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diff --git a/old/nbmrt10.txt b/old/nbmrt10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4dfca1e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/nbmrt10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5462 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The New Book Of Martyrs, by Georges Duhamel + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before distributing this or any other +Project Gutenberg file. + +We encourage you to keep this file, exactly as it is, on your +own disk, thereby keeping an electronic path open for future +readers. Please do not remove this. + +This header should be the first thing seen when anyone starts to +view the etext. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.10/04/01*END* + + + + + + +Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + +THE NEW BOOK OF MARTYRS + +From the French of GEORGES DUHAMEL + +BY FLORENCE SIMMONDS + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +THROUGHOUT OUR LAND +THE STORY OF CARRE AND LERONDEAU +MEMORIES OF THE MARTYRS +THE DEATH OF MERCIER +VERDUN +THE SACRIFICE +THE THIRD SYMPHONY +GRACE +NIGHTS IN ARTOIS + + + + + +THE NEW BOOK OF MARTYRS + + + + + +THROUGHOUT OUR LAND + + +From the disfigured regions where the cannon reigns supreme, to +the mountains of the South, to the ocean, to the glittering shores +of the inland sea, the cry of wounded men echoes throughout the +land, and a vast kindred cry seems to rise responsive from the +whole world. + +There is no French town in which the wounds inflicted on the +battle-field are not bleeding. Not one which has not accepted the +duty of assuaging something of the sum of suffering, just as it +bears its part in the sum of mourning; not one which may not hear +within its own walls an echo of the greater lamentation swelling +and muttering where the conflict seems to rage unceasingly. The +waves of war break upon the whole surface of the country, and like +the incoming tide, strew it with wreckage. + +In the beds which the piety of the public has prepared on every +side, stricken men await the verdict of fate. The beds are white, +the bandages are spotless; many faces smile until the hour when +they are flushed with fever, and until that same fever makes a +whole nation of wounded tremble on the Continent. + +Some one who had been visiting the wounded said to me: "The beds +are really very white, the dressings are clean, all the patients +seem to be playing cards, reading the papers, eating dainties; +they are simple, often very gentle, they don't look very unhappy. +They all tell the same story ... The war has not changed them +much. One can recognise them all." + +Are you sure that you recognise them? You have just been looking +at them, are you sure that you have seen them? + +Under their bandages are wounds you cannot imagine. Below the +wounds, in the depths of the mutilated flesh, a soul, strange and +furtive, is stirring in feverish exaltation, a soul which does not +readily reveal itself, which expresses itself artlessly, but which +I would fain make you understand. + +In these days, when nothing retains its former semblance, all +these men are no longer those you so lately knew. Suffering has +roused them from the sleep of gentle life, and every day fills +them with a terrible intoxication. They are now something more +than themselves; those we loved were merely happy shadows. + +Let us lose none of their humble words, let us note their +slightest gestures, and tell me, tell me that we will think of +them together, now and later, when we realise the misery of the +times and the magnitude of their sacrifice. + + + + + +THE STORY OF CARRE AND LERONDEAU + + +They came in like two parcels dispatched by the same post, two +clumsy, squalid parcels, badly packed, and damaged in transit. Two +human forms rolled up in linens and woollens, strapped into +strange instruments, one of which enclosed the whole man, like a +coffin of zinc and wire. + +They seemed to be of no particular age; or rather, each might have +been a thousand and more, the age of swaddled mummies in the +depths of sarcophagi. + +We washed, combed, and peeled them, and laid them very cautiously +between clean sheets; then we found that one had the look of an +old man, and that the other was still a boy. + +Their beds face each other in the same grey room. All who enter it +notice them at once; their infinite misery gives them an air of +kinship. Compared with them, the other wounded seem well and +happy. And in this abode of suffering, they are kings; their +couches are encircled by the respect and silence due to majesty. + +I approach the younger man and bend over him. + +"What is your name?" + +The answer is a murmur accompanied by an imploring look. What I +hear sounds like: Mahihehondo. It is a sigh with modulations. + +It takes me a week to discover that the boyish patient is called +Marie Lerondeau. + +The bed opposite is less confused. I see a little toothless head. +From out the ragged beard comes a peasant voice, broken in tone, +but touching and almost melodious. The man who lies there is +called Carre. + +They did not come from the same battlefield, but they were hit +almost at the same time, and they have the same wound. Each has a +fractured thigh. Chance brought them together in the same distant +ambulance, where their wounds festered side by side. Since then +they have kept together, till now they lie enfolded by the blue +radiance of the Master's gaze. + +He looks at both, and shakes his head silently; truly, a bad +business! He can but ask himself which of the two will die first, +so great are the odds against the survival of either. + +The white-bearded man considers them in silence, turning in his +hand the cunning knife. + +We can know nothing till after this grave debate. The soul must +withdraw, for this is not its hour. Now the knife must divide the +flesh, and lay the ravage bare, and do its work completely. + +So the two comrades go to sleep, in that dreadful slumber wherein +each man resembles his own corpse. Henceforth we enter upon the +struggle. We have laid our grasp upon these two bodies; we shall +not let them be snatched from us easily. + +The nausea of the awakening, the sharp agony of the first hours +are over, and I begin to discover my new friends. + +This requires time and patience. The dressing hour is propitious. +The man lies naked on the table. One sees him as a whole, as also +those great gaping wounds, the objects of so many hopes and fears. + +The afternoon is no less favourable to communion, but that is +another matter. Calm has come to them, and these two creatures +have ceased to be nothing but a tortured leg and a screaming +mouth. + +Carre went ahead at once. He made a veritable bound. Whereas +Lerondeau seemed still wrapped in a kind of plaintive stupor, +Carre was already enfolding me in a deep affectionate gaze. He +said: + +"You must do all that is necessary." + +Lerondeau can as yet only murmur a half articulate phrase: + +"Mustn't hurt me." + +As soon as I could distinguish and understand the boy's words, I +called him by his Christian name. I would say: + +"How are you, Marie?" or "I am pleased with you, Marie." + +This familiarity suits him, as does my use of "thee" and "thou" in +talking to him. He very soon guessed that I speak thus only to +those who suffer most, and for whom I have a special tenderness. +So I say to him: "Marie, the wound looks very well today." And +every one in the hospital calls him Marie as I do. + +When he is not behaving well, I say: + +"Come, be sensible, Lerondeau." + +His eyes fill with tears at once. One day I was obliged to try +"Monsieur Lerondeau," and he was so hurt that I had to retract on +the spot. However, he now refrains from grumbling at his orderly, +and screaming too loudly during the dressing of his wound, for he +knows that the day I say to him "Be quiet, Monsiuer"--just +Monsiuer--our relations will be exceedingly strained. + +From the first, Carre bore himself like a man. When I entered the +dressing ward, I found the two lying side by side on stretchers +which had been placed on the floor. Carre's emaciated arm emerged +from under his blanket, and he began to lecture Marie on the +subject of hope and courage.... I listened to the quavering voice, +I looked at the toothless face, lit up by a smile, and I felt a +curious choking in my throat, while Lerondeau blinked like a child +who is being scolded. Then I went out of the room, because this +was a matter between those two lying on the ground, and had +nothing to do with me, a robust person, standing on my feet. + +Since then, Carre has proved that he had a right to preach courage +to young Lerondeau. + +While the dressing is being prepared, he lies on the ground with +the others, waiting his turn, and says very little. He looks +gravely round him, and smiles when his eyes meet mine. He is not +proud, but he is not one of those who are ready to chatter to +every one. One does not come into this ward to talk, but to +suffer, and Carre is bracing himself to suffer as decently as +possible. + +When he is not quite sure of himself, he warns me, saying: + +"I am not as strong as usual to-day." + +Nine times, out of ten, he is "as strong as usual," but he is so +thin, so wasted, so reduced by his mighty task, that he is +sometimes obliged to beat a retreat. He does it with honour, with +dignity. He has just said: "My knee is terribly painful," and the +sentence almost ends in a scream. Then, feeling that he is about +to howl like the others, Carre begins to sing. + +The first time this happened I did not quite understand what was +going on. He repeated the one phrase again and again: "Oh, the +pain in my knee!" And gradually I became aware that this lament +was becoming a real melody, and for five long minutes Carre +improvised a terrible, wonderful, heart-rending song on "the pain +in his knee." Since then this has become a habit, and he begins to +sing suddenly as soon as he feels that he can no longer keep +silence. + +Among his improvisations he will introduce old airs. I prefer not +to look at his face when he begins: "Il n'est ni beau ni grand mon +verre." Indeed, I have a good excuse for not looking at it, for I +am very busy with his poor leg, which gives me much anxiety, and +has to be handled with infinite precautions. + +I do "all that is necessary," introducing the burning tincture of +iodine several times. Carre feels the sting; and when, passing by +his corner an hour later, I listen for a moment, I hear him slowly +chanting in a trembling but melodious voice the theme: "He gave me +tincture of iodine." + +Carre is proud of showing courage. + +This morning he seemed so weak that I tried to be as quick as +possible and to keep my ears shut. But presently a stranger came +into the ward. Carre turned his head slightly, saw the visitor, +and frowning, began to sing: + +"Il n'est ni beau ni grand mon verre." + +The stranger looked at him with tears in his eyes but the more he +looked, the more resolutely Carre smiled, clutching the edges of +the table with his two quivering hands. + +Lerondeau has good strong teeth. Carre has nothing but black +stumps. This distresses me, for a man with a fractured thigh needs +good teeth. + +Lerondeau is still at death's door, but though moribund, he can +eat. He attacks his meat with a well-armed jaw; he bites with +animal energy, and seems to fasten upon anything substantial. + +Carre, for his part, is well-inclined to eat; but what can he do +with his old stumps? + +"Besides," he says, "I was never very carnivorous." + +Accordingly, he prefers to smoke. In view of lying perpetually +upon his back, he arranged the cover of a cardboard box upon his +chest; the cigarette ash falls into this, and Carre smokes without +moving, in cleanly fashion. + +I look at the ash, the smoke, the yellow, emaciated face, and +reflect sadly that it is not enough to have the will to live; one +must have teeth. + +Not every one knows how to suffer, and even when we know, we must +set about it the right way, if we are to come off with honour. As +soon as he is on the table, Carre looks round him and asks: + +"Isn't there any one to squeeze my head to-day?" + +If there is no answer, he repeats anxiously: + +"Who is going to squeeze my head to-day?" + +Then a nurse approaches, takes his head between her hands and +presses.... I can begin; as soon as some one is "squeezing his +head" Carre is good. + +Lerondeau's method is different. He wants some one to hold his +hands. When there is no one to do this, he shrieks: "I shall +fall." + +It is no use to tell him that he is on a solid table, and that he +need not be afraid. He gropes about for the helpful hands, and +cries, the sweat breaking out on his brow: "I know I shall fall." +Then I get some one to come and hold his hands, for suffering, at +any rate, is a reality.... + +Each sufferer has his characteristic cry when the dressing is +going on. The poor have only one, a simple cry that does service +for them all. It makes one think of the women who, when they are +bringing a child into the world, repeat, at every pain, the one +complaint they have adopted. + +Carre has a great many varied cries, and he does not say the same +thing when the dressing is removed, and when the forceps are +applied. + +At the supreme moment he exclaims: "Oh, the pain in my knee!" + +Then, when the anguish abates, he shakes his head and repeats: + +"Oh, that wretched knee!" + +When it is the turn of the thigh, he is exasperated. + +"Now it's this thigh again!" + +And he repeats this incessantly, from second to second. Then we go +on to the wound under his heel, and Carre begins: + +"Well, what is wrong with the poor heel?" + +Finally, when he is tired of singing, he murmurs softly and +regularly: + +"They don't know how that wretched knee hurts me... they don't +know how it hurts me." + +Lerondeau, who is, and always will be, a little boy compared with +Carre, is very poor in the matter of cries. But when he hears his +complaints, he checks his own cries, Borrows them. Accordingly, I +hear him beginning: + +"Oh, my poor knee! ... They don't know it hurts!" + +One morning when he was shouting this at the top of his voice, I +asked him gravely: + +"Why do you make the same complaints as Carre?" + +Marie is only a peasant, but he showed me a face that was really +offended: + +"It's not true. I don't say the same things." + +I said no more, for there are no souls so rugged that they cannot +feel certain stings. + +Marie has told me the story of his life and of his campaign. As he +is not very eloquent, It was for the most part a confused murmur +with an ever-recurring protestation: + +"I was a good one to work, you know, strong as a horse." + +Yet I can hardly imagine that there was once a Marie Lerondeau who +was a robust young fellow, standing firm and erect between the +handles of a plough. I know him only as a man lying on his back, +and I even find it difficult to picture to myself what his shape +and aspect will be when we get him on his feet again. + +Marie did his duty bravely under fire. "He stayed alone with the +wagons and when he was wounded, the Germans kicked him with their +heavy boots." These are the salient points of the interrogatory. + +Now and again Lerondeau's babble ceases, and he looks up to the +ceiling, for this takes the place of distance and horizon to those +who lie upon their backs. After a long, light silence, he looks at +me again, and repeats: + +"I must have been pretty brave to stay alone with the wagons!" + +True enough, Lerondeau was brave, and I take care to let people +know it. When strangers come in during the dressings, I show them +Marie, who is making ready to groan, and say: + +"This is Marie--Marie Lerondeau, you know. He has a fractured +thigh, but he is a very brave fellow. He stayed alone with the +wagons." + +The visitors nod their heads admiringly, and Marie controls +himself. He blushes a little, and the muscles of his neck swell +with pride. He makes a sign with his eyes as if to say: "Yes, +indeed, alone, all alone with the wagons." And meanwhile, the +dressing has been nearly finished. + +The whole world must know that Marie stayed alone with the wagons. +I intend to pin a report of this on the Government pension +certificate. + +Carre was only under fire once, and was hit almost immediately. He +is much annoyed at this, for he had a good stock of courage, and +now he has to waste it within the walls of a hospital. + +He advanced through a huge beetroot field, and he ran with the +others towards a fine white mist. All of a sudden, crack, he fell! +His thigh was fractured. He fell among the thick leaves, on the +waterlogged earth. + +Shortly afterwards his sergeant passed again, and said to him: + +"We are going back to our trench, they shall come and fetch you +later." + +Carre merely said: + +"Put my haversack under my head." + +Evening was coming on; he prepared, gravely, to spend the night +among the beetroots. And there he spent it, alone with a cold +drizzling rain, meditating seriously until morning. + +It was fortunate that Carre brought such a stock of courage into +hospital, for he needs it all. Successive operations and dressings +make large drafts upon the most generous supplies. + +They put Carre upon the table, and I note an almost joyful +resolution in his look. To-day he has "all his strength, to the +last ounce." + +But just to-day, I have but little to do, not much suffering to +inflict. He has scarcely knitted his brows, when I begin to fasten +up the apparatus again. + +Then Carre's haggard face breaks into a smile, and he exclaims: + +"Finished already? Put some more ether on, make it sting a bit at +least." + +Carre knows that the courage of which there was no need to-day +will not, perhaps, be available to-morrow. + +And to-morrow, and for many days after, Carre will have to be +constantly calling up those reserves of the soul which help the +body to suffer while it waits for the good offices of Nature. + +The swimmer adrift on the open seas measures his strength, and +strives with all his muscles to keep himself afloat. But what is +he to do when there is no land on the horizon, and none beyond it? + +This leg, infected to the very marrow, seems to be slowly +devouring the man to whom it belongs; we look at it anxiously, and +the white-haired Master fixes two small light-blue eyes upon it, +eyes accustomed to appraise the things of life, yet, for the +moment, hesitant. + +I speak to Carre in veiled words of the troublesome, gangrenous +leg. He gives a toothless laugh, and settles the question at once. + +"Well, if the wretched thing is a nuisance, we shall have to get +rid of it." + +After this consent, we shall no doubt make up our minds to do so. + +Meanwhile Lerondeau is creeping steadily towards healing. + +Lying on his back, bound up in bandages and a zinc trough, and +imprisoned by cushions, he nevertheless looks like a ship which +the tide will set afloat at dawn. + +He is putting on flesh, yet, strange to say, he seems to get +lighter and lighter. He is learning not to groan, not because his +frail soul is gaining strength, but because the animal is better +fed and more robust. + +His ideas of strength of mind are indeed very elementary. As soon +as I hear his first cry, in the warm room where his wound is +dressed, I give him an encouraging look, and say: + +"Be brave, Marie! Try to be strong!" + +Then he knits his brows, makes a grimace, and asks: + +"Ought I to say 'By God!'?" + +The zinc trough in which Marie's shattered leg has been lying has +lost its shape; it has become oxydised and is split at the edges; +so I have decided to change it. + +I take it away, look at it, and throw it into a corner. Marie +follows my movements with a scared glance. While I am adjusting +the new trough, a solid, comfortable one, but rather different in +appearance, he casts an eloquent glance at the discarded one, and +his eyes fill with copious tears. + +This change is a small matter; but in the lives of the sick, there +are no small things. + +Lerondeau will weep for the old zinc fragment for two days, and it +will be a long time before he ceases to look distrustfully at the +new trough, and to criticise it in those minute and bitter terms +which only a connoisseur can understand or invent. + +Carre, on the other hand, cannot succeed in carrying along his +body by the generous impulse of his soul. Everything about him +save his eyes and his liquid voice foreshadow the corpse. +Throughout the winter days and the long sleepless nights, he looks +as if he were dragging along a derelict. + +He strains at it ... with his poignant songs and his brave words +which falter now, and often die away in a moan. + +I had to do his dressing in the presence of Marie. The amount of +work to be got through, and the cramped quarters made this +necessary. Marie was grave and attentive as if he were taking a +lesson, and, indeed, it was a lesson in patience and courage. But +all at once, the teacher broke down. In the middle of the +dressing, Carre opened his lips, and in spite of himself, began to +complain without restraint or measure, giving up the struggle in +despair. + +Lerondeau listened, anxious and uneasy; and Carre, knowing that +Marie was listening, continued to lament, like one who has lost +all sense of shame. + +Lerondeau called me by a motion of his eyelids. He said: + +"Carre!..." + +And he added: + +"I saw his slough. Lord! he is bad." + +Lerondeau has a good memory for medical terms. Yes, he saw Carre's +slough. He himself has the like on his posterior and on his heel; +but the tear that trembles in the corner of his eye is certainly +for Carre. + +And then, he knows, he feels that HIS wounds are going to heal. + +But it is bad for Marie to hear another complaining before his own +turn. + +He comes to the table very ill-disposed. His nerves have been +shaken and are unusually irritable. + +At the first movement, he begins with sighs and those "Poor +devils!" which are his artless and habitual expressions of self- +pity. And then, all at once, he begins to scream, as I had not +heard him scream for a long time. He screams in a sort of frenzy, +opening his mouth widely, and shrieking with all the strength of +his lungs, and with all the strength of his face, it would seem, +for it is flushed and bathed in sweat. He screams unreasonably at +the lightest touch, in an incoherent and disorderly fashion. + +Then, ceasing to exhort him to be calm with gentle and +compassionate words, I raise my voice suddenly and order the boy +to be quiet, in a severe tone that admits of no parleying... + +Marie's agitation subsides at once, like a bubble at the touch of +a finger. The ward still rings with my imperious order. A good +lady who does not understand at once, stares at me in +stupefaction. + +But Marie, red and frightened, controls his unreasonable emotion. +And as long as the dressing lasts, I dominate his soul strenuously +to prevent him from suffering in vain, just as others hold and +grasp his wrists. + +Then, presently, it is all over. I give him a fraternal smile that +relaxes the tension of his brow as a bow is unbent. + +A lady, who is a duchess at the least, came to visit the wounded. +She exhaled such a strong, sweet perfume that she cannot have +distinguished the odour of suffering that pervades this place. + +Carre was shown to her as one of the most interesting specimens of +the house. She looked at him with a curious, faded smile, which, +thanks to paint and powder, still had a certain beauty. + +She made some patriotic remarks to Carre full of allusions to his +conduct under fire. And Carre ceased staring out of the window to +look at the lady with eyes full of respectful astonishment. + +And then she asked Carre what she could send him that he would +like, with a gesture that seemed to offer the kingdoms of the +earth and the glory of them. + +Carre, in return, gave her a radiant smile; he considered for a +moment and then said modestly: + +"A little bit of veal with new potatoes." + +The handsome lady thought it tactful to laugh. And I felt +instinctively that her interest in Carre was suddenly quenched. + +An old man sometimes comes to visit Carre. He stops before the +bed, and with a stony face pronounces words full of an overflowing +benevolence. + +"Give him anything he asks for.... Send a telegram to his family." + +Carre protests timidly: "Why a telegram? I have no one but my poor +old mother; it would frighten her." + +The little old gentleman emerges from his varnished boots like a +variegated plant from a double vase. + +Carre coughs--first, to keep himself in countenance, and, +secondly, because his cruel bronchitis takes this opportunity to +give him a shaking. + +Then the old gentleman stoops, and all his medals hang out from +his tunic like little dried-up breasts. He bends down, puffing and +pouting, without removing his gold-trimmed KEPI, and lays a deaf +ear on Carre's chest with an air of authority. + +Carre's leg has been sacrificed. The whole limb has gone, leaving +a huge and dreadful wound level with the trunk. + +It is very surprising that the rest of Carre did not go with the +leg. + +He had a pretty hard day. + +O life! O soul! How you cling to this battered carcase! O little +gleam on the surface of the eye! Twenty times I saw it die down +and kindle again. And it seemed too suffering, too weak, too +despairing ever to reflect anything again save suffering, +weakness, and despair. + +During the long afternoon, I go and sit between two beds