Sometimes, unutterably wearied by so much suffering, I asked for work outside the camp, in order to sort out my ideas and renew the theme of my reflections. It was always with a sigh of comfort that I got away from the city of tents. I contemplated, from a distance, this sinister agglomeration, which certainly bore comparison with an itinerant fair. I tried to distinguish amid the white canvas and red crosses the tops of these little “mosques.” I gazed also at the cemetery where hundreds and hundreds of bodies had been buried; and, realising the sum of the misery, despair and rage accumulated on that spot of the earth, I thought of the people who, far away in the heart of France, were crowding the concert cafés, the drawing-rooms, the cinemas, the brothels, finding brazen enjoyment in themselves, in the world, in the weather; and, sheltered by this quivering rampart of the sacrificed, will not share in this universal anguish. I thought of these people with more shame than resentment. The excursions in the open freshened me a little, and I found some comfort in the sight of healthy men spared by the battle. Sometimes I went as far as the English sector. Masses of long-range artillery were to be seen there. The guns were served by soldiers in shirt-sleeves and long trousers stained by oil and cart-grease. They looked more like factory workers than soldiers. You felt then how war has become an industry--an engineering business devoted to mechanical slaughter and massacre. One night, walking along the Albert road, I overheard the conversation of some men who were sitting on the upturned earth of a pit. By their accent they were peasants from the north and must have belonged to the regiments which had just been under fire. “After the war,” said one of them, “those who are going to dabble in politics, they’ll have to say they had a hand in this confounded war.” But this frank opinion, caught in passing one night along a road in the front--this inconsequent, unanswered comment was lost in the tumult of the gunfire. * * * * * I gained much by being stretcher-bearer. I came to know the men better than I had ever done until then--to know them bathed in a purer light, _naked_ before death, stripped even of the instincts which disfigure the divine beauty of simple souls. In the midst of the greatest trials our race of peasants has remained vigorous, pure, worthy of the noblest human traditions. I have known them--Rebic, Louba, Ratier, Freyssinet, Calmel, Touche, and so many others whom I must not name if I am not to mention the whole country. It cannot be said that pain chose its victims, and yet, when I used to pass by their beds where their destiny struggled--when I looked at their faces, each one of them, they all seemed to me good, patient, energetic men, and all of them deserved to be loved.