How I despised and upbraided myself at such moments! What a profound
disgust I felt for the follies of my garrison life, its gross
pleasures and silly excesses! I was ashamed of myself when I reflected
that death brushed by me every day, and that I might disappear to-day
or to-morrow, after so many ill-spent and unprofitable days.

Without any effort, and almost in spite of myself, pious words came
back to my lips--those words that my dear mother used to teach me on
her knee years and years ago. And I felt a quiet delight in the almost
forgotten words that came back to me:

"Forgive us our trespasses.... Pray for us, poor sinners...."

It seemed to me that I should presently go away a better man and a
more valiant soldier. And, as though to encourage and bless me, a
faint ray of sunshine came through the window.

_"Ite, missa est...."_ The priest turned round; and this time I
thought his eyes rested upon me, and that the look was a benediction
and an absolution.

But suddenly I heard in the alley close by a great noise of people
running and horses stamping, and a voice crying:

"Mount horses!... Mount horses!"

I was sorry to leave the little church of Pévy; I should so much have
liked to wait until those two priests came out, to speak to them, and
talk about other things than war, massacres and pillage. But duty
called me to my men, my horses, and to battle.