"The funeral upset you."
"Death's better on the battlefield, without a big, mediocre fuss."
Then he remembered Al, who had died in his arms, the gaping hole in his skull. He remembered Chuck and his suicide ... He shuddered in his skull. He remembered Maitland ... his jaw clamped.
"I'll shut up," he said. "I'll be okay soon ... just let me shut up ... just let me be."
The outdoors and the sky and her silent companionship helped but he could not talk, would not talk: impotence--he knew the meaning and the implications. Yanking off a splinter of wood at the hospital gate, he said:
"I'll phone you ... I'll see you."
And he walked away.
Jeannette welcomed the solitude of her small room and the tangled, dying vines over the lace-curtained windows: curtains, a single chair, a night table, and her bed. She gave way to tears, bewildered by Orville, saddened by the funeral, resenting the hospital and its wounded, resenting Dr. Mercier, Dr. Marcuse, Louis ... what a lackluster lot of minor medics: they would never mean anything to her: each day was impersonal: I must get to a movie in Senlis, perhaps a luncheon date: the men craved sex (she did not blame them, so often wanting it herself). She was able to concentrate on duty and remain faithful to Orville and sexual fantasies.
On Ermenonville's main street, war had slung together a shabby eating place, between a candy shop and a milliner's. Walking through the village, Orville opened the door onto charcoal smoke and a row of empty tables spread with checkered cloths. A fellow, wearing an apron, appeared from behind an unpainted wooden screen and asked Orville what he wanted, speaking rudely, obviously ill, his voice strained, the face fat, both obese and pocked: something was hurting his lungs: such coughing!
Orville ordered wine and asked for a pack of cigarettes and sat down--arms elbowed on the red and white squares. As he sipped wine he tried to evolve a tomorrow: