IV
Let us now go back to Maubert, standing for long months within his straw covered hut, or standing in the roadway in front of it, demanding passports. Every day, for many months past, he remembered his misspent permission and cursed the way he had passed it. Passed it in so futile a manner. Things might have been so different. His companions often chaffed him about it, chaffed him rudely. For he had never seen fit to tell them that he had not gone down to his home in the provinces, as they thought he had, but had been ensnared by some woman in Paris who had pulled him away from a passing tram on the rue de la Gaiétè. One day the vaguemestre brought him a letter. He was very dizzy when he read it. Everything swam round. Rage and relief combated together in his limited brain. Rage and relief—rage and relief! He could take his letter to the authorities and demand his release—or——
For now he had five children, had Maubert. No one would question it. In his hand lay the letter of his wife. Five children. The fifth just born. That meant release from the service of his country. She said she was sorry. That she had done it for him. He would understand. But Maubert did not understand. He remembered his misspent permission, and the thought of it nauseated him. She, too. The thought of it nauseated him. Certainly he did not understand.
On the other hand, the authorities had on their books the date of his permission. He looked again at the letter of his wife. The dates coincided admirably. He had but to go to his superior officer and show him the letter of his wife, announcing the birth of their fifth child. Then he would be free. Free from the service of his country, the hated service, the examining of passports presented by a rushing General, by a rushing ambulance, by some rushing motor that was perhaps carrying a spy.
He so hated it all. But now, more than anything else, he hated his wife. He would accept his release and go home and kill her. He wouldn't be free any more if he did that, however. He argued it out with himself. So he couldn't kill her. He must accept it. If he accepted his release from the service of his country, he must accept it on her terms. He spent a long day in the rain and the wind, thinking it out. But he thought it out at last. He would accept her terms, obtain his release, go home and see—and then decide.
He told his Colonel about it, and his Colonel chaffed him, and looked over some papers, and finally set in motion the mechanism by which he was finally set free from the service of his country. It took some weeks before this was accomplished, but it was finally done. And when he arrived in Paris, coming down from his post in the First Zone of the Armies, he was painfully sober. No more wine that day for him. No more wine, bought at the estaminet before he left, or bought during the long journey down to Paris. No more zig-zagging up the rue de la Gaiétè. He found the Métro entrance at the exit of the Gare Montparnasse, took the train, and arrived, shortly afterwards, at the Gare du Nord, very sober. Very sober and angry.
And when he reached his home in the provinces, he was still sober and still angry. Nor did he know what he should do. He did not know whether he should kill his wife or not. If he did, he must go back to the Front. And he hated the Front. He hated his duties, sentry duty, in the First Zone of the Armies. He could not report to his Colonel again, and say, "Give me back my sentry box—let me serve my country—that fifth child is not mine!" He was in a tight place, surely. But at his home, his mood changed, his wife was very gentle. She said she had been wrong.
"Ouk is dead," she said. "All those poor little men who come from the Tropics die very soon in our cold, damp weather. They cannot stand it. The khaki flannels we give them do not warm them. There is not much wool in them. The cold penetrates into their bones. They catch cold and die, all of them, sooner or later. It is an extravagance, importing them."
Therefore he was mollified. "For your sake," said his wife. Maubert looked down at the fifth child lying in its cradle. The child that brought him release from the service of his country—release from sentry duty, from looking at hastily shoved out, unintelligible passports.
"For your sake," repeated his wife, slipping her arm through his arm. "Very well," said Maubert stiffly. All the same, he thought to himself, the child certainly looks like a Chinese.