It is not very glorious to be seated alone before a pint in the presence of a comrade who gives signs of thirst.  But Fouillade pretends not to understand the requirements of the gentleman who dallies in front of him with an engaging smile, and he hurriedly empties his glass.  The other turns his back, not without grumbling that “they’re not very generous, but on the contrary greedy, these Southerners.”

Fouillade has put his chin on his fists, and looks unseeing at a corner of the room where the crowded poilus elbow, squeeze, and jostle each other to get by.

It was pretty good, that swig of white wine, but of what use are those few drops in the Sahara of Fouillade?  The blues did not far recede, and now they return.

The Southerner rises and goes out, with his two glasses of wine in his stomach and one sou in his pocket.  He plucks up courage to visit one more tavern, to plumb it with his eyes, and by way of excuse to mutter, as he leaves the place, “Curse him!  He’s never there, the animal!”

Then he returns to the barn, which still—­as always—­whistles with wind and water.  Fouillade lights his candle, and by the glimmer of the flame that struggles desperately to take wing and fly away, he sees Labri.  He stoops low, with his light over the miserable dog—­perhaps it will die first.  Labri is sleeping, hut feebly, for he opens an eye at once, and his tail moves.

The Southerner strokes him, and says to him in a low voice, “It can’t be helped, it—­” He will not say more to sadden him, but the dog signifies appreciation by jerking his head before closing his eyes again.  Fouillade rises stiffly, by reason of his rusty joints, and makes for his couch.  For only one thing more he is now hoping—­to sleep, that the dismal day may die, that wasted day, like so many others that there will be to endure stoically and to overcome, before the last day arrives of the war or of his life.

______

[note 1:] French soldiers have extensively developed a system of corresponding with French women whom they do not know from Eve and whose acquaintance they usually make through newspaper advertisements.  As typical of the latter I copy the following:  “Officier artilleur, 30 ans, desire correspondance discrete avec jeune marraine, femme du monde.  Ecrire,” etc.  The “lonely soldier” movement in this country is similar.—­Tr.

12

The Doorway

“IT’s foggy.  Would you like to go?”

It is Poterloo who asks, as he turns towards me and shows eyes so blue that they make his fine, fair head seem transparent.

Poterloo comes from Souchez, and now that the Chasseurs have at last retaken it, he wants to see again the village where he lived happily in the days when he was only a man.