strange despondency. Around me, as the grey light stole softly into my
lean-to, everything was absolutely quiet. It was the same in every way
as it had been the morning after the last terrible night; and yet that
was already so long ago! Almost mechanically, I searched the breast
pocket of my soil-worn shirt for the previous day's orders, so as to
see about picquet posting; then I remembered suddenly, with a curious
heart-sinking, that it was all over, finished, completed.... It was
so strange that it should be so--that everything should have come so
suddenly to an end. After all those experiences, to be lying on the
ground like some tramp in Europe, without a thing to one's name, was
to be merely grotesque and incongruous. Yet it was necessary to become
accustomed immediately to the idea that one belonged to the ordinary
world, where one would not be distinguished from one's fellow; where
everything was quiet and orderly.... And I was separated from this by
such a mighty gulf. I knew so many things now. What! was I no longer
to experience that supreme delight of shooting and being shot at--of
that unending excitement? Oh! was it really over?...

I got up, and shook myself disconsolately, retied what remained of a
neckcloth, and then looked in disgust at my boots. My boots! Two and a
half months' work and sleep in them--my only pair--had not improved
their appearance. Yet I had not even suspected that before; the evil
fruit of relief had made my nakedness clear....

Alongside the whole post of ten men was still peacefully
slumbering--regulars and volunteers heaped impartially together. Poor
devils! Each one, after the enormous excitement of the relief, had
come back mechanically to his accustomed place, because this strange
life of ours, imposed by the discipline of events, has become a second
nature, which we scarcely know how to shake off. Like tired dogs, we