Sac-Au-Dos | Page 6

they uncouple, and which they replace by another, and
walking by the office I hear the bills and the tic-tac of the telegraph.
The employee, with back turned to me, was stooping a little to the right
in such a way that from where I was placed, I could see but the back of
his head and the tip of his nose, which shone red and beaded with sweat,
while the rest of his figure disappeared in the shadow thrown by the
screen of a gas-jet.
They invite me to get back into the carriage, and I find my comrades
again, just as I had left them. That time I went to sleep for good. For
how long did my sleep last? I don't know--when a great cry woke me
up: "Paris! Paris!" I made a dash for the doorway. At a distance, against
a band of pale gold, stood out in black the smokestacks of factories and
workshops. We were at Saint-Denis; the news ran from car to car.
Every one was on his feet. The engine quickened its pace. The Gare du
Nord looms up in the distance. We arrive there, we get down, we throw
ourselves at the gates. One part of us succeeds in escaping, the others
are stopped by the employees of the railroad and by the troops; by force
they make us remount into a train that is getting up steam, and here we
are again, off for God knows where!
We roll onward again all day long. I am weary of looking at the rows of
houses and trees that spin by before my eyes; then, too, I have the colic
continually and I suffer. About four o'clock of the afternoon, the engine
slackens its speed, and stops at a landing-stage where awaits us there an
old general, around whom sports a flock of young men, with headgear
of red képis, breached in red and shod with boots with yellow spurs.
The general passes us in review and divides us into two squads; the one
for the seminary, the other is directed toward the hospital. We are, it
seems, at Arras. Francis and we form part of the first squad. They
tumble us into carts stuffed with straw, and we arrive in front of a great
building that settles and seems about to collapse into the street. We
mount to the second story to a room that contains some thirty beds;
each one of us unbuckles his knapsack, combs himself, and sits down.

A doctor arrives.
"What is the trouble with you?" he asks of the first.
"A carbuncle."
"Ah! and you?"
"Dysentery."
"Ah! and you?"
"A bubo."
"But in that case you have not been wounded during the war?"
"Not the least in the world."
"Very well! You can take up your knapsacks again. The archbishop
gives up the beds of his seminarists only to the wounded."
I pack into my knapsack again all the knick-knacks that I had taken out,
and we are off again, willy-nilly, for the city hospital. There was no
more room there. In vain the sisters contrive to squeeze the iron beds
together, the wards are full. Worn out by all these delays, I seize one
mattress, Francis takes another, and we go and stretch ourselves in the
garden on a great glass-plot.
The next day I have a talk with the director, an affable and charming
man. I ask permission for the painter and for me to go out into the town.
He consents; the door opens; we are free! We are going to dine at last!
To eat real meat, to drink real wine! Ah, we do not hesitate; we make
straight for the best hotel in town. They serve us there with a
wholesome meal. There are flowers there on the table, magnificent
bouquets of roses and fuchias that spread themselves out of the glass
vases. The waiter brings in a roast that drains into a lake of butter; the
sun himself comes to the feast, makes the covers sparkle and the blades
of the knives, sifts his golden dust through the carafes, and playing with
the pomard that gently rocks in the glasses, spots with a ruby star the

damask cloth.
Oh, sacred joy of the guzzlers! My mouth is full and Francis is drunk!
The fumes of the roast mingle with the perfume of the flowers; the
purple of the wine vies in gorgeousness with the red of the roses. The
waiter who serves us has the air of folly and we have the air of gluttons,
it is all the same to us! We stuff down roast after roast, we pour down
bordeaux upon burgundy, chartreuse upon cognac. To the devil with
your weak wines and your thirty-sixes, {7} which we have been