At last Marie came one morning for me, to go home, for that interval.

She found me on the seat in the yard of the hospital, which used to be a school, under the cloth—­which was the only spot where a ray of sunshine could get in.  I was meditating in the middle of an assembly of old cripples and men with heads or arms bandaged, with ragged and incongruous equipment, with sick clothes.  I detached myself from the miracle-yard and followed Marie, after thanking the nurse and saying good-by to her.

The corporal of the hospital orderlies is the vicar of our church—­he who said and who spread it about that he was going to share the soldiers’ sufferings, like all the priests.  Marie says to me, “Aren’t you going to see him?”

“No,” I say.

We set out for life by a shady path, and then the high road came.  We walked slowly.  Marie carried the bundle.  The horizons were even, the earth was flat and made no noise, and the dome of the sky no longer banged like a big clock.  The fields were empty, right to the end, because of the war; but the lines of the road were scriptural, turning not aside to the right hand or to the left.  And I, cleansed, simplified, lucid—­though still astonished at the silence and affected by the peacefulness—­I saw it all distinctly, without a veil, without anything.  It seemed to me that I bore within me a great new reason, unused.

We were not far away.  Soon we uncovered the past, step by step.  As fast as we drew near, smaller and smaller details introduced themselves and told us their names—­that tree with the stones round it, those forsaken and declining sheds.  I even found recollections shut up in the little retreats of the kilometer-stones.

But Marie was looking at me with an indefinable expression.

“You’re icy cold,” she said to me suddenly, shivering.

“No,” I said, “no.”

We stopped at an inn to rest and eat, and it was already evening when we reached the streets.

Marie pointed out a man who was crossing over, yonder.

“Monsieur Rampaille is rich now, because of the War.”

Then it was a woman, dressed in fluttering white and blue, disappearing round the corner of a house: 

“That’s Antonia Veron.  She’s been in the Red Cross service.  She’s got a decoration because of the War.”

“Ah!” I said, “everything’s changed.”

Now we are in sight of the house.  The distance between the corner of the street and the house seems to me smaller than it should be.  The court comes to an end suddenly; its shape looks shorter than it is in reality.  In the same way, all the memories of my former life appear dwindled to me.

The house, the rooms.  I have climbed the stairs and come down again, watched by Marie.  I have recognized everything; some things even which I did not see.  There is no one else but us two in the falling night, as though people had agreed not to show themselves yet to this man who comes back.