Yes, we are very few in number.
PIERRE
Very, very few, father! Dreadfully few! Even if we were invulnerable and deathless, even if we kept killing them off day and night, day and night, we would drop from fatigue and exhaustion before we stopped them. But we are mortal—and they have terrible guns, father! You are silent? You are thinking of our Maurice—I have caused you pain?
EMIL GRELIEU
There is little of the human in their movements. Do not think of Maurice—he will live. A human being has a face, Pierre. Every human being has his own face, but they have no faces. When I try to picture them to myself, I see only the lights, projectors, automobiles—those terrible guns—and something walking, walking. And those vulgar mustaches of Wilhelm—but that is a mask, an immobile mask, which has stood over Europe for a quarter of a century—what is behind it? Those vulgar mustaches—and suddenly so much misery, so much bloodshed and destruction! It is a mask!
PIERRE
Almost to himself.
If there were only not so many of them, not so many—. Father, I believe that Maurice will live. He is a lucky boy. But what does mamma think about it?
EMIL GRELIEU
What mamma thinks?