But I knew when the end came before I was told, and I let myself fall into a dark dreamless sleep, of which I still retain the most despairing impression. It appears that Dauche was buried in the little cemetery skirted by the birch and dead fir trees that are to be seen at the village of C.... in an arid field of white sand. I never could get myself to visit him there. But I carried away with me a more sombre grave that time will not efface. I left the Château de S---- towards the middle of December. I was weak and enfeebled, weary with the thought that it was now my own life I must live, and undergo for myself the struggle of my own life and death. COUSIN’S PROJECTS Whenever I had a minute to spare I went and sat at the foot of Cousin’s bed. He said to me: “See, there’s room for you now that they’ve cut my legs off. One would think they’d done it on purpose.” This man of forty had a young and delicate face. On “shaving days,” when the razor had done its work, it did one good to see the everlasting, trustful smile of Cousin. It was a wonderful smile--rather delicate, rather ironical, rather candid, rather convulsive; the very smile of the race, made with lips discoloured by the loss of blood, and features drawn by long and weary effort. In spite of everything, Cousin had a confiding look--the air of one who trusted absolutely the whole world, and especially himself, because he lived, because he was Cousin. One leg remained to him which, to speak frankly, was worth nothing at all. The joint of the knee had been smashed by the explosion of a torpedo. It was a bad business, of which people spoke in low voices, shaking their heads. But, what matter? Cousin did not put his trust in his legs. Already he had abandoned one; he did not seem to care much about a leg more or less. Cousin, I think, did not put his trust in any particular part of his chest, or his head, or his limbs. With or without legs, he was himself, and in his clear green eyes burnt a generous flame that was the expression of a pure soul. Whilst I was sitting on his bed Cousin told me all about himself. He always took up the thread of events at the point where the war had broken it off, and he had a natural inclination to unite the happy past of Peace to a future not less delicious. Across the troubled and bloody abyss he loved to stretch the life of yesterday until it touched the life of to-morrow. Never a verb in the past tense, but an eternal and miraculous present. “I am a dealer in _objets d’art_,” he told me. “It’s a profitable business when one understands it. I trade mostly in candelabras and chandeliers. I work with Cohen and Co., with Marguillé, with Smithson, with all the great houses. Now, I have my own special way of working: I keep my client to myself, and I undertake to make him understand what he wants and to deliver the goods.