And among the idle poilus of the guard-room at the end of the place, under the wing of the shaking and rattling signboard which serves as advertisement of the village, [note 3] a conversation is set up on the subject of this wandering buffoon.

“He has a dirty neb,” says Bigornot; “and I’ll tell you what I think—­they’ve no business to let civvies mess about at the front with their pretty ringlets, and especially individuals that you don’t know where they come from.”

“You’re quite crushing, you portable louse,” replies Cornet.

“Never mind, shoe-sole face,” Bigornot insists; “we trust ’em too much.  I know what I’m saying when I open it.”

“You don’t,” says Canard.  “Pepere’s going to the rear.”

“The women here,” murmurs La Mollette, “they’re ugly; they’re a lot of frights.”

The other men on guard, their concentrated gaze roaming in space, watch two enemy aeroplanes and the intricate skeins they are spinning.  Around the stiff mechanical birds up there that appear now black like crows and now white like gulls, according to the play of the light, clouds of bursting shrapnel stipple the azure, and seem like a long flight of snowflakes in the sunshine.

As we are going back, two strollers come up—­Carassus and Cheyssier.  They announce that mess-man Pepere is going to the rear, to be sent to a Territorial regiment, having come under the operation of the Dalbiez Act.

“That’s a hint for Blaire,” says Carassus, who has a funny big nose in the middle of his face that suits him ill.

In the village groups of poilus go by, or in twos, joined by the crossing bonds of converse.  We see the solitary ones unite in couples, separate, then come together again with a new inspiration of talk, drawn to each other as if magnetized.

In the middle of an excited crowd white papers are waving.  It is the newspaper hawker, who is selling for two sous papers which should be one sou.  Fouillade is standing in the middle of the road, thin as the legs of a hare.  At the corner of a house Paradis shows to the sun face pink as ham.

Biquet joins us again, in undress, with a jacket and cap of the police.  He is licking his chops:  “I met some pals and we’ve had a drink.  You see, to-morrow one starts scratching again, and cleaning his old rags and his catapult.  But my greatcoat!—­going to be some job to filter that!  It isn’t a greatcoat any longer—­it’s armor-plate.”

Montreuil, a clerk at the office, appears and hails Biquet:  “Hey, riff-raff!  A letter!  Been chasing you an hour.  You’re never to be found, rotter!”

“Can’t be both here and there, looney.  Give us a squint.”  He examines the letter, balances it in his hand, and announces as he tears the envelope, “It’s from the old woman.”

We slacken our pace.  As he reads, he follows the lines with his finger, wagging his head with an air of conviction, and his lips moving like a woman’s in prayer.