ighter than that."

I do not catch the insistent retort of Poilpot, but--"But, you damned
numskull," gurgles Poitron, "haven't I told you thirty times that I
can't? You must have a pig's head, anyway!"

Marthereau confides to me, "I've heard about enough of that." Obviously
he spoke too soon just now.

A sort of fever, provoked by farewell libations, prevails in the
wretched straw-spread hole where our tribe--some upright and hesitant,
others kneeling and hammering like colliers--is mending, stacking, and
subduing its provisions, clothes, and tools. There is a wordy growling,
a riot of gesture. From the smoky glimmers, rubicund faces start forth
in relief, and dark hands move about in the shadows like marionettes.
In the barn next to ours, and separated from it only by a wall of a
man's height, arise tipsy shouts. Two men in there have fallen upon
each other with fierce violence and anger. The air is vibrant with the
coarsest expressions the human ear ever hears. But one of the
disputants, a stranger from another squad, is ejected by the tenants,
and the flow of curses from the other grows feebler and expires.

"Same as us," says Marthereau with a certain pride, "they hold
themselves in!"

It is true. Thanks to Bertrand, who is possessed by a hatred of
drunkenness, of the fatal poison that gambles with multitudes, our
squad is one of the least befouled by wine and brandy.

They are shouting and singing and talking all around. And they laugh
endlessly, for in the human mechanism laughter is the sound of wheels
that work, of deeds that are done.

One tries to fathom certain faces that show up in provocative relief
among this menagerie of shadows, this aviary of reflections. But one
cannot. They are visible, but you can see nothing in the depth of them.

* * * * *

"Ten o'clock already, friends," says Bertrand. "We'll finish the
camel's humps off to-morrow. Time for by-by." Each one then slowly
retires to rest, but the jabbering hardly pauses. Man takes all things
easily when he is under no obligation to hurry. The men go to and fro,
each with some object in his hand, and along the wall I watch Eudore's
huge shadow gliding, as he passes in front of a candle with two little
bags of camphor hanging from the end of his fingers.

Lamuse is throwing himself about in search of a good position; he seems
ill at ease. To-day, obviously, and whatever his capacity may be, he
has eaten too much.