"
"Do you want my opinion? Although I know nothing about books, it's
brave to do that, because it isn't usually done, and it'll be spicy
if you dare do it--but you'll find it hard when it comes to it,
you're too polite. That's just one of the faults I've found in you
since we've known each other; that, and also that dirty habit you've
got, when they're serving brandy out to us, you pretend it'll do you
harm, and instead of giving your share to a pal, you go and pour it
on your head to wash your scalp."
14
Of Burdens
AT the end of the yard of the Muets farm, among the outbuildings,
the barn gapes like a cavern. It is always caverns for us, even in
houses! When you have crossed the yard, where the manure yields
underfoot with a spongy sound or have gone round it instead on the
narrow paved path of difficult equilibrium, and when you have
arrived at the entrance to the barn, you can see nothing at all.
Then, if you persist, you make out a misty hollow where equally
misty and dark lumps are asquat or prone or wandering from one
corner to another. At the back, on the right and on the left, the
pale gleams of two candles, each with the round halo of a distant
moon allow you at last to make out the human shape of these masses,
whose mouths emit either steam or thick smoke.
Our hazy retreat, which I allow carefully to swallow me whole, is a
scene of excitement this evening. We leave for the trenches
to-morrow morning, and the nebulous tenants of the barn are
beginning to pack up.
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