beside +Lerondeau. I offer him cigarettes, and we talk. This means that we +say nothing, or very little.... But it is not necessary to speak +when one has a talk with Lerondeau. + +Marie is very fond of cigarettes, but what he likes still better +is that I should come and sit by him for a bit. When I pass +through the ward, he taps coaxingly upon his sheet, as one taps +upon a bench to invite a friend to a seat. + +Since he told me about his life at home and his campaign, he has +not found much to say to me. He takes the cakes with which his +little shelf is laden, and crunches them with an air of enjoyment. + +"As for me," he says, "I just eat all the time," and he laughs. + +If he stops eating to smoke, he laughs again. Then there is an +agreeable silence. Marie looks at me, and begins to laugh again. +And when I get up to go, he says: "Oh, you are not in such a great +hurry, we can chat a little longer!" + +Lerondeau's leg was such a bad business that it is now permanently +shorter than the other by a good twelve centimetres. So at least +it seems to us, looking down on it from above. + +But Lerondeau, who has only seen it from afar by raising his head +a little above the table while his wounds are being dressed, has +noticed only a very slight difference in length between his two +legs. + +He said philosophically: + +"It is shorter, but with a good thick sole...." + +When Marie was better, he raised himself on his elbow, and he +understood the extent of his injury more clearly. + +"I shall want a VERY thick sole," he remarked. + +Now that Lerondeau can sit up, he, too, can estimate the extent of +the damage from above; but he is happy to feel life welling up +once more in him, and he concludes gaily: + +"What I shall want is not a sole, but a little bench." + +But Carre is ill, terribly ill. + +That valiant soul of his seems destined to be left alone, for all +else is failing. + +He had one sound leg. Now it is stiff and swollen. + +He had healthy, vigorous arms. Now one of them is covered with +abscesses. + +The joy of breathing no longer exists for Carre, for his cough +shakes him savagely in his bed. + +The back, by means of which we rest, has also betrayed him. Here +and there it is ulcerated; for man was not meant to lie +perpetually on his back, but only to lie and sleep on it after a +day of toil. + +For man was not really intended to suffer with his miserable, +faithless body! + +And his heart beats laboriously. + +There was mischief in the bowel too. So much so, that one day +Carre was unable to control himself, before a good many people who +had come in. + +In spite of our care, in spite of our friendly assurances, Carre +was so ashamed that he wept. He who always said that a man ought +not to cry, he who never shed a tear in the most atrocious +suffering, sobbed with shame on account of this accident. And I +could not console him. + +He no longer listens to all we say to him. He no longer answers +our questions. He has mysterious fits of absence. + +He who was so dignified in his language, expresses himself and +complains with the words of a child. + +Sometimes he comes up out of the depths and speaks. + +He talks of death with an imaginative lucidity which sounds like +actual experience. + +Sometimes he sees it ... And as he gazes, his pupils suddenly +distend. + +But he will not, he cannot make up his mind.... + +He wants to suffer a little longer. + +I draw near to his bed in the gathering darkness. His breathing is +so light that suddenly, I stop and listen open-mouthed, full of +anxiety. + +Then Carre suddenly opens his eyes. + +Will he sigh and groan? No. He smiles and says: + +"What white teeth you have!" + +Then he dreams, as if he were dying. + +Could you have imagined such a martyrdom, my brother, when you +were driving the plough into your little plot of brown earth? + +Here you are, enduring a death-agony of five months swathed in +these livid wrappings, without even the rewards that are given to +others. + +Your breast, your shroud must be bare of even the humblest of the +rewards of valour, Carre. + +It was written that you should suffer without purpose and without +hope. + +But I will not let all your sufferings be lost in the abyss. And +so I record them thus at length. + +Lerondeau has been brought down into the garden. I find him there, +stretched out on a cane chair, with a little kepi pulled down over +his eyes, to shade them from the first spring sunshine. + +He talks a little, smokes a good deal, and laughs more. + +I look at his leg, but he hardly ever looks at it himself; he no +longer feels it. + +He will forget it even more utterly after a while, and he will +live as if it were natural enough for a man to live with a stiff, +distorted limb. + +Forget your leg, forget your sufferings, Lerondeau. But the world +must not forget them. + +And I leave Marie sitting in the sun, with a fine new pink colour +in his freckled cheeks. + +Carre died early this morning. Lerondeau leaves us to-morrow. + + + + + +MEMORIES OF THE MARTYRS + + +I + + +Were modesty banished from the rest of the earth, it would no +doubt find a refuge in Mouchon's heart. + +I see him still as he arrived, on a stretcher full of little +pebbles, with his mud be-plastered coat, and his handsome, honest +face, like that of a well-behaved child. + +"You must excuse me," he said; "we can't keep ourselves very +clean." + +"Have you any lice?" asks the orderly, as he undresses him. + +Mouchon flushes and looks uneasy. + +"Well, if I have, they don't really belong to me." + +He has none, but he has a broken leg, "due to a torpedo." + +The orderly cuts open his trouser, and I tell him to take off the +boot. Mouchon puts out his hand, and says diffidently: + +"Never mind the boot." + +"But, my good fellow, we can't dress your leg without taking off +your boot." + +Then Mouchon, red and confused, objects: + +"But if you take off the boot, I'm afraid my foot will smell...." + +I have often thought of this answer. And believe me, Mouchon, I +have not yet met the prince who is worthy to take off your boots +and wash your humble feet. + + +II + + +With his forceps the doctor lays hold carefully of a mass of +bloody dressings, and draws them gently out of a gaping wound in +the abdomen. A ray of sunshine lights him at his work, and the +whole of the frail shed trembles to the roar of the cannon. + +"I am a big china-dealer," murmurs the patient. "You come from +Paris, and I do, too. Save me, and you shall see.... I'll give you +a fine piece of china." + +The plugs are coming out by degrees; the forceps glitter, and the +ray of sunshine seems to tremble under the cannonade, as do the +floor, the walls, the light roof, the whole earth, the whole +universe, drunk with fatigue. + +Suddenly, from the depths of space, a whining sound arises, +swells, rends the air above the shed, and the shell bursts a few +yards off, with the sound of a cracked object breaking. + +The thin walls seem to quiver under the pressure of the air. The +doctor makes a slight movement of his head, as if to see, after +all, where the thing fell. + +Then the china-dealer, who noted the movement, says in a quiet +voice: + +"Don't take any notice of those small things, they don't do any +harm. Only save me, and I will give you a beautiful piece of china +or earthenware, whichever you like." + + +III + + +The root of the evil is not so much the shattered leg, as the +little wound in the arm, from which so much good blood was lost. + +With his livid lips, no longer distinguishable from the rest of +his face, and the immense black pupils of his eyes, the man shows +a countenance irradiated by a steadfast soul, which will not give +in till the last moment. He contemplates the ravages of his body +almost severely, and without illusion, and watching the surgeons +as they scrub their hands, he says in a grave voice: + +"Tell my wife that my last thoughts were of her and our children." + +Ah! it was not a veiled question, for, without a moment's +hesitation, he allows us to put the mask over his face. + +The solemn words seem still to echo through the ward: + +"Tell my wife..." + +That manly face is not the face of one who could be deceived by +soft words and consoling phrases. The white blouse turns away. The +surgeon's eyes grow dim behind his spectacles, and in solemn tones +he replies: + +"We will not fail to do so, friend." + +The patient's eyelids flutter--as one waves a handkerchief from +the deck of a departing steamer--then, breathing in the ether +steadily, he falls into a dark slumber. + +He never wakes, and we keep our promise to him. + + +IV + + +A few days before the death of Tricot, a very annoying thing +happened to him; a small excrescence, a kind of pimpel, appeared +on the side of his nose. + +Tricot had suffered greatly; only some fragments of his hands +remained; but, above all, he had a great opening in his side, a +kind of fetid mouth, through which the will to live seemed to +evaporate. + +Coughing, spitting, looking about with wide, agonised eyes in +search of elusive breath, having no hands to scratch oneself with, +being unable to eat unaided, and further, never having the +smallest desire to eat--could this be called living? And yet +Tricot never gave in. He waged his own war with the divine +patience of a man who had waged the great world war, and who knows +that victory will not come right away. + +But Tricot had neither allies nor reserves; he was all alone, so +wasted and so exhausted that the day came when he passed almost +imperceptibly from the state of a wounded to that of a dying man. + +And it was just at this moment that the pimple appeared. + +Tricot had borne the greatest sufferings courageously; but he +seemed to have no strength to bear this slight addition to his +woes. + +"Monsieur," stammered the orderly who had charge of him, utterly +dejected, "I tell you, that pimple is the spark that makes the cup +overflow." + +And in truth the cup overflowed. This misfortune was too much. +Tricot began to complain, and from that moment I felt that he was +doomed. + +I asked him several times a day, thinking of all his wounds: "How +are you, old fellow?" And he, thinking of nothing but the pimple, +answered always: + +"Very bad, very bad! The pimple is getting bigger." + +It was true. The pimple had come to a head, and I wanted to prick +it. + +Tricot, who had allowed us to cut into his chest without an +anaesthetic, exclaimed with tears: + +"No, no more operations! I won't have any more operations." + +All day long he lamented about his pimple, and the following night +he died. + +"It was a bad pimple," said the orderly; "it was that which killed +him." + +Alas! It was not a very "bad pimple," but no doubt it killed him. + + +V + + +Mehay was nearly killed, but he did not die; so no great harm was +done. + +The bullet went through his helmet, and only touched the bone. The +brain is all right. So much the better. + +No sooner had Mehay come to, and hiccoughed a little in memory of +the chloroform, than he began to look round with interest at all +that was happening about him. + +Three days after the operation, Mehay got up. It would have been +useless to forbid this proceeding. Mehay would have disobeyed +orders for the first time in his life. We could not even think of +taking away his clothes. The brave man never lacks clothes. + +Mehay accordingly got up, and his illness was a thing of the past. + +Every morning, Mehay rises before day-break and seizes a broom. +Rapidly and thoroughly, he makes the ward as dean as his own +heart. He never forgets any corner, and he manages to pass the +brush gently under the beds without waking his sleeping comrades, +and without disturbing those who are in pain. Sometimes Mehay +hands basins or towels, and he is as gentle as a woman when he +helps to dress Vossaert, whose limbs are numb and painful. + +At eight o'clock, the ward is in perfect order, and as the +dressings are about to begin, Mehay suddenly appears in a fine +clean apron. He watches my hands carefully as they come and go, +and he is always in the right place to hand the dressing to the +forceps, to pour out the spirit, or to lend a hand with a bandage, +for he very soon learned to bandage skilfully. + +He does not say a word; he just looks. The bit of his forehead +that shows under his own bandages is wrinkled with the earnestness +of his attention--and he has those blue marks by which we +recognise the miner. + +Sometimes it is his turn to have a dressing. But scarcely is it +completed when he is up again with his apron before him, silently +busy. + +At eleven o'clock, Mehay disappears. He has gone, perhaps, to get +a breath of fresh air? Oh, no! Here he is back again with a +trayful of bowls. And he hands round the soup. + +In the evening he hands the thermometer. He helps the orderlies so +much that he leaves them very little to do. + +All this time the bones of his skull are at work under his +bandages, and the red flesh is growing. But we are not to trouble +about that: it will manage all alone. The man, however, cannot be +idle. He works, and trusts to his blood, "which is healthy." + +In the evening, when the ward is lighted by a night-light, and I +come in on tiptoe to give a last look round, I hear a voice +laboriously spelling: "B-O, Bo; B-I, Bi; N-E, Ne, Bobine." It is +Mehay, learning to read before going to bed. + + +VI + + +A lamp has been left alight, because the men are not asleep yet, +and they are allowed to smoke for a while. It would be no fun to +smoke, unless one could see the smoke. + +The former bedroom of the mistress of the house makes a very +light, very clean ward. Under the draperies which have been +fastened up to the ceiling and covered with sheets, old Louarn +lies motionless, waiting for his three shattered limbs to mend. He +is smoking a cigarette, the ash from which falls upon his breast. +Apologising for the little heaps of dirt that make his bed the +despair of the orderlies, he says to me: + +"You know, a Breton ought to be a bit dirty." + +I touch the weight attached to his thigh, and he exclaims: + +"Ma doue! Ma doue! Caste! Caste!" + +These are oaths of a kind, of his own coining, which make every +one laugh, and himself the first. He adds, as he does every day: + +"Doctor, you never hurt me so much before as you have done this +time." + +Then he laughs again. + +Lens is not asleep yet, but he is as silent as usual. He has +scarcely uttered twenty words in three weeks. + +In a corner, Mehay patiently repeats: "P-A, Pa," and the orderly +who is teaching him to read presses his forefinger on the soiled +page. + +I make my way towards Croin, Octave. I sit down by the bed in +silence. + +Croin turns a face half hidden by bandages to me, and puts a leg +damp with sweat out from under the blankets, for fever runs high +just at this time. He too, is silent; he knows as well as I do +that he is not going on well; but all the same, he hopes I shall +go away without speaking to him. + +No. I must tell him. I bend over him and murmur certain things. + +He listens, and his chin begins to tremble, his boyish chin, which +is covered with a soft, fair down. + +Then, with the accent of his province, he says in a tearful, +hesitating voice: + +"I have already given an eye, must I give a hand too?" + +His one remaining eye fills with tears. And seeing the sound hand, +I press it gently before I go. + + +VII + + +When I put my fingers near his injured eye, Croin recoils a +little. + +"Don't be afraid," I say to him. + +"Oh, I'm not afraid!" + +And he adds proudly: + +"When a chap has lived on Hill 108, he can't ever be afraid of +anything again." + +"Then why do you wince?" + +"It's just my head moving back of its own accord. I never think of +it." + +And it is true; the man is not afraid, but his flesh recoils. + +When the bandage is properly adjusted, what remains visible of +Groin's face is young, agreeable, charming. I note this with +satisfaction, and say to him: + +"There's not much damage done on this side. We'll patch you up so +well that you will still be able to make conquests." + +He smiles, touches his bandage, looks at his mutilated arm, seems +to lose himself for a while in memories, and murmurs: + +"May be. But the girls will never come after me again as they used +to..." + + +VIII + + +"The skin is beginning to form over the new flesh. A few weeks +more, and then a wooden leg. You will run along like a rabbit." + +Plaquet essays a little dry laugh which means neither yes nor no, +but which reveals a great timidity, and something else, a great +anxiety. + +"For Sundays, you can have an artificial leg. You put a boot on +it. The trouser hides it all. It won't show a bit." + +The wounded man shakes his head slightly, and listens with a +gentle, incredulous smile. + +"With an artificial leg, Plaquet, you will, of course, be able to +go out. It will be almost as it was before." + +Plaquet shakes his head again, and says in a low voice: + +"Oh, I shall never go out!" + +"But with a good artificial leg, Plaquet, you will be able to walk +almost as well as before. Why shouldn't you go out?" + +Plaquet hesitates and remains silent. + +"Why?" + +Then in an almost inaudible voice he replies: + +"I will never go out. I should be ashamed." + +Plaquet will wear a medal on his breast. He is a brave soldier, +and by no means a fool. But there are very complex feelings which +we must not judge too hastily. + + +IX + + +In the corner of the ward there is a little plank bed which is +like all the other little beds. But buried between its sheets +there is the smile of Mathouillet, which is like no other smile. + +Mathouillet, after throwing a good many bombs, at last got one +himself. In this disastrous adventure, he lost part of his thigh, +received several wounds, and gradually became deaf. Such is the +fate of bombardier-grenadier Mathouillet. + +The bombardier-grenadier has a gentle, beardless face, which for +many weeks must have expressed great suffering, and, which is now +beginning to show a little satisfaction. + +But Mathouillet hears so badly that when one speaks to him he only +smiles in answer. + +If I come into the ward, Mathouillet's smile awaits and welcomes +me. When the dressing is over, Mathouillet thanks me with a smile. +If I look at the temperature chart, Mathouillet's smile follows +me, but not questioningly; Mathouillet has faith in me, but his +smile says a number of unspoken things that I understand +perfectly. Conversation is difficult, on account of this +unfortunate deafness--that is to say, conversation as usually +carried on. But we two, happily, have no need of words. For some +time past, certain smiles have been enough for us. And Mathouillet +smiles, not only with his eyes or with his lips, but with his +nose, his beardless chin, his broad, smooth forehead, crowned by +the pale hair of the North, with all his gentle, boyish face. + +Now that Mathouillet can get up, he eats at the table, with his +comrades. To call him to meals, Baraffe utters a piercing cry, +which reaches the ear of the bombardier-grenadier. + +He arrives, shuffling his slippers along the floor, and examines +all the laughing faces. As he cannot hear, he hesitates to sit +down, and this time his smile betrays embarrassment and confusion. + +Coming very close to him, I say loudly: + +"Your comrades are calling you to dinner, my boy." + +"Yes, yes," he replies, "but because they know I am deaf, they +sometimes try to play tricks on me." + +His cheeks flush warmly as he makes this impromptu confidence. +Then he makes up his mind to sit down, after interrogating me with +his most affectionate smile. + + +X + + +Once upon a time, Paga would have been called un type; now he is +un numero. This means that he is an original, that his ways of +considering and practising life are unusual; and as life here is +reduced entirely to terms of suffering, it means that his manner +of suffering differs from that of other people. + +From the very beginning, during those hard moments when the +wounded man lies plunged in stupor and self-forgetfulness, Paga +distinguished himself by some remarkable eccentricities. + +Left leg broken, right foot injured, such was the report on Paga's +hospital sheet. + +Now the leg was not doing at all well. Every morning, the good +head doctor stared at the swollen flesh with his little round +discoloured eyes and said: "Come, we must just wait till to- +morrow." But Paga did not want to wait. + +Flushed with fever, his hands trembling, his southern accent +exaggerated by approaching delirium, he said, as soon as we came +to see him. + +"My wish, my wish! You know my wish, doctor." + +Then, lower, with a kind of passion: + +"I want you to cut it off, you know. I want you to cut this leg. +Oh! I shan't be happy till it is done. Doctor, cut it, cut it +off." + +We didn't cut it at all, and Paga's business was very successfully +arranged. I even feel sure that this leg became quite a +respectable limb again. + +I am bound to say Paga understood that he had meddled with things +which did not concern him. He nevertheless continued to offer +imperative advice as to the manner in which he wished to be +nursed. + +"Don't pull off the dressings! I won't have it. Do you hear, +doctor? Don't pull. I won't have it." + +Then he would begin to tremble nervously all over his body and to +say: + +"I am quite calm! Oh, I am really calm. See, Michelet, see, +Brugneau, I am calm. Doctor, see, I am quite calm." + +Meantime the dressings were gradually loosening under a trickle of +water, and Paga muttered between his teeth: + +"He's pulling, he's pulling. ... Oh, the cruel man! I won't have +it, I won't have it." + +Then suddenly, with flaming cheeks: + +"That's right. That's right! See, Michelet, see, Brugneau: the +dressings have come away. Sergeant, Sergeant, the dressings are +loosened." + +He clapped his hands, possessed by a furtive joy; then he suddenly +became conscious, and with a deep furrow between his brows, he +began to give orders again. + +"Not any tincture of iodine to-day, doctor. Take away those +forceps, doctor, take them away." + +Meanwhile the implacable forceps did their work, the tincture of +iodine performed its chilly function; then Paga yelled: + +"Quickly, quickly. Kiss me, kiss me." + +With his arms thrown out like tentacles, he beat upon the air, and +seized haphazard upon the first blouse that passed. Then he would +embrace it frantically. + +Thus it happened that he once showered kisses on Michelet's hands, +objects by no means suitable for such a demonstration. Michelet +said, laughing: + +"Come, stop it; my hands are dirty." + +And then poor Paga began to kiss Michelet's bare, hairy arms, +saying distractedly: + +"If your hands are dirty, your arms are all right." + +Alas, what has become of all those who, during days and nights of +patient labour, I saw gradually shaking off the dark empire of the +night and coming back again to joy? What has become of the +smouldering faggot which an ardent breath finally kindled into +flame? + +What became of you, precious lives, poor wonderful souls, for whom +I fought so many obscure great battles, and who went off again +into the realm of adventure? + +You, Paga, little fellow, where are you? Do you remember the time +when I used to dress your two wounds alternately, and when you +said to me with great severity: + +"The leg to-day, only the leg. It's not the day for the foot." + + +XI + + +Sergeant Lecolle is distinguished by a huge black beard, which +fails to give a ferocious expression to the gentlest face in the +world. + +He arrived the day little Delporte died, and scarcely had he +emerged from the dark sleep when, opening his eyes, he saw +Delporte die. + +I went to speak to him several times. He looked so exhausted, his +black beard was so mournful that I kept on telling him: "Sergeant, +your wound is not serious." + +Each time he shook his head as if to say that he took but little +interest in the matter, and tried to close his eyes. + +Lecolle is too nervous; he was not able to close his eyes, and he +saw Delporte dead, and he had been obliged to witness all +Delporte's death agony; for when one has a wound in the right +shoulder, one can only lie upon the left shoulder. + +The ward was full, I could not change the sergeant's place, and +yet I should have liked to let him be alone all day with his own +pain. + +Now Lecolle is better; he feels better without much exuberance, +with a seriousness which knows and foresees the bufferings of +Fate. + +Lecolle was a stenographer "in life." We are no longer "in life," +but the good stenographer retains his principles. When his wounds +are dressed, he looks carefully at the little watch on his wrist. +He moans at intervals, and stops suddenly to say: + +"It has taken fifty seconds to-day to loosen the dressings. +Yesterday, you took sixty-two seconds." + +His first words after the operation were: + +"Will you please tell me how many minutes I was unconscious?" + + +XII + + +I first saw Derancourt in the room adjoining the chapel. A band of +crippled men, returning from Germany after a long captivity, had +just been brought in there. + +There were some fifty of them, all looking with delighted eyes at +the walls, the benches, the telephone, all the modest objects in +this waiting-room, objects which are so much more attractive under +the light of France than in harsh exile. + +The waiting-room seemed to have been transformed into a museum of +misery: there were blind men, legless and armless men, paralysed +men, their faces ravaged by fire and powder. + +A big fellow said, lifting his