’I don’t know what made me smile:  it is the only genuine smile of mine I can remember in connection with Jim’s affair.  But somehow this simple statement of the matter sounded funny in French. . . .  “S’est enfui avec les autres,” had said the lieutenant.  And suddenly I began to admire the discrimination of the man.  He had made out the point at once:  he did get hold of the only thing I cared about.  I felt as though I were taking professional opinion on the case.  His imperturbable and mature calmness was that of an expert in possession of the facts, and to whom one’s perplexities are mere child’s-play.  “Ah!  The young, the young,” he said indulgently.  “And after all, one does not die of it.”  “Die of what?” I asked swiftly.  “Of being afraid.”  He elucidated his meaning and sipped his drink.

’I perceived that the three last fingers of his wounded hand were stiff and could not move independently of each other, so that he took up his tumbler with an ungainly clutch.  “One is always afraid.  One may talk, but . . .”  He put down the glass awkwardly. . . .  “The fear, the fear—­look you—­it is always there.” . . .  He touched his breast near a brass button, on the very spot where Jim had given a thump to his own when protesting that there was nothing the matter with his heart.  I suppose I made some sign of dissent, because he insisted, “Yes! yes!  One talks, one talks; this is all very fine; but at the end of the reckoning one is no cleverer than the next man—­and no more brave.  Brave!  This is always to be seen.  I have rolled my hump (roule ma bosse),” he said, using the slang expression with imperturbable seriousness, “in all parts of the world; I have known brave men—­famous ones!  Allez!” . . .  He drank carelessly. . . .  “Brave—­you conceive—­in the Service—­one has got to be—­the trade demands it (le metier veut ca).  Is it not so?” he appealed to me reasonably.  “Eh bien!  Each of them—­I say each of them, if he were an honest man—­bien entendu—­would confess that there is a point—­there is a point—­for the best of us—­there is somewhere a point when you let go everything (vous lachez tout).  And you have got to live with that truth—­do you see?  Given a certain combination of circumstances, fear is sure to come.  Abominable funk (un trac epouvantable).  And even for those who do not believe this truth there is fear all the same—­the fear of themselves.  Absolutely so.  Trust me.  Yes.  Yes. . . .  At my age one knows what one is talking about—­que diable!” . . .  He had delivered himself of all this as immovably as though he had been the mouthpiece of abstract wisdom, but at this point he heightened the effect of detachment by beginning to twirl his thumbs slowly.  “It’s evident—­parbleu!” he continued; “for, make up your mind as much as you like, even a simple headache or a fit of indigestion (un derangement d’estomac) is enough to . . .  Take me, for instance—­I have made my proofs.  Eh bien!  I, who am speaking to you, once . . .”