"Yes ... yes, I am ... and you?"
She nodded.
Separation, mustering out pay, back-pay, travel allowances: they could go to Wisconsin, New York, California. But when would mankind return to nature? Rousseau had said ... let nature repair mind and body ... who remembers? We're lucky to survive these days!
Lucky ... lucky to have Jean ... to be in E ... lucky to be on leave ... to walk in the park ...
As he kissed Jean good-bye at the hospital gate, he tried to summon an optimistic word. Something, during the last half hour or so, had come between them, as if they both admitted they were pawns, as if the miles across the Atlantic already separated them.
Her hair's exquisite copper gleamed in the light: fog was behind her hair: fog was flowing across the countryside, puffing, swirling, smoking in from the Nonette river, fog that smelled of newly mown clover.
"I'll see you tomorrow ... about two. If there's gasoline I'll come in the car ... if I can borrow the car." He smiled.
"Good night, darling." Then a long pause.
"Sleep well."
"See you."