deformed arm with an effort: + +"I tricked them; they thought to the end that I was really +paralysed. I look well, but that's because they sent us to +Constance for the last week, to fatten us up." + +A dark, thin man was walking to and fro, towing his useless foot +after him by the help of a string which ran down his trouser leg; +and he laughed: + +"I walk more with my fist than with my foot. Gentlemen, gentlemen, +who would like to pull Punch's string?" + +All wore strange costumes, made up of military clothing and +patched civilian garments. + +On a bench sat fifteen or twenty men with about a dozen legs +between them. It was among these that I saw Derancourt. He was +holding his crutches in one hand and looking round him, stroking +his long fair moustache absently. + +Derancourt became my friend. + +His leg had been cut off at the thigh, and this had not yet +healed; he had, further, a number of other wounds which had closed +more or less during his captivity. + +Derancourt never talked of himself, much less of his misfortune. I +knew from his comrades that he had fought near Longwy, his native +town, and that he had lain grievously wounded for nine days on the +battlefield. He had seen his father, who had come to succour him, +killed at his side; then he had lain beside the corpse, tortured +by a delirious dream in which nine days and nine nights had +followed one upon the other, like a dizziness of alternate +darkness and dazzling light. In the mornings, he sucked the wet +grass he clutched when he stretched out his hands. + +Afterwards he had suffered in Germany, and finally he had come +back to France, mutilated, covered with wounds, and knowing that +his wife and children were left without help and without resources +in the invaded territory. + +Of all this Derancourt said not a word. He apparently did not know +how to complain, and he contemplated the surrounding wretchedness +with a grave look, full of experience, which would have seemed a +little cold but for the tremulous mobility of his features. + +Derancourt never played, never laughed. He sought solitude, and +spent hours, turning his head slowly from side to side, +contemplating the walls and the ceiling like one who sees things +within himself. + +The day came when we had to operate on Derancourt, to make his +stump of a thigh serviceable. + +He was laid on the table. He remained calm and self-controlled as +always, looking at the preparations for the operation with a kind +of indifference. + +We put the chloroform pad under his nose; he drew two or three +deep breaths, and then a strange thing happened: Derancourt began +to sob in a terrible manner, and to talk of all those things he +had never mentioned. The grief he had suppressed for months +overflowed, or rather, rushed out in desperate, heartrending +lamentations. + +It was not the disorderly intoxication, the muscular, animal +rebellion of those who are thrown into this artificial sleep. It +was the sudden break-up of an overstrained will under a slight +shock. For months Derancourt had braced himself against despair, +and now, all of a sudden, he gave way, and abandoned himself to +poignant words and tears. The flood withdrew suddenly, leaving the +horrible, chaotic depths beneath the sea visible. + +We ceased scrubbing our hands, and stood aghast and deeply moved, +full of sadness and respect. + +Then some one exclaimed: + +"Quick! quick! More chloroform! Stupefy him outright, let him +sleep." + + +XIII + + +"But a man can't be paralysed by a little hole in his back! I +tell you it was only a bullet. You must take it out, doctor. Take +it out, and I shall be all right." + +Thus said a Zouave, who had been lying helpless for three days on +his bed. + +"If you knew how strong I am! Look at my arms! No one could unhook +a bag like me, and heave it over my shoulder--tock! A hundred +kilos--with one jerk!" + +The doctor looked at the muscular torso, and his face expressed +pity, regret, embarrassment, and, perhaps, a certain wish to go +away. + +"But this wretched bullet prevents me from moving my legs. You +must take it out, doctor, you must take it out!" + +The doctor glances at the paralysed legs, and the swollen belly, +already lifeless. He knows that the bullet broke the spine, and +cut through the marrow which sent law and order into all this now +inanimate flesh. + +"Operate, doctor. Look you, a healthy chap like me would soon get +well." + +The doctor stammers vague sentences: the operation would be too +serious for the present ... better wait. ... + +"No, no. Never fear. My health is first-rate. Don't be afraid, the +operation is bound to be a success." + +His rugged face is contracted by his fixed idea. His voice +softens; blind confidence and supplication give it an unusual +tone. His heavy eyebrows meet and mingle under the stress of his +indomitable will; his soul makes such an effort that the +immobility of his legs seems suddenly intolerable. Heavens! Can a +man WILL so intensely, and yet be powerless to control his own +body? + +"Oh, operate, operate! You will see how pleased I shall be!" + +The doctor twists the sheet round his forefinger; then, hearing a +wounded man groaning in the next ward, he gets up, says he will +come back presently, and escapes. + + +XIV + + +The colloquy between the rival gods took place at the foot of the +great staircase. + +The Arab soldier had just died. It was the Arab one used to see +under a shed, seated gravely on the ground in the midst of other +magnificent Arabs. In those days they had boots of crimson +leather, and majestic red mantles. They used to sit in a circle, +contemplating from under their turbans the vast expanse of mud +watered by the skies of Artois. To-day, they wear the ochre +helmet, and show the profiles of Saracen warriors. + +The Algerian has just been killed, kicked in the belly by his +beautiful white horse. + +In the ambulance there was a Mussulman orderly, a well-to-do +tradesman, who had volunteered for the work. He, on the other +hand, was extremely European, nay, Parisian; but a plump, +malicious smile showed itself in the midst of his crisp grey +beard, and he had the look in the eyes peculiar to those who come +from the other side of the Mediterranean. + +Rashid "behaved very well." He had found native words when tending +the dying man, and had lavished on him the consolations necessary +to those of his country. + +When the Algerian was dead, he arranged the winding-sheet himself, +in his own fashion; then he lighted a cigarette, and set out in +search of Monet and Renaud. + +For lack of space, we had no mortuary at the time in the +ambulance. Corpses were placed in the chapel of the cemetery while +awaiting burial. The military burial-ground had been established +within the precincts of the church, close by the civilian +cemetery, and in a few weeks it had invaded it like a cancer and +threatened to devour it. + +Rashid had thought of everything, and this was why he went in +search of Monet and Renaud, Catholic priests and ambulance +orderlies of the second class. + +The meeting took place at the foot of the great staircase. Leaning +over the balustrade, I listened, and watched the colloquy of the +rival gods. + +Monet was thirty years old; he had fine, sombre eyes, and a stiff +beard, from which a pipe emerged. Renaud carried the thin face of +a seminarist a little on one side. + +Monet and Renaud listened gravely, as became people who were +deciding in the Name of the Father. Rashid was pleading for his +dead Arab with supple eloquence, wrapped in a cloud of tobacco- +smoke: + +"We cannot leave the Arab's corpse under a wagon, in the storm. +... This man died for France, at his post. ... He had a right to +all honours, and it was hard enough as it was that he could not +have the obsequies he would surely have had in his own country." + +Monet nodded approvingly, and Renaud, his mouth half open, was +seeking some formula. + +It came, and this was it: + +"Very well, Monsieur Rashid, take him into the church; that is +God's house for every one." + +Rashid bowed with perfect deference, and went back to his dead. + +Oh, he arranged everything very well! He had made this funeral a +personal matter. He was the family, the master of the ceremonies, +almost the priest. + +The Algerian's body accordingly lay in the chapel, covered with +the old faded flag and a handful of chrysanthemums. + +It was here the bearers came to take it, and carry it to +CONSECRATED GROUND, to lie among the other comrades. + +Monet and Renaud were with us when it was lowered into the grave. +Rashid represented the dead man's kindred with much dignity. He +held something in his hand which he planted in the ground before +going away. It was that crescent of plain deal at the end of a +stick which is still to be seen in the midst of the worm-eaten +crosses, in the shadow of the belfry of L----. + +There the same decay works towards the intermingling and the +reconciliation of ancient symbols and ancient dogmas. + + +XV + + +Nogue is courageous, but Norman; this gives to courage a special +form, which excludes neither reserve, nor prudence, nor moderation +of language. + +On the day when he was wounded, he bore a preliminary operation +with perfect calm. Lifting up his shattered arm, I said: + +"Are you suffering very much?" And he barely opened his lips to +reply: + +"Well ... perhaps a bit." + +Fever came the following days, and with it a certain discomfort. +Nogue could not eat, and when asked if he did not feel rather +hungry, he shook his head: + +"I don't think so." + +Well, the arm was broken very high up, the wound looked unhealthy, +the fever ran high, and we made up our minds that it was necessary +to come to a decision. + +"My poor Nogue," I said, "we really can't do anything with that +arm of yours. Be sensible. Let us take it off." + +If we had waited for his answer, Nogue would have been dead by +now. His face expressed great dissatisfaction, but he said neither +yes nor no. + +"Don't be afraid, Nogue. I will guarantee the success of the +operation." + +Then he asked to make his will. When the will had been made, Nogue +was laid upon the table and operated upon, without having +formulated either consent or refusal. + +When the first dressing was made, Nogue looked at his bleeding +shoulder, and said: + +"I suppose you couldn't have managed to leave just a little bit of +arm?" + +After a few days the patient was able to sit up in an arm-chair. +His whole being bore witness to a positive resurrection, but his +tongue remained cautious. + +"Well, now, you see, you're getting on capitally." + +"Hum ... might be better." + +Never could he make up his mind to give his whole-hearted +approval, even after the event, to the decision which had saved +his life. When we said to him: + +"YOU'RE all right. We've done the business for YOU!" he would not +commit himself. + +"We shall see, we shall see." + +He got quite well, and we sent him into the interior. Since then, +he has written to us, "business letters," prudent letters which he +signs "a poor mutilated fellow." + + +XVI + + +Lapointe and Ropiteau always meet in the dressing ward. Ropiteau +is brought in on a stretcher, and Lapointe arrives on foot, +jauntily, holding up his elbow, which is going on "as well as +possible." + +Lying on the table, the dressings removed from his thigh, Ropiteau +waits to be tended, looking at a winter fly walking slowly along +the ceiling, like an old man bowed down with sorrow. As soon as +Ropiteau's wounds are laid bare, Lapointe, who is versed in these +matters, opens the conversation. + +"What do they put on it?" + +"Well, only yellow spirit." + +"That's the strongest of all. It stings, but it is first-rate for +strengthening the flesh. I always get ether." + +"Ether stinks so!" + +"Yes, it stinks, but one gets used to it. It warms the blood. +Don't you have tubes any longer?" + +"They took out the last on Tuesday." + +"Mine have been taken away, too. Wait a minute, old chap, let me +look at it. Does it itch?" + +"Yes, it feels like rats gnawing at me." + +"If it feels like rats, it's all right. Mine feels like rats, too. +Don't you want to scratch?" + +"Yes, but they say I mustn't." + +"No, of course, you mustn't. ... But you can always tap on the +dressing a little with your finger. That is a relief." + +Lapointe leans over and examines Ropiteau's large wound. + +"Old chap, it's getting on jolly well. Same here; I'll show you +presently. It's red, the skin is beginning to grow again. But it +is thin, very thin." + +Lapointe sits down to have his dressing cut away, then he makes a +half turn towards Ropiteau. + +"You see--getting on famously." + +Ropiteau admires unreservedly. + +"Yes, you're right. It looks first-rate." + +"And you know ... such a beastly mess came out of it." + +At this moment, the busy forceps cover up the wounds with the +dressing, and the operation comes to an end. + +"So long!" says Lapointe to his elbow, casting a farewell glance +at it. And he adds, as he gets to the door: + +"Now there are only the damned fingers that won't get on. But I +don't care. I've made up my mind to be a postman." + + +XVII + + +Bouchenton was not very communicative. We knew nothing of his +past history. As to his future plans, he revealed them by one day +presenting to the head doctor for his signature a paper asking +leave to open a Moorish cafe at Medea after his recovery, a +request the head doctor felt himself unable to endorse. + +Bouchenton had undergone a long martyrdom in order to preserve an +arm from which the bone had been partially removed, but from which +a certain amount of work might still be expected. He screamed like +the others, and his cry was "Mohabdi! Mohabdi!" When the forceps +came near, he cried: "Don't put them in!" And after this he +maintained a silence made up of dignity and indolence. During the +day he was to be seen wandering about the wards, holding up his +ghostly muffled arm with his sound hand. In the evening, he +learned to play draughts, because it is a serious, silent game, +and requires consideration. + +Now one day when Bouchenton, seated on a chair, was waiting for +his wound to be dressed, the poor adjutant Figuet began to +complain in a voice that was no more than the shadow of a voice, +just as his body was no more than the shadow of a body. + +Figuet was crawling at the time up the slopes of a Calvary where +he was soon to fall once more, never to rise again. + +The most stupendous courage and endurance foundered then in a +despair for which there seemed henceforth to be no possible +alleviation. + +Figuet, I say, began to complain, and every one in the ward +feigned to be engrossed in his occupation, and to hear nothing, +because when such a man began to groan, the rest felt that the end +of all things had come. + +Bouchenton turned his head, looked at the adjutant, seized his +flabby arm carefully with his right hand, and set out. Walking +with little short steps he came to the table where the suffering +man lay. + +Stretching out his neck, his great bowed body straining in an +effort of attention, he looked at the wounds, the pus, the soiled +bandages, the worn, thin face, and his own wooden visage laboured +under the stress of all kinds of feelings. + +Then Bouchenton did a very simple thing; he relaxed his hold on +his own boneless arm, held out his right hand to Figuet, seized +his transparent fingers and held them tightly clasped. + +The adjutant ceased groaning. As long as the silent pressure +lasted, he ceased to complain, ceased perhaps to suffer. +Bouchenton kept his right hand there as long as it was necessary. + +I saw this, Bouchenton, my brother. I will not forget it. And I +saw, too, your aching, useless left arm, which you had been +obliged to abandon in order to have a hand to give, hanging by +your side like a limp rag. + + +XVIII + + +To be over forty years old, to be a tradesman of repute, well +known throughout one's quarter, to be at the head of a prosperous +provision-dealer's business, and to get two fragments of shell--in +the back and the left buttock respectively--is really a great +misfortune; yet this is what happened to M. Levy, infantryman and +Territorial. + +I never spoke familiarly to M. Levy, because of his age and his +air of respectability; and perhaps, too, because, in his case, I +felt a great and special need to preserve my authority. + +Monsieur Levy was not always "a good patient." When I first +approached him, he implored me not to touch him "at any price." + +I disregarded these injunctions, and did what was necessary. +Throughout the process, Monsieur Levy was snoring, be it said. But +he woke up at last, uttered one or two piercing cries, and +stigmatised me as a "brute." All right. + +Then I showed him the big pieces of cast-iron I had removed from +his back and his buttock respectively. Monsieur Levy's eyes at +once filled with tears; he murmured a few feeling words about his +family, and then pressed my hands warmly: "Thank you, thank you, +dear Doctor." + +Since then, Monsieur Levy has suffered a good deal, I must admit. +There are the plugs! And those abominable india-rubber tubes we +push into the wounds! Monsieur Levy, kneeling and prostrating +himself, his head in his bolster, suffered every day and for +several days without stoicism or resignation. I was called an +"assassin" and also on several occasions, a "brute." All right. + +However, as I was determined that Monsieur Levy should get well, I +renewed the plugs, and looked sharply after the famous india- +rubber tubes. + +The time came when my hands were warmly pressed and my patient +said: "Thank you, thank you, dear Doctor," every day. + +At last Monsieur Levy ceased to suffer, and confined himself to +the peevish murmurs of a spoilt beauty or a child that has been +scolded. But now no one takes him seriously. He has become the +delight of the ward; he laughs so heartily when the dressing is +over, he is naturally so gay and playful, that I am rather at a +loss as to the proper expression to assume when, alluding to the +past, he says, with a look in which good nature, pride, +simplicity, and a large proportion of playful malice are mingled: + +"I suffered so much! so much!" + + +XIX + + +He was no grave, handsome Arab, looking as if he had stepped from +the pages of the "Arabian Nights," but a kind of little brown +monster with an overhanging forehead and ugly, scanty hair. + +He lay upon the table, screaming, because his abdomen was very +painful and his hip was all tumefied. What could we say to him? He +could understand nothing; he was strange, terrified, pitiable. ... + +At my wits' ends, I took out a cigarette and placed it between his +lips. His whole face changed. He took hold of the cigarette +delicately between two bony fingers; he had a way of holding it +which was a marvel of aristocratic elegance. + +While we finished the dressing, the poor fellow smoked slowly and +gravely, with all the distinction of an Oriental prince; then, +with a negligent gesture, he threw away the cigarette, of which he +had only smoked half. + +Presently, suddenly becoming an animal, he spit upon my apron, and +kissed my hand like a dog, repeating something which sounded like +"Bouia! Bouia!" + + +XX + + +Gautreau looked like a beast of burden. He was heavy, square, +solid of base and majestic of neck and throat. What he could carry +on his back would have crushed an ordinary man; he had big bones, +so hard that the fragment of shell which struck him on the skull +only cracked it, and got no further into it. Gautreau arrived at +the hospital alone, on foot; he sat down on a chair in the corner, +saying: + +"No need to hurry; it's only a scratch." + +We gave him a cup of tea with rum in it, and he began to hum: + + En courant par les epeignes + Je m'etios fait un ecourchon, + Et en courant par les epeignes + Et en courant apres not' couchon. + +"Ah!" said Monsieur Boissin, "you are a man! Come here, let me +see." + +Gautreau went into the operating ward saying: + +"It feels queer to be walking on dry ground when you've just come +off the slime. You see: it's only a scratch. But one never knows: +there may be some bits left in it." + +Dr. Boussin probed the wound, and felt the cracked bone. He was an +old surgeon who had his own ideas about courage and pain. He made +up his mind. + +"I am in a hurry; you are a man. There is just a little something +to be done to you. Kneel down there and don't stir." + +A few minutes later, Gautreau was on his knees, holding on to the +leg of the table. His head was covered with blood-stained +bandages, and Dr. Boussin, chisel in hand, was tapping on his +skull with the help of a little mallet, like a sculptor. Gautreau +exclaimed: + +"Monsieur Bassin, Monsieur Bassin, you're hurting me." + +"Not Bassin, but Boussin," replied the old man calmly. + +"Well, Boussin, if you like." + +There was a silence, and then Gautreau suddenly added: + +"Monsieur Bassin, you are killing me with these antics." + +"No fear!" + +"Monsieur Bassin, I tell you you're killing me." + +"Just a second more." + +"Monsieur Bassin, you're driving nails into my head, it's a +shame." + +"I've almost finished." + +"Monsieur Bassin, I can't stand any more." + +"It's all over now," said the surgeon, laying down his +instruments. + +Gautreau's head was swathed with cotton wool and he left the ward. + +"The old chap means well," he said, laughing, "but fancy knocking +like that ... with a hammer! It's not that it hurts so much; the +pain was no great matter. But it kills one, that sort of thing, +and I'm not going to stand that." + + +XXI + + +There is only one man in the world who can hold Hourticq's leg, +and that is Monet. + +Hourticq, who is a Southerner, cries despairingly: "Oh, cette +jammbe, cette jammbe!" And his anxious eyes look eagerly round for +some one: not his doctor, but his orderly, Monet. Whatever +happens, the doctor will always do those things which doctors do. +Monet is the only person who can take the heel and then the foot +in both hands, raise the leg gently, and hold it in the air as +long as it is necessary. + +There are people, it seems, who think this notion ridiculous. They +are all jealous persons who envy Monet's position and would like +to show that they too know how to hold Hourticq's leg properly. +But it is not my business to show favour to the ambitious. As soon +as Hourticq is brought in, I call Monet. If Monet is engaged, +well, I wait. He comes, lays hold of the leg, and Hourticq ceases +to lament. It is sometimes a long business, very long; big drops +of sweat come out on Monet's forehead. But I know that he would +not give up his place for anything in the world. + +When Mazy arrived at the hospital, Hourticq, who is no egoist, +said to him at once in a low tone: + +"Yours is a leg too, isn't it? You must try to get Monet to hold +it for you." + + +XXII + + +If Bouchard were not so bored, he would not be very wretched, for +he is very courageous, and he has a good temper. But he is +terribly bored, in his gentle, uncomplaining fashion. He is too +ill to talk or play games. He cannot sleep; he can only +contemplate the wall, and his own thoughts which creep slowly +along it, like caterpillars. + +In the morning, I bring a catheter with me, and when Bouchard's +wounds are dressed, I apply it, for unfortunately, he can no +longer perform certain functions independently. + +Bouchard has crossed his hands behind the nape of his neck, and +watches the process with a certain interest. I ask: + +"Did I hurt you? Is it very unpleasant?" + +Bouchard gives a melancholy smile and shakes his head: + +"Oh, no, not at all! In fact it rather amuses me. It makes a few +minutes pass. The day is so long. ..." + + +XXIII + +THOUGHTS OF PROSPER RUFFIN + + + ... God! How awful it is in this carriage! Who is it who is +groaning like that? It's maddening! And then, all this would never +have happened if they had only brought the coffee at the right +time. Well now, a wretched 77 ... oh, no! Who is it who is +groaning like that? God, another jolt! No, no, man, we are not +salad. Take care there. My kidneys are all smashed. + +Ah! now something is dripping on my nose. Hi! You up there, what's +happening? He doesn't answer. I suppose it's blood, all this mess. + +Now again, some one is beginning to squeal like a pig. By the way, +can it be me? What! it was I who was groaning! Upon my word, it's +a little too strong, that! It was I myself who was making all the +row, and I did not know it. It's odd to hear oneself screaming. + +Ah! now it's stopping, their beastly motor. + +Look, there's the sun! What's that tree over there? I know, it's a +Japanese pine. Well, you see, I'm a gardener, old chap. Oh, oh, +oh! My back! What will Felicie say to me? + +Look, there's Felicie coming down to the washing trough. She +pretends not to see me. ... I will steal behind the elder hedge. +Felicie! Felicie! I have a piece of a 77 in my kidneys. I like her +best in her blue bodice. + +What are you putting over my nose, you people? It stinks horribly. +I am choking, I tell you. Felicie, Felicie. Put on your blue +bodice with the white spots, my little Feli ... Oh, but ... oh, +but ...! + +Oh, the Whitsuntide bells already! God--the bells already ... the +Whitsun bells ... the bells. ... + + +XXIV + + +I remember him very well, although he was not long with us. +Indeed I think that I shall never forget him, and yet he stayed +such a short time. ... + +When he arrived, we told him that an operation was necessary, and +he made a movement with his head, as if to say that it was our +business, not his. + +We