Somewhat pretentious, it had a great effect on Alfred and the old deputy. The boy brought Machurot back, and it was put into his hands. The old dog was as drunk as a pig, but he declaimed it, all the same, head-in-air, scanning all the syllables but breathing out of time. They traced a detailed route on the paper, for him, and let him loose in the growing dusk. The news had spread. Peasants began to come for information on their way home from the fields. They arrived with lagging footsteps. "It's true we're going to fight?" "Rather!" Alfred took them to see the telegram, lit up now by a lantern. "Just look at that and see if it's nonsense!" "When do we leave?" "That depends. You've only got to look at your record book." Those who had gone on to get it at home, pulled it out, opened it, and consulted the number. "The third day," they read; or "the second"; territorials, "the eleventh." "You'll get there too late, old chap!" The upshot was that each one seemed overjoyed or heart-broken, according to whether he would have time to get his hay in or not. Very few remarks; and anyhow not a single grumble. My cousin, who forced himself to keep up his cheery tone, met with no echo. He could only drag a few disconnected sentences out of the broken-down old deputy. The visitors did not linger, but soon turned on their heels, their wooden pipes in their mouths. Lecomte bustled and fussed, full of the importance of his part. As for me I took part in it all as the stranger I was, and incapable of realising the tragic element afloat in the air. When the doctor wanted to go in, I urged him to take a turn with me through the village streets. I expected at last to come upon some unexpected, and unusual demonstration ... the evening of mobilisation! The great evening, by Jove! I was disillusioned, we met no one in the poorly lit streets. In the little schoolyard the teacher's son was making figures of eight on his bicycle; further on through an open window, we saw a lot of farm hands sitting round a table, limp and taciturn, gorging themselves with soup. And the usual frequenters of Tronquière's "pub" were sipping their _verre de verte_ in silence. My cousin did not rise much in answer to my short sentences. However, when I asked him: "Are they patriotic about here?" "Very," he assured me. "You'll soon see!" I objected diffidently. "At first sight...." "Well?" "There's rather a lack of enthusiasm." "Enthusiasm? It was not wanting in the year '70! They didn't know then what a real war was. They've learnt. In '71 in January, we saw what was left of Bourbaki's army pass by, dying of hunger and cold in the snow. We know what beaten men are, and that we must not be of their number. They aren't going out of light-heartedness, but they'll go on till death!" * * * * *