“Hell,” said Eisenstein. “You've got to keep your upper lip stiff. I thought I was goin' to die in that troopship coming over here. An' when I was little an' came over with the emigrants from Poland, I thought I was goin' to die. A man can stand more than he thinks for.... I never thought I could stand being in the army, bein' a slave like an' all that, an' I'm still here. No, you'll live long and be successful yet.” He put his hand on Stockton's shoulder. The boy winced and drew his chair away. “What for you do that? I ain't goin' to hurt you,” said Eisenstein.
Fuselli looked at them both with a disgusted interest.
“I'll tell you what you'd better do, kid,” he said condescendingly. “You get transferred to our company. It's an Al bunch, ain't it, Eisenstein? We've got a good loot an' a good top-kicker, an' a damn good bunch o' fellers.”
“Our top-kicker was in here a few minutes ago,” said Eisenstein.
“He was?” asked Fuselli. “Where'd he go?”
“Damned if I know.”
Yvonne and the French soldier were talking in low voices, laughing a little now and then. Fuselli leaned back in his chair looking at them, feeling out of things, wishing despondently that he knew enough French to understand what they were saying. He scraped his feet angrily back and forth on the floor. His eyes lit on the white hyacinths. They made him think of florists' windows at home at Eastertime and the noise and bustle of San Francisco's streets. “God, I hate this rotten hole,” he muttered to himself. He thought of Mabe. He made a noise with his lips. Hell, she was married by this time. Anyway Yvonne was the girl for him. If he could only have Yvonne to himself; far away somewhere, away from the other men and that damn frog and her old mother. He thought of himself going to the theatre with Yvonne. When he was a sergeant he would be able to afford that sort of thing. He counted up the months. It was March. Here he'd been in Europe five months and he was still only a corporal, and not that yet. He clenched his fists with impatience. But once he got to be a non-com it would go faster, he told himself reassuringly.
He leaned over and sniffed loudly at the hyacinths.
“They smell good,” he said. “Que disay vous, Yvonne?”
Yvonne looked at him as if she had forgotten that he was in the room. Her eyes looked straight into his, and she burst out laughing. Her glance had made him feel warm all over, and he leaned back in his chair again, looking at her slender body so neatly cased in its black dress and at her little head with its tightly-done hair, with a comfortable feeling of possession.