“No doubt about it, you get some good out of this rest,” remarks Paradis.

It is an abundantly impressive city which expands before our steps.  One is in touch with life, with the life of the people, the life of the Rear, the normal life.  How we used to think, down yonder, that we should never get here!

We see gentlemen, ladies, English officers, aviators-recognizable afar by their slim elegance and their decorations—­soldiers who are parading their scraped clothes and scrubbed skins and the solitary ornament of their engraved identity discs, flashing in the sunshine on their greatcoats; and these last risk themselves carefully in the beautiful scene that is clear of all nightmares.

We make exclamations as they do who come from afar:  “Talk about a crowd!” says Tirette in wonder.  “Ah, it’s a wealthy town!” says Blaire.

A work-girl passes and looks at us.  Volpatte gives me a jog with his elbow and swallows her with his eyes, then points out to me two other women farther away who are coming up, and with beaming eye he certifies that the town is rich in femininity—­“Old man, they are plump!” A moment ago Paradis had a certain timidity to overcome before he could approach a cluster of cakes of luxurious lodging, and touch and eat them; and every minute we are obliged to halt in the middle of the pavement and wait for Blaire, who is attracted and detained by the displays of fancy jumpers and caps, neck-ties in pale blue drill, slippers as red and shiny as mahogany.  Blaire has reached the final height of his transformation.  He who held the record for negligence and grime is certainly the best groomed of us all, especially since the further complication of his ivories, which were broken in the attack and had to be remade.  He affects an off-hand demeanor.  “He looks young and youthful,” says Marthereau.

We find ourselves suddenly face to face with a toothless creature who smiles to the depth of her throat.  Some black hair bristles round her hat.  Her big, unpleasant features, riddled with pock-marks, recalls the ill-painted faces that one sees on the coarse canvas of a traveling show.  ‘She’s beautiful,’’ says Volpatte.  Marthereau. at whom she smiled, is dumb with shock.

Thus do the poilus converse who are suddenly placed under the spell of a town.  More and more they rejoice in the beautiful scene, so neat and incredibly clean.  They resume possession of life tranquil and peaceful, of that conception of comfort and even of happiness for which in the main houses were built.

“We should easily get used to it again, you know, old man, after all!”

Meanwhile a crowd is gathered around an outfitter’s shop-window where the proprietor has contrived, with the aid of mannikins in wood and wax, a ridiculous tableau.  On a groundwork of little pebbles like those in an aquarium, there is a kneeling German, in a suit so new that the creases are definite, and punctuated with an Iron Cross in cardboard.  He holds up his two wooden pink hands to a French officer, whose curly wig makes a cushion for a juvenile cap, who has bulging, crimson cheeks, and whose infantile eye of adamant looks somewhere else.  Beside the two personages lies a rifle bar-rowed from the odd trophies of a box of toys.  A card gives the title of the animated group—­“Kamarad!”