in whom should i confide the secret which made my heart leap?
could i hesitate when guillaumin was beside me!
lively, hearty, and full of go, he was an incomparable companion. he fought as if he had been born to it.... he was in for it, and would stick to it. he had thought it would only be a short business. he realised that it would be a long one. couldn't be helped! why grouse about it? he preferred to save his breath. not for an instant did he dream that we could negotiate for peace as losers. one felt that he would march on patiently counting always on revenge, sooner or later, as long as he had the legs to march on; that he would fight as long as he had the arms to fight with.
how fond i was of him! how worthy he was of my confidence!
i hesitated, all the same, for a long time. it was the effect of my rooted suspicion of my fellow-beings—i swear that i lacked the courage. one day, however, when we were marching—he was talking to me about his sister who was a musician—i made some allusion to jeannine, also a musician. he looked at me, and i made up my mind to it, i so much wanted him to know. but my tone played me false in the most[pg 331] bizarre manner, cloaking itself in false irony. i seemed to be giving an account of a casual flirtation. what would this unimportant intrigue end in? i pretended to have no idea of it. and the word, the delicious word, which was ready to blossom on my lips, was never pronounced.
hypocritical trifling! how i cursed it, on looking back at it. how thankful i was to claude for not adopting the same frivolous tone in his turn. if he had done so, that would have been the end of it. i should have retired within myself, embittered by the idea that i had been misunderstood or, worse still, we should have continued to make meaningless remarks on the subject, which would have done violence to my love. instead of which guillaumin guessed that i was, in spite of myself, the victim of an absurd timidity; it was he who, by insensible degrees directed our conversation into a more cordial and sincere channel. he made his interest clear to me. my confidence touched him, he refused to treat it as an insignificant sentiment. then i took the final step, and knew the sweetness of self-abandonment.
without a blush, since i was sure that no chaffing threatened me, i was able to describe to him in detail the progress of the sweet seduction right up to the glorious ecstasy. he listened to me unwearyingly, encouraging me by a strange word or nod. the next day he gave me an opening, which i had vaguely desired, to return to my subject. he smiled at me, when my next letters came, and his eyes shone. his friendship performed the miracle of making him happy because i was.
de valpic had stayed with us. i had pressed him[pg 332] in vain to report sick. guillaumin, and the captain too had urged him to. circumstances robbed our exhortation of all efficacy. he said repeatedly that it was a time when the country claimed the determined effort of all her sons. if i insisted, he cut me short with:
"dreher, you wouldn't desert us!..."
so he went on, and refused to give in. he valiantly accomplished the terrible marches, and bore the sleepless nights, and the days without rest. we sometimes found him sitting down panting, during the halts, without even the strength to wipe his forehead. his appearance then would terrify us, his hollow eyes, and flaming cheek-bones. in a few days his features had become peaked, his face emaciated; his poor shoulders were bowed. one would never have expected him to go down hill so rapidly. his cough was growing more rasping. he expectorated freely, but always—with touching consideration—into a little spittoon, concealed until then in his pack. we hardly dared to ask him how he was. he had asked me lightly not to refer to the subject again.
"i am better, i assure you, since i've given up thinking about it!"
"but what about your temperature?"
"i'm not feverish now. i've thrown away my thermometer. i ought to have begun by doing that!"
he did not let a day go by without writing, any more than i did. he was always on the lookout for ways of despatching his letters, and was usually obliging enough to allow me to profit by them.
i was totally ignorant of anything concerning the object of his love, her name and age and everything.[pg 333] the one question he had pronounced had been enough to make me understand his devotion for her. she too, i guessed, must love him, if she was willing to wait till he recovered.
i used to wonder about this girl—a stranger to me. i imagined her as the bearer of a great name, endowed with beauty and every fascination. what a couple they would make! alas, and that would never be! would she recognise her fiancé, when the war gave him back to her, battered, and at the end of his strength, destined to fade away? i pictured him on a long chair shivering and pulling his rug over his knees. the idea obsessed me. like imaginations must harry him ceaselessly. with a vague eye, and a far-away look he must often be thinking of her, whom he would see again—if things were looked at in their best light—only for a moment.
