“Ah! I had once.” There was silence, broken by the cry of animals, the gusts of the high wind, and the hissing murmur of the shaken foliage. The old woman scattered a few handfuls of the ashes, and then came near and began in a stumbling voice that often lost itself in the wind: “I once had boys in the army. Now I have none. The two youngest are dead. I have one remaining--a poor wretch, who is hardly a soldier now.” “He is wounded, perhaps?” “Yes, he is wounded. He has lost both arms.” The old woman put her bucket of ashes on the ground, removed some grass from her waist-belt and tied a wayward vine branch to a supporting stick, and, standing erect again, she exclaimed: “He has been wounded as few have been. He has lost his two arms, and in his thigh there is a hole big enough to contain a small bowl of milk. For ten days he was on the verge of death. I went to see him, and I said to him: “‘Clovis, you are not going to leave me all alone?’--for I must tell you they had been for a long while without a father. “And he always used to reply: “‘I’ll be better to-morrow.’ “No one was gentler than this boy.” We remained silent. One of us at length murmured: “Your boy is brave, Madame!” The old woman, who was looking at her grape-vine, turned her dim eyes towards us and said in an abrupt tone: “Brave! of course! My boys could not be anything else!” A laugh escaped her--a laugh almost of pride, a strangled laugh that lost itself at once in the wind. Then she appeared to talk absently: “My poor unfortunate son will some day be able to look forward to marriage, for there is no one so gentle as he is. But my two youngest, my two little ones! It’s too much! Oh, God, it’s too much!” We could find nothing to say. There was nothing to say. With hair flying in the wind, she began again to scatter the ashes, like a sower of death. Her lips were compressed, and in her face there was a mixture of despair, bewilderment and defiance. “What are you doing this for, Madame?” I asked, somewhat at random. “You see, I’m mixing the ashes with the sulphate. It’s the season. I shall never finish: I’ve too much to do, too much to do.” We had got up, as if we felt ashamed of disturbing this tireless worker in her task. Moved by a common impulse, we took off our hats to her. “Good-night,” she said, “and good luck, too, you others.” We climbed up the hill to the very edge of the wood without saying a word. Then we turned round and had a last look at the valley.