Some items of mourning attire make blots in the crowd and have their
message for us, but the rest is of merriment, not mourning.
"It isn't one single country, that's not possible," suddenly says
Volpatte with singular precision, "there are two. We're divided into
two foreign countries. The Front, over there, where there are too
many unhappy, and the Rear, here, where there are too many happy."
"How can you help it? It serves its end--it's the background--but
afterwards--"
"Yes, I know; but all the same, all the same, there are too many of
them, and they're too happy, and they're always the same ones, and
there's no reason--"
"What can you do?" says Tirette.
"So much the worse," adds Blaire, still more simply.
"In eight days from now p'raps we shall have snuffed it!" Volpatte
is content to repeat as we go away with lowered heads.
______
[note 1] See p. 117.
23
The Fatigue-Party
EVENING is falling upon the trench. All through the day it has been
drawing near, invisible as fate, and now it encroaches on the banks
of the long ditches like the lips of a wound infinitely great.
We have talked, eaten, slept, and written in the bottom of the
trench since the morning. Now that evening is here, an eddying
springs up in the boundless crevice; it stirs and unifies the torpid
disorder of the scattered men. It is the hour when we arise and
work.
Volpatte and Tirette approach each other.
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