They went home. In the evening after dinner Clerambault was dying to read his latest poem to Maxime. The idea of it was touching, if a little absurd.—In his love for his son, he sought to be in spirit, at least, the comrade of his glory and his sufferings, and he had described them,—at a distance—in "Dawn in the Trenches." Twice he got up to look for the MS., but with the sheets in his hand a sort of shyness paralysed him, and he went back without them.
As the days went by they felt themselves closely knit together by ties of the flesh, but their souls were out of touch. Neither would admit it though each knew it well.
A sadness was between them, but they refused to see the real cause, and preferred to ascribe it to the approaching reparation. From time to time the father or the mother made a fresh attempt to re-open the sources of intimacy, but each time came the same disappointment. Maxime saw that he had no longer any way of communicating with them, with anyone in the rear. They lived in different worlds … could they ever understand each other again?… Yet still he understood them, for once he had himself undergone the influence which weighed on them, and had only come to his senses "out there," in contact with real suffering and death. But just because he had been touched himself, he knew the impossibility of curing the others by process of reasoning; so he let them talk, silent himself, smiling vaguely, assenting to be knew not what. The preoccupations here behind the lines filled him with disgust, weariness, and a profound pity for these people in the rear—a strange race to him, with the outcries of the papers, questions from such persons—old buffoons, worn-out, damaged politicians!—patriotic braggings, written-up strategies, anxieties about black bread, sugar cards, or the days when the confectioners were shut. He took refuge in a mysterious silence, smiling and sad; and only went out occasionally, when he thought of the short time he had to be with these dear people who loved him. Then he would begin to talk with the utmost animation about anything. The important thing was to make a noise, since one could no longer speak one's real thoughts, and naturally he fell back on everyday matters. Questions of general interest and political news came first, but they might as well have read the morning paper aloud. "The Crushing of the Huns," "The Triumph of the Right," filled Clerambault's thoughts and speeches, while he served as acolyte, and filled in the pauses with cum spiritu tuo. All the time each was waiting for the other to begin to talk.
They waited so long that the end of his leave came. A little while before he went, Maxime came into his father's study resolved to explain himself:
"Papa, are you quite sure?" …
The trouble painted on Clerambault's face checked the words on his lips. He had pity on him and asked if his father was quite sure at what time the train was to leave and Clerambault heard the end of the question with an only too visible relief. When he had supplied all the information—that Maxime did not listen to—he mounted his oratorical hobby-horse again and started out with one of his habitual idealistic declamations. Maxime held his peace, discouraged, and for the last hour they spoke only of trifles. All but the mother felt that the essential had not been uttered; only light and confident words, an apparent excitement, but a deep sigh in the heart—"My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken us?"
When Maxime left he was really glad to go back to the front. The gulf that he had found between the front and rear seemed to him deeper than the trenches, and guns did not appear to him as murderous as ideas.
As the railway carriage drew out of the station he leaned from the window and followed with his eyes the tearful faces of his family fading in the distance, and he thought:
"Poor dears, you are their victims and we are yours."
The day after his return to the front the great spring offensive was let loose, which the talkative newspapers had announced to the enemy several weeks beforehand. The hopes of the nation had been fed on it during the gloomy winter of waiting and death, and it rose now, filled with an impatient joy, sure of victory and crying out to it—"At last!"