victors, under waving flags, amid the acclamations of women, children, and old men; they had the rudimentary purpose of the peasant who struggles with a mad dog, and who having downed him digs a hole, buries the carrion, washes his hands at the pump, and goes in to dinner. "Germany has robbed man of his divine childhood. In less than two years all these men have grown old; that charming faculty of innocent enthusiasm which had often deceived him, but which had given him joys never to be replaced, has been withered. The most deplorable ruins which the monster has spread abroad over our land are perhaps not so much the splendid monuments of Belgium and France, as the youth of humanity, that had seemed eternal, that was bearing it on to a great outburst of a common hope--faith in Fraternity, faith in Liberty, faith in Justice, potent religion of Progress. Cold reason, like the German gas, has poisoned all this fresh and ebullient vigor. The whole world has become allied, only to strangle a jackal. No man who has come back from the too severe ordeal will ever again feel the desire to enjoy the days that yet remain to him. Scepticism, which used to seem only a way of looking at things, cherished by very distinguished gentlemen, has now taken possession of the mass. But it has become commonplace, and so has ceased all relations with its brother, dilettantism. You will see what sort of thing realistic scepticism will become." "People will always dream," said Odette. XVII Odette returned to Surville in the beginning of August. It was a time of great heat. The second anniversary of mobilization had been observed. War had become an accepted condition. Many already found it difficult to remember a state of peace. At the hospital there were even discussions as to how things had been there before the war. There were those who, though they had then been living in Surville, could not recall them to mind. "You remember the inaugural address of the head doctor, the 16th of August, before the first train of wounded came?" Some of the women insisted that he had given an antimilitarist lecture; others that he had spoken only against alcohol; others that he had given an eloquently patriotic address; some said that it was not he who had spoken, but the surgeon, a very handsome man; and still others that the address was given on another date. One lady could only remember the first time she had posed to the photographer in white blouse and cap. The first arrival of wounded, who had come from Charleroi on August 25, were confused with those who had come in September. Two years! What a long time when one has seen only wretchedness upon wretchedness! Nothing pleasant for twenty-four months! The communiqué of the battle of the Marne? Yes, that counted for something; but at the time no one understood its full importance; there had been no public rejoicing. Our later long and magnificent victories that merely held back the enemy presented to the