Joan could not
remember seeing him enter. Perhaps unknowing, she had fallen to sleep
for a few minutes. Madame Lelanne was seated by the stove, her great
coarse hands upon her knees, her patient, dull, slow-moving eyes fixed
upon the speaker's face. Dubos was half standing, half resting against
the table, his arms folded upon his breast. The wounded men had raised
themselves upon the straw and were listening. Some leant upon their
elbows, some sat with their hands clasped round their knees, and one,
with head bent down, remained with his face hidden in his hands.
The speaker sat a little way apart. The light from the oil lamp,
suspended from the ceiling, fell upon his face. He wore a peasant's
blouse. It seemed to her a face she knew. Possibly she had passed him
in the village street and had looked at him without remembering. It was
his eyes that for long years afterwards still haunted her. She did not
notice at the time what language he was speaking. But there were none
who did not understand him.
"You think of God as of a great King," he said, "a Ruler who orders all
things: who could change all things in the twinkling of an eye.
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