Yesterday perhaps there was still time. Then we could have regained grip of ourselves, compelled our wills to resist. But to-day the evil has gone too far, has progressed beyond all hope of reparation. It is too late. It is not even worth the trouble of hoping for....
"By the way, old man, when will you have finished with the whole of the blanket?"
Since we got into bed that is the third time Porchon has passed that same remark. I ignore him, most properly, striving hard to make my feigned snores sound regular and natural.
"Here, you blockhead, here! When the deuce will you stop bagging all the blanket?"
The beast persists! He is asking for it and gets it!
"Dry up--you're a nuisance! Take your beastly blanket, roll yourself in it, swelter in it, take it all for yourself, only leave me alone to sleep in peace!"
Porchon contrives to remain silent for at least a minute; then, in a sleepy voice:
"It is a bit better here than in the Haumont Wood, what?"
"Better even than the barn at Louvemont, don't you think?"
"Naturally!... But say, old man, don't you think we had better go to sleep?"
Two minutes later and Porchon is snoring. But no longer is there sleep for me. Scenes and memories have been evoked and flit across my mind to keep me constantly wakeful. What devil of mischief prompted the idiot to mention those things? He has set the machine working and now there is no stopping it!
And so in memory I live again through bad days, nightmare days--the _réveil_ in the furious, stinging rain; the arrival at Louvemont, that indescribable village little better than a sewer. I had gone over to the quarters of the adjoining section because before their barn a little chimney-piece had been erected with some paving stones. There had been a fire of flaming logs, hissing and spluttering. We had stripped ourselves to the waist to let the grateful warmth of the flames play on our chests and backs and shoulders. Sitting on a bundle of straw we had found an old, white-bearded soldier, dreaming. I had gone up to him and said:
"Hallo, M----! So you are better! Beginning to feel alive once again, eh?"
"Oh, yes, Lieutenant. But it has been a hard pull, a very hard pull!..."
And he had repeated in a low voice, as though experiencing again hardships still recent: "Very hard!"