saying mass. He was young and tall, and his gestures as he officiated
were slow and dignified. He did not know that some one was present
watching him closely; so it could not be supposed that he was speaking
and acting to impress a congregation, and yet he had a way of
kneeling, of stretching out his arms and of looking up to the humble
gilded cross in front of him, that revealed all the ardour of fervent
prayers. Occasionally he turned towards the back of the church to
pronounce the ritual words. His face was serious and kindly, framed in
a youthful beard--the face of an apostle, with the glow of faith in
his eyes. And I was surprised to see underneath his priest's vestments
the hems of a pair of red trousers, and feet shod in large muddy
military boots.

The kneeling figure at the bottom of the steps now stood out more
distinctly. The man was wearing on his shabby infantry coat the white
armlet with the red cross. He must have been a priest, for I could
distinguish some traces of a neglected tonsure among his brown hair.

The two repeated, in a low tone by turns, words of prayer, comfort,
repentance, or supplication, harmonious Latin phrases, which sounded
to me like exquisite music. And as an accompaniment in the distance,
in the direction of Saint Thierry and Berry-au-Bac, the deep voice of
the guns muttered ceaselessly.

For the first time in the campaign I felt a kind of poignant
melancholy. For the first time I felt small and miserable, almost a
useless thing, compared with those two fine priestly figures who were
praying in the solitude of this country church for those who had
fallen and were falling yonder under shot and shell.