“You are lucky to be free,” said Andrews bitterly. He felt as if he would burst into tears.
“But you will be demobilized soon; the butchery is over. You will go home to your family. That will be good, hein?”
“I wonder. It's not far enough away. Restless!”
“What do you expect?”
A fine rain was falling. They climbed in on the potato sacks and the horse started a jog trot; its lanky brown shanks glistened a little from the rain.
“Do you come out this way often?” asked Marcel.
“I shall. It's the nicest place near Paris.”
“Some Sunday you must come and I'll take you round. The Castle is very fine. And then there is Malmaison, where the great Emperor lived with the Empress Josephine.”
Andrews suddenly remembered Jeanne's card. This was Wednesday. He pictured her dark figure among the crowd of the pavement in front of the Cafe de Rohan. Of course it had to be that way. Despair, so helpless as to be almost sweet, came over him.
“And girls,” he said suddenly to Marcel, “are they pretty round here?”