My walk was not at all satisfying. From the summit I had aimed at, I could see nothing but another ridge, crowned with a dark fringe of trees. There was no outlet through which I could get a view. I came back, tired and disappointed. Up there I had tried for a moment to give rein to my imagination. Here is my country—Lorraine, I said to myself, and I looked in vain for that serene melancholy, that voluptuous calm, in the landscape.... It was obviously yet another example of poetic exaggeration. It was not unpleasing country, but it was more like—oh, anything you like to name, Perche, or the country round Paris.
I went back. On the way I heard myself hailed from behind a hedge. It was Playoust's voice. I went up and found the whole set of sergeants from the 22nd. De Valpic alone was missing. I was surprised to catch sight of Guillaumin, with cards in his hands.
"What! You don't mean to say you're playing?" I said.
"Yes, they're teaching me!"
He explained with great gusto that they had come to fetch him to make up a second four (Frémont was there too). He had no gift for it. But he was sticking to it all the same. He had already lost one and threepence!
"And what about you, old boy? Do you know their blooming game?"
"Yes," I replied coolly, "but it doesn't appeal to me, you know!"
I did not linger. I bore him a grudge. If he was going over to that lot he was quite at liberty to do so, of course, but he need no longer count, as a matter of course, on my society—Oh dear, no!
I went to lie down. I yawned. I was bored to tears.