stay for entire days, stretched out on the mossy ground, were turning topsy-turvy, tangled up, brandishing their gigantic trees over me; then a few howitzer shells crossed one another in the air, resembling familiar faces which sniggered; one of these projectiles suddenly spread out wide wings, flame-colored, which swung around me and enveloped me. . . . I cried out. . . . My God, am I going crazy? I felt my breast, my chest, my back, my legs. . . . I must have been as pale as a corpse, and I felt a shiver passing through me from heart to brain, like a steel bore. . . .
"Let's see now," I said aloud to myself to make sure that I was awake, that I was alive. . . . In two gulps I swallowed the remainder of the whiskey in my flask, and I started to walk very fast, tramping with rage upon the clods under my feet, whistling the air of a soldier song which we used to sing in chorus to relieve the tedium of the march. Somewhat calmed, I came back to the oak tree and kicked its trunk with the sole of my boots; for I was in need of this noise and this physical motion. . . . And now I thought of my father so lonely at the Priory. It was more than three weeks since I had received a letter from him. Oh! How sad and heart-rending his last letter was! . . . It did not complain of anything, but one felt in it a deep despair, a wearisomeness of being alone in that large empty house, and anxiety about me who, he knew, was wandering, knapsack on back, amidst the dangers of battle. . . . Poor father! He had not been happy with my mother who was ill, always fretful, who did not love him and could not stand his presence. . . . And never a sign of reproach, not even when meeting with the most painful rebuff and unkindness! . . . He used to bend his back like a dog, and walk out. . . .
Ah! how I repented of the fact that I did not love
