Why did he not go away with Miette and aunt Dide?
Then as he racked his memory, he heard the sharp crackling of a fusillade; he saw a standard fall before him, its staff broken and its folds drooping like the wings of a bird brought down by a shot.

It was the Republic falling asleep with Miette under the red flag.
Ah, what wretchedness! They were both dead, both had bleeding wounds in their breasts.

And it was they--the corpses of his two loves--that now barred his path of life.

He had nothing left him and might well die himself.

These were the thoughts that had made him so gentle, so listless, so childlike all the way from Sainte-Roure.