The skirmishers in advance fascinated him. Their shots into
thickets and at distant and prominent trees spoke to him of
tragedies--hidden, mysterious, solemn.

Once the line encountered the body of a dead soldier. He lay
upon his back staring at the sky. He was dressed in an awkward
suit of yellowish brown. The youth could see that the soles of
his shoes had been worn to the thinness of writing paper, and
from a great rent in one the dead foot projected piteously. And
it was as if fate had betrayed the soldier. In death it exposed
to his enemies that poverty which in life he had perhaps concealed
from his friends.

The ranks opened covertly to avoid the corpse. The invulnerable
dead man forced a way for himself. The youth looked keenly at
the ashen face. The wind raised the tawny beard. It moved as if
a hand were stroking it. He vaguely desired to walk around and
around the body and stare; the impulse of the living to try to
read in dead eyes the answer to the Question.

During the march the ardor which the youth had acquired when out
of view of the field rapidly faded to nothing. His curiosity was
quite easily satisfied. If an intense scene had caught him with
its wild swing as he came to the top of the bank, he might have
gone gone roaring on. This advance upon Nature was too calm.
He had opportunity to reflect. He had time in which to wonder
about himself and to attempt to probe his sensations.

Absurd ideas took hold upon him. He thought that he did not
relish the landscape. It threatened him. A coldness swept over