“I ought to feel remorseful,” he added, lowering his voice, “and the worst is that I do not.”  Clerambault could not help smiling.

“It is not very heroic,” continued Chastenay, “and yet I care more for Froment than for anyone on earth, and his fate makes me wretchedly unhappy.  But all the same, when I think of my luck to be here at this moment when so many are gone, and to be well and sound, I can hardly keep from showing how glad I am.  It is so good to live and be whole.  Poor Edme!...  You must think me terribly selfish?”

“No, what you say is perfectly natural and healthy.  If we were all as sincere as you, humanity would not be the victim of the wicked notion of glory in suffering.  You have every right to enjoy life after the trials you have passed through,” and as he spoke he touched the Croix de Guerre which the young man wore on his breast.

“I have been through them and I am going back,” said Chastenay, “but there is no merit in that; there is nothing else that I can do.  I am not trying to deceive you and pretend that I love to smell powder; you cannot go through three years of war, and still want to run risks and be indifferent to danger, even if you did feel like that in the beginning.  I was so—­I may frankly say I did go in for heroism; but I have lost all that, it was really part ignorance and part rhetoric, and when one is rid of these, the nonsense of the war, the idiotic slaughter, the ugliness, the horrible useless sacrifice must be clear to the narrowest mind.  If it is not manly to fly from the inevitable, it is not necessary either to go in search of what can be avoided.  The great Corneille was a hero behind the lines; those whom I have known at the front were almost heroes in spite of themselves.”

“That is the true heroism,” said Clerambault.

“That is Froment’s kind,” said Chastenay.  “He is a hero because there is nothing else that he can be, not even a man; but the dearest thing about him is, that in spite of everything, he is a real man.”

The truth of this remark was abundantly evident to Clerambault in a long conversation that he had with Froment the next day.  If the courage of the young man did not desert him in the ruin of his life, it was all the more to his credit, as he had never professed to be an apostle of self-abnegation.  He had had great hopes and robust ambitions, fully justified by his talents and vigorous youth, but unlike his friend Chastenay, he had never for a moment cherished any illusions as to the war.

The disastrous folly of it had been clear to him at once, and this he owed not only to his own penetrating mind, but to that inspiring angel who, from his earliest infancy, had woven the soul of her son from her own pure spirit.

Whenever Clerambault went to see Edme, Madame Froment was almost always there; but she kept in the background, sitting at the window with her work, only stopping occasionally to throw a tender glance at her son.  She was not a woman of exceptional cleverness, but she had what may be called the intelligence of the heart, and her mind had been cultivated by the influence of her husband—­a distinguished physician much older than herself.  Thus it had happened that her whole life had been filled by these two profound feelings, an almost filial love for her husband and a more passionate sentiment for her son.