"That's all," yawns Mesnil Joseph.

Silence follows the recorded opinions that proceed from these dried
and tanned faces, inlaid with dust. This, evidently, is the credo of
the men who, a year and a half ago, left all the corners of the land
to mass themselves on the frontier: Give up trying to understand,
and give up trying to be yourself. Hope that you will not die, and
fight for life as well as you can.

"Do what you've got to do, oui, but get out of your own messes
yourself," says Barque, as he slowly stirs the mud to and fro.

"No choice"--Tulacque backs him up. "If you don't get out of 'em
yourself, no one'll do it for you."

"He's not yet quite extinct, the man that bothers about the other
fellow."

"Every man for himself, in war!"

"That's so, that's so."

Silence. Then from the depth of their destitution, these men summon
sweet souvenirs--"All that," Barque goes on, "isn't worth much,
compared with the good times we had at Soissons."

"Ah, the Devil!"

A gleam of Paradise lost lights up their eyes and seems even to