operated, and as soon as he recovered consciousness, he went +off again into a dream which was like a glorious delirium, silent +and haughty. + +His breathing was so impeded by blood that it sounded like +groaning; but his eyes were full of a strange serenity. That look +was never with us. + +I had to uncover and dress his wounds several times; and THOSE +WOUNDS MUST HAVE SUFFERED. But to the last, he himself seemed +aloof from everything, even his own sufferings. + + +XXV + + +"Come in here. You can see him once more." + +I open the door, and push the big fair artilleryman into the room +where his brother has just died. + +I turn back the sheet and uncover the face of the corpse. The +flesh is still warm. + +The big fellow looks like a peasant. He holds his helmet in both +hands, and stares at his brother's face with eyes full of horror +and amazement. Then suddenly, he begins to cry out: + +"Poor Andre! Poor Andre!" + +This cry of the rough man is unexpected, and grandiose as the +voice of ancient tragedians chanting the threnody of a hero. + +Then he drops his helmet, throws himself on his knees beside the +death-bed, takes the dead face between his hands and kisses it +gently and slowly with a little sound of the lips, as one kisses a +baby's hand. + +I take him by the arm and lead him away. His sturdy body is shaken +by sobs which are like the neighing of a horse; he is blinded by +his tears, and knocks against all the furniture. He can do nothing +but lament in a broken voice: + +"Poor Andre! Poor Andre!" + + +XXVI + + +La Gloriette is amongst the pine-trees. I lift up a corner of the +canvas and he is there. In spite of the livid patches on the skin, +in spite of the rigidity of the features, and the absence for all +time of the glance, it is undoubtedly the familiar face. + +What a long time he suffered to win the right to be at last this +thing which suffers no more! + +I draw back the winding-sheet. The body is as yet but little +touched by corruption. The dressings are in place, as before. And +as before, I think, as I draw back the sheet, of the look he will +turn on me at the moment of suffering. + +But there is no longer any look, no longer any suffering, no +longer even any movements. Only, only unimaginable eternity. + +For whom is the damp autumn breeze which flutters the canvas hung +before the door? For whom the billowy murmur of the pine-trees and +the rays of light crossed by a flight of insects? For whom this +growling of cannon mingling now with the landscape like one of the +sounds of nature? For me only, for me, alone here with the dead. + +The corpse is still so near to the living man that I cannot make +up my mind that I am alone, that I cannot make up my mind to think +as when I am alone. + +For indeed we spent too many days hoping together, enduring +together, and if you will allow me to say so, my comrade, +suffering together. We spent too many days wishing for the end of +the fever, examining the wound, searching after the deeply rooted +cause of the disaster--both tremulous, you from the effort to bear +your pain, I sometimes from having inflicted it. + +We spent so many days, do you remember, oh, body without a soul +... so many days fondly expecting the medal you had deserved. But +it seems that one must have given an eye or a limb to be put on +the list, and you, all of a sudden, you gave your life. The medal +had not come, for it does not travel so quickly as death. + +So many days! And now we are together again, for the last time. + +Well! I came for a certain purpose. I came to learn certain things +at last that your body can tell me now. + +I open the case. As before, I cut the dressings with the shining +scissors. And I was just about to say to you, as before: "If I +hurt you, call out." + + +XXVII + + +At the edge of the beetroot field, a few paces from the road, in +the white sand of Champagne, there is a burial-ground. + +Branches of young beech encircle it, making a rustic barrier that +shuts out nothing, but allows the eyes and the winds to wander at +will. There is a porch like those of Norman gardens. Near the +entrance four pine-trees were planted, and these have died +standing at their posts, like soldiers. + +It is a burial-ground of men. + +In the villages, round the churches, or on the fair hill-sides, +among vines and flowers, there are ancient graveyards which the +centuries filled slowly, and where woman sleeps beside man, and +the child beside the grandfather. + +But this burial-ground owes nothing to old age or sickness. It is +the burial-ground of young, strong men. + +We may read their names on the hundreds of little crosses which +repeat daily in speechless unison: "There must be something more +precious than life, more necessary than life ... since we are +here." + + + + + +THE DEATH OF MERCIER + + +Mercier is dead, and I saw his corpse weep. ... I did not think +such a thing possible. The orderly had just washed his face and +combed his grey hair. + +I said: "You are not forty yet, my poor Mercier, and your hair is +almost white already." + +"It is because my life has been a very hard one, and I have had so +many sorrows. I have worked so hard ... so hard! And I have had so +little luck." + +There are pitiful little wrinkles all over his face; a thousand +disappointments have left indelible traces there. And yet his eyes +are always smiling; from out his faded features they shine, bright +with an artless candour and radiant with hope. + +"You will cure me, and perhaps I shall be luckier in the future." + +I say "yes," and I think, "Alas! No, no." + +But suddenly he calls me. Great dark hollows appear under the +smiling eyes. A livid sweat bathes his forehead. + +"Come, come!" he says. "Something terrible is taking hold of me. +Surely I am going to die." + +We busy ourselves with the poor paralysed body. The face alone +labours to translate its sufferings. The hands make the very +slightest movement on the sheet. The bullets of the machine-gun +have cut off all the rest from the sources of life. + +We do what we can, but I feel his heart beating more feebly; his +lips make immense efforts to beg for one drop, one drop only from +the vast cup of air. + +Gradually he escapes from this hell. I divine that his hand makes +a movement as if to detain mine. + +"Stay by me," he says; "I am afraid." + +I stay by him. The sweat no longer stands on his brow. The +horrible distress passes off. The air flows again into the +miserable breast. The gentle eyes have not ceased to smile. + +"You will save me after all," he says; "I have had too miserable a +life to die yet, Monsieur." + +I press his hand to give him confidence, and I feel that his hard +hand is happy in mine. My fingers have groped in his flesh, his +blood has flowed over them, and this creates strong ties between +two men. + +Calm seems completely restored. I talk to him of his beautiful +native place. He was a baker in a village of Le Cantal. I passed +through it once as a traveller in peace time. We recall the scent +of the juniper-bushes on the green slopes in summer, and the +mineral fountains with wonderful flavours that gush forth among +the mountains. + +"Oh!" he exclaims, "I shall always see you!" + +"You will see me, Mercier?" + +He is a very simple fellow; he tries to explain, and merely adds: + +"In my eyes. ... I shall always see you in my eyes." + +What else does he see? What other thing is suddenly reflected in +his eyes? + +"I think ... oh, it is beginning again!" + +It is true; the spasm is beginning again. It is terrible. In spite +of our efforts, it overcomes the victim, and this time we are +helpless. + +"I feel that I am going to die," he says. + +The smiling eyes are still fixed imploringly upon me. + +"But you will save me, you will save me!" + +Death has already laid a disfiguring hand on Mercier. + +"Stay by me." + +Yes, I will stay by you, and hold your hand. Is there nothing more +I can do for you? + +His nostrils quiver. It is hard to have been wretched for forty +years, and to have to give up the humble hope of smelling the +pungent scent of the juniper-bushes once more. ... + +His lips contract, and then relax gradually, so sadly. It is hard +to have suffered for forty years, and to be unable to quench one's +last thirst with the wonderful waters of our mountain springs. ... + +Now the dark sweat gathers again on the hollow brow. Oh, it is +hard to die after forty years of toil, without ever having had +leisure to wipe the sweat from a brow that has always been bent +over one's work. + +The sacrifice is immense, and we cannot choose our hour; we must +make it as soon as we hear the voice that demands it. + +The man must lay down his tools and say: "Here I am." + +Oh, how hard it is to leave this life of unceasing toil and +sorrow! + +The eyes still smile feebly. They smile to the last moment. + +He speaks no more. He breathes no more. The heart throbs wildly, +then stops dead like a foundered horse. + +Mercier is dead. The pupils of his eyes are solemnly distended +upon a glassy abyss. All is over. I have not saved him. ... + +Then from those dead eyes great tears ooze slowly and flow upon +his cheeks. I see his features contract as if to weep throughout +eternity. + +I keep the dead hand still clasped in mine for several long +minutes. + + + + + +VERDUN + + +FEBRUARY-APRIL 1916 + + +We were going northward by forced marches, through a France that +was like a mournful garden planted with crosses. We were no longer +in doubt as to our appointed destination; every day since we had +disembarked at B----our orders had enjoined us to hasten our +advance to the fighting units of the Army Corps. This Army Corps +was contracting, and drawing itself together hurriedly, its head +already in the thick of the fray, its tail still winding along the +roads, across the battle-field of the Marne. + +February was closing in, damp and icy, with squalls of sleet, +under a sullen, hideous sky, lowering furiously down to the level +of the ground. Everywhere there were graves, uniformly decent, or +rather according to pattern, showing a shield of tri-colour or +black and white, and figures. Suddenly, we came upon immense +flats, whence the crosses stretched out their arms between the +poplars like men struggling to save themselves from being +engulfed. Many ancient villages, humble, irremediable ruins. And +yet here and there, perched upon these, frail cabins of planks and +tiles, sending forth thin threads of smoke, and emitting a timid +light, in an attempt to begin life again as before, on the same +spot as before. Now and again we chanced upon a hamlet which the +hurricane had passed by almost completely, full to overflowing +with the afflux of neighbouring populations. + +Beyond P----, our advance, though it continued to be rapid, became +very difficult, owing to the confluence of convoys and troops. The +main roads, reserved for the military masses which were under the +necessity of moving rapidly, arriving early, and striking +suddenly, were barred to us. From every point of the horizon +disciplined multitudes converged, with their arsenal of formidable +implements, rolling along in an atmosphere of benzine and hot oil. +Through this ordered mass, our convoys threaded their way +tenaciously and advanced. We could see on the hill sides, crawling +like a clan of migrating ants, stretcher-bearers and their dogs +drawing handcarts for the wounded, then the columns of orderlies, +muddy and exhausted, then the ambulances, which every week of war +loads a little more heavily, dragged along by horses in a steam of +sweat. + +From time to time, the whole train halted at some cross-road, and +the ambulances allowed more urgent things to pass in front of +them--things designed to kill, sturdy grey mortars borne along +post haste in a metallic rumble. + +A halt, a draught of wine mingled with rain, a few minutes to +choke over a mouthful of stale bread, and we were off again, +longing for the next halt, for a dry shelter, for an hour of real +sleep. + +Soon after leaving C----we began to meet fugitives. This +complicated matters very much, and the spectacle began to show an +odious likeness to the scenes of the beginning of the war, the +scenes of the great retreat. + +Keeping along the roadsides, the by-roads, the field-paths, they +were fleeing from the Verdun district, whence they had been +evacuated by order. They were urging on miserable old horses, +drawing frail carts, their wheels sunk in the ruts up to the nave, +loaded with mattresses and eiderdowns, with appliances for eating +and sleeping, and sometimes too, with cages in which birds were +twittering. On they went, from village to village, seeking an +undiscoverable lodging, but not complaining, saying merely: + +"You are going to Verdun? We have just come from X----. We were +ordered to leave. It is very difficult to find a place to settle +down in." + +Women passed. Two of them were dragging a little baby-carriage in +which an infant lay asleep. One of them was quite young, the other +old. They held up their skirts out of the mud. They were wearing +little town shoes, and every minute they sank into the slime like +ourselves, sometimes above their ankles. + +All day long we encountered similar processions. I do not remember +seeing one of these women weep; but they seemed terrified, and +mortally tired. + +Meanwhile, the sound of the guns became fuller and more regular. +All the roads we caught sight of in the country seemed to be +bearing their load of men and of machines. Here and there a horse +which had succumbed at its task lay rotting at the foot of a +hillock. A subdued roar rose to the ear, made up of trampling +hoofs, of grinding wheels, of the buzz of motors, and of a +multitude talking and eating on the march. + +Suddenly we debouched at the edge of a wood upon a height whence +we could see the whole battle-field. It was a vast expanse of +plains and slopes, studded with the grey woods of winter. Long +trails of smoke from burning buildings settled upon the landscape. +And other trails, minute and multi-coloured, rose from the ground +wherever projectiles were raining. Nothing more: wisps of smoke, +brief flashes visible even in broad daylight, and a string of +captive balloons, motionless and observant witnesses of all. + +But we were already descending the incline and the various planes +of the landscape melted one after the other. As we were passing +over a bridge, I saw in a group of soldiers a friend I had not met +since the beginning of the war. We could not stop, so he walked +along with me for a while, and we spent these few minutes +recalling the things of the past. Then as he left me we embraced, +though we had never done so in times of peace. + +Night was falling. Knowing that we were now at our last long lap, +we encouraged the worn-out men. At R----I lost touch with my +formation. I halted on the roadside, calling aloud into the +darkness. An artillery train passed, covering me with mud to my +eyes. Finally, I picked up my friends, and we marched on through +villages illumined by the camp fires which were flickering under a +driving rain, through a murky country which the flash of cannon +suddenly showed to be covered with a multitude of men, of horses, +and of martial objects. + +It was February 27. Between ten and eleven at night we arrived at +a hospital installed in some wooden sheds, and feverishly busy. We +were at B----, a miserable village on which next day the Germans +launched some thirty monster-shells, yet failed to kill so much as +a mouse. + +The night was spent on straw, to the stentorian snores of fifty +men overcome by fatigue. Then reveille, and again, liquid mud over +the ankles. As the main road was forbidden to our ambulances there +was an excited discussion as a result of which we separated: the +vehicles to go in search of a by-way, and we, the pedestrians, to +skirt the roads on which long lines of motor-lorries, coming and +going, passed each other in haste like the carriages of an immense +train. + +We had known since midnight where we were to take up our quarters; +the suburb of G----was only an hour's march further on. In the +fields, right and left, were bivouacs of colonial troops with +muddy helmets; they had come back from the firing line, and seemed +strangely quiet. In front of us lay the town, half hidden, full of +crackling sounds and echoes. Beyond, the hills of the Meuse, on +which we could distinguish the houses of the villages, and the +continuous rain of machine-gun bullets. We skirted a meadow strewn +with forsaken furniture, beds, chests, a whole fortune which +looked like the litter of a hospital. At last we arrived at the +first houses, and we were shown the place where we were expected. + +There were two brick buildings of several storeys, connected by a +glazed corridor; the rest of the enclosure was occupied by wooden +sheds. Behind lay orchards and gardens, the first houses of the +suburb. In front, the wall of a park, a meadow, a railway track, +and La Route, the wonderful and terrible road that enters the town +at this very point. + +Groups of lightly wounded men were hobbling towards the hospital; +the incessant rush of motors kept up the feverish circulation of a +demolished ant-hill. + +As we approached the buildings, a doctor came out to meet us. + +"Come, come. There's work enough for a month." + +It was true. The effluvium and the moans of several hundreds of +wounded men greeted us. Ambulance No----, which we had come to +relieve, had been hard at it since the night before, without +having made much visible progress. Doctors and orderlies, their +faces haggard from a night of frantic toil, came and went, +choosing among the heaps of wounded, and tended two while twenty +more poured in. + +While waiting for our material, we went over the buildings. But a +few days before, contagious diseases had been treated here. A +hasty disinfection had left the wards reeking with formaline which +rasped the throat without disguising the sickly stench of the +crowded sufferers. They were huddled round the stoves in the +rooms, lying upon the beds of the dormitories, or crouching on the +flags of the passages. + +In each ward of the lower storey there were thirty or forty men of +every branch of the service, moaning and going out from time to +time to crawl to the latrines, or, mug in hand, to fetch something +to drink. + +As we explored further, the scene became more terrible; in the +back rooms and in the upper building a number of severely wounded +men had been placed, who began to howl as soon as we entered. Many +of them had been there for several days. The brutality of +circumstances, the relief of units, the enormous sum of work, all +combined to create one of those situations which dislocate and +overwhelm the most willing service. + +We opened a door, and the men who were lying within began to +scream at the top of their voices. Some, lying on their stretchers +on the floor, seized us by the legs as we passed, imploring us to +attend to them. A few bewildered orderlies hurried hither and +thither, powerless to meet the needs of this mass of suffering. +Every moment I felt my coat seized, and heard a voice saying: + +"I have been here four days. Dress my wounds, for God's sake." + +And when I answered that I would come back again immediately, the +poor fellow began to cry. + +"They all say they will come back, but they never do." + +Occasionally a man in delirium talked to us incoherently as we +moved along. Sometimes we went round a quiet bed to see the face +of the sufferer, and found only a corpse. + +Each ward we inspected revealed the same distress, exhaled the +same odour of antiseptics and excrements, for the orderlies could +not always get to the patient in time, and many of the men +relieved themselves apparently unconcerned. + +I remember a little deserted room in disorder, on the table a bowl +of coffee with bread floating in it; a woman's slippers on the +floor, and in a corner, toilet articles and some strands of fair +hair. ... I remember a corner where a wounded man suffering from +meningitis, called out unceasingly: 27, 28, 29 ... 27, 28, 29 ... +a prey to a strange obsession of numbers. I see a kitchen where a +soldier was plucking a white fowl ... I see an Algerian non- +commissioned officer pacing the corridor. ... + +Towards noon, the head doctor arrived followed by my comrades, and +our vehicles. With him I made the round of the buildings again +while they were unpacking our stores. I had got hold of a syringe, +while waiting for a knife, and I set to work distributing morphia. +The task before us seemed immense, and every minute it increased. +We began to divide it hastily, to assign to each his part. The +cries of the sufferers muffled the sound of a formidable +cannonade. An assistant at my side, whom I knew to be energetic +and resolute, muttered between his teeth: "No! no! Anything rather +than war!" + +But we had first to introduce some order into our Inferno. + +In a few hours this order appeared and reigned. We were exhausted +by days of marching and nights of broken sleep, but men put off +their packs and set to work with a silent courage that seemed to +exalt even the least generous natures. Our first spell lasted for +thirty-six hours, during which each one gave to the full measure +of his powers, without a thought of self. + +Four operation-wards had been arranged. The wounded were brought +in unceasingly, and a grave and prudent mind pronounced upon the +state of each, upon his fate, his future. ... Confronted by the +overwhelming flood of work to be done, the surgeon, before seizing +the knife, had to meditate deeply, and make a decision as to the +sacrifice which would ensure life, or give some hope of life. In a +moment of effective thought, he had to perceive and weigh a man's +whole existence, then act, with method and audacity. + +As soon as one wounded man left the ward, another was brought in; +while the preparations for the operation were being made, we went +to choose among and classify the patients beforehand, for many +needed nothing more; they had passed beyond human aid, and +awaited, numb and unconscious, the crowning mercy of death. + +The word "untransportable" once pronounced, directed all our work. +The wounded capable of waiting a few hours longer for attention, +and of going elsewhere for it were removed. But when the buzz of +the motors was heard, every one wanted to go, and men begging to +be taken away entered upon their death agony as they assured us +they felt quite strong enough to travel. ... + +Some told us their histories; the majority were silent. They +wanted to go elsewhere ... and above all, to sleep, to drink. +Natural wants dominated, and made them forget the anguish of their +wounds. ... + +I remember one poor fellow who was asked if he wanted anything. +... He had a terrible wound in the chest, and was waiting to be +examined. He replied timidly that he wanted the urinal, and when +the orderly hurried to him bringing it, he was dead. + +The pressure of urgent duty had made us quite unmindful of the +battle close by, and of the deafening cannonade. However, towards +evening, the buildings trembled under the fury of the detonations. +A little armoured train had taken up its position near us. The +muzzle of a naval gun protruded from it, and from moment to moment +thrust out a broad tongue of flame with a catastrophic roar. + +The work was accelerated at the very height of the uproar. Rivers +of water had run along the corridors, washing down the mud, the +blood and the refuse of the operation-wards. The men who had been +operated on were carried to beds on which clean sheets had been +spread. The open windows let in the pure, keen air, and night fell +on the hillsides of the Meuse, where the tumult raged and +lightnings flashed. + +Sometimes a wounded man brought us the latest news of the battle. +Between his groans, he described the incredible bombardment, the +obstinate resistance, the counter-attacks at the height of the +hurly-burly. + +All these simple fellows ended their story with the same words, +surprising words at such a moment of suffering: + +"They can't get through now. ... + +Then they began to moan again. + +During the terrible weeks of the battle, it was from the lips of +these tortured men that we heard the most amazing words of hope +and confidence, uttered between two cries of anguish. + +The first night passed under this stress and pressure. The morning +found us face to face with labours still vast, but classified, +divided, and half determined. + +A superior officer came to visit us. He seemed anxious. + +"They have spotted you," he said. "I hope you mayn't have to work +upon each other. You will certainly be bombarded at noon." + +We had forgotten this prophecy by the time it was fulfilled. + +About noon, the air was rent by a screeching whistle, and some +dozen shells fell within the hospital enclosure, piercing one of +the buildings, but sparing the men. This was the beginning of an +irregular but almost continuous bombardment, which was not +specially directed against us, no doubt, but which threatened us +incessantly. + +No cellars. Nothing but thin walls. The work went on. + +On the third day a lull enabled us to complete our organisation. +The enemy was bombarding the town and the lines persistently. Our +artillery replied, shell for shell, in furious salvos; a sort of +thunderous wall rose around us which seemed to us like a rampart. +... The afflux of wounded had diminished. We had just received men +who had been fighting in the open country, as in the