“Ah,” he cries, as he gets up and comes gesticulating before me.  “There’s a good answer one could give me.  If I didn’t come back from the war, I should say, ’My lad, you’ve gone to smash, no more Clotilde, no more love!  You’ll be replaced in her heart sooner or later; no getting round it; your memory, the portrait of you that she carries in her, that’ll fade bit by bit and another’ll come on top of it, and she’ll begin another life again.’  Ah, if I didn’t come back!”

He laughs heartily.  “But I mean to come back.  Ah, yes!  One must be there.  Otherwise—­I must be there, look you,” he says again more seriously; “otherwise, if you’re not there, even if you’re dealing with saints and angels, you’ll be at fault in the end.  That’s life.  But I am there.”  He laughs.  “Well, I’m a little there, as one might say!”

I get up too, and tap him on the shoulder.  “You’re right, old pal, it’ll all come to an end.”

He rubs his hands and goes on talking.  “Yes, by God! it’ll all finish, don’t worry.  Oh, I know well there’ll be hard graft before it’s finished, and still more after.  We’ve got to work, and I don’t only mean work with the arms.

“It’ll be necessary to make everything over again.  Very well, we’ll do it.  The house?  Gone.  The garden?  Nowhere.  All right, we’ll rebuild the house, we’ll remake the garden.  The less there is the more we’ll make over again.  After all, it’s life, and we’re made to remake, eh?  And we’ll remake our life together, and happiness.  We’ll make the days again; we’ll remake the nights.

“And the other side, too.  They’ll make their world again.  Do you know what I say?—­perhaps it won’t be as long as one thinks—­”

“Tiens!  I can see Madeleine Vandaert marrying another chap.  She’s a widow; but, old man, she’s been a widow eighteen months.  Do you think it’s not a big slice, that, eighteen months?  They even leave off wearing mourning, I believe, about that time!  People don’t remember that when they say ‘What a strumpet she is,’ and when, in effect, they ask her to commit suicide.  But mon vieux, one forgets.  One is forced to forget.  It isn’t the people that make you forget; you do it yourself; it’s just forgetfulness, mind you.  I find Madeleine again all of a sudden, and to see her frivvling there it broke me up as much as if her husband had been killed yesterday—­it’s natural.  But it’s a devil of a long time since he got spiked, poor lad.  It’s a long time since, it’s too long since.  People are no longer the same.  But, mark you, one must come back, one must be there!  We shall be there, and we shall be busy with beginning again!”