abyss, making this sacrifice, disposing of his son and of his life,
without asking if he himself agreed. He and his had ceased to belong
to themselves. He could not conceive that it should be otherwise with
any of them. The obscure will of the ant-heap had eaten him up.

Sometimes taken unawares, the remains of his self-analytical habit of
mind would appear; like a sensitive nerve that is touched,--a dull
blow, a quiver of pain, it is gone, and we forget it.

At the end of three weeks the exhausted offensive was still pawing the
ground of the same blood-soaked kilometres, and the newspapers began
to distract public attention, putting it on a fresh scent. Nothing had
been heard from Maxime since he left. They sought for the ordinary
reasons for delay which the mind furnishes readily but the heart
cannot accept. Another week went by. Among themselves each of the
three pretended to be confident, but at night, each one alone in his
room, the heart cried out in agony, and the whole day long the ear was
strained to catch every step on the stair, the nerves stretched to the
breaking point at a ring of the bell, or the touch of a hand passing
the door.

The first official news of the losses began to come in; several
families among Clerambault's friends already knew which of their men
were dead and which wounded. Those who had lost all, envied those who
could have their loved ones back, though bleeding, perhaps mutilated.
Many sank into the night of their grief; for them the war and life
were equally over. But with others the exaltation of the early days
persisted strangely; Clerambault saw one mother wrought up by her
patriotism and her grief to the point that she almost rejoiced at the
death of her son. "I have given my all, my all!" she would say, with