first days of +the war, but under a hail of projectiles hitherto reserved for the +destruction of fortresses. Our comrade D----arrived from the +battlefield on foot, livid, supporting his shattered elbow. He +stammered out a tragic story: his regiment had held its ground +under a surging tide of fire; thousands of huge shells had fallen +in a narrow ravine, and he had seen limbs hanging in the thicket, +a savage dispersal of human bodies. The men had held their ground, +and then had fought. ... + +A quarter of an hour after his arrival D----, refreshed and +strengthened, was contemplating the big wound in his arm on the +operating table, and talking calmly of his ruined future. ... + +Towards the evening of this day, we were able to go out of the +building, and breathe the unpolluted air for a few minutes. + +The noise reigned supreme, as silence reigns elsewhere. We were +impregnated, almost intoxicated with it.... + +A dozen of those captive balloons which the soldiers call +"sausages" formed an aerial semi-circle and kept watch. + +On the other side of the hills the German balloons also watched in +the purple mist to the East. + +Night came, and the balloons remained faithfully at their posts. +We were in the centre of a circus of fire, woven by all the +lightnings of the cannonade. To the south-west, however, a black +breach opened, and one divined a free passage there towards the +interior of the country and towards silence. A few hundred feet +from us, a cross-road continually shelled by the enemy echoed to +the shock of projectiles battering the ground like hammers on an +anvil. We often found at our feet fragments of steel still hot, +which in the gloom seemed slightly phosphorescent. + +From this day forth, a skilful combination of our hours and our +means enabled us to take short spells of rest in turn. However, +for a hundred reasons sleep was impossible to me, and for several +weeks I forgot what it was to slumber. + +I used to retire, then, from time to time to the room set apart +for my friend V----and myself, and lie down on a bed, overcome by +a fatigue that verged on stupefaction; but the perpetual clatter +of sabots and shoes in the passage kept the mind alert and the +eyes open. The chorus of the wounded rose in gusts; there were +always in the adjoining wards some dozen men wounded in the head, +and suffering from meningitis, which provoked a kind of monotonous +howling; there were men wounded in the abdomen, and crying out for +the drink that was denied them; there were the men wounded in the +chest, and racked by a low cough choked with blood ... and all the +rest who lay moaning, hoping for an impossible repose. ... + +Then I would get up and go back to work, haunted by the terrible +fear that excess of fatigue might have made my eye less keen, my +hand less steady than imperious duty required. + +At night more especially, the bombardment was renewed, in +hurricane gusts. + +The air, rent by projectiles, mewed like a furious cat; the +detonations came closer, then retired methodically, like the +footsteps of a giant on guard around us, above us, upon us. + +Every morning the orderlies took advantage of a moment of respite +to run and inspect the new craters, and unearth the fuses of +shells. ... I thought of the delightful phrase of assistant- +surgeon M----whom we had attended for a wound on the head, and +who said to me as I was taking him back to bed, and we heard the +explosions close by: + +"Oh, the marmites (big shells) always fall short of one." + +But to a great many of the wounded, the perpetual uproar was +intolerable. They implored us with tears to send them somewhere +else; those we kept were, as a fact, unable to bear removal; we +had to soothe them and keep them, in spite of everything. Some, +overcome by fatigue, slept all day; others showed extraordinary +indifference, perhaps due to a touch of delirium, like the man +with a wound in the abdomen which I was dressing one morning, and +who when he saw me turn my head at the sound of an explosion which +ploughed up a neighbouring field, assured me quietly that "those +things weren't dangerous." + +One night a policeman ran in with his face covered with blood. + +He was waving a lantern which he used to regulate the wheeled +traffic, and he maintained that the enemy had spotted his lamp and +had peppered him with bullets. As a fact, he had only some slight +scratches. He went off, washed and bandaged, but only to come back +to us the next day dead. A large fragment of iron had penetrated +his eye. + +There was an entrance ward, where we sorted the cases. Ten times a +day we thought we had emptied this reservoir of misery; but we +always found it full again, paved with muddy stretchers on which +men lay, panting and waiting. + +Opposite to this ante-room was a clearing ward; it seemed less +dismal than the other, though it was just as bare, and not any +lighter; but the wounded there were clean; they had been operated +on, they wore white bandages, they had been comforted with hot +drinks and with all sorts of hopes, for they had already escaped +the first summons of Death. + +Between these two rooms, a clerk lived in the draught, the victim +of an accumulation of indispensable and stupefying documents. + +In the beginning, the same man sat for three days and three nights +chained to this ungrateful task until at last we saw him, his face +convulsed, almost mad after unremittingly labelling all this +suffering with names and figures. + +The first days of March were chilly, with alternations of snow and +sunshine. When the air was pure, we heard it vibrate with the life +of aeroplanes and echo to their contests. The dry throb of +machine-guns, the incessant scream of shrapnel formed a kind of +crackling dome over our heads. The German aeroplanes overwhelmed +the environs with bombs which gave a prolonged whistle before +tearing up the soil or gutting a house. One fell a few paces from +the ward where I was operating on a man who had been wounded in +the head. I remember the brief glance I cast outwards and the +screams and headlong flight of the men standing under the windows. + +One morning I saw an airship which was cruising over the hills of +the Meuse suddenly begin to trail after it, comet-wise, a thick +tail of black smoke, and then rush to the earth, irradiated by a +burst of flame, brilliant even in the daylight. And I thought of +the two men who were experiencing this fall. + +The military situation improved daily, but the battle was no less +strenuous. The guns used by the enemy for the destruction of men +produced horrible wounds, certainly more severe on the whole than +those we had tended during the first twenty months of a war that +has been pitiless from its inception. All doctors must have noted +the hideous success achieved in a very short time, in perfecting +means of laceration. And we marvelled bitterly that man could +adventure his frail organism through the deflagrations of a +chemistry hardly disciplined as yet, which attains and surpasses +the brutality of the blind forces of Nature. We marvelled more +especially that flesh so delicate, the product and the producer of +harmony, could endure such shocks and such dilapidations without +instant disintegration. + +Many men came to us with one or several limbs torn off completely, +yet they came still living .... Some had thirty or forty wounds, +and even more. We examined each body systematically, passing from +one sad discovery to another. They reminded us of those derelict +vessels which let in the water everywhere. And just because these +wrecks seemed irredeemably condemned to disaster, we clung to them +in the obstinate hope of bringing them into port and perhaps +floating them again. + +When the pressure was greatest, it was impossible to undress the +men and get them washed properly before bringing them into the +operating-ward. The problem was in these cases to isolate the work +of the knife as far as possible from the surrounding mud, dirt and +vermin: I have seen soldiers so covered with lice that the +different parts of the dressings were invaded by them, and even +the wounds. The poor creatures apologised, as if they were in some +way to blame.... + +At such moments patients succeeded each other so rapidly that we +knew nothing of them beyond their wounds: the man was carried +away, still plunged in sleep; we had made all the necessary +decisions for him without having heard his voice or considered his +face. + +We avoided overcrowding by at once evacuating all those on whom we +had operated as soon as they were no longer in danger of +complications. We loaded them up on the ambulances which followed +one upon the other before the door. Some of the patients came back +a few minutes later, riddled with fragments of shell; the driver +had not succeeded in dodging the shells, and he was often wounded +himself. In like manner the stretcher-bearers as they passed along +the road were often hit themselves, and were brought in on their +own hand-carts. + +One evening there was a "gas warning." Some gusts of wind arrived, +bearing along an acrid odour. All the wounded were given masks and +spectacles as a precaution. We hung them even on the heads of the +beds where dying men lay ... and then we waited. Happily, the wave +spent itself before it reached us. + +A wounded man was brought in that evening with several injuries +caused by a gas-shell. His eyes had quite disappeared under his +swollen lids. His clothing was so impregnated with the poison that +we all began to cough and weep, and a penetrating odour of garlic +and citric acid hung about the ward for some time. + +Many things we had perforce to leave to chance, and I thought, +during this alarm, of men just operated on, and plunged in the +stupor of the chloroform, whom we should have to allow to wake, +and then mask them immediately, or ... + + Ah, well! ... in the midst of all this unimaginable tragedy, +laughter was not quite quenched. This phenomenon is perhaps one of +the characteristics, one of the greatnesses of our race--and in a +more general way, no doubt, it is an imperative need of humanity +at large. + +Certain of the wounded took a pride in cracking jokes, and they +did so in words to which circumstances lent a poignant +picturesqueness. These jests drew a laugh from us which was often +closely akin to tears. + +One morning, in the sorting room, I noticed a big, curly-haired +fellow who had lost a foot, and had all sorts of wounds and +fractures in both legs. All these had been hastily bound up, +clothing and all, in the hollow of the stretcher, which was stiff +with blood. When I called the stretcher-bearers and contemplated +this picture, the big man raised himself on his elbow and said: + +"Please give me a cigarette." + +Then he began to smoke, smiling cheerfully and telling absurd +stories. We took off one of his legs up to the thigh, and as soon +as he recovered consciousness, he asked for another cigarette, and +set all the orderlies laughing. + +When, on leaving him, I asked this extraordinary man what his +calling was, he replied modestly: + +"I am one of the employees of the Vichy Company." + +The orderlies in particular, nearly all simple folks, had a desire +to laugh, even when they were worn out with fatigue, which made a +pretext of the slightest thing, and notably of danger. One of +them, called Tailleur, a buffoon with the airs of an executioner's +assistant, would call out at the first explosions of a hurricane +of shells: + +"Number your arms and legs! Look out for your nuts! The winkles +are tumbling about!" + +All my little band would begin to laugh. And I had not the heart +to check them, for their faces were drawn with fatigue, and this +moment of doleful merriment at least prevented them from falling +asleep as they stood. + +When the explosions came very close, this same Tailleur could not +help exclaiming: + +"I am not going to be killed by a brick! I am going outside." + +I would look at him with a smile, and he would repeat: "As for me, +I'm off," carefully rolling a bandage the while, which he did with +great dexterity. + +His mixture of terror and swagger was a perpetual entertainment to +us. One night, a hand-grenade fell out of the pocket of one of the +wounded. In defiance of orders, Tailleur, who knew nothing at all +about the handling of such things, turned it over and examined it +for some time, with comic curiosity and distrust. + +One day a pig intended for our consumption was killed in the pig- +sty by fragments of shell. We ate it, and the finding by one of +the orderlies of some bits of metal in his portion of meat gave +occasion for a great many jests. + +For a fortnight we were unable to go beyond the hospital +enclosure. Our longest expedition was to the piece of waste ground +which had been allotted to us for a burial ground, a domain the +shells were always threatening to plough up. This graveyard +increased considerably. As it takes a man eight hours to dig a +grave for his brother man, one had to set a numerous gang to work +all day, to ensure a place for each corpse. + +Sometimes we went into the wooden shed which served as our +mortuary. Pere Duval, the oldest of our orderlies, sewed there all +day, making shrouds of coarse linen for "his dead." + +They were laid in the earth carefully, side by side, their feet +together, their hands crossed on their breasts, when indeed they +still possessed hands and feet. ... Duval also looked after the +human debris, and gave it decent sepulture. + +Thus our function was not only to tend the living, but also to +honour the dead. The care of what was magniloquently termed their +"estate" fell to our manager, S----. It was he who put into a +little canvas bag all the papers and small possessions found on +the victims. He devoted days and nights to a kind of funereal +bureaucracy, inevitable even under the fire of the enemy. His +occupation, moreover, was not exempt from moral difficulties. Thus +he found in the pocket of one dead man a woman's card which it was +impossible to send on to his family, and in another case, a +collection of songs of such a nature that after due deliberation +it was decided to burn them. + +Let us purify the memories of our martyrs! + +We had several German wounded to attend. One of these, whose leg I +had to take off, overwhelmed me with thanks in his native tongue; +he had lain for six days on ground over which artillery played +unceasingly, and contemplated his return to life and the care +bestowed on him with a kind of stupefaction. + +Another, who had a shattered arm, gave us a good deal of trouble +by his amazing uncleanliness. Before giving him the anaesthetic, +the orderly took from his mouth a set of false teeth, which he +confessed he had not removed for several months, and which exhaled +an unimaginable stench. + +I remember, too, a little fair-haired chap of rather chilly +demeanour, who suddenly said "Good-bye" to me with lips that +quivered like those of a child about to cry. + +The interpreter from Headquarters, my friend C----, came to see +them all as soon as they had got over their stupor, and +interrogated them with placid patience, comparing all their +statements in order to glean some trustworthy indication. + +Thus days and nights passed by in ceaseless toil, under a +perpetual menace, in the midst of an ever-growing fatigue which +gave things the substance and aspects they take on in a nightmare. + +The very monotony of this existence was made up of a thousand +dramatic details, each of which would have been an event in normal +life. I still see, as through the mists of a dream, the orderly of +a dying captain sobbing at his bedside and covering his hands with +kisses. I still hear the little lad whose life blood had ebbed +away, saying to me in imploring tones: "Save me, Doctor! Save me +for my mother!" ... and I think a man must have heard such words +in such a place to understand them aright, I think that every day +this man must gain a stricter, a more precise, a more pathetic +idea of suffering and of death. + +One Sunday evening, the bombardment was renewed with extraordinary +violence. We had just sent off General S----, who was smoking on +his stretcher, and chatting calmly and cheerfully; I was operating +on an infantryman who had deep wounds in his arms and thighs. +Suddenly there was a great commotion. A hurricane of shells fell +upon the hospital. I heard a crash which shook the ground and the +walls violently, then hurried footsteps and cries in the passage. + +I looked at the man sleeping and breathing heavily, and I almost +envied his forgetfulness of all things, the dissolution of his +being in a darkness so akin to liberating death. My task +completed, I went out to view the damage. + +A shell had fallen on an angle of the building, blowing in the +windows of three wards, scattering stones in all directions, and +riddling walls and ceilings with large fragments of metal. The +wounded were moaning, shrouded in acrid smoke. They were lying so +close to the ground that they had been struck only by plaster and +splinters of glass; but the shock had been so great that nearly +all of them died within the following hour. + +The next day it was decided that we should change our domicile, +and we made ready to carry off our wounded and remove our hospital +to a point rather more distant. It was a very clear day. In front +of us, the main road was covered with men, whom motor vehicles +were depositing in groups every minute. We were finishing our +final operations and looking out occasionally at these men +gathered in the sun, on the slopes and in the ditches. At about +one o'clock in the afternoon the air was rent by the shriek of +high explosives and some shells fell in the midst of the groups. +We saw them disperse through the yellowish smoke, and go to lie +down a little farther off in the fields. Some did not even stir. +Stretcher-bearers came up at once, running across the meadow, and +brought us two dead men, and nine wounded, who were laid on the +operating-table. + +As we tended them during the following hour we looked anxiously at +the knots of men who remained in the open, and gradually +increased, and we asked whether they would not soon go. But there +they stayed, and again we heard the dull growl of the discharge, +then the whistling overhead, and the explosions of some dozen +shells falling upon the men. Crowding to the window, we watched +the massacre, and waited to receive the victims. My colleague M---- +drew my attention to a soldier who was running up the grassy +slope on the other side of the road, and whom the shells seemed to +be pursuing. + +These were the last wounded we received in the suburb of G----. +Three hours afterwards, we took up the same life and the same +labours again, some way off, for many weeks more. ... + +Thus things went on, until the day when we, in our turn, were +carried off by the automobiles of the Grand' Route, and landed on +the banks of a fair river in a village where there were trees in +blossom, and where the next morning we were awakened by the sound +of bells and the voices of women. + + + + + +THE SACRIFICE + + +We had had all the windows opened. From their beds, the wounded +could see, through the dancing waves of heat, the heights of Berru +and Nogent l'Abbesse, the towers of the Cathedral, still crouching +like a dying lion in the middle of the plain of Reims, and the +chalky lines of the trenches intersecting the landscape. + +A kind of torpor seemed to hang over the battle-field. Sometimes, +a perpendicular column of smoke rose up, in the motionless +distance, and the detonation reached us a little while afterwards, +as if astray, and ashamed of outraging the radiant silence. + +It was one of the fine days of the summer of 1915, one of those +days when the supreme indifference of Nature makes one feel the +burden of war more cruelly, when the beauty of the sky seems to +proclaim its remoteness from the anguish of the human heart. + +We had finished our morning round when an ambulance drew up at the +entrance. + +"Doctor on duty!" + +I went down the steps. The chauffeur explained: + +"There are three slightly wounded men. I am going to take on +further, and then there are some severely wounded ..." + +He opened the back of his car. On one side three soldiers were +seated, dozing. On the other, there were stretchers, and I saw the +feet of the men lying upon them. Then, from the depths of the +vehicle came a low, grave, uncertain voice which said: + +"I am one of the severely wounded, Monsieur." + +He was a lad rather than a man. He had a little soft down on his +chin, a well-cut aquiline nose, dark eyes to which extreme +weakness gave an appearance of exaggerated size, and the grey +pallor of those who have lost much blood. + +"Oh! how tired I am!" he said. + +He held on to the stretcher with both hands as he was carried up +the steps. He raised his head a little, gave a glance full of +astonishment, distress, and lassitude at the green trees, the +smiling hills, the glowing horizon, and then he found himself +inside the house. + +Here begins the story of Gaston Leglise. It is a modest story and +a very sad story; but indeed, are there any stories now in the +world that are not sad? + +I will tell it day by day, as we lived it, as it is graven in my +memory, and as it is graven in your memory and in your flesh, my +friend Leglise. + +Leglise only had a whiff of chloroform, and he fell at once into a +sleep closely akin to death. + +"Let us make haste," said the head doctor. "We shall have the poor +boy dying on the table." + +Then he shook his head, adding: + +"Both knees! Both knees! What a future!" + +The burden of experience is a sorrowful one. It is always +sorrowful to have sufficient memory to discern the future. + +Small splinters from a grenade make very little wounds in a man's +legs; but great disorders may enter by way of those little wounds, +and the knee is such a complicated, delicate marvel! + +Corporal Leglise is in bed now. He breathes with difficulty, and +catches his breath now and again like a person who has been +sobbing. He looks about him languidly, and hardly seems to have +made up his mind to live. He contemplates the bottle of serum, the +tubes, the needles, all the apparatus set in motion to revive his +fluttering heart, and he seems bowed down by grief. He wants +something to drink, but he must not have anything yet; he wants to +sleep, but we have to deny sleep to those who need it most; he +wants to die perhaps, and we will not let him. + +He sees again the listening post where he spent the night, in +advance of all his comrades. He sees again the narrow doorway +bordered by sandbags through which he came out at dawn to breathe +the cold air and look at the sky from the bottom of the +communication-trench. All was quiet, and the early summer morning +was sweet even in the depths of the trench. But some one was +watching and listening for the faint sound of his footsteps. An +invisible hand hurled a bomb. He rushed back to the door; but his +pack was on his back, and he was caught in the aperture like a rat +in a trap. The air was rent by the detonation, and his legs were +rent, like the pure air, like the summer morning, like the lovely +silence. + +The days pass, and once more, the coursing blood begins to make +the vessels of the neck throb, to tinge the lips, and give depth +and brilliance to the eye. + +Death, which had overrun the whole body like an invader, retired, +yielding ground by degrees; but it has halted now, and makes a +stand at the legs; these it will not relinquish; it demands +something by way of spoil; it will not be baulked of its prey +entirely. + +We fight for the portion Death has chosen. The wounded Corporal +looks on at our labours and our efforts, like a poor man who has +placed his cause in the hands of a knight, and who can only be a +spectator of the combat, can only pray and wait. + +We shall have to give the monster a share; one of the legs must +go. Now another struggle begins with the man himself. Several +times a day I go and sit by his bed. All our attempts at +conversation break down one by one. We always end in the same +silence and anxiety. To-day Leglise said to me: + +"Oh! I know quite well what you're thinking about!" + +As I made no answer, he intreated: + +"Perhaps we could wait a little longer? Perhaps to-morrow I may be +better ..." + +Then suddenly, in great confusion: + +"Forgive me. I do trust you all. I know what you do is necessary. +But perhaps it will not be too late in two or three days. ..." + +Two or three days! We will see to-morrow. + +The nights are terribly hot; I suffer for his sake. + +I come to see him in the evening for the last time, and encourage +him to sleep. But his eyes are wide open in the night and I feel +that they are anxiously fixed on mine. + +Fever makes his voice tremble. + +"How can I sleep with all the things I am thinking about?" + +Then he adds faintly: + +"Must you? Must you?" + +The darkness gives me courage, and I nod my head: "Yes!" + +As I finish his dressings, I speak from the depths of my heart: + +"Leglise, we will put you to sleep to-morrow. We will make an +examination without letting you suffer, and we will do what is +necessary." + +"I know quite well that you will take it off." + +"We shall do what we must do." + +I divine that the corners of his mouth are drawn down a little, +and that his lips are quivering. He thinks aloud: + +"If only the other leg was all right!" + +I have been thinking of that too, but I pretend not to have