THE weather was appalling. Water and wind attacked the passers-by;
riddled, flooded, and upheaved the roads.

I was returning from fatigue to our quarters at the far end of the
village. The landscape that morning showed dirty yellow through the
solid rain, and the sky was dark as a slated roof. The downpour
flogged the horse-trough as with birchen rods. Along the walls.
human shapes went in shrinking files, stooping, abashed, splashing.

In spite of the rain and the cold and bitter wind, a crowd had
gathered in front of the door of the barn where we were lodging. All
close together and back to back, the men seemed from a distance like
a great moving sponge. Those who could see, over shoulders and
between heads, opened their eyes wide and said, "He has a nerve, the
boy!" Then the inquisitive ones broke away, with red noses and
streaming faces, into the down-pour that lashed and the blast that
bit, and letting the hands fall that they had upraised in surprise,
they plunged them in their pockets.

In the center, and running with rain, abode the cause of the
gathering--Fouillade, bare to the waist and washing himself in
abundant water. Thin as an insect, working his long slender arms in
riotous frenzy, he soaped and splashed his head, neck, and chest,
down to the upstanding gridirons of his sides. Over his
funnel-shaped cheeks the brisk activity had spread a flaky beard
like snow, and piled on the top of his head a greasy fleece that the
rain was puncturing with little holes.

By way of a tub, the patient was using three mess-tins which he had
filled with water--no one knew how--in a village where there was