"No! Call yourselves poilus!" Bouillon exclaimed. We looked at each other, and at the strained faces smeared with sweat and powder, the torn greatcoats, the knees and hands covered with earth. But what a feeling of buoyancy! In me most of all! I dared not predict the issue of the battle. Victory or defeat, that seemed of very slight importance to me, I admit, compared with the fact that I was still alive.
The night was falling. Behind us was the river, indicated by the dark waving of the willow-trees and in the distance the slopes of the farther bank were all enveloped in a haze of wan violet tones.
The captain was on his rounds.
"Well, what did you think of it, Dreher?" he asked me.
"Most interesting, sir!"
He went away, after giving me a cordial glance from his piercing eyes.
I sounded Henriot. Was there any hope of a distribution of...?
"None at all! Ssh! Don't let's talk about that!"
Certain measures were taken in view of a possible attack, and some rough trenches made. I wondered that volunteers were found for sentry-duty, and others[Pg 233] for a fatigue party, led by Guillaumin, in search of water.
The latter for that matter looked after everything. He had directed the trench-digging and had made out the casualty returns, and then, being quite indefatigable, he left us to go and get news of the other platoons.
Rolled up in my great-coat, I was wishing for nothing so much as a doze, when he reappeared.
"Well?"
"I say, I've just heard a heart-breaking bit of news!"
"What? Who?"
"Poor little Frémont!"
I raised myself on my elbow:
"Oh. Is he hit?"
"Badly hit, apparently!"
My heart contracted. What a nightmare! That child who had been with me on the highroad yesterday, whom I had led on...! I saw him growing pale at the sight of the stretchers ... was it a presentiment...? And I had a vision of him on the bench in the garden the other day, folding his darling in his arms.
Guillaumin's thoughts had kept pace with mine.
"His wife," he said. "How sad it is! And you know she was expecting ... that they ... had hopes...."
"Yes, I know."
We were silent for a moment. Dull misery was brewing in me. Then Guillaumin got up; he wanted to spend his night beside his men.
"And I," I said, in a strangled voice, "you have no suspicions?"
"You! What about it?"
[Pg 234]
"My brother...."
"Well?"
"Has been killed."
"You're mad! How in the world could you know?"
"I heard it this morning."
He stammered:
"You.... Your brother ... the subaltern?"
"Yes."
He seized my hand.
"Michel.... Why ... didn't you tell me about it?"
My Christian name! I had quite got out of the habit of hearing it. I was touched, and pressed his warm hands. Tears rose to my eyes. I experienced the sad and yet sweet consolation which the affection of living people brings in the presence of death. He was a true friend. I admired the delicacy which made him hold his peace; so many people would have thought of nothing at that moment except of lavishing a flow of unmeaning words on me. He silently shared in my mourning.
At last he said simply:
"I am thinking of my sister. If I were killed ... or if she were to die!..."
He lingered for a few minutes, sitting beside me in the grass. There was a hallowed silence.... Friendship, the purest of manly sentiments, revealed itself to me in force....
I was the one to suggest he should go; he needed his sleep.
We pressed hands again.
"Mind you sleep, Michel."
"Good-night, Claude...."
He went away. I leaned my forehead on my arm,[Pg 235] and tried to get to sleep, but my face was burning. What strange tumultuous thoughts besieged me.
I caught myself repeating: "Victor, my poor Victor!" But this time something was rent asunder. A veil fell. The artificial atmosphere in which all my joys and sorrows had been deadened for so long was dissipated.
My man's heart began to bleed. I became conscious of my grief. Without diminishing it I could now compare it, without blasphemy, with that other, into which the death of my mother had formerly plunged me. A double regret, identical, I felt in its essential point, for these two beings were of my blood, my nearest relations, a little of myself. Part of my life and future were buried with them. I understood now what an irrecoverable part my brother had played in my life. I had loved him when a child, and my childhood would never be renewed. Our gaze and our minds had awakened to the same things. A thousand memories were ours, ours alone. O Victor, I remembered the grace of your eighth, your tenth year. Our wild games in the big house at Tou............