heard. +Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. + +I spend part of the afternoon sewing pieces of waterproof stuff +together. He asks me: + +"What are you doing?" + +"I am making you a mask, to give you ether." + +"Thank you; I can't bear the smell of chloroform." + +I answer "Yes, that's why." The real reason is that we are not +sure he could bear the brutal chloroform, in his present state. + +Leglise's leg was taken off at the thigh this morning. He was +still unconscious when we carried him into the dark room to +examine his other leg under the X-rays. + +He was already beginning to moan and to open his eyes, and the +radiographer was not hurrying. I did all I could to hasten the +business, and to get him back into his bed. Thus he regained +consciousness in bright sunshine. + +What would he, who once again was so close to the dark kingdom, +have thought if he had awakened in a gloom peopled by shadows, +full of whisperings, sparks and flashes of light? + +As soon as he could speak, he said to me: + +"You have cut off my leg?" + +I made a sign. His eyes filled, and as his head was low, the great +tears trickled on to the pillow. + +To-day he is calmer. The first dressings were very painful. He +looked at the raw, bloody, oozing stump, trembling, and said: + +"It looks pretty horrible!" + +We took so many precautions that now he is refreshed for a few +hours. + +"They say you are to have the Military Medal," the head doctor +told him. + +Leglise confided to me later, with some hesitation: + +"I don't suppose they would really give me the medal!" + +"And why not?" + +"I was punished; one of my men had some buttons off his overcoat." + +Oh, my friend, scrupulous lad, could I love my countrymen if they +could remember those wretched buttons for an instant? + +"My men!" he said gravely. I look at his narrow chest, his thin +face, his boyish forehead with the serious furrow on it of one who +accepts all responsibilities, and I do not know how to show him my +respect and affection. + +Leglise's fears were baseless. General G----arrived just now. I +met him on the terrace. His face pleased me. It was refined and +intelligent. + +"I have come to see Corporal Leglise," he said. + +I took him into the ward, full of wounded men, and he at once went +towards Leglise unhesitatingly, as if he knew him perfectly. + +"How are you?" he asked, taking the young man's hand. + +"Mon General, they've cut off my leg ..." + +"Yes, yes, I know, my poor fellow. And I have brought you the +Military Medal." + +He pinned it on to Leglise's shirt, and kissed my friend on both +cheeks, simply and affectionately. + +Then he talked to him again for a few minutes. + +I was greatly pleased. Really, this General is one of the right +sort. + +The medal has been wrapped in a bit of muslin, so that the flies +may not soil it, and hung on the wall over the bed. It seems to be +watching over the wounded man, to be looking on at what is +happening. Unfortunately, what it sees is sad enough. The right +leg, the only leg, is giving us trouble now. The knee is diseased, +it is in a very bad state, and all we have done to save it seems +to have been in vain. Then a sore has appeared on the back, and +then another sore. Every morning, we pass from one misery to +another, telling the beads of suffering in due order. + +So a man does not die of pain, or Leglise would certainly be dead. +I see him still, opening his eyes desperately and checking the +scream that rises to his lips. Oh! I thought indeed that he was +going to die. But his agony demands full endurance; it does not +even stupefy those it assails. + +I call on every one for help. + +"Genest, Barrassin, Prevot, come, all of you." + +Yes, let ten of us do our best if necessary, to support Leglise, +to hold him, to soothe him. A minute of his endurance is equal to +ten years of such effort as ours. + +Alas! were there a hundred of us he would still have to bear the +heaviest burden alone. + +All humanity at this hour is bearing a very cruel burden. Every +minute aggravates its sufferings, and will no one, no one come to +its aid? + +We made an examination of the wounded man, together with our +chief, who muttered almost inaudibly between his teeth: + +"He must be prepared for another sacrifice." + +Yes, the sacrifice is not yet entirely consummated. + +But Leglise understood. He no longer weeps. He has the weary and +somewhat bewildered look of the man who is rowing against the +storm. I steal a look at him, and he says at once in a clear, +calm, resolute voice: + +"I would much rather die." + +I go into the garden. It is a brilliant morning, but I can see +nothing, I want to see nothing. I repeat as I walk to and fro: + +"He would much rather die." + +And I ask despairingly whether he is not right perhaps. + +All the poplars rustle softly. With one voice, the voice of Summer +itself, they say: "No! No! He is not right!" + +A little beetle crosses the path before me. I step on it +unintentionally, but it flies away in desperate haste. It too has +answered in its own way: "No, really, your friend is not right." + +"Tell him he is wrong," sing the swarm of insects that buzz about +the lime-tree. + +And even a loud roar from the guns that travels across the +landscape seems to say gruffly: "He is wrong! He is wrong!" + +During the evening the chief came back to see Leglise, who said to +him with the same mournful gravity: + +"No, I won't, Monsieur, I would rather die." + +We go down into the garden, and the chief says a strange thing to +me: + +"Try to convince him. I begin at last to feel ashamed of demanding +such a sacrifice from him." + +And I too ... am I not ashamed? + +I consult the warm, star-decked night; I am quite sure now that he +is wrong, but I don't know how to tell him so. What can I offer +him in exchange for the thing I am about to ask him? Where shall I +find the words that induce a man to live? Oh you, all things +around me, tell me, repeat to me that it is sweet to live, even +with a body so grievously mutilated. + +This morning I extracted a little projectile from one of his +wounds. He secretly concluded that this would perhaps make the +great operation unnecessary, and it hurt me to see his joy. I +could not leave him this satisfaction. + +The struggle began again; this time it was desperate. For we have +no time to lose. Every hour of delay exhausts our man further. A +few days more, and there will be no choice open to him: only +death, after a long ordeal. ... + +He repeats: + +"I am not afraid, but I would rather die." + +Then I talk to him as if I were the advocate of Life. Who gave me +this right? Who gave me eloquence? The things I said were just the +right things, and they came so readily that now and then I was +afraid of holding out so sure a promise of a life I am not certain +I can preserve, of guaranteeing a future that is not in man's +hands. + +Gradually, I feel his resistance weakening. There is something in +Leglise which involuntarily sides with me and pleads with me. +There are moments when he does not know what to say, and +formulates trivial objections, just because there are others so +much weightier. + +"I live with my mother," he says. "I am twenty years old. What +work is there for a cripple? Ought I to live to suffer poverty and +misery?" + +"Leglise, all France owes you too much, she would blush not to pay +her debt." + +And I promise again, in the name of our country, sure that she +will never fall short of what I undertake for her. The whole +French nation is behind me at this moment, silently ratifying my +promise. + +We are at the edge of the terrace; evening has come. I hold his +burning wrist in which the feeble pulse beats with exhausted fury. +The night is so beautiful, so beautiful! Rockets rise above the +hills, and fall slowly bathing the horizon in silvery rays. The +lightning of the guns flashes furtively, like a winking eye. In +spite of all this, in spite of war, the night is like waters dark +and divine. Leglise breathes it in to his wasted breast in long +draughts, and says: + +"Oh, I don't know, I don't know! ... Wait another day, please, +please. ..." + +We waited three whole days, and then Leglise gave in. "Well, do +what you must. Do what you like." + +On the morning of the operation, he asked to be carried down to +the ward by the steps into the park. I went with him, and I saw +him looking at all things round him, as if taking them to witness. + +If only, only it is not too late! + +Again he was laid on the table. Again we cut through flesh and +bones. The second leg was amputated at the thigh. + +I took him in my arms to lay him on his bed, and he was so light, +so light.... + +This time when he woke he asked no question. But I saw his hands +groping to feel where his body ended. + +A few days have passed since the operation. We have done all it +was humanly possible to do, and Leglise comes back to life with a +kind of bewilderment. + +"I thought I should have died," he said to me this morning, while +I was encouraging him to eat. + +He added: + +"When I went down to the operation-ward, I looked well at +everything, and I thought it was for the last time." + +"Look, dear boy. Everything is just the same, just as beautiful as +ever." + +"Oh!" he says, going back to his memories, "I had made up my mind +to die." + +To make up one's mind to die is to take a certain resolution, in +the hope of becoming quieter, calmer, and less unhappy. The man +who makes up his mind to die severs a good many ties, and indeed +actually dies to some extent. + +With secret anxiety, I say gently, as if I were asking a question: + +"It is always good to eat, to drink, to breathe, to see the light. +..." + +He does not answer. He is dreaming. I spoke too soon. I go away, +still anxious. + +We have some bad moments yet, but the fever gradually abates. I +have an impression that Leglise bears his pain more resolutely, +like one who has given all he had to give, and fears nothing +further. + +When I have finished the dressing, I turned him over on his side, +to ease his sore back. He smiled for the first time this morning, +saying: + +"I have already gained something by getting rid of my legs. I can +lie on my side now." + +But he cannot balance himself well; he is afraid of falling. + +Think of him, and you will be afraid with him and for him. + +Sometimes he goes to sleep in broad daylight and dozes for a few +minutes. He has shrunk to the size of a child. I lay a piece of +gauze over his face, as one does to a child, to keep the flies +off. I bring him a little bottle of Eau de Cologne and a fan, they +help him to bear the final assaults of the fever. + +He begins to smoke again. We smoke together on the terrace, where +I have had his bed brought. I show him the garden and say: "In a +few days, I will carry you down into the garden." + + He is anxious about his neighbours, asks their names, and +inquires about their wounds. For each one he has a compassionate +word that comes from the depths of his being. He says to me: + +"I hear that little Camus is dead. Poor Camus!" + +His eyes fill with tears. I was almost glad to see them. He had +not cried for so long. He adds: + +"Excuse me, I used to see Camus sometimes. It's so sad." + +He becomes extraordinarily sensitive. He is touched by all he sees +around him, by the sufferings of others, by their individual +misfortunes. He vibrates like an elect soul, exalted by a great +crisis. + +When he speaks of his own case, it is always to make light of his +misfortune: + +"Dumont got it in the belly. Ah, it's lucky for me that none of my +organs are touched; I can't complain." + +I watch him with admiration, but I am waiting for something more, +something more. ... + +His chief crony is Legrand. + +Legrand is a stonemason with a face like a young girl. He has lost +a big piece of his skull. He has also lost the use of language, +and we teach him words, as to a baby. He is beginning to get up +now, and he hovers round Leglise's bed to perform little services +for him. He tries to master his rebellious tongue, but failing in +the attempt, he smiles, and expresses himself with a limpid +glance, full of intelligence. + +Leglise pities him too: + +"It must be wretched not to be able to speak." + +To-day we laughed, yes, indeed, we laughed heartily, Leglise, the +orderlies and I. + +We were talking of his future pension while the dressings were +being prepared, and someone said to him: + +"You will live like a little man of means." + +Leglise looked at his body and answered: + +"Oh, yes, a little man, a very little man." + +The dressing went off very well. To make our task easier, Leglise +suggested that he should hold on to the head of the bed with both +hands and throw himself back on his shoulders, holding his stumps +up in the air. It was a terrible, an unimaginable sight; but he +began to laugh, and the spectacle became comic. We all laughed. +But the dressing was easy and was quickly finished. + +The stumps are healing healthily. In the afternoon, he sits up in +bed. He begins to read and to smoke, chatting to his companions. + +I explain to him how he will be able to walk with artificial legs. +He jokes again: + +"I was rather short before; but now I can be just the height I +choose." + +I bring him some cigarettes that had been sent me for him, some +sweets and dainties. He makes a sign that he wants to whisper to +me, and says very softly: + +"I have far too many things. But Legrand is very badly off; his +home is in the invaded district, and he has nothing, they can't +send him anything." + +I understand. I come back presently with a packet in which there +are tobacco, some good cigarettes, and also a little note. ... + +"Here is something for Legrand. You must give it to him. I'm off." + +In the afternoon I find Leglise troubled and perplexed. + +"I can't give all this to Legrand myself, he would be offended." + +So then we have to devise a discreet method of presentation. + +It takes some minutes. He invents romantic possibilities. He +becomes flushed, animated, interested. + +"Think," I say, "find a way. Give it to him yourself, from some +one or other." + +But Leglise is too much afraid of wounding Legrand's +susceptibilities. He ruminates on the matter till evening. + +The little parcel is at the head of Legrand's bed. Leglise calls +my attention to it with his chin, and whispers: + +"I found some one to give it to him. He doesn't know who sent it. +He has made all sorts of guesses; it is very amusing!" Oh, +Leglise, can it be that there is still something amusing, and that +it is to be kind? Isn't this alone enough to make it worth while +to live? + +So now we have a great secret between us. All the morning, as I +come and go in the ward, he looks at me meaningly, and smiles to +himself. Legrand gravely offers me a cigarette; Leglise finds it +hard not to burst out laughing. But he keeps his counsel. + +The orderlies have put him on a neighbouring bed while they make +his. He stays there very quietly, his bandaged stumps in view, and +sings a little song, like a child's cradle-song. Then, all of a +sudden, he begins to cry, sobbing aloud. + +I put my arm round him and ask anxiously: "Why? What is the +matter?" + +Then he answers in a broken voice: "I am crying with joy and +thankfulness." + +Oh! I did not expect so much. But I am very happy, much comforted. +I kiss him, he kisses me, and I think I cried a little too. + +I have wrapped him in a flannel dressing-gown, and I carry him in +my arms. I go down the steps to the park very carefully, like a +mother carrying her new-born babe for the first time, and I call +out: "An arm-chair! An arm-chair." + +He clings to my neck as I walk, and says in some confusion: + +"I shall tire you." + +No indeed! I am too well pleased. I would not let any one take my +place. The arm-chair has been set under the trees, near a grove. I +deposit Leglise among the cushions. They bring him a kepi. He +breathes the scent of green things, of the newly mown lawns, of +the warm gravel. He looks at the facade of the mansion, and says: + +"I had not even seen the place where I very nearly died." + +All the wounded who are walking about come and visit him; they +almost seem to be paying him homage. He talks to them with a +cordial authority. Is he not the chief among them, in virtue of +his sufferings and his sacrifice? + +Some one in the ward was talking this morning of love and +marriage, and a home. + +I glanced at Leglise now and then; he seemed to be dreaming and he +murmured: + +"Oh, for me, now..." + +Then I told him something I knew: I know young girls who have +sworn to marry only a mutilated man. Well, we must believe in the +vows of these young girls. France is a country richer in warmth of +heart than in any other virtue. It is a blessed duty to give +happiness to those who have sacrificed so much. And a thousand +hearts, the generous hearts of women, applaud me at this moment. + +Leglise listens, shaking his head. He does not venture to say +"No." + +Leglise has not only the Military Medal, but also the War Cross. +The notice has just come. He reads it with blushes. + +"I shall never dare to show this," he says; "it is a good deal +exaggerated." + +He hands me the paper, which states, in substance, that Corporal +Leglise behaved with great gallantry under a hail of bombs, and +that his left leg has been amputated. + +"I didn't behave with great gallantry," he says; "I was at my +post, that's all. As to the bombs, I only got one." + +I reject this point of view summarily. + +"Wasn't it a gallant act to go to that advanced post, so near the +enemy, all alone, at the head of all the Frenchmen? Weren't they +all behind you, to the very end of the country, right away to the +Pyrenees? Did they not all rely on your coolness, your keen sight, +your vigilance? You were only hit by one bomb, but I think you +might have had several, and still be with us. And besides, the +notice, far from being exaggerated, is really insufficient; it +says you have lost a leg, whereas you have lost two! It seems to +me that this fully compensates for anything excessive with regard +to the bombs." + +"That's true!" agrees Leglise, laughing. "But I don't want to be +made out a hero." + +"My good lad, people won't ask what you think before they +appreciate and honour you. It will be quite enough to look at your +body." + +Then we had to part, for the war goes on, and every day there are +fresh wounded. + +Leglise left us nearly cured. He left with some comrades, and he +was not the least lively of the group. + +"I was the most severely wounded man in the train," he wrote to +me, not without a certain pride. + +Since then, Leglise has written to me often. His letters breathe a +contented calm. I receive them among the vicissitudes of the +campaign; on the highways, in wards where other wounded men are +moaning, in fields scoured by the gallop of the cannonade. + +And always something beside me murmurs, mutely: + +"You see, you see, he was wrong when he said he would rather die." + +I am convinced of it, and this is why I have told your story. You +will forgive me, won't you, Leglise, my friend? + + + + + +THE THIRD SYMPHONY + + +Every morning the stretcher-bearers brought Vize-Feldwebel Spat +down to the dressing ward, and his appearance always introduced a +certain chill in the atmosphere. + +There are some German wounded whom kind treatment, suffering, or +some more obscure agency move to composition with the enemy, and +who receive what we do for them with a certain amount of +gratitude. Spat was not one of these. For weeks we had made +strenuous efforts to snatch him from death, and then to alleviate +his sufferings, without eliciting the slightest sign of +satisfaction from him, or receiving the least word of thanks. + +He could speak a little French, which he utilised strictly for his +material wants, to say, for instance, "A little more cotton-wool +under the foot, Monsieur," or, "Have I any fever to-day?" + +Apart from this, he always showed us the same icy face, the same +pale, hard eyes, enframed by colourless lashes. We gathered, from +certain indications, that the man was intelligent and well +educated; but he was obviously under the domination of a lively +hatred, and a strict sense of his own dignity. + +He bore pain bravely, and like one who makes it a point of honour +to repress the most excusable reactions of the martyred flesh. I +do not remember ever hearing him cry out, though this would have +seemed to me natural enough, and would by no means have lowered +Monsieur Spat in my opinion. All I ever heard from him was a +stifled moan, the dull panting of the woodman as he swings his +axe. + +One day we were obliged to give him an anaesthetic in order to +make incisions in the wounds in his leg; he turned very red and +said, in a tone that was almost imploring: "You won't cut it off, +gentlemen, will you?" But no sooner did he regain consciousness +than he at once resumed his attitude of stiff hostility. + +After a time, I ceased to believe mat his features could ever +express anything but this repressed animosity. I was undeceived by +an unforeseen incident. + +The habit of whistling between one's teeth is a token, with me as +with many other persons, of a certain absorption. It is perhaps +rather a vulgar habit, but I often feel impelled to whistle, +especially when I have a serious piece of work in hand. + +One morning accordingly, I was finishing Vize-Feldwebel Spat's +dressing, and whistling something at random. I was looking at his +leg, and was paying no attention to his face, when I suddenly +became curiously aware that the look he had fixed upon me had +changed in quality, and I raised my eyes. + +Certainly, something very extraordinary had taken place: the +German's face glowed with a kind of warmth and contentment, and +was so smiling and radiant that I hardly recognised it. I could +scarcely believe that he had been able to improvise this face, +which was sensitive and trustful, out of the features he generally +showed us. + +"Tell me, Monsieur," he murmured, "it's the Third Symphony, isn't +it, that you are ... what do you call it?