Sac-Au-Dos | Page 7

drinking since our departure from Paris! To the devil with those
whimsicalities without name, those mysterious pot-house poisons with
which we have been so crammed to leanness for nearly a month! We
are unrecognizable; our once peaked faces redden like a drunkard's, we
get noisy, with noise in the air we cut loose. We run all over the town
that way.
7 Brandy of thirty-six degrees.
Evening arrives; we must go back, however. The sister who is in charge
of the old men's ward says to us in a small flute-like voice:
"Soldiers, gentlemen, you were very cold last night, but you are going
to have a good bed."
And she leads us into a great room where three night lamps, dimly
lighted, hang from the ceiling. I have a white bed, I sink with delight
between the sheets that still smell fresh with the odor of washing. We
hear nothing but the breathing or the snoring of the sleepers. I am quite
warm, my eyes close, I know no longer where I am, when a prolonged
chuckling awakes me. I open one eye and I perceive at the foot of my
bed an individual who is looking down at me. I sit up in bed. I see
before me an old man, tall, lean, his eyes haggard, lips slobbering into a
rough beard. I ask what he wants of me. No answer! I cry out: "Go
away! Let me sleep!"
He shows me his fist. I suspect him to be a lunatic. I roll up my towel,
at the end of which I quietly twist a knot; he advances one step; I leap
to the floor; I parry the fisticuff he aims at me, and with the towel I deal

him a return blow full in the left eye. He sees thirty candles, he throws
himself at me; I draw back and let fly a vigorous kick in the stomach.
He tumbles, carrying with him a chair that rebounds; the dormitory is
awakened; Francis runs up in his shirt to lend me assistance; the sister
arrives; the nurses dart upon the madman, whom they flog and succeed
with great difficulty in putting in bed again. The aspect of the
dormitory was eminently ludicrous; to the gloom of faded rose, which
the dying night lamps had spread around them, succeeded the flaming
of three lanterns. The black ceiling, with its rings of light that danced
above the burning wicks, glittered now with its tints of freshly spread
plaster. The sick men, a collection of Punch and Judies without age,
had clutched the piece of wood that hung at the end of a cord above
their beds, hung on to it with one hand, and with the other made
gestures of terror. At that sight my anger cools, I split with laughter, the
painter suffocates, it is only the sister who preserves her gravity and
succeeds by force of threats and entreaties in restoring order in the
room.
Night came to an end, for good or ill; in the morning at six o'clock the
rattle of a drum assembled us, the director called off the roll. We start
for Rouen, Arrived in that city, an officer tells the unfortunate man in
charge of us that the hospital is full and can not take us in. Meanwhile
we have an hour to wait. I throw my knapsack down into a corner of
the station, and though my stomach is on fire, we are off, Francis and I,
wandering at random, in ecstasies before the church of Saint-Ouen, in
wonder before the old houses. We admire so much and so long that the
hour had long since passed before we even thought of looking for the
station again. "It's a long time since your comrades departed," one of
the employees of the railroad said to us; "they are in Evreux." "The
devil! The next train doesn't go until nine o'clock--Come, let's get some
dinner!"
When we arrived at Evreux, midnight had come. We could not present
ourselves at a hospital at such an hour; we would have the appearance
of malefactors. The night is superb, we cross the city and we find
ourselves in the open fields. It was the time of haying, the piles were in
stacks. We spy out a little stack in a field, we hollow out there two

comfortable nests, and I do not know whether it is the reminiscent odor
of our couch or the penetrating perfume of the woods that stirs us, but
we feel the need of airing our defunct love affairs. The subject was
inexhaustible. Little by little, however, words become fewer,
enthusiasm dies out, we fall asleep.
"Sacre bleu!" cries my neighbor, as he stretches himself. "What time
can it be?" I awake in turn. The