If there was one thing at which I was astonished, it was at not finding most of my companions at the ventilators like myself. To send Paris a last greeting! They must all, or nearly all, be feeling that all they counted dear, was shut up within those walls. I who had no one there—nor anywhere else either for that matter—this thought shook me. Nobody. My father? Was a stranger, as I have already said. I thought nevertheless of his farewell, of his fugitive tenderness, due to obscure ties of the blood. Who else was there? Laquarrière? If he thought of me it would certainly be to congratulate himself on being safely in shelter, while I was risking.... Nobody. There really was nobody!
And yet my eyes probed the darkness, my glance was unconsciously drawn in a certain direction.... In that suburb, I could imagine a street, a house, ... in that house someone ... someone who had written!—"We think of you a great deal...."
An idle dream and one which passed.
There was a metallic rattle. We were crossing the Seine. Still a few more miles to go, through the dark countryside. An important station was coming soon. Myriad lamps lit up countless railway lines.
Our speed slackened, till we slowed down to a walking pace. We slowly skirted endless pavements. I could distinguish retreating uniforms and piles of arms. An artillery sentry gave me a friendly wave.
"What station do you come from?" I shouted to him.
"Marseilles!" he replied.
His warm Southern accent had made me start. How many convoys had he seen rolling past in the same direction during the few hours he had been there with his battery. The concentration! The idea of this gigantic operation made one think: these trains whose time-tables had been arranged months, no years, in advance, these hundreds upon hundreds of trains flashing across the country in every direction; skirting gulfs and mountains, crossing the rivers, flowing in from every extremity of France, carrying the immense masses of war material, and the harvest of young men. Caught up in this huge mechanism, this invisible unity, what a small thing I was, for all my pride of intellect!