I paced on, made very sad, very lonely by this
haggard playing, by the instinctive response drawn
from its hearers.
A squad of soldiers, solemn and weary, tramped down the platform. Bent beneath full knapsacks, they shuffled along, clinging to the butts of their rifles with an air of reaching out for help. Suddenly with tired motions they swung into a ragged platoon formation and waited dumbly for the command to break ranks.
A thick and unreal atmosphere invaded the melancholy shed. These fatigued and over-burdened figures; the crouched forms in the dusk of the third class carriages; the persistent, following lament of the accordeon; the vapours curling about the few lamps, like dying moons, high in the roof, all welded themselves into a conception of the exotic—of more than that—of the barbaric, of a helpless and primitive fatalism. This could not be Paris. These stooped and soiled figures, sent forth for killing, many of them for death, could not be educated, reasoning men. Then, close by, an officer breathed the word "Verdun," and the unreality dissipated. The picture assumed harder, surer lines. It had grown cold in the shed.
There were four officers in my compartment.
