“And they were all jealous, I don’t know why, of a chap called Bourin.  Formerly he moved in the best Parisian circles.  He lunched and dined in the city.  He made eighteen calls a day, and fluttered about the drawing-rooms from afternoon tea till daybreak.  He was indefatigable in leading cotillons, organizing festivities, swallowing theatrical shows, without counting the motoring parties, and all the lot running with champagne.  Then the war came.  So he’s no longer capable, the poor boy, of staying on the look-out a bit late at an embrasure, or of cutting wire.  He must stay peacefully in the warm.  And then, him, a Parisian, to go into the provinces and bury himself in the trenches!  Never in this world!  ‘I realize, too,’ replied an individual, ’that at thirty-seven I’ve arrived at the age when I must take care of myself!’ And while the fellow was saying that, I was thinking of Dumont the gamekeeper, who was forty-two, and was done in close to me on Hill 132, so near that after he got the handful of bullets in his head, my body shook with the trembling of his.”

“And what were they like with you, these thieves?”

“To hell with me, it was, but they didn’t show it too much, only now and again when they couldn’t hold themselves in.  They looked at me out of the corner of their eyes, and took damn good care not to touch me in passing, for I was still war-mucky.

“It disgusted me a bit to be in the middle of that heap of good-for-nothings, but I said to myself, ’Come, it’s only for a bit, Firmin.’  There was just one time that I very near broke out with the itch, and that was when one of ’em said, ’Later, when we return, if we do return.’—­No!  He had no right to say that.  Sayings like that, before you let them out of your gob, you’ve got to earn them; it’s like a decoration.  Let them get cushy jobs, if they like, but not play at being men in the open when they’ve damned well run away.  And you hear ’em discussing the battles, for they’re in closer touch than you with the big bugs and with the way the war’s managed; and afterwards, when you return, if you do return, it’s you that’ll be wrong in the middle of all that crowd of humbugs, with the poor little truth that you’ve got.

“Ah, that evening, I tell you, all those heads in the reek of the light, the foolery of those people enjoying life and profiting by peace!  It was like a ballet at the theater or the make-believe of a magic lantern.  There were—­there were—­there are a hundred thousand more of them,” Volpatte at last concluded in confusion.

But the men who were paying for the safety of the others with their strength and their lives enjoyed the wrath that choked him, that brought him to bay in his corner, and overwhelmed him with the apparitions of shirkers.

“Lucky he doesn’t start talking about the factory hands who’ve served their apprenticeship in the war, and all those who’ve stayed at home under the excuse of National Defense, that was put on its feet in five secs!” murmured Tirette; “he’d keep us going with them till Doomsday.”