Note 10 — Chapter II · THE CANTEEN AT BAR-LE-DUC
Reading edition
In L’Horizon I found these lines from Verlaine, with a few added, concerning le Cafard, by “Bi Bi Bi”:
Quelle est cette douleur Qui pénètre mon cœur? C’est bien la pire peine De ne savoir pourquoi Sans amour et sans haine Mon cœur a tant de peine. En effet, cher Verlaine, C’est bien la pire peine Que ta fameuse peine Et les poilus sans art La nomment le Cafard.
But le Cafard differs from Verlaine’s peine in that it is a very special kind of world-pain, and very complete; for those in its grip know why, as well as not why, they suffer. The memory of loved and early things, very probably not to be known again, is part of it. The consciously unreasonable hope that all will be well in an extremely uncertain future is another part of it—and underlying it is crushing physical fatigue, sleeplessness, hunger, cold, heat, the whole smeared in the blood of brothers and foes, the dull reaction after killing, or escape from being killed—one can’t feel that there is anything vague about le Cafard.