His refuge! That word, which represented the only succor that he could expect from life at that moment, returned to the poor fellow's lips, when, at the end of that sorrowful night, he saw through the carriage windows about five o'clock the dark and mist-enfolded mass of the houses of Saint-Mihiel against a sky in which the stars shone feebly. They were crowded about the ancient abbey church, where, in the baptismal chapel, may be seen the two children playing with skulls, the chef-d'œuvre wherein Ligier Richier has represented, by that simple symbolism, the whole destiny of man. The flame of the lamps barely lighted the waters of the Meuse, winding rapidly through the damp shadows. The platform of the station, when the young man alighted, was deserted and gloomy. So of the streets through which passed the rickety, jolting vehicle found at the station. But for him there issued from those shuttered houses the sensation which is produced in us by the return to a round of daily habits after a violent moral shock.
As his cab turned into Rue du Rempart he recognized the wall of the garden where, on one of the paths, he had told Madame Olier of his love three years before. His heart, exhausted by excess of grief, was amazed to feel a sort of painful relaxation of its tension at sight of those streets where he had so often fed upon his lover's dreams, had performed for so many months his military duties. So he had guessed aright. He could live—a hard and bitter life, it is true—by fastening himself upon, by clinging desperately to those two last resources, hope and activity, which fate had left to him; and it was with an impatience, not happy surely but very manful, that, having donned his uniform, he awaited the hour to go to headquarters and resume his daily occupations.
Although he had hardly slept during the night, his step was brisk as he walked toward the barracks. If he was no longer conscious of what he had called in his conversation with Valentine the joy of the uniform,—that word joy would have no meaning to him for a long, long time!—he felt its manly courage. He gazed at the high gateway with a strange excitement in his eyes, ringed by tears and sleeplessness.
"I still have this, too," he said, using precisely the same form of words as on the day before, when he left his dear friend on Rue Monsieur; and as if in haste to resume the actual contact with that stern but healthy and manly life, he quickened his pace, to enter the courtyard the sooner.
It was barely eight o'clock. Gusts of a cold wind, the bitter northeast wind that constantly sweeps the high plateaus between the Meuse and the Moselle, lashed the white caps of the men engaged in grooming horses before the stable doors. Subaltern officers, wrapped in their cloaks, were overlooking them. In a corner, at the door of the kitchen, other men, sheltered under an awning, were peeling potatoes. Others were marching off in a squad to perform some task. Everything spoke of the energetic and organized activity which makes a well-ordered barracks a very noble human thing.
There, Landri was no longer, as at Grandchamp, the sole heir of a nobleman on parade, himself a nobleman. He was Lieutenant de Claviers, who was obeyed, but who obeyed. It will be remembered that he had called that sensation too a joy. In what fashion he exerted his authority, the glances of the men who saluted him according to rule, touching the vizor with the open hand, told clearly enough. And he looked at them with the watchful and kindly eye of the leader to whom every detail has its importance. He noticed one whose slightly unhealthy pallor indicated recent illness.
"So you have come back to duty, Teilhard? Since when?"
"Since yesterday, lieutenant."
"You are quite sure it was not too soon? Are you entirely cured of your bronchitis?"
"Entirely cured, lieutenant."