"
I do not catch the insistent retort of Poilpot, but--"But, you
damned numskull," gurgles Poitron, "haven't I told you thirty times
that I can't? You must have a pig's head, anyway!"
Marthereau confides to me, "I've heard about enough of that."
Obviously he spoke too soon just now.
A sort of fever, provoked by farewell libations, prevails in the
wretched straw-spread hole where our tribe--some upright and
hesitant, others kneeling and hammering like colliers--is mending,
stacking, and subduing its provisions, clothes, and tools. There is
a wordy growling, a riot of gesture. From the smoky glimmers,
rubicund faces start forth in relief, and dark hands move about in
the shadows like marionettes. In the barn next to ours, and
separated from it only by a wall of a man's height, arise tipsy
shouts. Two men in there have fallen upon each other with fierce
violence and anger. The air is vibrant with the coarsest expressions
the human ear ever hears. But one of the disputants, a stranger from
another squad, is ejected by the tenants, and the flow of curses
from the other grows feebler and expires.
"Same as us," says Marthereau with a certain pride, "they hold
themselves in!"
It is true. Thanks to Bertrand, who is possessed by a hatred of
drunkenness, of the fatal poison that gambles with multitudes, our
squad is one of the least befouled by wine and brandy.
They are shouting and singing and talking all around.
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