“As for this dreadful business, it is an awful pity that the hospital is at the other end of the town. You can’t go there at this time of night. Put the thing in a truck until to-morrow morning, old chap!”
Having, by this wonderful suggestion, relieved himself of all responsibility, the young man stuck his nose again into the illustrated paper.
At that time they had not erected at the railway stations those large hospitals of wood and cardboard which are to be seen everywhere now. The idea of the truck I did not entertain for two seconds. In imagination I saw this improvised mortuary starting out during the night and taking away the corpse. It was a mad idea!
I went to the postmen: they were sorting out the letters. They were humming: “It is I who am Nénesse.” There wasn’t room for a rat in their hutch, and at once they regarded the question as quite beyond their jurisdiction....
I came out overcome with a kind of annoyance. Really, nobody took the slightest interest in my dead man. I muttered to myself: “Why, why, Lamailleux, did you let yourself die in a place where corpses are not wanted, and at a moment when no one has time to deal with them?” But even as I said that, I felt none the less a kind of link being established between me and this wreckage, and I looked at it as at something which puzzles you, but which belongs to you in spite of everything.
“Where shall we put the poor man?” said Bonardent.
Then the simplest solution struck me.
“Follow me,” I said.
Quietly we went back towards the lamp-room.
“There’s no room there, Lieutenant.”