They are not the flower of the race: for a long time now the finest men in the land have been living up to their waists in mud, alert as cats to the dangers threatening them. It is long since the farmer found anything in his winnow except chaff and dust, and it is there still that he searches with an avaricious hand for a few scattered grains. The men are not cold: hot blasts of air come rushing along the floor from a blazing heating apparatus. Yet many of the men shiver. Balancing sometimes on one hip, sometimes on another, they fold and unfold their arms, then drop them, failing to strike any attitude. They are ashamed of their nakedness. In the corner, near the door, a gendarme is pushing and hustling a thin, frail little worker who is too slow in undressing: he thought he need not pull off his socks and pants. He is forced to do so, however, and he discloses two unwashed feet. The men in overalls work with feverish haste, like scene-shifters on the stage. They ask short, succinct questions, and at once they feel and press with their quickly moving hands. The victim is rather pale. A warm dew comes out in beads on his temples. He mumbles and speaks entreatingly. Then, examined once again, he replies with more assurance. “You only suffer from that. Do you cough?” “Yes.” “You are sure you suffer from palpitation of the heart?” “Oh, quite sure, quite!” “Then you have pain in talking?” “Yes; that above all.” “Your digestion is not good?” “No; it never has been.” The man seemed quite reassured. He replied with a kind of enthusiasm--like some one who is at last understood. But, all at once, the old doctor shrugs his shoulders and reveals the trap: “You’ve got everything wrong with you--that’s quite clear. Well, you are classed A1--the fighting line.” “But surely you are aware----” “You have too many illnesses; there’s nothing wrong with you. Get out! The fighting line for you!” Sometimes somebody coughs, and at once a storm of coughing breaks out among the men gathered there. A big grey-haired fellow comes out of a dark corner. Everybody shrinks away from him, with a kind of disgust. Then he remonstrates with his neighbours: “Hang it! D’you think that spots on the skin....” Behind him, collapsed almost on a bench, a tall man who might be anything between twenty and sixty years of age is carefully undressing. His face makes you feel very sorry for him: he seems plunged in the depths of human despair. He takes off an incredible amount of clothing, knitted vests and woollen things; and then there appear some very touching articles: satchels, flannel fronts, scapularies, objects of devotion. All these he places on the bench. The men next to him shift suddenly, and his clothes slip on the floor and are trodden upon by those who have just come in. The man is very pale, as if people were trampling upon his intimate life and his self-respect.