aths, and
the sea; nowhere else in the world is there that."

Among these shades of the cave--an abode of the first men as it
seemed--I saw the hand start forth of him who existed on the spectacle
of the fields and the sea, who was trying to show it and to seize it;
or I saw around a vague halo four card-players stubbornly bent upon
finding again something of an ancient and peaceful attachment in the
faces of the cards; or I saw Margat flourish a Socialist paper that had
fallen from Termite's pocket, and burst into laughter at the censored
blanks it contained. And Majorat raged against life, caressed his
reserve bottle with his lips till out of breath and then, appeased and
his mouth dripping, said it was the only way to alleviate his
imprisonment. Then sleep slew words and gestures and thoughts. I kept
repeating some phrase to myself, trying in vain to understand it; and
sleep submerged me, ancestral sleep so dreary and so deep that it seems
there had only and ever been one long, lone sleep here on earth, above
which our few actions float, and which ever returns to fill the flesh
of man with night.

Forward! Our nights are torn from us in lots. The bodies, invaded by
caressing poison, and even by confidences and apparitions, shake
themselves and stand up again. We extricate ourselves from the hole,
and emerge from the density of buried breath; stumbling we climb into
icy space, odorless, infinite space. The oscillation of the march,
assailed on both sides by the trench, brings brief and paltry halts, in
which we recline against the walls, or cast ourselves on them. We
embrace the earth, since nothing else is left us to embrace.

Then Movement seizes us again. Metrified by regular jolts, by the
shock of each step, by our prisoned breathing, it loses its hold no
more, but becomes incarnate in us. It sets one small word resounding
in our heads, between our teeth--"Forward!"--longer, more infinite than
the uproar of the shells. It sets us making, towards the east or
towards the north, bounds which are days and nights in length. It
turns us into a chain which rolls along with a sound of steel--the
metallic hammering of rifle, bayonet, cartridges, and of the tin cup
which shines on the dark masses like a bolt. Wheels, gearing,
machinery! One sees life and the reality of things striking and
consuming and forging each other.

We knew well enough that we were going towards some tragedy that the
chiefs knew of