They come in and undress one after the other. They have waited so long they seem exhausted, emptied, crushed. They accept the verdict listlessly and mechanically, as if felled by a blow; they go away in haste, without speaking, without looking round.
The doctors wash their hands, as once did Pontius Pilate; they sign some papers ceremoniously and disappear.
Night has come. The wind has fallen. A fog that absorbs the factory smoke still hangs over the town. Leaning against a lamp-post one of the last men examined vomits, after excruciating efforts, the wine he drank in the afternoon. The road is dark and deserted.
The whole place reeks with the stench of the vomiting and the fog.
A BURIAL
As we seated ourselves at the table M. Gilbert asked:
“What time is Lieutenant Limberg’s funeral?”
“Three o’clock, Doctor,” replied the faithful Augustus; “an infantry platoon will come from his own regiment, which is at the moment leaving the firing line and is billeted at Morcourt.”
“That’s right; send for Bénezech.”
And we began to enjoy the piquancy of a cucumber salad. September was fading slowly, but the furnace on the Somme was getting ever fiercer. The roar of the cannon seemed to fill the immensity of the heavens, as if a great tragedy was happening in the heart of the world. We were slightly stupefied through having spent many nights without sleep—nights passed in trying to stem the torrent of blood, and save some of the wreckage that swept down with it.