The officer's voice was trembling. Fortin did not reply. Liberty was dead! He took down his belt which was hanging on a hook, shook the few hands held out to him, then saluted and left the room. What a douche! A dismayed silence reigned for a few minutes. At last we left the place, but even outside we hardly spoke. "Lieutenant Coudray, wasn't it?" "There's no knowing where this may end...." "Court-martial!" Ladmiraut unburdened himself. "Just what I said; Fortin exaggerates." "Exactly!" Everyone agreed that it was bound to happen. It seemed to me that our voices were lowered. Did we mistrust each other? Really, the unexpected appearance of this officer!... Someone must have gone to warn him.... These were nice times, certainly! We separated, and Guillaumin took me home as usual. "I don't wish him any ill," he said, "but you must confess that he was asking for it!" "Who? Fortin?" "Yes." "Why?" "Oh, look here! He said enough to make one jump through the ceiling. No, but can you see the Bosches calmly laying hands on Champagne and Flanders!" I was still suffering from the effects of the irritation and humiliation aroused in me by the intervention of the Lieutenant. I could hear his cutting voice. Some rotter or other! But there was nothing to be done, but to bow before his superior rank. It must be added that I had come under the depressing influence.... What a hit it was at my illusions, at our groundless self-confidence! To go and get killed for a cause we knew was already lost. Oh, it really was the limit! A cold rage filled me. I vented it on poor Guillaumin to begin with. He was on the point of returning to the subject of his Champagne and his Flanders.... One would have thought they belonged to him and that someone wanted to pick his pocket of them! None of that! I shut him up, and told him what an ass I thought him. The dull resentment which had been heaped up in me by these first days of subjection, rose up from the depths of my being. And I did not stop at that; my egoism and the anarchism of my bad days rebelled. I suddenly announced that I hoped the socialistic agitations would come to something. "What agitations?" Guillaumin asked. "Oh!" I said. "They were keeping quiet on the subject, by order! but they existed, could not help existing in spite of certain recantations. Would they smother the peoples' poignant cry for peace at any price, much longer? War on the War!" Following up the bold refrain, I asserted that I should like to see the workmen who had been called up, fire their first shots at the instigators of the catastrophe, all these statesmen, generals, and financiers of both countries, who were driving two peaceful nations to the slaughter! As if all the political and economic interests in the world were worth this massacre of innocents!