotic braggings, written-up strategies, anxieties
about black bread, sugar cards, or the days when the confectioners
were shut. He took refuge in a mysterious silence, smiling and sad;
and only went out occasionally, when he thought of the short time he
had to be with these dear people who loved him. Then he would begin to
talk with the utmost animation about anything. The important thing was
to make a noise, since one could no longer speak one's real thoughts,
and naturally he fell back on everyday matters. Que