clumsy head with its moist nostrils, and lowed patiently to attract her attention.
Before long the girl consented to eat a bite with them and drink a mouthful of wine. Often she brought them plums in her pocket, for the plum season had begun. Her presence set the two little Breton soldiers very much at their ease, and they chattered away like two birds.
Then one Wednesday, Luc Le Ganidec applied for a pass out of barracks, a thing which he had never done before, and he did not come in until ten o’clock at night.
Thoroughly disturbed, Jean racked his brains to imagine why his comrade had dared to go out like that.
On the following Friday, Luc borrowed ten sous from the man who slept next him, and again asked and got leave to absent himself for some hours.
And when he set out with Jean for their Sunday walk, he wore a very sly preoccupied, and altogether different air. Kerderen did not understand it, but he was vaguely suspicious of something, without guessing what it might be.
They never said a word until they reached their accustomed resting-place, where they had worn away the grass by sitting always in the same spot; and they ate their lunch slowly. Neither of them was hungry.
Very soon the girl came into sight. They watched her coming as they did every Sunday. When she was quite near them, Luc got up and took two steps. She placed her pail on the ground and hugged him. She hugged him violently, throwing her arms round his neck, quite regardless of Jean, not dreaming he was there, not even seeing him.
Poor Jean sat there bewildered, so bewildered that he did not understand it at all, his mind in a turmoil, his heart broken, still unable to realise it.
Then the girl sat down beside Luc, and they began to chatter.
Jean did not look at them; he guessed now why his comrade had gone out twice during the week, and he felt within himself a burning anguish, a sort of wound, the dreadful tearing agony of betrayal.
Luc and the girl got up and went off together to see to the cow.
Jean followed them with his eyes. He saw them getting farther and farther away, side by side. His comrade’s scarlet trousers formed a dazzling patch on the road. It was he who took up the mallet and hammered in the stake to which the beast was fastened.
The girl squatted down to do the milking, while he caressed the animal’s bony spine with a careless hand. Then they left the pail on the grass and withdrew into the wood.
Jean saw nothing but the leafy wall through which they had gone; and he felt so distressed that if he had tried to get up, he would certainly have dropped where he stood.
He sat perfectly still, quite senseless with amazement and misery, a profound unreasoning misery. He longed to cry, to run away, to hide himself, never to see anyone again.
Suddenly he saw them coming out of the coppice. They walked back happily, hand in hand, like village sweethearts. It was Luc who carried the pail.
They embraced again before they parted, and the girl went off, throwing Jean a friendly good night and a knowing smile. Today she never remembered to give him any milk.
The two little soldiers remained there side by side, motionless as always, silent and calm, their placid faces revealing nothing of the emotions that raged in their hearts. The sun went down on them. Now and then the cow lowed, watching them from far off.
They got up to go back at the usual hour.
Luc peeled a switch. Jean carried the empty bottle. He left it with the wine-seller in Bezons. Then they made for the bridge, and, as they did every Sunday, halted halfway across to watch the water slip past a while.
Jean leaned over, leaned farther and farther over the iron railing, as if he had seen something in the rushing stream that fascinated him. Luc said to him:
“Do you want to drink a mouthful?”
As the last word left his mouth, the rest of Jean followed his head, his lifted legs described a circle in the air, and the little blue and red soldier dropped like a stone, struck the water, and disappeared in it.
Luc’s throat contracted with agony and he tried vainly to shout. Farther downstream he saw something move; then his comrade’s head rose to the surface of the river to sink again.
Farther down still he caught one more glimpse, a hand, only a hand thrust out of the water and sucked down again. Then nothing more.
The watermen who came running up did not find the body that day.
Luc returned to barracks alone, running, completely distracted, and related the accident, eyes and voice full of tears, and blowing his nose furiously. “He leaned over … he … he leaned over … so far … so far that his head did a somersault … and … and … there he was fallen over … fallen over …”
Emotion choked him and he could not say any more. If he had only known. …
Checkmate
I was going to Turin by way of Corsica. At Nice I took ship for Bastia, and as soon as we were out at sea I saw a charming, quietly dressed young woman sitting on the bridge: she was looking out to sea. “Ah,” I said to myself, “there’s my friend for the voyage.”
I took a seat opposite her and looked at her, my mind filled with the questions that leap into any man’s mind when he sees an unknown and interesting woman: what was her class, her age, what sort of a woman was she? Then, from what he can see, he speculates on what he can’t see. Eye and mind peer through the bodice and under the gown. He observes the line of the bust when she is seated: he tries to catch a glimpse of her ankle: he notes the texture of her hand, which reveals the fineness of the
