It's better, too, that
way. You don't mind things so much all in a bunch.... It's only when
you get leave, and after you come back--it's bad, nothing goes right
any more. You ought to have seen the little Sergeant that last time."
Clerambault felt a pang as he said quickly:
"When he came back?"
"He was very low. I don't know as I ever saw him so bad before."
An agonised expression came over Clerambault's face, and at his
gesture, the wounded man who had been looking at the ceiling while he
talked, turned his eyes and understood, for he added at once:
"He pulled himself together again, after that."
"Tell me what he said to you, tell me everything," said Clerambault
again taking his hand.
The sick man hesitated and answered.
"I don't think I just remember what he said." Then he shut his eyes,
and lay still, while Clerambault bent over him and tried to see what
was before those eyes under their closed lids.
* * * * *
An icy moonless night. From the bottom of the hollow _boyau_ one could
see the cold sky and the fixed stars. Bullets rattled on the hard
ground. Maxime and his friend sat huddled up in the trench, smoking
with their chins on their knees. The lad had come back that day from
Paris. He was depressed, would not answer questions, shut himself up
in a sulky silence.
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