There are not ever enough chairs under the plane tree. There are more éclopés than there are chairs. How they laugh! They think it very droll to see a man who has only his left leg and a man who has only his right leg sharing a chair. The men who have no legs say that that is not nearly so bad as having no arms. They say that the men with no arms are ashamed to be seen, like the men wounded in the face. They say that the men with no arms will never come out even to the gate. III They never will let you stand. It is a dreadful thing to do, to take one of their chairs. But they like to talk to a stranger. All of them, except the man whose spine has been hurt, love to talk. The man whose spine has been hurt lies all day, the days he can be brought out, on a stretcher, never stirring. He never speaks except to say one thing. He is very young. He looks as if he were made of wax. He keeps saying, "How long the days are at this season!" He will ask, over and over again, "What time is it?" and say, "Only eleven o'clock?" Or, "Only three o'clock?" And then always, "How long the days are at this season!" IV They are taking out for a walk those of the éclopés who are fit for it. There must be nearly a hundred of them. In every possible sort of patched, discoloured uniform, here they come hopping and hobbling along. They have more crutches and canes than feet among the lot of them. One of the men who has no legs goes so fast on his wooden stump and his crutches that everybody stops to look, and all the éclopés laugh, and the people stopping to look, laugh, and he laughs more than any of them. If things are tragic enough, they are funny. I have come to know that, with the éclopés at the gate. And inside the gate, with those of the éclopés who keep back against the walls, I have come to know that the only safety of life is death. The Cathedral I The Place de la Cathédrale is full of hot red sunset, taken and held there, like wine in the chalice of old golden walls. The old golden walls of the houses that once were palaces lift up the shape of a cup to the wine of the sunset, a vessel of silence and slow time. Now every night at sunset the bells of the Cathedral are ringing, and people are coming into the Place from the rue St. Réal and the rue Croix d'Or and the tunnel street, under the first stories of the Palais du Maréchal, that is called the rue Petite Lanterne. They are coming to the Cathedral for the prayers and canticles for France. There are women and old people and children and soldiers, fine straight young chasseurs alpins from the garrison, like chamois hunters, with béret and mountain-horn, and wounded soldiers from the hospitals, and from the dépôt d'éclopés, with crutches and canes and white bandages. The swallows are flying low back and forth across the cobbles of the Place and crying.