that corner of the land, over six hundred miles from here, whence he
was driven by war.

So he stands outside, erect, more truly excited than ever before in
these northern scenes. And the wind comes and steals into him, and
comes again roughly, shaking and maltreating his scarecrow's slight
and flesh-less figure.

Ye gods! It is almost uninhabitable, the barn they have assigned to
us to live in during this period of rest. It is a collapsing refuge,
gloomy and leaky, confined as a well. One half of it is under
water--we see rats swimming in it--and the men are crowded in the
other half. The walls, composed of laths stuck together with dried
mud, are cracked, sunken, holed in all their circuit, and
extensively broken through above. The night we got here--until the
morning--we plugged as well as we could the openings within reach,
by inserting leafy branches and hurdles. But the higher holes, and
those in the roof, still gaped and always. When dawn hovers there,
weakling and early, the wind for contrast rushes in and blows round
every side with all its strength, and the squad endures the hustling
of an everlasting draught.

When we are there, we remain upright in the ruined obscurity,
groping, shivering, complaining.

Fouillade, who has come in once more, goaded by the cold, regrets
his ablutions. He has pains in his loins and back. He wants
something to do, but what?

Sit down? Impossible; it is too dirty inside there. The ground and