It was after he left my ward that his wife had come up from the Limousin, and brought the two little girls to visit him. I never saw her, but I remember how happy he was. He told me his wife could not stay long because she had to go back and take care of the cows. They had two cows, he said.
Now he bade good-bye to Madame Marthe, who was washing her hands with sublimé after a dressing, and who gave him a sharp red elbow to shake.
He said good-bye to the men in the ward, each one in turn, and stood a minute looking at his old place and said, "One was well off there."
I went to the door with him.
It was very hot in the ward, and there were flies buzzing.
I thought: To be going back to that, when one knows it already; to be going back to that, when one has no longer youth's élan and carelessness; when one has to worry over labour and poverty left behind.
I suppose he saw something in my face of what I felt, for he said, in a kind, pitying way, as if to help me, "Do not be sad, madame." And he said the thing they all say, all of them, "I' faut b'en, tous les copains sont là."
"All the others are there."