The librarian was very old. He wore a little black skull cap and a grey muffler about his throat. He was bent quite over, and could see what I had taken only when he held the things close to his eyes. His hands were twisted like old brown fagots, and they trembled and fumbled as he held the etchings, one after the other, close to his eyes.
"We were very proud of him," said the librarian, "he was of this town. He would have given the town fame throughout the world. His right arm is shot away. And he is so young."
He kept on repeating that while he tied up my etchings.
"He is so young," kept saying the librarian, who is so old.
II
As I was leaving the antiquity shop in the rue Basse du Château, standing a minute at the door with the antiquary's pretty young wife and the two fat babies, there came along the street four fantassins, two of them limping, one with his arm in a sling, carrying a funeral wreath between them.
It was made of zinc palms and laurels, and the tricolour was laid across it.
We stood, not saying anything.
The fantassins passed, going up toward the ramparts of the Porte du Midi and the cemetery, carrying their comrade's wreath and the flag.
The antiquary's little young wife was crying.