In front of the town-hall Delaherche was hustled by a stream of haggard soldiers coming from the Faubourg of La Cassine. He lost sight of the colonel, and thereupon renounced his intention of going to see the hoisting of the white flag. He would certainly not be allowed to enter the keep; and besides, on hearing some people say that shells were falling on the college, he was once more filled with anxiety. Perhaps his factory had caught fire during his absence. Thereupon he darted off again, possessed by a feverish desire to be on the move, which he endeavoured to satisfy by running through the streets. Groups of people barred his way, however; at each crossing there were fresh obstacles. It was only on reaching the Rue Maqua that he gave a sigh of relief, on finding that the monumental front of his house was intact, that neither a puff of smoke nor a spark of fire was to be seen. He went in and called out to his mother and his wife: 'Things are going all right; they are hoisting the white flag, so the firing will soon be over.' Then he stopped short, for the scene which the ambulance presented was really terrible. Not only was every mattress occupied in the spacious drying-room, the door of which was open, but there no longer remained any space even on the litter of straw spread out at one end of the building. More straw was now being laid between the beds: the wounded were being closely packed, one beside the other. There were already more than a couple of hundred of them, and others were still arriving. A white light streamed from the broad windows upon all this accumulation of human suffering. At times there arose some involuntary cry occasioned by too sudden a movement; and now and again the rattle of the death pangs was wafted through the moist atmosphere. From one end of the room there long resounded a continuous, gentle, almost musical wail. Then the silence became deeper, like a kind of resigned stupor, like the oppressive mournfulness of a death room, broken only by the steps and whispers of the attendants. The wounds, most of which had been hastily dressed on the battlefield, though some had remained bare, untended, were displayed in all their distressful horror, amid shreds of torn capotes and trousers. Feet were stretched out, still booted, but crushed and bleeding. Inert limbs dangled from knees and elbows which had been smashed as though by blows of a hammer. There were broken hands and hanging fingers, too, sustained by mere strips of skin. Most numerous, apparently, were the fractured legs and arms, stiffened by pain and as heavy as lead; but the disquieting wounds were especially those that had opened up the stomach, the chest, or the head. Blood was flowing from flanks that had been frightfully lacerated; bowels had become knotted under upraised skin; some men, through their loins being gashed and hacked, were twisted into frightfully distorted postures. Some lungs had been perforated through