nearly eight o'clock
And Jean , who dared neither take her hand nor embrace his friend , left the room with the air of one crazed by grief . `` I will return soon . _ Au revoir _ ! '' It was dark , however , nearly eight o'clock , before he was able to redeem his promise . Notwithstanding his great distress he was happy ; his regiment had been transferred from the first to the second line and assigned the task of protecting the quartier , so that , bivouacking with his company in the Place du Carrousel , he hoped to get a chance to run in each evening to see how the wounded man was getting on . And he did not return alone ; as luck would have it he had fallen in with the former surgeon of the 106th and had brought him along with him , having been unable to find another doctor , consoling himself with the reflection that the terrible , big man with the lion 's mane was not such a bad sort of fellow after all . When Bouroche , who knew nothing of the patient he was summoned with such insistence to attend and grumbled at having to climb so many stairs , learned that it was a Communist he had on his hands he commenced to storm .