Indeed the thought of his godfather's illness and
poverty was becoming an obsession: €I think of him
when I lie down to sleep; I think of him even out there
at the front, and of how I gave in to Clotilde about
Kahn ... It was weak, I ought to have been more
firm. Papa Jouse should have made our marriage
bed. I believe that my weakness brought on his
stroke . . . .'
'That is folly, Guillaume,3 Madame Simon would
tell him.
Then perhaps his father would take a hand:
'Allons, mon gars, such thoughts are morbid; and you a
fine fellow in uniform defending us all, and you brave
as a lion!5
But one evening Guillaume burst out abruptly:
'Not brave, a coward — I am always afraid!5 For he
had not yet grasped that the bravest man may very
well be the man who is frightened.
Poor Guillaume, he was certainly one of those whom
nature had fashioned for kindlier business. A bad
soldier he made, always slightly bemused, always slow,
and at moments intensely stupid; the despair of his
sergeant, the despair of himself, and the butt of his
less sensitized companions. He hated his life and would
sometimes think that the poilus who got themselves
killed were lucky. The noise of a battle shattered his
nerves, the stench of its carnage sickened his stomach,
but the cruelty of it went deepest of all, for that
struck at his shrinking, horrified spirit.
From his wife he derived but small sympathy; she
admired the warriors who took warfare more lightly,
and who when they came home had got just two ideas
in their pates: much wine and violent love-making.
Guillaume wanted to make violent love, it is true,
but his methods now often seemed to her childish;
why, once he had burst into tears and sobbed imme-
diately after having possessed her. Shaking and
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