But now the crisis to which the young fellow was a prey burst forth with more violence than ever. 'That's just it, and I've had my fill of it. Isn't it enough to make one shed tears of blood--these continual defeats, these idiotic generals, these soldiers who are stupidly led to the slaughter-house like flocks of animals? And now, here we are in a blind alley whence there's no escape! You can see that the Prussians are coming up on all sides, and that we are about to be crushed--the army is lost! No, no; I shall stay here; I would rather be shot as a deserter. You can go away without me, Jean. No! I won't go back to the regiment; I shall stay here!' A fresh flood of tears stretched him on his pillow. This was one of those irresistible slackenings of the nerves sweeping everything away, one of those sudden collapses into despair bringing with it contempt for everybody, himself included, to which he was so subject. His sister, who knew him well, remained undisturbed. 'It would be very wrong, my dear Maurice,' said she, 'to desert your post at the moment of danger.' With a sudden start he sat up in bed: 'Well, give me my gun, then. I'll blow my brains out. Like that it will be sooner over.' Then, stretching out his arm and pointing to Weiss, who sat there motionless and silent, he added: 'There, he's the only sensible one; yes, he alone saw clearly into all this--don't you remember, Jean, what he said to me a month ago at Mulhausen?' 'That's true,' the corporal replied; 'this gentleman said we should be beaten.' A vision of the scene rose up before him; that anxious night, the long waiting fraught with so much anguish, the mournful sky already pregnant with the disaster of Frœschweiler, whilst Weiss so quietly expressed his fears: Germany ready, better commanded, better armed, sustained by a great outburst of patriotism, and France scared, a prey to disorder, behind the times, perverted, having neither the commanders, nor the men, nor the arms she needed. And now the fearful prophecy was being fulfilled. Weiss raised his trembling hands. An expression of intense grief had come over his good-natured face. 'Ah! I assure you,' he muttered, 'it gives me no pleasure at all to find that I was in the right. I am a mere stupid; but all this was so clear and patent to those who knew anything at all. At the same time, however, even if we are beaten, we can still kill some of those baleful Prussians. That's our consolation. I still think our men will leave their lives here, and I should like to see the Prussians leave theirs too; yes, I should like to see them lying in heaps, covering all the ground yonder!'