“Si Monsieur desire.... It's that life is so dear nowadays. Poor people like us can barely get along.” “I know that only too well,” said Andrews. “Monsieur est etranger....” began the woman in a wheedling tone, when she had received the money. “Yes. I was only demobilized a short time ago.” “Aha! Monsieur est demobilise. Monsieur remplira la petite feuille pour la police, n'est-ce pas?” The woman brought from behind her back a hand that held a narrow printed slip. “All right. I'll fill it out now,” said Andrews, his heart thumping. Without thinking what he was doing, he put the paper on the edge of the billiard table and wrote: “John Brown, aged 23. Chicago Ill., Etats-Unis. Musician. Holder of passport No. 1,432,286.” “Merci, Monsieur. A bientot, Monsieur. Au revoir, Monsieur.” The woman's singing voice followed him up the rickety stairs to his room. It was only when he had closed the door that he remembered that he had put down for a passport number his army number. “And why did I write John Brown as a name?” he asked himself. “John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, But his soul goes marching on. Glory, glory, hallelujah! But his soul goes marching on.” He heard the song so vividly that he thought for an instant someone must be standing beside him singing it. He went to the window and ran his hand through his hair. Outside the Loire rambled in great loops towards the blue distance, silvery reach upon silvery reach, with here and there the broad gleam of a sand bank. Opposite were poplars and fields patched in various greens rising to hills tufted with dense shadowy groves. On the bare summit of the highest hill a windmill waved lazy arms against the marbled sky. Gradually John Andrews felt the silvery quiet settle about him. He pulled a sausage and a piece of bread out of the pocket of his coat, took a long swig of water from the pitcher on his washstand, and settled himself at the table before the window in front of a pile of ruled sheets of music paper. He nibbled the bread and the sausage meditatively for a long while, then wrote “Arbeit und Rhythmus” in a large careful hand at the top of the paper. After that he looked out of the window without moving, watching the plumed clouds sail like huge slow ships against the slate-blue sky. Suddenly he scratched out what he had written and scrawled above it: “The Body and Soul of John Brown.” He got to his feet and walked about the room with clenched hands. “How curious that I should have written that name. How curious that I should have written that name!” he said aloud. He sat down at the table again and forgot everything in the music that possessed him.