We others Author:Henri Barbusse Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: FATE? A LONG the bare wall there was a window, opened upon the evening—like a picture that never ended. There were also the faces of the two old friends, as ... more »little expressive as those of statues. They were ending their days side by side, creeping into the same corners of sunshine and shade, awaiting the hours in the same rooms; and they talked now and then. "All is error. There is only Fate," said old Dominic, by way of conclusion to something he had said or thought he had said. "No," replied old Claud; "Fate makes mistakes too, like the rest." The first speaker turned and looked at his companion with a little compassion and a little scorn, but no surprise. It was natural that he should wander a little, at his age. The other wagged his head and the divided, emaciated neck that recalled a bundle of sticks, and tapped his knee with the dry wood of his hand. "And there are irreparable things," he added, "which are repaired." "Ah!" murmured Dominic. He raised towards heaven his frail eyes in their red caskets, uneasy to think that soon, perhaps, he too would talk nonsense. "I married Bernardine once upon a time," saidClaud. "I had almost forgotten her. But the other day I saw a girl who was much like her. Therefore I saw her again and she returned wholly into my thoughts. I married her; and two months before, I had shattered the head of her father with a shot from a gun." Dominic was seized with sudden fear in the idea that his companion was deliriously dreaming, and thus he himself was all alone in the room. "Eh, Claud! Are you asleep?" he cried, trembling violently. "No," said Claud, "I am thinking, without sleeping. I married the girl all right, and I sent her father a bullet through the forehead, right enough. First I must say that she adored her fat...« less