Oh, I know well there'll be hard graft before
it's finished, and still more after. We've got to work, and I don't
only mean work with the arms.
"It'll be necessary to make everything over again. Very well, we'll
do it. The house? Gone. The garden? Nowhere. All right, we'll
rebuild the house, we'll remake the garden. The less there is the
more we'll make over again. After all, it's life, and we're made to
remake, eh? And we'll remake our life together, and happiness. We'll
make the days again; we'll remake the nights.
"And the other side, too. They'll make their world again. Do you
know what I say?--perhaps it won't be as long as one thinks--"
"Tiens! I can see Madeleine Vandaert marrying another chap.
She's a widow; but, old man, she's been a widow eighteen months. Do
you think it's not a big slice, that, eighteen months? They even
leave off wearing mourning, I believe, about that time! People don't
remember that when they say 'What a strumpet she is,' and when, in
effect, they ask her to commit suicide. But mon vieux, one forgets.
One is forced to forget. It isn't the people that make you forget;
you do it yourself; it's just forgetfulness, mind you. I find
Madeleine again all of a sudden, and to see her frivvling there it
broke me up as much as if her husband had been killed
yesterday--it's natural. But it's a devil of a long time since he
got spiked, poor lad. It's a long time since, it's too long since.
People are no longer the same.
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