"You've nothing to grumble at--with six days' leave in your
water-bottle!"
And here, see, are four more men coming down the road, their gait
heavy and slow, their boots turned into enormous caricatures of
boots by reason of the mud. As one man they stopped on espying the
profile of Eudore.
"There's Eudore! Hello, Eudore! hello, the old sport! You're back
then!" they cried together, as they hurried up and offered him hands
as big and ruddy as if they were hidden in woolen gloves.
"Morning, boys," said Eudore.
"Had a good time? What have you got to tell us, my boy?"
"Yes," replied Eudore, "not so bad."
"We've been on wine fatigue, and we've finished. Let's go back
together, pas?"
In single file they went down the embankment of the road--arm in arm
they crossed the field of gray mud, where their feet fell with the
sound of dough being mixed in the kneading-trough.
"Well, you've seen your wife, your little Mariette--the only girl
for you--that you could never open your jaw without telling us a
tale about her, eh?"
Eudore's wan face winced.
"My wife? Yes, I saw her, sure enough, but only for a little
while--there was no way of doing any better--but no luck, I admit,
and that's all about it."
"How's that?"
"How? You know that we live at Villers-l'Abbaye, a hamlet of four
houses neither more nor less, astraddle over the road. One of those
houses is our cafe, and she runs it, or rather she is running
it again since they gave up shelling the village.
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