We no longer know where we are. There is
neither earth nor sky--nothing but a sort of cloud. The first period
of inaction is forming in the chaotic drama, and there is a general
slackening in the movement and the uproar. The cannonade grows less;
it still shakes the sky as a cough shakes a man, but it is farther
off now. Enthusiasm is allayed, and there remains only the infinite
fatigue that rises and overwhelms us, and the infinite waiting that
begins over again.
* * * * * *
Where is the enemy? He has left his dead everywhere, and we have
seen rows of prisoners. Yonder again there is. one, drab,
ill-defined and smoky, outlined against the dirty sky. But the bulk
seem to have dispersed afar. A few shells come to us here and there
blunderingly, and we ridicule them. We are saved, we are quiet, we
are alone, in this desert where an immensity of corpses adjoins a
line of the living.
Night has come. The dust has flown away, but has yielded place to
shadow and darkness over the long-drawn multitude's disorder. Men
approach each other, sit down, get up again and walk about, leaning
on each other or hooked together. Between the dug-outs, which are
blocked by the mingled dead, we gather in groups and squat. Some
have laid their rifles on the ground and wander on the rim of the
trench with their arms balancing; and when they come near we can see
that they are blackened and scorched, their eyes are red and slashed
with mud.
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