the closest intimacy had sprung up between him and guillaumin and me.
de valpic was in the first platoon with humel, descroix and playoust, and suffered more than we did from contact with that "lot." they disliked him, and reproached him with being stuck up, and sly,—he who was so simple, and straightforward! they did him bad turns, and arranged once or twice—we messed in platoons now—to defraud him of his share, on the pretext that he was late. playoust who had wormed his way into the sergeant-major's good graces got the "viscount" warned for several tiring fatigues. at béthaincourt, for instance, the unfortunate creature was left behind to wait for the certificate of good conduct. the mayor, having finally refused, after long disputes, he caught us up in the middle of the night, after a forced march. we did not get wind of[pg 334] this bullying at once. we did not see much of the humel-playoust set, and de valpic hated making complaints; he would have preferred to see peace established, even if it were to his own detriment.
everyday, however, we monopolised him more and more. he joined our mess which gaufrèteau had agreed to manage, ever since spincourt, and which aroused everyone's envy, so savory were the fumes which rose from it, even in the most tragic hours, and amid the dearth of all resources.
we three lost no time in finding each other during long halts, and at the end of the day's marching. when we were not too much worn out we had long confabs. the strange thing was that at those times de valpic was the one of us who was always the most animated. he no longer slipped away! we wanted him to spare himself, but he, apologising for his fits of coughing, led us on in spite of ourselves, lavishly displaying the riches of his unusual mind. was it with a view to diverting his thoughts, or did he realise that his enthusiasm was a source of inspiration to us? what a marvellous conversationalist he was! i was dumbfounded by the extent of his knowledge, the region of his curiosity. our discussions often turned upon the issue of the present campaign. how great was his optimism based on facts, not on illusions! there was no pretension about it, by the way; it was all said in a playful friendly tone, which did not recoil on occasion before a crude or, shall we say, military expression emphasised by his rare smile.
we expressed our opinions, flattering, or the reverse, on everyone about us: poilus, n.c.o.'s, and our leaders. what intuition and penetration de valpic showed. how shrewdly he judged poor henriot, for[pg 335] instance, who was completely demoralised, and, because he was ashamed of it, retired into his shell, and shunned all society.
"a lorrain, and an elementary school-master!"
he developed his idea, showing us that these frontier people were more chauvinistic than us, apparently, more warlike, and more nervous. it was they who had suffered most from the invasion in 1870, so that there was nothing more natural than that they should flag quickly at the arrival of a second disaster. they were always the first to suffer. and how easy it was to get into the habit of thinking of the enemy as insatiable and invincible, everlastingly stretching out its claws over their territory. and again he made game of our classic education which assuredly must temper the character by the obscure recollection it propagates of so many traits of heroism, of so many noble passions! but he interrupted himself, fearing to be too sweeping:
"for that matter, there are heaps of first-rate fellows among these schoolmasters!"
we knew some, but not as many as he did! he quoted various names. hermeline in the 18th had died heroically the other day, defending the bridge at cléry.
one evening our intercourse assumed a philosophic complexion. i amused myself by inveigling guillaumin into insidious discussions. he fought hard, and appealed several times to de valpic whose courteous decisions struck me by their perspicuity; and also to the highmindedness they seemed to bear witness to. and yet they must necessarily be inspired by some moral philosophy—which? it will be remembered that the very sound of the word used to importunate me. once started, i sketched the outline of my late[pg 336] doctrines. i was curious to see with what dialectics my companions would oppose those i had so often proved irrefutable. i pressed them. i showed the logic of integral egoism, the impossibility for man to create any duty other than his happiness.
"what do you think about it, de valpic?"
he quietly remarked that moral philosophy in his eyes was one with religion.
"which religion?"
"i only know of one!"
this steadfastness did not displease me. i was not ignorant of his principles. i had seen him, the very day before, during our stay at hazaumont, leave us to go and see a priest and communicate. was his belief irrational—foolish? but at these fateful junctures, were not certain sublime follies our only stays?
