That evening I did not go out and remained at home to muse in solitude. Stretched on a sofa, with half-closed eyes, and body made torpid by the heat, almost slumbering, I liked to go back to my past, to bring to life things dead and to recall memories which escaped me. Five years had passed since the war--the war in which I began my apprenticeship in life by entering the tormenting profession of a man-killer.... Five years already!...Still it seemed like yesterday ... the smoke, the fields covered with snow, stained with blood and ruins, these fields where, like ghosts, we wandered about piteously, worn out with fatigue.... Only five years!... And when I came back to the Priory, the house was empty, my father dead!... My letters had come to him only rarely, at long intervals and they had always been short, dry, written in haste on the back of my knapsack. Only once, after a night of terrible anguish had I become tender, affectionate; only once had I poured out my heart to him, and this letter which should have brought him sweetness, hope and consolation he had not received!... Every morning, Marie told me, he used to come out to the gate an hour before the arrival of the mailman and watch the turn of the road, a prey to mortal fear. Old wood cutters would pass on their way to the woods; my father used to question them: "Hey there, uncle Ribot, you have not seen the mailman, by any chance?" "Why no, Monsieur Mintié--it's a little early yet." "Oh, no, uncle Ribot, he is rather late." "That might be, Monsieur Mintié, that might be." When he noticed the kepi and red collar of the mailman he became pale, trembling with the fear of bad news. As the mailman approached, the heart of my father beat furiously, almost bursting. "Nothing but magazines today, Monsieur Mintié." "How is that!... No letters at all! You must be mistaken, my boy. Look ... look again...." He made the mailman search in his letter bag, untie the bundles and go through them again.... "Nothing!... Why it's impossible!" And he would return to the kitchen, seat himself in the rocking chair heaving a sigh: "Just think of it," he would say to Marie who gave him a bowl of milk, "just think of it, Marie, if his poor mother had been alive!" During the day, when in town, he used to visit people who had sons in the army; the conversation was always the same. "Well, have you heard from your boys." "Why, no, M'sieur Mintié. How about you, have you heard anything from Jean?" "I haven't either." "That's very strange. How is it possible?... Can you explain it?..."