The Arab turned on his side, with his back to Daru, who thought he heard him moan. He waited for his breathing to become stronger and more regular. He listened to this breath so near and daydreamed without being able to sleep. In the room where he had slept alone for a year, this presence disturbed him. But it disturbed him also by imposing on him a sort of brotherhood, which he rejected in the present circumstances, as familiar as it was. Men who share the same sleeping quarters, soldiers and prisoners, develop a strange bond, as if shedding their weapons with their clothes, they were joined together each evening, beyond their differences, in the old community of dreams and fatigue. But Daru shook himself, he did not like this nonsense, he needed to sleep.