--yes ... whistling." + +First, I stopped whistling. Then I answered: "Yes, I believe it is +the Third Symphony"; then I remained silent and confused. + +A slender bridge had just been flung across the abyss. + +The thing lasted for a few seconds, and I was still dreaming of it +when once more I felt an icy, irrevocable shadow falling upon me-- +the hostile glance of Herr Spat. + + + + + +GRACE + + +It is a common saying that all men are equal in the presence of +suffering, but I know very well that this is not true. + +Auger! Auger! humble basket-maker of La Charente, who are you, you +who seem able to suffer without being unhappy? Why are you touched +with grace, whereas Gregoire is not? Why are you the prince of a +world in which Gregoire is merely a pariah? + +Kind ladies who pass through the wards where the wounded lie, and +give them cigarettes and sweet-meats, come with me. + +We will go through the large ward on the first floor, where the +windows are caressed by the boughs of chestnut-trees. I will not +point out Auger, you will give him the lion's share of the +cigarettes and sweets of your own accord; but if I don't point out +Gregoire, you will leave without, noticing him, and he will get no +sweets, and will have nothing to smoke. + +It is not because of this that I call Gregoire a pariah. It is +because of a much sadder and more intimate thing ... Gregoire +lacks endurance, he is not what we call a good patient. + +In a general way those who tend the wounded call the men who do +not give them much trouble "good patients." Judged by this +standard, every one in the hospital will tell you that Gregoire is +not a good patient. + +All day long, he lies on his left side, because of his wound, and +stares at the wall. I said to him a day or two after he came: + +"I am going to move you and put you over in the other corner; +there you will be able to see your comrades." + +He answered, in his dull, surly voice: + +"It's not worth while. I'm all right here." + +"But you can see nothing but the wall." + +"That's quite enough." + +Scarcely have the stretcher-bearers touched his bed, when Gregoire +begins to cry out in a doleful, irritable tone: + +"Ah! don't shake me like that! Ah, you mustn't touch me." + +The stretcher-bearers I give him are very gentle fellows, and he +always has the same: Paffin, a fat shoe-maker with a stammer, and +Monsieur Bouin, a professor of mathematics, with a grey beard and +very precise movements. + +They take hold of Gregoire most carefully to lay him on the +stretcher. The wounded man criticises all their movements +peevishly: + +"Ah! don't turn me over like that. And you must hold my leg better +than that!" + +The sweat breaks out on Baffin's face. Monsieur Bouin's eye- +glasses fall off. At last they bring the patient along. + +As soon as he comes into the dressing ward, Gregoire is pale and +perspiring. His harsh tawny beard quivers, hair by hair. I divine +all this, and say a few words of encouragement to him from afar. + +"I shan't be long with you this morning, Gregoire. You won't have +time to say 'oof'!" + +He preserves a sulky silence, full of reservations. He looks like +a condemned criminal awaiting execution. He is so pre-occupied +that he does not even answer when the sarcastic Sergeant says as +he passes him: + +"Ah! here's our grouser." + +At last he is laid on the table which the wounded men call the +"billiard-table." + +Then, things become very trying. I feel at once that whatever I +do, Gregoire will suffer. I uncover the wound in his thigh, and he +screams. I wash the wound carefully, and he screams. I probe the +wound, from which I remove small particles of bone, very gently, +and he utters unimaginable yells. I see his tongue trembling in +his open mouth. His hands tremble in the hands that hold them, I +have an impression that every fibre of his body trembles, that the +raw flesh of the wound trembles and retracts. In spite of my +determination, this misery affects me, and I wonder whether I too +shall begin to tremble sympathetically. I say: + +"Try to be patient, my poor Gregoire." + +He replies in a voice hoarse with pain and terror: "I can't help +it." + +I add, just to say something: "Courage, a little courage." + +He does not even answer, and I feel that to exhort him to show +courage, is to recommend an impossible thing, as if I were to +advise him to have black eyes instead of his pale blue ones. + +The dressing is completed in an atmosphere of general discomfort. +Nothing could persuade me that Gregoire does not cordially detest +me at this moment. While they are carrying him away, I ask myself +bitterly why Gregoire is so deficient in grace, why he cannot +suffer decently? + +The Sergeant says, as he sponges the table: "He's working against +one all the time." Well, the Sergeant is wrong. Gregoire is not +deliberately hostile. Sometimes I divine, when he knits his brows, +that he is making an effort to resist suffering, to meet it with a +stouter and more cheerful heart. But he does not know how to set +about it. + +If you were asked to lift a railway-engine, you would perhaps make +an effort; but you would do so without confidence and without +success. So you must not say hard things of Gregoire. + +Gregoire is unable to bear suffering, just as one is unable to +talk an unknown language. And, then, it is easier to learn Chinese +than to learn the art of suffering. + +When I say that he is unable to bear suffering, I really mean that +he has to suffer a great deal more than others. ... I know the +human body, and I cannot be deceived as to certain signs. + +Gregoire begins very badly. He reminds one of those children who +have such a terror of dogs that they are bound to be bitten. +Gregoire trembles at once. The dogs of pain throw themselves upon +this defenceless man and pull him down. + +A great load of misery is heavy for a man to bear alone, but it is +supportable when he is helped. Unfortunately Gregoire has no +friends. He does nothing to obtain them, it almost seems as if he +did not want any. + +He is not coarse, noisy and foul-mouthed, like the rascal Groult +who amuses the whole ward. He is only dull and reserved. + +He does not often say "Thank you" when he is offered something, +and many touchy people take offence at this. + +When I sit down by his bed, he gives no sign of any pleasure at my +visit. I ask him: + +"What was your business in civil life?" + +He does not answer immediately. At last he says: "Odd jobs; I +carried and loaded here and there." + +"Are you married?" + +"Yes." + +"Have you any children?" + +"Yes." + +"How many?" + +"Three." + +The conversation languishes. I get up and say: "Good-bye till to- +morrow, Gregoire." + +"Ah! you will hurt me again to-morrow." + +I reassure him, or at least I try to reassure him. Then, that I +may not go away leaving a bad impression, I ask: + +"How did you get wounded?" + +"Well, down there in the plain, with the others. ..." + +That is all. I go away. Gregoire's eyes follow me for a moment, +and I cannot even say whether he is pleased or annoyed by my +visit. + +Good-bye, poor Gregoire. I cross the ward and go to sit down by +Auger. + +Auger is busy writing up his "book." + +It is a big ledger some one has given him, in which he notes the +important events of his life. + +Auger writes a round schoolboy hand. In fact, he can just write +sufficiently well for his needs, I might almost say for his +pleasure. + +"Would you care to look at my book?" he says, and he hands it to +me with the air of a man who has no secrets. + +Auger receives many letters, and he copies them out carefully, +especially when they are fine letters, full of generous +sentiments. His lieutenant, for instance, wrote him a remarkable +letter. + +He also copies into his book the letters he writes to his wife and +his little girl. Then he notes the incidents of the day: "Wound +dressed at 10 o'clock. The pus is diminishing. After dinner Madame +la Princesse Moreau paid us a visit, and distributed caps all +round; I got a fine green one. The little chap who had such a bad +wound in the belly died at 2 o'clock. ..." + +Auger closes his book and puts it back under his bolster. + +He has a face that it does one good to look at. His complexion is +warm and fresh; his hair stiff and rather curly. He has a youthful +moustache, a well-shaped chin, with a lively dimple in the middle, +and eyes which seem to be looking out on a smiling landscape, gay +with sunshine and running waters. + +"I am getting on splendidly," he says with great satisfaction. +"Would you like to see Mariette?" + +He lifts up the sheet, and I see the apparatus in which we have +placed the stump of his leg. It makes a kind of big white doll, +which he takes in both hands with a laugh, and to which he has +given the playful name of "Mariette." + +Auger was a sapper in the Engineers. A shell broke his thigh and +tore off his foot. But as the foot was still hanging by a strip of +flesh, Auger took out his pocket-knife, and got rid of it. Then he +said to his terror-stricken comrades: "Well, boys, that's all +right. It might have been worse. Now carry me somewhere out of +this." + +"Did you suffer terribly?" I asked him. + +"Well, Monsieur, not as much as you might think. Honestly, it did +not hurt so very, very much. Afterwards, indeed, the pain was +pretty bad." + +I understand why every one is fond of Auger. It is because he is +reassuring. Seeing him and listening to him one opines that +suffering is not such a horrible thing after all. Those who live +far from the battle-field, and visit hospitals to get a whiff of +the war, look at Auger and go away well satisfied with everything: +current events, him, and themselves. They are persuaded that the +country is well defended, that our soldiers are brave, and that +wounds and mutilations, though they may be serious things, are not +unbearable. + +Yet pain has come to Auger as to the rest. But there is a way of +taking it. + +He suffers in an enlightened, intelligent, almost methodical +fashion. He does not confuse issues, and complain +indiscriminately. Even when in the hands of others, he remains the +man who had the courage to cut off his own foot, and finish the +work of the shrapnel. He is too modest and respectful to give +advice to the surgeon, but he offers him valuable information. + +He says: + +"Just there you are against the bone, it hurts me very much. Ah! +there you can scrape, I don't feel it much. Take care! You're +pressing rather too hard. All right: you can go on, I see what +it's for. ..." + +And this is how we work together. + +"What are you doing? Ah, you're washing it. I like that. It does +me good. Good blood! Rub a little more just there. You don't know +how it itches. Oh! if you're going to put the tube in, you must +tell me, that I may hold on tight to the table." + +So the work gets on famously. Auger will make a rapid and +excellent recovery. With him, one need never hesitate to do what +is necessary. I wanted to give him an anaesthetic before scraping +the bone of his leg. He said: + +"I don't suppose it will be a very terrible business. If you don't +mind, don't send me to sleep, but just do what is necessary. I +will see to the rest." + +True, he could not help making a few grimaces. Then the Sergeant +said to him: + +"Would you like to learn the song of the grunting pigs?" + +"How does your song go?" + +The Sergeant begins in a high, shrill voice: + + Quand en passant dedans la plai-ai-ne + On entend les cochons ... + Cela prouve d'une facon certai-ai-ne + Qu'ils non pas l'trooo du ... bouche. + +Auger begins to laugh; everybody laughs. And meanwhile we are +bending over the wounded leg and our work gets on apace. + +"Now, repeat," says the Sergeant. + +He goes over it again, verse by verse, and Auger accompanies him. + + Quand en passant dedans la plai-ai-ne ... + +Auger stops now and then to make a slight grimace. Sometimes, too, +his voice breaks. He apologises simply: + +"I could never sing in tune." + +Nevertheless, the song is learnt, more or less, and when the +General comes to visit the hospital, Auger says to him: + +"Mon General, I can sing you a fine song." + +And he would, the rascal, if the head doctor did not look +reprovingly at him. + +It is very dismal, after this, to attend to Gregoire, and to hear +him groaning: + +"Ah! don't pull like that. You're dragging out my heart." + +I point out that if he won't let us attend to him, he will become +much worse. Then he begins to cry. + +"What do I care, since I shall die anyhow?" + +He has depressed the orderlies, the stretcher-bearers, everybody. +He does not discourage me; but he gives me a great deal of +trouble. + +All you gentlemen who meet together to discuss the causes of the +war, the end of the war, the using-up of effectives and the future +bases of society, excuse me if I do not give you my opinion on +these grave questions. I am really too much taken up with the +wound of our unhappy Gregoire. + +It is not satisfactory, this wound, and when I look at it, I +cannot think of anything else; the screams of the wounded man +would prevent me from considering the conditions of the decisive +battle and the results of the rearrangement of the map of Europe +with sufficient detachment. + +Listen: Gregoire tells me he is going to die. I think and believe +that he is wrong. But he certainly will die if I do not take it +upon myself to make him suffer. He will die, because every one is +forsaking him. And he has long ago forsaken himself. + + "My dear chap," remarked Auger to a very prim orderly, "it is no +doubt unpleasant to have only one shoe to put on, but it gives one +a chance of saving. And now, moreover, I only run half as much +risk of scratching my wife with my toe-nails in bed as you do. +..." + +"Quite so," added the Sergeant; "with Mariette he will caress his +good lady, so to speak." + +Auger and the Sergeant crack jokes like two old cronies. The +embarrassed orderly, failing to find a retort, goes away laughing +constrainedly. + +I sat down by Auger, and we were left alone. + +"I am a basket-maker," he said gravely. "I shall be able to take +up my trade again more or less. But think of workers on the land, +like Groult, who has lost a hand, and Lerondeau, with his useless +leg! ... That's really terrible!" + +Auger rolls his r's in a way that gives piquancy and vigour to his +conversation. He talks of others with a natural magnanimity which +comes from the heart, like the expression of his eyes, and rings +true, like the sound of his voice. And then again, he really need +not envy any one. Have I not said it! He is a prince. + +"I have had some very grand visitors," he says. "Look, another +lady came a little while ago, and left me this big box of sweets. +Do take one, Monsieur, it would be a pleasure to me. And please, +will you hand them round to the others, from me?" + +He adds in a lower tone: + +"Look under my bed. I put everything I am given there. Really, +there's too much. I'm ashamed. There are some chaps here who never +get anything, and they were brave fellows who did their duty just +as well as I did." + +It is true, there are many brave soldiers in the ward, but only +one Military Medal was given among them, and it came to Auger. Its +arrival was the occasion of a regular little fete; his comrades +all took part in it cordially, for strange to say, no one is +jealous of Auger. A miracle indeed! Did you ever hear of any other +prince of whom no one was jealous? + +"Are you going?" said Auger. "Please just say a few words to +Groult. He is a bit of a grouser, but he likes a talk." + + Auger has given me a lesson. I will go and smoke a cigarette with +Groult, and above all, I will go and see Gregoire. + +Groult, indeed, is not altogether neglected. He is an original, a +perverse fellow. He is pointed out as a curious animal. He gets +his share of presents and attention. + +But no one knows anything about Gregoire; he lies staring at the +wall, and growing thinner every day, and Death seems the only +person who is interested in him. + +You shall not die, Gregoire! I vow to keep hold of you, to suffer +with you, and to endure your ill-temper humbly. You, who seem to +be bearing the misery of an entire world, shall not be miserable +all alone. + +Kind ladies who come to see our wounded and give them picture- +books, tri-coloured caps and sweetmeats, do not forget Gregoire, +who is wretched. Above all, give him your sweetest smiles. + +You go away well pleased with yourselves because you have been +generous to Auger. But there is no merit in being kind to Auger. +With a single story, a single clasp of his hand, he gives you much +more than he received from you. He gives you confidence; he +restores your peace of mind. + +Go and see Gregoire who has nothing but his suffering to give, and +who very nearly gave his life. + +If you go away without a smile for Gregoire, you may fear that you +have not fulfilled your task. And don't expect him to return your +smile, for where would your liberality be in that case? + +It is easy to pity Auger, who needs no pity. It is difficult to +pity Gregoire, and yet he is so pitiable. + +Do not forget; Auger is touched with grace; but Gregoire will be +damned if you do not hold out your hand to him. + +God Himself, who has withheld grace from the damned, must feel +pity for them. + +It is a very artless desire for equality which makes us say that +all men are equal in the presence of suffering. No! no! they are +not. And as we know nothing of Death but that which precedes and +determines it, men are not even equal in the presence of Death. + + + + + +NIGHTS IN ARTOIS + + +I + + +One more glance into the dark ward, in which something begins to +reign which is not sleep, but merely a kind of nocturnal stupor. + +The billiard-table has been pushed into a corner; it is loaded +with an incoherent mass of linen, bottles, and articles of +furniture. A smell of soup and excrements circulates between the +stretchers, and seems to insult the slender onyx vases that +surmount the cabinet. + +And now, quickly! quickly! Let us escape on tiptoe into the open +air. + +The night is clear and cold, without a breath of wind: a vast +block of transparent ice between the snow and the stars. Will it +suffice to cleanse throat and lungs, nauseated by the close +effluvium of suppurating wounds? + +The snow clings and balls under our sabots. How good it would be +to have a game. ... But we are overwhelmed by a fatigue that has +become a kind of exasperation. We will go to the end of the lawn. + +Here is the great trench in which the refuse of the dressing-ward, +all the residuum of infection, steams and rots. Further on we come +to the musical pines, which Dalcour the miner visits every night, +lantern in hand, to catch sparrows, Dalcour, the formidable +Zouave, whom no one can persuade not to carry about his stiff leg +and the gaping wound in his bandaged skull in the rain. + +Let us go as far as the wall of the graveyard, which time has +caused to swell like a protuberance on the side of the park, and +which is so providentially close at hand. + +The old Chateau looms, a stately mass, through the shadows. To- +night, lamps are gleaming softly in every window. It looks like a +silent, illuminated ship, the prow of which is cutting through an +ice-bank. Nothing emerges from it but this quiet light. Nothing +reveals the nature of its terrible freight. + +We know that in every room, in every storey, on the level of every +floor, young mutilated bodies are ranged side by side. A hundred +hearts send the over-heated blood in swift pulsations towards the +suffering limbs. Through all these bodies the projectile in its +furious course made its way, crushing delicate mechanisms, rending +the precious organs which make us take pleasure in walking, +breathing, drinking.... + +Up there, this innocent joy of order no longer exists; and in +order to recapture it, a hundred bodies are performing labours so +slow and hard that they call forth tears and sighs from the +strongest. + +But how the murmurs of this centre of suffering are muffled by the +walls! How silently and darkly it broods in space! + +Like a dressing on a large inflamed wound, the Chateau covers its +contents closely, and one sees nothing but these lamps, just such +lamps as might illuminate a studious solitude, or a conversation +between intimate friends at evening, or a love lost in self- +contemplation. + +We are now walking through thickets of spindle-wood, resplendent +under the snow, and the indifference of these living things to the +monstrous misery round them makes the impotent soul that is +strangling me seem odious and even ridiculous to me. In spite of +all protestations of sympathy, the mortal must always suffer alone +in his flesh, and this indeed is why war is possible. ... + +Philippe here thinks perhaps as I do; but he and I have these +thoughts thrust on us in the same pressing fashion. Men who are +sleeping twenty paces from this spot would be wakened by a cry; +yet they are undisturbed by this formidable presence, inarticulate +as a mollusc in the depths of the sea. + +In despair, I stamp on the soft snow with my sabot. The winter +grass it covers subsists obstinately, and has no solidarity with +anything else on earth. Let the pain of man wear itself out; the +grass will not wither. Sleep, good folks of the whole world. Those +who suffer here will not disturb your rest. + +And suddenly, beyond the woods a rocket rises and bursts against +the sky, brilliant as a meteor. It means something most certainly, +and it warns some one; but its coarse ingenuity does not deceive +me. No barbarous signal such as this could give me back confidence +in my soul to-night. + + +II + + +The little room adjoining the closet where I sleep has been set +apart for those whose cries or effluvia make them intolerable to +the rest. As it is small and encumbered, it will only admit a +single stretcher, and men are brought in there to die in turn. + +But lately, when the Chateau was reigning gracefully in the midst +of verdure, the centre of the great star of alleys piercing its +groves of limes and beeches, its owners occasionally entertained a +brilliant society; and if they had under their roof some gay and +lovely milk-white maiden, they gave her this little room at the +summit of the right wing, whence the sun may be seen rising above +the forests, to dream, and sleep, and adorn herself in. + +To-day, the facade of the Chateau seems to be listening, strained +and anxious, to the cannonade; and the little room has become a +death-chamber. + +Madelan was the first we put there. He was raving in such a brutal +and disturbing manner, in spite of the immobility of his long, +paralysed limbs, that his companions implored us to remove him. I +think Madelan neither understood nor noticed this isolation, for +he was already given over to a deeper solitude; but his incessant +vociferation, after he was deprived of listeners, took on a +strange and terrible character. + +For four days and four nights, he never ceased talking vehemently; +and listening to him, one began to think that all the life of the +big body that was already dead, had fled in frenzy to his throat. +For four nights I heard him shouting incoherent, elusive things, +which seemed to be replies to some mysterious interlocutor. + +At dawn, and from hour to hour throughout the day, I went to see +him where he sprawled on a paillasse on the floor, like some red- +haired stricken beast, with out-stretched limbs, convulsed by +spasms which displaced the dirty blanket that covered him. + +He lost flesh with such incredible rapidity that he seemed to be +evaporating through the gaping wound in the nape of his neck. + +Then I would speak to him, saying things that were kindly meant +but futile, because conversation is impossible between a man who +is being whirled along by the waters of a torrent, and one who is +seated among the rushes on the bank. Madelan did not listen to me, +and he continued his strange colloquy with the other. He did not +want us or any one else; he had ceased to eat or to drink, and +relieved himself as he lay, asking neither help nor tendance. + +One day, the wind blew the door of the room to, and there was no +key to open it. A long ladder was put up to the window, and a pane +of glass was broken to effect an entrance. Directly this was done, +Madelan was heard, continuing his dream aloud. + +He died, and was at once replaced by the man with his skull +battered in, of whom we knew nothing, because when he came to us +he could neither see nor speak, and had nothing by way of history +but a red and white ticket, as large as the palm of a child's +hand. + +This man spent only one night in the room, filling the silence +with painful eructations, and thumping on the partition which +separated him from my bed. + +Listening alertly, with the cold air from the open window blowing +on my face, I heard in turn the crowing of the cocks in the +village, the irregular breathing of Philippe, sleeping the sleep +of exhaustion not far from me, and the blows and the death-rattle +of the man who took so long to die. He became silent, however, in +the morning, when the wind began to drop, and the first detonation +of the day boomed through the vault-like quiet of the darkness. + +Then we had as our neighbour the hospital orderly, Sergeant Gidel, +who was nearing his end, and whose cruel hiccough we had been +unable to alleviate for a week past. This man knew his business, +he knew the meaning of probe, of fever, of hardened abdomen. He +knew too that he had a bullet in the spinal cord. He never asked +us for anything, and as we dared not tell him lies, we were +overcome by a kind of shame in his presence. He stayed barely two +days in the room, looking with dim eyes at the engravings on the +walls, and the Empire bureau on which vases were piled. + +But what need is there to tell of all those whom this unhappy room +swallowed up and ejected? + + +III + + +We have no lights this evening. ... We must learn to do without +them. ... I grope my way along the passages, where the wind is +muttering, to the great staircase. Here there is a fitful lamp +which makes one prefer the darkness. I see the steps, which are +white and smeared with mud, pictures and tapestries, a sumptuous +scheme of decoration flooded at the bottom by filth and +desolation. As I approach the room where the wounded are lying, I +hear the calm sound of their conversation. I go in quietly. They +cease talking; then they begin to chat again, for now they know +me. + +At first one can only distinguish long forms ranged upon the +ground. The stretchers seem to be holding forth with human voices. +One of these is narrating: + +"We were all three sitting side by side ... though I had told the +adjutant that corner was not a good place. ... They had just +brought us a ration of soup with a little bit of meat that was all +covered with white frost. Then bullets began to arrive by the +dozen, and we avoided them as well as we could, and the earth flew +about, and we were laughing, because we had an idea that among all +those bullets there was not one that would find its billet. And +then they stopped firing, and we came back to sit on the ledge. +There were Chagniol and Duc and I, and I had them both to the +right of me. We began to talk about Giromagny, and about +Danjoutin, because that's the district we all came from, and this +went on for about half an hour. And then, all of a sudden, a +bullet came, just a single one, but this time it was a good one. +It went through Chagniol's head, then through Duc's, and as I was +a little taller than they, it only passed through my neck. ..." + +"And then?" + +"Then it went off to the devil! Chagniol fell forward on his face. +Duc got up, and ran along on all fours as far as the bend in the +trench, and there he began to scratch out the earth like a rabbit, +and then he died. The blood was pouring down me right and left, +and I thought it was time for me to go. I set off running, holding +a finger to each side of my neck, because of the blood. I was +thinking: just a single bullet! It's too much! It was really a +mighty good one! And then I saw the adjutant. So I said to him: 'I +warned you, mon adjutant, that that corner was not a good place!' +But the blood rushed up into my mouth, and I began to run again." + +There was a silence, and I heard a voice murmur with conviction: + +"YOU were jolly lucky, weren't you?" + +Mulet, too, tells his story: + +"They had taken our fire ... 'That's not your fire,' I said to +him. 'Not our fire?' he said. Then the other came up and he said: +'Hold your jaw about the fire ...' 'It's not yours,' I said. Then +he said: 'You don't know who you're talking to.' And he turned his +cap, which had been inside out ... 