"Bah! Once there, morale is the only thing that counts."
"Well?"
"You won't get me to believe...."
I hesitated, then I said:
"After all. If I am going to fight, it only depended on me ... I was in Switzerland...."
He sneered:
"No humbugging! You came back for reasons which had nothing at all to do with patriotism! Simply because if you had not done so, your position, your cash, and your little mode of living, would all have gone overboard at one fell blow."
His words reminded me of the vague hopes which had suggested themselves to me two days before.
"Listen! I certainly won't hide from you the fact that I envy you. I should be delighted to stay under shelter like you. And yet ... shall I own up to a certain kind of curiosity? War? This War. The greatest of all! It seems to me that it's worth experiencing. What an amazing opportunity for accumulating memories, and also of refreshing oneself, of drawing near to nature!"
He exploded. Good Heavens! Did I think it would have the faintest interest for me! Was not the peculiarity of modern campaign a terrible tedium? You never see the enemy. You spend days in shovelling ground about. The operations are on such a vast scale that the majors and colonels themselves often do not follow them in the least.