"Six years," said he--"two furloughs. When I left I was a sergeant, with this medal, which I brought back from Tonquin. A fine time when it is finished." He spoke like travellers who prefer the remembrance of a journey but all the same have not disliked it. And he continued: "With you, they say it is harder." "Yes." "I have always heard it said Germany is a great country, but the officer and the soldier are not relatives as in France." The sun was going down; the great golden landscape became tawny in places and purple in shadow. This purple spread with the rapidity of racing clouds on shadowed slopes and veiled plains--how Jean Oberlé would have loved to see you again in strong light! He asked: "Do you ever see any deserters?" Those who pass the frontier before their service begins are naturally not known, only the soldiers serving in the Alsace-Lorraine regiments and who desert in uniform. "Yes; I have seen several poor fellows who had been too severely punished or whose tempers were too proud. You will say that some desert from our side too, and it is true; but then they are not so many----" Shaking his head and looking tenderly at the sleeping forests: "When one belongs to this side, you see, one can speak ill of it, but one is not satisfied elsewhere. You do not know the country, sir, and yet to look at you one would swear you belonged to it." Jean felt himself getting red; his throat was dry; he could not answer. And the man, thinking that he had taken a liberty, said: "Excuse me, sir; one never knows whom one meets; and it is better not to talk about these things. I must continue my rounds and go down again." He was going to salute in military fashion; Jean took his hand and pressed it. "You are not mistaken, my friend," he said. Then, feeling in his pocket, he held out his cigar-case to him. "Come, take a cigar!" And then, with a kind of childish joy, he emptied his case into the hand which the Custom House official held out. "Take them all; you will give me pleasure. Do not refuse me!" It seemed as if he wanted to give something to France. The brigadier hesitated for a moment, and closed his hand over them, saying: "I will smoke them on Sunday. Thank you, sir! Good-bye!" He saluted quickly, and was lost to sight almost immediately in the firs that clothe the mountains. Jean heard his footsteps growing fainter in the distance. Above all, he heard echoing in his soul, and with indescribable emotion, the words of this unknown man. "You belong to us." "Yes, I belong here; I feel it, I see it; and that explains to me so many things in my life." The shadow descended. Jean saw the land darkening. He thought of those of his family who had fought there, round the villages submerged by the night, so that Alsace should remain united to that great country stretched out before him. "Sweet country--my country--every one has tender words for her; and I, why did I come? Why am I as moved as if she were living before me?"