Read Journey to the End of the Night for Free Online Page B

series of promotions, had become a kind of chickenshit god, an abominably exigent little sun.
    The one tiny bit of hope I had left was of being taken prisoner. It didn't amount to much, a shred. A shred in the night, because the circumstances weren't conducive to polite preliminaries, far from it. The foe would shoot first and introduce himself afterward. Besides, what would I say to this soldier, hostile by definition, who'd come from the other end of Europe for the express purpose of murdering me? ... Suppose he hesitated for one second (that was all I'd need), what would I say to him? ... And come to think of it, what would he be? A sales-clerk? ... A professional soldier? ... A gravedigger? ... In civilian life ... A cook? ... Horses are lucky, they're stuck with the war same as us, but nobody expects them to be in favor of it, to pretend to believe in it. Unfortunate, yes, but free!
    Enthusiasm, the stinker, was reserved for us!
    I could see the road clearly just then and, plunked down on the mud beside it, big squares and cubes of houses, their walls whitened by the moonlight, like big unequal blocks of ice, pale and silent. Would this be the end of it all? How much time would I spend in this desolation after they'd done for me? Before it was all over? In what ditch? Beside which one of these walls? Would they come and finish me off? With a knife? Sometimes they gouged out your eyes, cut off your hands, and so on ... There were all sorts of rumors on the subject, and they were no joke! A hoofbeat ... Another ... would be enough! ... This beast makes a noise like two men with iron boots fastened together, running with a jerky, uneven step ...
    My heart, a rabbit, warm in its little rib cage, fearful, cowering, bewildered ... You must feel pretty much the same way when you jump off the top of the Eiffel Tower. You'd like to stop yourself in mid-air.
    That village kept its menace secret, but not entirely. In the center of a square a tiny fountain gurgled just for me.
    That night I had everything to myself. I was the owner of the moon, the village, and of an enormous fear. I was about to break into a trot with a good hour's ride ahead of me to Noirceur-sur-la-Lys, when I caught sight of a well-veiled light over a door. I headed straight for that light, surprised to detect inside myself a kind of daring, a deserter's daring to be sure, but more than I'd ever suspected. The light disappeared the next second, but I'd seen it all right, I knocked, I kept at it, I knocked again, I called out in a loud voice, half in German, half in French to be on the safe side, to those strangers locked in the darkness. The door finally opened by just a crack.
    A voice asked: "Who are you?" I was saved.
    "A dragoon ..."
    "French?" A woman speaking. I could see her now ...
    "Yes, French ..."
    "Some German dragoons were here this afternoon ... They spoke French too ..."
    "Yes, but I'm really French ..."
    "I see!"
    She seemed to have her doubts.
    "Where are they now?" I asked.
    "They left at about eight o'clock, heading for Noirceur ..." She pointed north. A young girl, shawl and white apron, emerged from the shadow.
    "What did the Germans do to you?" I asked.
    "They burned a house next to the town hall, and they killed my little brother, ran a lance through his belly ... He was playing on the Red Bridge, watching them go by ... Look!" She showed me. "There he is."
    She didn't cry. She relit the candle, that was the light I had seen. At the back of the room I saw?it was true?the little corpse lying on a mattress; it was dressed in a sailor suit with a big square collar, the face and throat were as livid as the candlelight. The child's arms and legs and back were bent, he was all doubled up. The lance had passed, like an axis for death, through the middle of his belly. His mother was on her knees beside him, crying her heart out. So was the father. Then they all started moaning at once. But my trouble was thirst.
    "You wouldn't have a bottle of wine