“A bad sign,” says Paradis; “the hen that reflects is ill.”  And Paradis uncrosses and recrosses his legs.  Beside him on the bench, Blaire extends his own, lets loose a great yawn that he maintains in placid duration, and sets himself again to observe, for of all of us he most delights in watching fowls during the brief life when they are in such a hurry to eat.

And we watch them in unison, not forgetting the shabby old cock, worn threadbare.  Where his feathers have fallen appears the naked india-rubber leg, lurid as a grilled cutlet.  He approaches the white sitter, which first turns her head away in tart denial, with several “No’s” in a muffled rattle, and then watches him with the little blue enamel dials of her eyes.

“We’re all right,” says Barque.

“Watch the little ducks,” says Blaire, “going along the communication trench.”

We watch a single file of all-golden ducklings go past—­still almost eggs on feet—­their big heads pulling their little lame bodies along by the string of their necks, and that quickly.  From his corner, the big dog follows them also with his deeply dark eye, on which the slanting sun has shaped a fine tawny ring.

Beyond this rustic yard and over the scalloping of the low wall, the orchard reveals itself, where a green carpet, moist and thick, covers the rich soil and is topped by a screen of foliage with a garniture of blossom, some white as statuary, others pied and glossy as knots in neckties.  Beyond again is the meadow, where the shadowed poplars throw shafts of dark or golden green.  Still farther again is a square patch of upstanding hops, followed by a patch of cabbages, sitting on the ground and dressed in line.  In the sunshine of air and of earth we hear the bees, as they work and make music (in deference to the poets), and the cricket which, in defiance of the fable, sings with no humility and fills Space by himself.

Over yonder, there falls eddying from a poplar’s peak a magpie—­half white, half black, like a shred of partly-burned paper.

The soldiers outstretch themselves luxuriously on the stone bench, their eyes half closed, and bask in the sunshine that warms the basin of the big yard till it is like a bath.

“That’s seventeen days we’ve been here!  After thinking we were going away day after day!”

“One never knows,” said Paradis, wagging his head and smacking his lips.

Through the yard gate that opens on to the road we see a group of poilus strolling, nose in air, devouring the sunshine; and then, all alone, Tellurure.  In the middle of the street he oscillates the prosperous abdomen of which he is proprietor, and rocking on legs arched like basket-handles, he expectorates in wide abundance all around him.

“We thought, too, that we should be as badly off here as in the other quarters.  But this time it’s real rest, both in the time it lasts and the kind it is.”