They had not
eaten anything since the day before. They were fleeing rapidly, the
Prussians not being far off.

"All the Norman country, sombre, dotted with the shadows of the trees
surrounding the farms, stretched out beneath a black, heavy, threatening
sky.

"Nothing else could be heard in the wan twilight but the confused sound,
undefined though rapid, of a marching throng, an endless tramping,
mingled with the vague clink of tin bowls or swords. The men, bent,
round-shouldered, dirty, in many cases even in rags, dragged themselves
along, hurried through the snow, with a long, broken-backed stride.

"The skin of their hands froze to the butt ends of their muskets, for it
was freezing hard that night. I frequently saw a little soldier take off
his shoes in order to walk barefoot, as his shoes hurt his weary feet;
and at every step he left a track of blood. Then, after some time, he
would sit down in a field for a few minutes' rest, and he never got up
again. Every man who sat down was a dead man.

"Should we have left behind us those poor, exhausted soldiers, who fondly
counted on being able to start afresh as soon as they had somewhat
refreshed their stiffened legs? But scarcely had they ceased to move, and
to make their almost frozen blood circulate in their veins, than an
unconquerable torpor congealed them, nailed them to the ground, closed
their eyes, and paralyzed in one second this overworked human mechanism.
And they gradually sank down, their foreheads on their knees, without,
however, falling over, for their loins and their limbs became as hard and
immovable as wood, impossible to bend or to stand upright.

"And the rest of us, more robust, kept straggling on, chilled to the
marrow, advancing by a kind of inertia through the night, through the
snow, through that cold and deadly country, crushed by pain, by defeat,
by despair, above all overcome by the abominable sensation of
abandonment, of the end, of death, of nothingness.

"I saw two gendarmes holding by the arm a curious-looking little man,
old, beardless, of truly surprising aspect.

"They were looking for an officer, believing that they had caught a spy.
The word 'spy' at once spread through the midst of the stragglers, and
they gathered in a group round the prisoner. A voice exclaimed: 'He must
be shot!' And all these soldiers who were falling from utter prostration,
only holding themselves on their feet by leaning on their guns, felt all
of a