Silence followed, broken by the restless clatter of the wheels running on the rails. Presently we heard a young, laughing, satirical voice saying, almost in a whisper: “Oh! we shall be compelled to do some mad thing before spring.” Then, without any connecting remark, the same man added: “It will be my twelfth attack. But I have always been lucky. I have only been wounded once yet.” These two phrases were still echoing in my ears when the man who had uttered them lighted a match and began smoking. The light gave a furtive glimpse of a handsome face. The man belonged to an honoured corps. The insignia of the highest awards that can be given to young officers gleamed on his yellow tunic. A quiet and discreet courage emanated from his personality. Darkness once more enfolded us. But would there ever be a night black enough to extinguish the image which then flashed before me? Would there ever be a silence so complete as to stifle the echo of the two little phrases murmured amid the rattle of the train? Since that time I have often thought of the incident whenever, as on that night, I have turned, with love and anguish, towards the past and towards the future of these men of France--my brothers who, in such great numbers, have given themselves up to die and are not ashamed to utter the thoughts that lie nearest the heart; whose nobility of soul, and unyielding intelligence and pathetic simplicity, the world appreciates too little. How could I not think of it at a time which saw the long martyrdom of a great people, who, across a night without bourne, search solely for the paths along which they may at last find freedom and peace? REVAUD’S ROOM One never got tired in Revaud’s room. The roar of the war, the rumbling of transport waggons, the spasmodic shocks of the gunfire, all the whistling and gasping sounds of the killing machine beat against the windows with a spent fury, as in the shelter of a creek resound the echoes of a storm raging in the open sea. But this noise was as familiar to the ear as the heart-beats of the miserable world, and one never got tired in Revaud’s room.