's
theories. He shows cosmic matter, that negative something from
which everything must come, condensing to make worlds, the plastic
rind of the globe consolidating; then the formation of islands
and continents; then the rains ceasing and first appearance of
the sun, heretofore veiled by opaque clouds; then vegetable life
manifesting itself before animal, because the latter cannot maintain
itself and endure save by absorbing the elements of the former----"

At that moment a stir was apparent along the ramparts. The players
broke off their game and the two friends lifted their heads.
It was a train of wounded going by. Under the curtains of the
lumbering ambulance-waggons marked with the Geneva red cross could
be seen livid faces tied up in bloodstained bandages. Linesmen
and _mobiles_ tramped behind, their arms hanging in slings. The
Nationals proffered them handfuls of tobacco and asked for news.
But the wounded men only shook their heads and trudged stolidly
on their way.

"Aren't _we_ to have some fighting soon as well as other fellows?"
cried Garneret.

To which Servien growled back:

"We must first put down the traitors and incapables who govern
us, proclaim the Commune and march all together against the
Prussians."

XXIX

Hatred of the Empire which had left him to rot in a back-shop
and a school class-room, love of the Republic that was to bring
every blessing in its train had, since the proclamation of September
4, raised Jean Servien's warlike enthusiasm to fever heat. But
he soon wearied of the long drills in the Luxembourg gardens
and the hours of futile sentry-go behind the fortifications.
The sight of tipsy shopkeepers in a frenzy of foolish ardour,
half drink, half patriotism, sickened him, and this playing at
soldiers, tramping through the mud on an empty stomach, struck
him as after all an odious, ugly business.

Luckily Garneret was his comrade in the ranks, and Servien felt
the salutary effect of that well-stored, well-ordered mind, the
servant of duty and stern reality. Only this saved him from a
passion, as futile in the past as it was hopeless in the future,
which was assuming the dangerous character of a mental disease.

He had not seen Gabrielle again for a long time. The theatres
were shut; all he knew, from the newspapers, was that she was
nursing the wounded in the theatre ambulance. He had no wish
now to meet her.

When he was not on duty, he used to lie in bed and read (it