Notwithstanding, my personal position has established itself and progressively improved. I am getting three hundred and sixty francs a month, and besides, I have a share in the profits of the litigation office--about fifty francs a month. It is a year and a half since I was stagnating in the little glass office, to which Monsieur Mielvaque has been promoted, succeeding me. Nowadays they say to me, "You're lucky!" They envy me--who once envied so many people. It astonishes me at first, then I get used to it. I have restored my political plans, but this time I have a rational and normal policy in view. I am nominated to succeed Crillon in the Town Council. There, no doubt, I shall arrive sooner or later. I continue to become a personality by the force of circumstances, without my noticing it, and without any real interest in me on the part of those around me. Quite a piece of my life has now gone by. When sometimes I think of that, I am surprised at the length of the time elapsed; at the number of the days and the years that are dead. It has come quickly, and without much change in myself on the other hand; and I turn away from that vision, at once real and supernatural. And yet, in spite of myself, my future appears before my eyes--and its end. My future will resemble my past; it does so already. I can dimly see all my life, from one end to the other, all that I am, all that I shall have been. CHAPTER VIII THE BRAWLER At the time of the great military maneuvers of September, 1913, Viviers was an important center of the operations. All the district was brightened with a swarming of red and blue and with martial ardor. Alone and systematically, Brisbille was the reviler. From the top of Chestnut Hill, where we were watching a strategical display, he pointed at the military mass. "Maneuvers, do they call them? I could die of laughing! The red caps have dug trenches and the white-band caps have bunged 'em up again. Take away the War Office, and you've only kids' games left." "It's war!" explained an influential military correspondent, who was standing by. Then the journalist talked with a colleague about the Russians. "The Russians!" Brisbille broke in; "when they've formed a republic----" "He's a simpleton," said the journalist, smiling. The inebriate jumped astride his hobby horse. "War me no war, it's all lunacy! And look, look--look at those red trousers that you can see miles away! They must do it on purpose for soldiers to be killed, that they don't dress 'em in the color of nothing at all!" A lady could not help breaking in here: "What?" Change our little soldiers' red trousers? Impossible! There's no good reason for it. They would never consent! They would rebel."