“Lieutenant, there’s no room here to-day. It’s full of fugitives from the north, with their kids and packages.” I uttered a few words of encouragement to my men, and made up my mind to try the “draft-pavilion.” It was occupied by detachments that were rejoining their corps. The men were sleeping in heaps on the straw. “Oh! you must see it’s quite impossible to put it here with the men,” said an adjutant, shaking his head. He added, as if to excuse himself: “Put yourself in my place, Lieutenant. I have no authority.... I can’t take charge of a corpse without orders....” I sat down on a stone. The stretcher-bearers, worn out, mopped their brows and uttered the word “Drink!” I looked at the shapeless mass of Lamailleux, which seemed quite indifferent to this last cross it had to bear, and it waited for its eternal resting-place with the sovereign patience of death. “I don’t suppose you are well acquainted with the station,” said the Adjutant to me; “but there’s a guard-room there for the transport men stationed here. I’ll go and see.” I let him go and began to smoke, contemplating the night, which was warm and glorious. The tranquillity of the objects seemed, like the agitation of the men, to say distinctly: “Why is this man upsetting us all with this useless corpse?” And an insect, ecstatic in the rare grass, emitted a sharpening crescendo of sound like a little being who imagines that the whole earth exists and was made for him. The Adjutant emerged from the darkness. “It’s most unfortunate. A man is locked up there for drunkenness: he has been sick all over the place.” “Well, all right! Let’s go and see the station-master.” He was asleep. His deputy was reading the illustrated papers. While I stated my case he asked me to advise him what pictures he should cut out to stick on the walls from among the little women of the _Vie fantaisiste_, of which he seemed to be an inveterate reader. As I remained surly, he said, as if in parenthesis: “As for this dreadful business, it is an awful pity that the hospital is at the other end of the town. You can’t go there at this time of night. Put the thing in a truck until to-morrow morning, old chap!” Having, by this wonderful suggestion, relieved himself of all responsibility, the young man stuck his nose again into the illustrated paper. At that time they had not erected at the railway stations those large hospitals of wood and cardboard which are to be seen everywhere now. The idea of the truck I did not entertain for two seconds. In imagination I saw this improvised mortuary starting out during the night and taking away the corpse. It was a mad idea! I went to the postmen: they were sorting out the letters. They were humming: “It is I who am Nénesse.” There wasn’t room for a rat in their hutch, and at once they regarded the question as quite beyond their jurisdiction....