A discussion suddenly breaks upon the silence. The old doctor was exclaiming in a furious tone: “I tell you I can hear nothing!” With both hands he was pressing down the shoulders of a poor weak wretch as thin as a poker, and who looked terrified. With one word the poor devil was ordered into the fighting forces, and he went away, more upset, trembling and panic-stricken than he would ever be in the trenches in front of the machine-guns. But at the other end of the hall something unusual was happening. “I tell you I can walk,” protested a rasping voice, eaten away by goodness knows what disease. “No,” replied the young doctor, “no; be reasonable, and go home. We’ll take you later when you’ve recovered.” “If you don’t want me, I shall do myself in.... But I tell you I have reasons for going to the front. I am not going to stand any more insults day after day.” A short silence takes possession of everyone in the room: the echo of a tragedy is felt. The man is obviously very ill. His chest is horrible, distorted by violent breathing. He can hardly stand on his swollen legs, which are marked with large purple veins. “Rejected!” cries the judge. And the unfortunate creature returns to his rags, with lowered shoulders, his eyes dazed like a bull that has been felled. The man who followed was a fatalist: he refused to discuss his position. “That won’t prevent you serving.” “Bah! just as you like.” “Then, the fighting line!” “As you wish; I don’t care a damn.” And he withdraws immediately, liberated like a man who stakes his future on a mere throw of the dice. All those who go away leave behind them something of the heavy smell of unwashed bodies. Curious thing, they all have a fetid breath; for that day they have eaten too quickly, badly digested their food, smoked and drunk too much. From all these mouths comes the same warm, sour breath which betrays the same emotion--the same breakdown of the machine. The atmosphere of the room gradually thickens. The lamps, which had been lit quite early, appear to be lined with a heavy clinging moisture that affects all the objects in the room. But above all hovers something more elusive and discordant--the air seems to be charged with nervous energy, the fragments of broken wills, the wreckage of the thoughts abandoned there by men who had to strip themselves naked, who were afraid, who yearned and did not yearn, who measured with anguish their powers of resistance and the sacrifice they had to make, who fought with all their might against the forces of destiny.