IV
They are taking out for a walk those of the éclopés who are fit for it. There must be nearly a hundred of them. In every possible sort of patched, discoloured uniform, here they come hopping and hobbling along. They have more crutches and canes than feet among the lot of them.
One of the men who has no legs goes so fast on his wooden stump and his crutches that everybody stops to look, and all the éclopés laugh, and the people stopping to look, laugh, and he laughs more than any of them.
If things are tragic enough, they are funny. I have come to know that, with the éclopés at the gate. And inside the gate, with those of the éclopés who keep back against the walls, I have come to know that the only safety of life is death.
The Cathedral
I
The Place de la Cathédrale is full of hot red sunset, taken and held there, like wine in the chalice of old golden walls. The old golden walls of the houses that once were palaces lift up the shape of a cup to the wine of the sunset, a vessel of silence and slow time.
Now every night at sunset the bells of the Cathedral are ringing, and people are coming into the Place from the St. Réal and the rue Croix d'Or and the tunnel street, under the first stories of the Palais du Maréchal, that is called the rue Petite Lanterne.
They are coming to the Cathedral for the prayers and canticles for France.