And he would not have spoken in vain.
"Not caring for their lives, is it? Why, what in the world is there that
we should care for if it's not our lives, the only gift the Lord never
offers us a second time? Oh dear, oh dear; you're right all the same; it's
quite true, they don't care! I can remember them in '70; in those wretched
wars they've no fear of death left in them; they're nothing more nor less
than madmen; and then they aren't worth the price of a rope to hang them
with; they're not men any more, they're lions." For by her way of
thinking, to compare a man with a lion, which she used to pronounce
'lie-on,' was not at all complimentary to the man.
The Rue Sainte-Hildegarde turned too sharply for us to be able to see
people approaching at any distance, and it was only through the gap
between those two houses in the Avenue de la Gare that we could still make
out fresh helmets racing along towards us, and flashing in the sunlight.
The gardener wanted to know whether there were still many to come, and he
was thirsty besides, with the sun beating down upon his head. So then,
suddenly, his daughter would leap out, as though from a beleaguered city,
would make a sortie, turn the street corner, and, having risked her life a
hundred times over, reappear and bring us, with a jug of liquorice-water,
the news that there were still at least a thousand of them, pouring along
without a break from the direction of Thiberzy and Meseglise.
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