Page:Rolland - Clerambault, tr. Miller, 1921.djvu/216

 young men.

One day Moreau had just been telling Clerambault of some gloomy experience of the trenches: "Yes," said Gillot, "it did happen like that and the worst of it was, that it had no effect on us, not the least little bit." And when Moreau protested indignantly: "Well, perhaps you, and one or two more may have minded a little,--but most of them did not even notice it." He kept on to stop further remonstrances from his friend: "I am not trying to make out that you were better than the rest, old man, there is no need for that; I only say it because it is so. Look here," he added, turning to Clerambault, "those who have come back and written about all this, they tell us, of course, what they felt. But they felt more than ordinary mortals because they were artists, and naturally everything got on their nerves, while the rest of us were tougher. Now that I think of it, that makes it more terrible; when you read these stories that sicken you, and make the hair stand up on your head, you don't get the full effect. Think of fellows looking on, smoking, chaffing, busy with something else. You have to, you know, or you would go all to pieces.... All the same, it is astonishing what human creatures can get used to! I believe they could make themselves comfortable at the bottom of a sewer. It really disgusts a man, for I was just the same myself. You mustn't suppose that I was like this chap here, always staring at a death's head. Like everybody else, I thought the whole thing was idiotic; but life is like that, as far as I can see! ... We did what we had to do, and let it go at that;--the end? Well, one is as good as another, whether you lose your own skin or the war comes to an end, it finishes it up all the same; and in the meantime you are alive, you eat, you sleep, your bowels--excuse me, one must tell things as they are!... Do you want to know what is at the bottom of it all, Sir? The real truth is that we do not care for life, or not enough. In one of your articles you