Behind the tower of the Cathedral, the great purple mass of the mountains stands out against the sunset. The smell of the mountains, of vineyards and cows and cool waters, comes down to the smells of the town's living in the Place. II Inside the church there are no lights, except of so much of sunset as comes in under the low arches, and of the red lamp, and of the candles, burning for Our Lady of Victories, and for the new Saint Jeanne d'Arc. Among the dusky figures, very still, in the church, you see white things. Sometimes it is the white cap of an old crone and sometimes it is a white bandage. III The church smells like a hospital. There is no more the smell of incense in the church, that used to linger there from office to office through the years. You wonder if really ever the church smelled of incense and wax candles. The smell of hospital has so come to belong there. Americans He did not seem so very ill. He had not that look of being made of wax. And he talked all the time. Most of them die so silently. He lay in the bright ward and talked all of the time. He had enlisted in the Foreign Legion and fought since the beginning, and was wounded last week in the Argonne. He wanted me to sit beside him and listen. I hated the things he said. He said he was a fool, they all were fools, and they all knew it now. He said there was no glory. They had thought that war was glorious. And it was hideous; sardine tins and broken bottles, mud or dust, never a green thing left to live. There was no enemy. Just guns. When a man fell, nobody had hit him, only a gun. If he was dead, lucky for him. When they were wounded they made noises like animals. It killed you to pick them up. He said they "went sorter every which way" in your hands. If they fell between the trenches you couldn't get to them. It seemed as if they'd never die. Sometimes they made noises like wolves and sometimes like cats. That was the worst, the noises like cats. You never knew if it weren't cruel to throw them bread. If you threw them bread, they lived and lived. The trenches were full of rats. The rats came and ate your boots and straps and things while you slept. The smells were "something fierce." "Gee, what fools we were," he said. He picked at the bedclothes and grinned at me and said, "Say, kid, ain't you homesick for back over across the Duck Pond?" I said, "Oh, no, no." I looked out of the window to the sky of France that never has failed me of dreams, and I said, "No, no, no." Oh, why did I? Why didn't I pretend for him that I was homesick too? An Altar