Yvonne sat under the lamp in the shop, her feet up on a box of canned peas, yawning dismally. Behind her on the counter was the glass case full of yellow and greenish-white cheeses. Above that shelves rose to the ceiling in the brownish obscurity of the shop where gleamed faintly large jars and small jars, cans neatly placed in rows, glass jars and vegetables. In the corner, near the glass curtained door that led to the inner room, hung clusters of sausages large and small, red, yellow, and speckled. Yvonne jumped up when Fuselli and the sergeant opened the door. “You are good,” she said. “Je mourrais de cafard.” They laughed. “You know what that mean--cafard?” “Sure.” “It is only since the war. Avant la guerre on ne savais pas ce que c'etait le cafard. The war is no good.” “Funny, ain't it?” said Fuselli to the top sergeant, “a feller can't juss figure out what the war is like.” “Don't you worry. We'll all get there,” said the top sergeant knowingly. “This is the sarjon, Yvonne,” said Fuselli. “Oui, oui, je sais,” said Yvonne, smiling at the top sergeant. They sat in the little room behind the shop and drank white wine, and talked as best they could to Yvonne, who, very trim in her black dress and blue apron, perched on the edge of her chair with her feet in tiny pumps pressed tightly together, and glanced now and then at the elaborate stripes on the top sergeant's arm. Fuselli strode familiarly into the grocery shop, whistling, and threw open the door to the inner room. His whistling stopped in the middle of a bar. “Hello,” he said in an annoyed voice. “Hello, corporal,” said Eisenstein. Eisenstein, his French soldier friend, a lanky man with a scraggly black heard and burning black eyes, and Stockton, the chalky-faced boy, were sitting at the table that filled up the room, chatting intimately and gaily with Yvonne, who leaned against the yellow wall beside the Frenchman and showed all her little pearly teeth in a laugh. In the middle of the dark oak table was a pot of hyacinths and some glasses that had had wine in them. The odor of the hyacinths hung in the air with a faint warm smell from the kitchen. After a second's hesitation, Fuselli sat down to wait until the others should leave. It was long after pay-day and his pockets were empty, so he had nowhere else to go. “How are they treatin' you down in your outfit now?” asked Eisenstein of Stockton, after a silence. “Same as ever,” said Stockton in his thin voice, stuttering a little.... “Sometimes I wish I was dead.” “Hum,” said Eisenstein, a curious expression of understanding on his flabby face. “We'll be civilians some day.” “I won't” said Stockton.