"Well, let's leg it, since there is nothing. Why spend a whole hour
looking at places where things were? Let's be off, old man."

We depart--the only two living beings to be seen in that unreal and
miasmal place, that village which bestrews the earth and lies under
our feet.

We climb again. The weather is clearing and the fog scattering
quickly. My silent comrade, who is making great strides with lowered
head, points out a field: "The cemetery," he says; "it was there
before it was everywhere, before it laid hold on everything without
end, like a plague."

Half-way, we go more slowly, and Poterloo comes close to me-"You
know, it's too much, all that. It's wiped out too much--all my life
up to now. It makes me afraid--it is so completely wiped out."

"Come; your wife's in good health, you know; your little girl, too."

He looks at me comically: "My wife--I'll tell you something; my
wife--"

"Well?"

"Well, old chap, I've seen her again."

"You've seen her? I thought she was in the occupied country?"

"Yes, she's at Lens, with my relations. Well, I've seen her--ah,
and then, after all, zut!--I'll tell you all about it. Well, I was