guring hand on Mercier.

"Stay by me."

Yes, I will stay by you, and hold your hand. Is there nothing more I can
do for you?

His nostrils quiver. It is hard to have been wretched for forty years,
and to have to give up the humble hope of smelling the pungent scent of
the juniper-bushes once more....

His lips contract, and then relax gradually, so sadly. It is hard to
have suffered for forty years, and to be unable to quench one's last
thirst with the wonderful waters of our mountain springs....

Now the dark sweat gathers again on the hollow brow. Oh, it is hard to
die after forty years of toil, without ever having had leisure to wipe
the sweat from a brow that has always been bent over one's work.

The sacrifice is immense, and we cannot choose our hour; we must make it
as soon as we hear the voice that demands it.

The man must lay down his tools and say: "Here I am."

Oh, how hard it is to leave this life of unceasing toil and sorrow!

The eyes still smile feebly. They smile to the last moment.

He speaks no more. He breathes no more. The heart throbs wildly, then
stops dead like a foundered horse.

Mercier is dead. The pupils of his eyes are solemnly distended upon a
glassy abyss. All is over. I have not saved him....

Then from those dead eyes great tears ooze slowly and flow upon his
cheeks. I see his features contract as if to weep throughout eternity.

I keep the dead hand still clasped in mine for several long minutes.

VERDUN

FEBRUARY-APRIL 1916

We were going northward by forced marches, through a France that was
like a mournful garden planted with crosses. We were no longer in doubt
as to our appointed destination; every day since we had disembarked at
B----our orders had enjoined us to hasten our advance to the fighting
units of the Army Corps. This Army Corps was contracting, and drawing
itself together hurriedly, its head already in the thick of the fray,
its tail still winding along the roads, across the battle-field of the
Marne.

February was closing in, damp and icy, with squalls of sleet, under a
sullen, hideous sky, lowering furiously down to the level of the ground.
Everywhere there were graves, uniformly decent, or rather according to
pattern, showing a shield of tri-colour or black and white, and figures.
Suddenly, we came upon immense flats, whence the crosses stretched out
their arms between the poplars like men struggling to save themselves
from being engulf