The walls of the
Shadow crumble in vague ruin. Once more we pass under the grand
panorama of the day's unfolding upon the ever-wandering horde that
we are.
We emerge at last from this night of marching, across concentric
circles as it seems, of darkness less dark, then of half-shadow,
then of gloomy light. Legs have a wooden stiffness, backs are
benumbed, shoulders bruised. Faces are still so gray or so black,
one would say they had but half rid themselves of the night. Now,
indeed, one never throws it off altogether.
It is into new quarters that the great company is going--this time
to rest. What will the place be like that we have to live in for
eight days? It is called, they say--but nobody is certain of
anything--Gauchin-l'Abbe. We have heard wonders about it--"It
appears to be just it."
In the ranks of the companies whose forms and features one begins to
make out in the birth of morning, and to distinguish the lowered
heads and yawning mouths, some voices are heard in still higher
praise. "There never were such quarters. The Brigade's there, and
the court-martial. You can get anything in the shops."--"If the
Brigade's there, we're all right."--
"Think we can find a table for the squad?"--"Everything you want, I
tell you."
A pessimist prophet shakes his head: "What these quarters'll be like
where we ye never been, I don't know," he says. "What I do know is
that it'll be like the others."
But we don't believe him, and emerging from the fevered turmoil of
the night, it seems to all that it is a sort of Promised Land we are
approaching by degrees the light brings us out of the east and the
icy air towards the unknown village.
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