No sound disturbed the stillness of the warm night save that of the column on the march. Gradually we lost ourselves in pleasing reveries and memories of the past, forgetting present dangers and distress. On we jogged through space and time.... Lyons at night-time ... long rows of lamps lighting the wharves and reflected in the Rhône ... above the river the amphitheatre of Croix-Rousse with its lights scintillating like golden points, and above them, again, the stars.... Where did the town end, or where did the sky begin?... And the Mayenne in the bright days of autumn and summer, its sombre waters sparkling like black diamonds.... The memories which rose up before me gradually blurred the scene of illusive reflections.
And perhaps I should die in a few hours' time....
Almost as if I myself had been able to write those beautiful verses of Du Bellay, I felt the aching nostalgia of his words:
Quand reverrai-je, hélas! de mon petit village
Fumer la cheminée, et en quelle saison
Reverrai-je le clos de ma pauvre maison,
Qui m'est une province et beaucoup d'avantage?
I repeated the lines to myself several times.
Sunday, August 30
This morning we marched for hours through clouds of dust, the sun scorching the backs of our necks. The men were thirsty and continually spat out the clayey saliva which clogged their mouths. The battery halted in a valley on the outskirts of a village—Villers-devant-Dun, I think it was—where the sound of the guns seemed to come from the west and south as well as from the east and north. This was a surprise, and at first made us uneasy. Janvier, for the hundredth time, said:
"That's it! We are surrounded!"
He was haunted by this idea. However, it was not long before we discovered that the illusion was solely caused by an exceptionally clear echo. In reality the fighting was going on near Dun-sur-Meuse.