XXXI Apotheosis
At first it is heard as a distant moaning, rising from the furthest limits of the desert; then the gruesome chorus approaches through the luminous obscurity: the doleful howling of jackals, the piercing wails of hyenas and tiger-cats.
Poor mother, poor old woman!... This human form, vaguely discernible in the darkness, lying in the midst of these solitudes, its mouth gaping under a sky all strewn with stars, sleeping there at a time when the wild beasts awake—this form which will never rise again—poor mother, poor old woman!... this corpse that lies forsaken is your son!...
“Jean, come into our dance.”
The ravenous pack glides softly through the night, stealing through the thickets, creeping among the lofty grasses. By the light of the stars they fall upon the corpses of the young soldiers, and begin the repast, which has been ordained by blind nature. All that is alive draws its nourishment, in one form or another, from that which has died.
The man ever grasps in his dead hand the medal of the Virgin, the woman her leather grigris. Watch well over them, O precious amulets.
To-morrow, great, bald-headed vultures will carry on the work of destruction—the bones of the dead will be strewn upon the sand, scattered hither and thither by the beasts of the desert—their skulls will bleach in the sun, to be the sport of winds and grasshoppers.
Aged parents by the chimney corner, aged parents in your cottage; father, bowed under the weight of years, you who dream of your son, the handsome young soldier in his red jacket—aged mother! you who pray each evening for the absent one—aged parents, long will you await your son, long await the spahi!