Sitting there motionless, I dedicated my pitying sympathy to them and thought how few men there were among all the thousands I had seen marching past this afternoon, who were not leaving some woman at home, wife or lover, and some child of their flesh.... Poor souls! How terrible their grief must be! I ought to have congratulated myself on the fact that I was leaving nothing behind me. Why did I now so poignantly regret my solitude; did I envy the farewells uttered amid tears and the sealing of vows?
There was a noise behind me: Guillaumin. I left the window, an instinctive delicacy of feeling prevented me from drawing his attention to the presence of the couple in the garden.
We went down into the yard again. My companion was in tremendous form. He held forth on a hundred and one subjects, and I agreed with him absent-mindedly. My thoughts were wandering capriciously. I thought of my brother Victor for whose safe return someone was praying.... A strange insistent idea kept recurring to my mind, of writing to the girl who had thought of me yesterday.
A RETURN OF EGOISM
The last distribution of stores had just taken place—biscuits, haversack rations, and iron rations. Cartridges too, fifteen packets a head; a pretty tough load, in addition to everything else. A lot of men were grousing about where they should put them.
The worst of it was that there was some surplus. The company commander who was passing said:
"You're not going to leave those behind, mind!"