“We were working unloading cement at Passy—cement to build the stadium the army is presenting to the French, built by slave labor, like the pyramids.”
“Passy's where Balzac lived. Have you ever seen his house there?”
“There was a boy working with me, the Kid, 'le gosse,' it'd be in French. Without him, I should never have done it. I was completely crushed.... I suppose that he was drowned.... Anyway, we swam under water as far as we could, and, as it was nearly dark, I managed to get on a barge, where a funny anarchist family took care of me. I've never heard of the Kid since. Then I bought these clothes that amuse you so, Genevieve, and came back to Paris to find you, mainly.”
“I mean as much to you as that?” whispered Genevieve.
“In Paris, too. I tried to find a boy named Marcel, who worked on a farm near St. Germain. I met him out there one day. I found he'd gone to sea.... If it had not been that I had to see you, I should have gone straight to Bordeaux or Marseilles. They aren't too particular who they take as a seaman now.”
“But in the army didn't you have enough of that dreadful life, always thrown among uneducated people, always in dirty, foulsmelling surroundings, you, a sensitive person, an artist? No wonder you are almost crazy after years of that.” Genevieve spoke passionately, with her eyes fixed on his face.
“Oh, it wasn't that,” said Andrews with despair in his voice. “I rather like the people you call low. Anyway, the differences between people are so slight....” His sentence trailed away. He stopped speaking, sat stirring uneasily on the seat, afraid he would cry out. He noticed the hard shape of the revolver against his leg.
“But isn't there something you can do about it? You must have friends,” burst out Genevieve. “You were treated with horrible injustice. You can get yourself reinstated and properly demobilised. They'll see you are a person of intelligence. They can't treat you as they would anybody.”
“I must be, as you say, a little mad, Genevieve,” said Andrews.
“But now that I, by pure accident, have made a gesture, feeble as it is, towards human freedom, I can't feel that.... Oh, I suppose I'm a fool.... But there you have me, just as I am, Genevieve.”