his regiment, his eye catches them
and a mist comes over it."

ERNEST BILLAUDEL (_Les Hommes d'épée_).

He was up by dawn, and the villagers on their way to their fields sometimes
stopped to cast an inquisitive look over his garden palings. They saw
him dressed in a linen jacket, with the glorious ribbon adorning his
button-hole, weeding his flower-garden, turning up his walks, pruning his
trees, clearing his flowers of caterpillars, watering his borders, with
great drops of sweat pouring down, bending over his labour like a negro
under the lash.

"What a pity!" they said, "for a rich man to give himself so much trouble!
If it only repaid him!" And they shouted to him: "Good-morning, Captain
Durand, how are you to-day?"--"Pretty well, thank you," replied Durand, in
a peevish tone.--"Still warm to-day, Captain; but you had it warmer in
Africa, didn't you?" At the word Africa, the old soldier's eyes brightened,
his forehead lost its wrinkles, and a smile came to his lips. All his past
rose before him. Africa, the Bedouins, the gunshots, the razzias, the bare
desert, the fresh oases, the life in camp, the glasses of absinthe, the
days of rain and sun, the ostrich chases, the watch for the jackal and the
races over the plain. All this, helter-skelter, in crowds, crossing,
following, multiplying, like the sheaves of sparks which burst forth from a
rocket.

Ah! Ah! that was the happy time. And then he would stop and forget his
work, his flowers, his grafts, and his espaliers; he would forget the
peasants who were there, laughing quietly and nudging one another, and
saying: "The old man is gone in the head."