'Ah! I beg your pardon,' I +said, 'but I could not tell ...' And so they kept our fire. ..." + +Maville remarks calmly: "Yes, things like that will happen +sometimes." + +Silence again. The tempest shakes the windows with a furious hand. +The room is faintly illuminated by a candle which has St. Vitus' +dance. Rousselot, our little orderly, knits away industriously in +the circle of light. I smoke a pipe at once acrid and consoling, +like this minute itself in the midst of the infernal adventure. + +Before going away, I think of Croquelet, the silent, whose long +silhouette I see at the end of the room. "He sleeps all the time," +says Mulet, "he sleeps all day." I approach the stretcher, I bend +over it, and I see two large open eyes, which look at me gravely +and steadily in the gloom. And this look is so sad, so poignant, +that I am filled with impotent distress. + +"You sleep too much, my poor Croquelet." + +He answers me with his rugged accent, but in a feeble voice: + +"Don't listen to him; it's not true. You know quite well that I +can't sleep, and that you won't give me a draught to let me get a +real nap. This afternoon, I read a little. ... But it wasn't very +interesting. ... If I could have another book. ..." + +"Show me your book, Croquelet." + +He thrusts out his chin towards a little tract. I strike a match, +and I read on the grey cover: "Of the Quality of Prayers addressed +to God." + +"All right, Croquelet, I'll try to get you a book with pictures in +it. How do you feel this evening?" + +"Ah! bad! very bad! They're thawing now. ..." + +He has had frost-bite in his feet, and is beginning to suffer so +much from them that he forgets the wound in his side, which is +mortal, but less active. + + +IV + + +I have come to take refuge among my wounded to smoke in peace, and +meditate in the shadow. Here, the moral atmosphere is pure. These +men are so wretched, so utterly humiliated, so absorbed in their +relentless sufferings that they seem to have relinquished the +burden of the passions in order to concentrate their powers on the +one endeavour: to live. + +In spite of their solidarity they are for the time isolated by +their individual sufferings. Later on, they will communicate; but +this is the moment when each one contemplates his own anguish, and +fights his own battle, with cries of pain. ... + +They are all my friends. I will stay among them, associating +myself with all my soul in their ordeal. + +Perhaps here I shall find peace. Perhaps all ignoble discord will +call a truce on the threshold of this empire. + +But a short distance from us the battle-field has thundered +unceasingly for days. Like a noisy, complicated mechanism which +turns out the products of its internal activity, the stupid +machine of war throws out, from minute to minute, bleeding men. We +pick them up, and here they are, swathed in bandages. They have +been crushed in the twinkling of an eye; and now we shall have to +ask months and years to repair or palliate the damage. + +How silent they are this evening! And how it makes one's heart +ache to look at them! Here is Bourreau, with the brutal name and +the gentle nature, who never utters a complaint, and whom a single +bullet has deprived of sight for ever. Here is Bride, whom we fear +to touch, so covered is he with bandages, but who looks at us with +touching, liquid eyes, his mind already wandering. Here is +Lerouet, who will not see next morning dawn over the pine-trees, +and who has a gangrened wound near his heart. And the others, all +of whom I know by their individual misfortunes. + +How difficult it is to realise what they were, all these men who a +year ago, were walking in streets, tilling the land, or writing in +an office. Their present is too poignant. Here they lie on the +ground, like some fair work of art defaced. Behold them! The +creature par excellence has received a great outrage, an outrage +it has wrought upon itself. + +We are ignorant of their past. But have they a future? I consider +these innocent victims in the tragic majesty of the hour, and I +feel ashamed of living and breathing freely among them. + +Poor, poor brothers! What could one do for you which would not be +insufficient, unworthy, mediocre? We can at least give up +everything and devote ourselves heart and soul to our holy and +exacting work. + +But no! round the beds on which your solitary drama is enacted, +men are still taking part in a sinister comedy. Every kind of +folly, the most ignoble and also the most imbecile passions, +pursue their enterprises and their satisfactions over your heads. + +Neither the four corpses we buried this morning, nor your daily +agonies will disarm these appetites, suspend these calculations, +and destroy these ambitions the development and fruition of which +even your martyrdom, may be made to serve. + + + +I will spend the whole evening among my wounded, and we will talk +together, gently, of their misery; it will please them, and they +will make me forget the horrible atmosphere of discussion that +reigns here. + +Alas! during the outburst of the great catastrophe, seeing the +volume of blood and fire, listening to the uproar, smelling the +stench of the vast gangrene, we thought that all passions would be +laid aside, like cumbersome weapons, and that we should give +ourselves up with clean hearts and empty hands to battle against +the fiery nightmare. He who fights and defends himself needs a +pure heart: so does he who wanders among charnel houses, gives +drink to parched lips, washes fevered faces and bathes wounds. We +thought there would be a great forgetfulness of self and of former +hopes, and of the whole world. O Union of pure hearts to meet the +ordeal! + +But no! The first explosion was tremendous, yet hardly had its +echoes died away when the rag-pickers were already at work among +the ruins, in quest of cutlet-bones and waste paper. + +And yet, think of the sacred anguish of those first hours! + +Well, so be it! For my part, I will stay here, between these +stretchers with their burdens of anguish. + +At this hour one is inclined to distrust everything, man and the +universe, and the future of Right. But we cannot have any doubts +as to the suffering of man. It is the one certain thing at this +moment. + +So I will stay and drink in this sinister testimony. And each time +that Beal, who has a gaping wound in the stomach, holds out his +hands to me with a little smile, I will get up and hold his hands +in mine, for he is feverish, and he knows that my hands are always +icy. + + +V + + +Bride is dead. We had been working all day, and in the evening we +had to find time to go and bury Bride. + +It is not a very long ceremony. The burial-ground is near. About a +dozen of us follow the lantern, slipping in the mud, and stumbling +over the graves. Here we are at the wall, and here is the long +ditch, always open, which every day is prolonged a little to the +right, and filled in a little to the left. Here is the line of +white crosses, and the flickering shadows on the wall caused by +the lantern. + +The men arrange the planks, slip the ropes, and lower the body, +disputing in undertones, for it is not so easy as one might think +to be a grave-digger. One must have the knack of it. And the night +is very dark and the mud very sticky. + +At last the body is at the bottom of the trench, and the muddy +ropes are withdrawn. The little consumptive priest who stands at +the graveside murmurs the prayer for the dead. The rain beats in +our faces. The familiar demon of Artois, the wind, leaps among the +ancient trees. The little priest murmurs the terrible words: Dies +irae, dies illa. ... + +And this present day is surely the day of wrath ... I too utter my +prayer: "In the name of the unhappy world, Bride, I remit all thy +sins, I absolve thee from all thy faults! Let this day, at least, +be a day of rest." + +The little priest stands bare-headed in the blast. An orderly who +is an ecclesiastic holds the end of an apron over his head. A man +raises the lantern to the level of his eye. And the rain-drops +gleam and sparkle furtively. + +Bride is dead. ... + +Now we meet again in the little room where friendship reigns. + +Pierre and Jacques, gallant fellows, I shall not forget your +beautiful, painful smile at the moment which brings discouragement +to the experienced man. I shall not forget. + +The beef and rice, which one needs to be very hungry to swallow, +is distributed. And a gentle cheerfulness blossoms in the circle +of lamplight, a cheerfulness which tries to catch something of the +gaiety of the past. Man has such a deep-seated need of joy that he +improvises it everywhere, even in the heart of misery. + +And suddenly, through the steam of the soup, I see Bride's look +distinctly. + +It was no ordinary look. The extremity of suffering, the approach +of death, perhaps, and also the hidden riches of his soul, gave it +extraordinary light, sweetness, and gentleness. When one came to +his bedside, and bent over him, the look was there, a well-spring +of refreshment. + +But Bride is dead: we saw his eyes transformed into dull, +meaningless membranes. + +Where is that well-spring? Can it be quenched? + +Bride is dead. Involuntarily, I repeat aloud: "Bride is dead." + +Have I roused a responsive echo in these sympathetic souls? A +religious silence falls upon them. The oldest of all problems +comes and takes its place at the table like a familiar guest. It +breathes mysteriously into every ear: "Where is Bride? Where is +Bride's look?" + + +VI + + +A lantern advances, swinging among the pines. Who is coming to +meet us? + +Philippe recognises the figure of Monsieur Julien. Here is the +man, indeed, with his porter's livery, and his base air as of an +insolent slave. He waves a stable-lantern which throws grotesque +shadows upwards on his face; and he is obviously furious at having +been forced to render a service. + +He brandishes the lantern angrily, and thrusts out his chin to +show us the advancing figures: two men are carrying a stretcher on +which lies a big body wrapped in a coarse winding sheet. The two +men are weary, and set the stretcher down carefully in the mud. + +"Is it Fumat?" + +"Yes. He has just died, very peacefully." + +"Where are you going?" + +"There is no place anywhere for a corpse. So we are taking him to +the chapel in the burial-ground. But he is heavy." + +"We will give you a hand." + +Philippe and I take hold of the stretcher. The men follow us in +silence. The body is heavy, very heavy. We drag our sabots out of +the clay laboriously. And we walk slowly, breathing hard. + +How heavy he is! ... He was called Fumat ... He was a giant. He +came from the mountains of the Centre, leaving a red-tiled village +on a hill-side, among juniper-bushes and volcanic boulders. He +left his native place with its violet peaks and strong aromatic +scents and came to the war in Artois. He was past the age when men +can march to the attack, but he guarded the trenches and cooked. +He received his death-wound while he was cooking. The giant of +Auvergne was peppered with small missiles. He had no wound at all +proportionate to his huge body. Nothing but splinters of metal. +Once again, David has slain Goliath. + +He was two days dying. He was asked: "Is there anything you would +like?" And he answered with white lips: "Nothing, thank you." When +we were anxious and asked him "How do you feel?" he was always +quite satisfied. "I am getting on very well." He died with a +discretion, a modesty, a self-forgetfulness which redeemed the +egotism of the universe. + +How heavy he is! He was wounded as he was blowing up the fire for +the soup. He did not die fighting. He uttered no historic word. He +fell at his post as a cook. ... He was not a hero. + +You are not a hero, Fumat. You are only a martyr. And we are going +to lay you in the earth of France, which has engulfed a noble and +innumerable army of martyrs. + +The shadow of the trees sweeps like a huge sickle across space. An +acrid smell of cold decay rises on the night. The wind wails its +threnody for Fumat. + +"Open the door, Monsieur Julien." + +The lout pushes the door, grumbling to himself. We lay the body on +the pavement of the chapel. + +Renaud covers the corpse carefully with a faded flag. And +suddenly, as if to celebrate the moment, the brutal roar of guns +comes to us from the depths of the woods, breaks violently into +the chapel, seizes and rattles the trembling window-panes. A +hundred times over, a whole nation of cannon yells in honour of +Fumat. And each time other Fumats fall in the mud yonder, in their +appointed places. + + +VII + + +They ought not to have cut off all the light in this manner, and +it would not have been done, perhaps, if ... + +There is a kind of mania for organisation which is the sworn enemy +of order; in its efforts to discover the best place for +everything, it ends by diverting everything from its right +function and locality, and making everything as inopportune as +itself. It was a mistake to cut off all the lights this evening, +on some pretext or the other. The rooms of the old mansion are not +packed with bales of cotton, but with men who have anxious minds +and tortured bodies. + +A mournful darkness suddenly reigned; and outside, the incessant +storm that rages in this country swept along like a river in +spate. + +Little Rochet was dreaming in the liquid light of the lamp, with +hands crossed on his breast, and the delicate profile of an +exhausted saint. + +He was dreaming of vague and exquisite things, for cruel fever has +moments of generosity between two nightmares. He was dreaming so +sweetly that he forgot the abominable stench of his body, and that +a smile touched the two deep wrinkles at the corners of his mouth, +set there by a week of agony. + +But all the lamps have been put out, and the noise of the +hurricane has become more insistent, and the wounded have ceased +talking, for darkness discourages conversation. + +There are some places where the men with whom the shells have +dealt mercifully and whose wounds are only scratches congregate. +These have only the honour of wounds, and what may be called their +delights. ... But here, we have only the worst cases; and here +they have to await the supreme decision of death. + +Little Rochet awoke to a reality full of darkness and despair. He +heard nothing but laboured breathing round him, and rising above +it all, the violent breath of the storm. He was suddenly conscious +of his lacerated stomach, of his lost leg, and he realised that +the fetid smell in the air was the smell of his flesh. And he +thought of the loving letter he had received in the morning from +his four big sisters with glossy hair, he thought of all his lost, +ravished happiness.... + +Renaud hurries up, groping his way among the dark ambushes of the +corridor. + +"Come, come quickly. Little Rochet has thrown himself out of bed." + +Holding up a candle, I take in the melancholy scene. We have to +get Rochet into bed again, readjust his bandages, wipe up the +fetid liquid spilt on the floor. + +Rochet's lips are compressed. I stoop to his ear and ask softly: + +"Why did you do this?" + +His face remains calm, and he answers gently, looking me full in +the eyes: "I want to die." + +I leave the room, disarmed, my head bowed, and go in search of +Monet, who is a priest and an excellent orderly. He is smoking a +pipe in a corner. He has just had news that his young brother has +been killed in action, and he had snatched a few minutes of +solitude. + +"Monet," I say, "I think Rochet is a believer. Well, go to him. He +may want you." + +Monet puts away his pipe, and goes off noiselessly. + +As to me, I go and wander about outside. On the poplar-lined road, +in company with the furious rain and the darkness, I shall perhaps +be able to master the flood of bitterness that sweeps over me. + +At the end of an hour, my anxiety brings me back to Rochet's +bedside. The candle is burning away with a steady flame. Monet is +reading in a little book with a clasp. The profile of the wounded +man has still the pitiful austerity of a tortured saint. + +"Is he quieter now?" + +Monet lifts his fine dark eyes to my face, and drops his book. + +"Yes. He is dead." + + +VIII + + +Why has Hell been painted as a place of hopeless torture and +eternal lamentation? + +I believe that even in the lowest depths of Hell, the damned sing, +jest, and play cards. I am led to imagine this after seeing these +men rowing in their galleys, chained to them by fever and wounds. + +Blaireau, who has only lost a hand, preludes in an undertone: + + Si tu veux fair' mon bonheur.... + +This timid breath kindles the dormant flame. Houdebine, who has a +fractured knee, but who now expects to be fairly comfortable till +the morning, at once responds and continues: + + Marguerite! Marguerite! + +The two sing in unison, with delighted smiles: + + Si tu veux fair' mon bonheur + Marguerite! Marguerite! + +Maville joins in at the second verse, and even Legras, whose two +legs are broken, and the Chasseur Alpin, who has a hole in his +skull. + +Panchat, the man who had a bullet through his neck, beats time +with his finger, because he is forbidden to speak. + +All this goes on in low tones; but faces light up, and flush, as +if a bottle of brandy had been passed round. + +Then Houdebine turns to Panchat and says: "Will you have a game of +dummy manilla, Panchat?" + +Dummy manilla is a game for two; and they have to be content with +games for two, because no one in this ward can get up, and +communication is only easy for those in adjacent beds. + +Panchat makes a sign of consent. Why should he not play dummy +manilla, which is a silent game. A chair is put between the two +beds, and he shuffles the cards. + +The cards are so worn at the corners that they have almost become +ovals. The court cards smile through a fog of dirt; and to deal, +one has to wet one's thumb copiously, because a thick, tenacious +grease makes the cards stick together in an evil-smelling mass. + +But a good deal of amusement is still to be got out of these +precious bits of old paste-board. + +Panchat supports himself on his elbow, Houdebine has to keep on +his back, because of his knee. He holds his cards against his +chin, and throws them down energetically on the chair with his +right hand. + +The chair is rather far off, the cards are dirty, and sometimes +Houdebine asks his silent adversary: "What's that?" + +Panchat takes the card and holds it out at arm's length. + +Houdebine laughs gaily. + +He plays his cards one after the other, and dummy's hand also: + +"Trump! Trump! Trump! And ace of hearts!" + +Even those who cannot see anything laugh too. + +Panchat is vexed, but he too laughs noiselessly. Then he takes out +the lost sou from under his straw pillow. + +Meanwhile, Mulet is telling a story. It is always the same story, +but it is always interesting. + +An almost imperceptible voice, perhaps Legras', hums slowly: + + Si tu veux fair' mon bonheur. + +Who talks of happiness here? + +I recognise the accents of obstinate, generous life. I recognise +thine accents, artless flesh! Only thou couldst dare to speak of +happiness between the pain of the morning and that of the evening, +between the man who is groaning on the right, and the man who is +dying on the left. + +Truly, in the utmost depths of Hell, the damned must mistake their +need of joy for joy itself. + +I know quite well that there is hope here. + +So that in hell too there must be hope. + + +IX + + +But lately, Death was the cruel stranger, the stealthy-footed +visitor.... Now, it is the romping dog of the house. + +Do you remember the days when the human body seemed made for joy, +when each of its organs represented a function and a delight? Now, +each part of the body evokes the evil that threatens it, and the +special suffering it engenders. + +Apart from this, it is well adapted for its part in the laborious +drama: the foot to carry a man to the attack; the arm to work the +cannon; the eye to watch the adversary or adjust the weapon. + +But lately, Death was no part of life. We talked of it covertly. +Its image was at once painful and indecent, calculated to upset +the plans and projects of existence. It worked as far as possible +in obscurity, silence and retirement. We disguised it with +symbols; we announced it in laborious paraphrases, marked by a +kind of shame. + +To-day Death is closely bound up with the things of life. And this +is true, not so much because its daily operations are on a vast +scale, because it chooses the youngest and the healthiest among +us, because it has become a kind of sacred institution, but more +especially because it has become a thing so ordinary that it no +longer causes us to suspend our usual activities, as it used to +do: we eat and drink beside the dead, we sleep amidst the dying, +we laugh and sing in the company of corpses. + +And how, indeed, can it be otherwise? You know quite well that man +cannot live without eating, drinking, and sleeping, nor without +laughing and singing. + +Ask all those who are suffering their hard Calvary here. They are +gentle and courageous, they sympathise with the pain of others; +but they must eat when the soup comes round, sleep, if they can, +during the long night; and try to laugh again when the ward is +quiet, and the corpse of the morning has been carried out. + +Death remains a great thing, but one with which one's relations +have become frequent and intimate. Like the king who shows himself +at his toilet, Death is still powerful, but it has become familiar +and slightly degraded. + +Lerouet died just now. We closed his eyes, tied up his chin, then +pulled out the sheet to cover the corpse while it was waiting for +the stretcher-bearers. + +"Can't you eat anything?" said Mulet to Maville. Maville, who is +very young and shy, hesitates: "I can't get it down." + +And after a pause, he adds: "I can't bear to see such things." + +Mulet wipes his plate calmly and says: "Yes, sometimes it used to +take away my appetite too, so much so that I used to be sick. But +I have got accustomed to it now." + +Pouchet gulps down his coffee with a sort of feverish eagerness. + +"One feels glad to get off with the loss of a leg when one sees +that." + +"One must live," adds Mulet. + +"Well, for all the pleasure one gets out of life...." + +Beliard is the speaker. He had a bullet in the bowel, yet we hope +to get him well soon. But his whole attitude betrays indifference. +He smokes a great deal, and rarely speaks. He has no reason to +despair, and he knows that he can resume his ordinary life. But +familiarity with Death, which sometimes makes life seem so +precious, occasionally ends by producing a distaste for it, or +rather a deep weariness of it. + + +X + + +A whole nation, ten whole nations are learning to live in Death's +company. Humanity has entered the wild beast's cage, and sits +there with the patient courage of the lion-tamer. + +Men of my country, I learn to know you better every day, and from +having looked you in the face at the height of your sufferings, I +have conceived a religious hope for the future of our race. It is +mainly owing to my admiration for your resignation, your native +goodness, your serene confidence in better times to come that I +can still believe in the moral future of the world. + +At the very hour when the most natural instinct inclines the world +to ferocity, you preserve, on your beds of suffering, a beauty, a +purity of outlook which goes far to atone for the monstrous crime. +Men of France, your simple grandeur of soul redeems humanity from +its greatest crime, and raises it from its deep abyss. + +We are told how you bear the misery of the battle-field, how in +the discouraging cold and mud, you await the hour of your cruel +duty, how you rush forward to meet the mortal blow, through the +unimaginable tumult of peril. + +But when you come here, there are further sufferings in store for +you; and I know with what courage you endure them. + +The doors of the Chateau close on a new life for you, a life that +is also one of perpetual peril and contest. I help you in this +contest, and I see how gallantly you wage it. + +Not a wrinkle in your faces escapes me. Not one of your pains, not +one of the tremors of your lacerated flesh. And I write them all +down, just as I note your simple words, your cries, your sighs of +hope, as I also note the expression of your faces at the solemn +hour when man speaks no more. + +Not one of your words leaves me unmoved; there is not one of your +actions which is not worthy of record. All must contribute to the +history of our great ordeal. + +For it is not enough to give oneself up to the sacred duty of +succour. It is not enough to apply the beneficent knife to the +wound, or to change the dressings skilfully and carefully. + +It is also my mission to record the history of those who have been +the sacrificial victims of the race, without gloss, in all its +truth and simplicity; the history of the men you have shown +yourselves to be in suffering. + +If I left this undone, you would, no doubt, be cured as perfectly, +or would perish none the less; but the essence of the majestic +lesson would be lost, the most splendid elements of your courage +would remain barren. + +And I invite all the world to bow before you with the same +attentive reverence, WITH HEARTS THAT FORGET NOTHING. + +Union of pure hearts to meet the ordeal! Union of pure hearts that +our country may know and respect herself! Union of pure hearts for +the redemption of the stricken world! + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The New Book Of Martyrs, by Georges Duhamel + diff --git a/old/nbmrt10.zip b/old/nbmrt10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2d1cf0f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/nbmrt10.zip |