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“The army is a colorless workshop, where men can forget their past and avoid gambling with their future,” he said, in an aloofly professorial voice. “All of the hurried and obedient movements of a day in the army, like a little drove of dazed foxes, prevent a man from fully realizing his own insignificance, and at night there is always a nearby city in which the sorrowful illusion can be captured again. Oh, yes, the army is an excellent prison for men to whom life holds a fixed horizon—men whose hearts and minds have reduced curiosity to an ashen foothold.”

Levy’s brows bent to an unfamiliar process and perplexity slowly loosened his lips, but a feeling of irritated pride made him determined not to show his confusion to one whom he looked upon as a demented and windy subordinate. He knew that this “fancy fool” was attempting to parade a superior knowledge of English, thus creating a counterfeit of wisdom.

“Oh, I don’t think that the army is as bad as all that,” he said, in a glibly hurried voice, trying to assume an attitude of careless disagreement. “I was a sergeant-major once in the National Guard, down in Tennessee, and we had a pretty good time of it, I’ll tell you. It gave us all a splendid muscle and fine appetite, and it taught us to obey the commands of our superior officers without hesitating. You know, in life you’ve got to follow the orders of someone who knows more than you do, or you’ll never get anywhere. Besides, we had a lot of intelligent men in our outfit. Why, my company commander was one of the best lawyers in Nashville.”