Chapters 16-19 Summary

Chapter 16, "An Idyll," finds the regiment in a new village, with Volpatte, Paradis, and the narrator investigating lights in the farm house. Paradis insists on taking cleaning and polishing shoes for an old woman's daughter, working with evident pride and face alive. He goes to sleep with a happy smile still on his face. Chapter 17, "In the Sap," focuses on depressed Lamuse volunteering for dangerous duty, digging with the sappers, and racing back in horror when Eudoxie's moldy corpse fall on him while digging. Moving her out of the way, he hugs her as he had always wanted.

Chapter 18, "A Box of Matches," finds Blaire, Poupardin, and Pépin blackened with smoke, looking at their extinguished fire and having no means of relighting it to cook the fine flank of horse they have obtained. As a new cook, Blaire is anxious...