Opening my hands and letting the rifle go, I seize him.

My fingers are buried in his shoulder, in his neck, and I find again, with overflowing exultation, the eternal form of the human frame.

I hold him by the neck with all my strength, and with more than all my strength, and we quiver with my quivering.
He had not the idea of dropping his rifle so quickly as I.

He yields and sinks.

I cling to him as if it were salvation.