ew at the beginning is stale at the
end!"

"There's a jolly wine--it doesn't look much, that little wine where I
come from; but if it hasn't fifteen degrees of alcohol it hasn't
anything!"

Fouillade speaks then of a red wine which is almost violet, which
stands dilution as well as if it had been brought into the world to
that end.

"We've got the jurancon wine," said a Bearnais, "the real thing, not
what they sell you for jurancon, which comes from Paris; indeed, I know
one of the makers."

"If it comes to that," said Fouillade, "in our country we've got
muscatels of every sort, all the colors of the rainbow, like patterns
of silk stuff. You come home with me some time, and every day you shall
taste a nonsuch, my boy."

"Sounds like a wedding feast," said the grateful soldier.

So it comes about that Fouillade is agitated by the vinous memories
into which he has plunged, which recall to him as well the dear perfume
of garlic on that far-off table. The vapors of the blue wine in big
bottles, and the liqueur wines so delicately varied, mount to his head
amid the sluggish and mournful storm that fills the barn.

Suddenly he calls to mind that there is settled in the village where
they are quartered a tavern-keeper who is a native of Beziers, called
Magnac. Magnac had said to him, "Come and see me, mon camarade, one of
these mornings, and we'll drink some wine from down there, we will!
I've several bottles of it, and you shall tell me what you think of it."

This sudden prospect dazzles Fouillade. Through all his length runs a
thrill of delight, as though he had found the way of salvation. Drink
the wine of the South--of his own particular South, even--drink much of
it--it would be so good to see life rosy again, if only for a day! Ah
yes, he wants wine; and he gets drunk in a dream.

But as he goes out he collides at the entry with Corporal Broyer, who
is running down the street like a peddler, and shouting at every
opening, "Morning parade!"

The company assembles and forms in squares on the sticky mound where
the traveling kitchen is sending soot into the rain. "I'll go and have
a drink after parade," says Fouillade to himself.

And he listens listlessly, full of his plan, to the reading of the
report. But carelessly as he listens, he hears the officer read, "It is
absolutely forbidden to leave quarters before 5 p.m. and after 8 p.m.,"
and he hears the captain, without noticing the murmur that runs round