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diff --git a/old/68774-0.txt b/old/68774-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index fd44b93..0000000 --- a/old/68774-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5746 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Civilisation, by Georges Duhamel - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Civilisation - -Author: Georges Duhamel - -Translator: T. P. Conwil-Evans - -Release Date: August 17, 2022 [eBook #68774] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Andrés V. Galia and the Online Distributed Proofreading - Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from - images generously made available by The Internet Archive - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CIVILISATION *** - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - -In the plain text version text in italics is enclosed by underscores -(_italics_) and small capitals are represented in upper case as in -SMALL CAPS. - -A number of words in this book have both hyphenated and non-hyphenated -variants. For the words with both variants present the one more used -has been kept. - -Obvious punctuation and other printing errors have been corrected. - -The book cover was modified by the transcriber and has been added to -the public domain. - - * * * * * - - - - - CIVILISATION - 1914-1918 - - BY - - GEORGES DUHAMEL - - TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH - - BY - - T. P. CONWIL-EVANS - - THE SWARTHMORE PRESS LTD - - (FORMERLY TRADING AS HEADLEY BROS. PUBLISHERS LTD) - - 72 OXFORD STREET, LONDON, W. 1 - - 1919 - - - - - TRANSLATOR’S NOTE - - -With the exception of, perhaps, “Le Feu” by Henri Barbusse, no book -made such a stir in the France of 1914-1918 as Georges Duhamel’s[1] -“Civilisation.” Its success was as immediate as its appeal was -universal. Like “Le Feu,” it was awarded the Prix Goncourt, and ran to -an enormous circulation. - -There is no doubt, too, that posterity will acclaim it as a remarkable -work. For it is something more than a human document of the war. -One feels in the poignant experiences of the few French soldiers, -depicted by M. Duhamel, the tragic fate of twentieth-century man--the -Machine Age man--in the grip of the scientific monster he has created -for himself. These intimate pictures have the cumulative effect of -an epic in which the experiment of humanity is menaced by man’s own -inventiveness and heroism. - -This impression is the creation of the particular style of M. Duhamel. -It is not by the vigorous simplicity of a Guy de Maupassant that he -achieves his effects, nor by the exact observation which one might -expect of him as a doctor of medicine. His strength lies in the -violent imagery with which he intensifies his descriptions, giving the -impression of life and feeling to inanimate objects. He thus often -produces the effect of a monstrous dream or nightmare. - -Emile Zola was a past master of this method; but, in his case, too -often, the subject did not lend itself to such treatment. M. Duhamel -does not lay himself open to this objection. No style could be more -appropriate than his for expressing the cold precision of the machinery -by means of which this so effectively organised war has ruined our -world. - -Like Emile Zola, M. Duhamel does not shirk any detail however -unpleasant. Differences in language and point of view make it -impossible to reproduce all of these. But with the exception of “Les -Amours de Ponceau” all the tales comprising “Civilisation” are included -in the translation. - -I am much indebted to Miss Eva Gore-Booth for kindly reading the proofs. - - T. P. C.-E. - -LONDON, _October 1919_. - - - FOOTNOTES: - -[1] Georges Duhamel, born 1884, poet, dramatist, and doctor of -medicine. His poems include “Des Légendes,” “Des Batailles” (1907), -“L’homme en Tête” (1909), “Selon ma loi” (1910), “Compagnons” (1912); -and plays: “La Lumière” (played at the Odéon, 1911), “Dans l’ombre des -Statues” (Odéon, 1912), “Le Combat” (Théâtre des Arts, 1913), “La plus -grande joie” (Théâtre du Vieux Colombier); and several critical works -on poetry. “Vie des Martyres,” 1917; “Possession du Monde” (Essays), -1918. - - - - - CONTENTS - - PAGE - A FACE 7 - - REVAUD’S ROOM 10 - - ON THE SOMME FRONT 25 - - RÉCHOUSSAT’S CHRISTMAS 61 - - LIEUTENANT DAUCHE 68 - - COUSIN’S PROJECTS 101 - - THE LADY IN GREEN 108 - - IN THE VINEYARD 116 - - THE RAILWAY JUNCTION 123 - - THE HORSE-DEALERS 137 - - A BURIAL 150 - - FIGURES 167 - - DISCIPLINE 177 - - CUIRASSIER CUVELIER 212 - - CIVILISATION 231 - - - - - A FACE - -A commanding and almost gracefully shaped brow, a look that was at once -childish and profound, a dimpled chin, a rather flaunting moustache, -a bitter expression about the laughing lips: that French face I shall -never forget, though I saw it only for a second in the flickering light -of a match. - -It was an autumn night in 1916. The train which runs from Châlons to -Sainte-Menehould was making its return journey, with all lights out. -The Champagne front, on our left, was then calm, sunk in volcanic -sleep: a sleep of nightmares, sudden alarms, and sharp flashes. We -pierced the darkness, slowly crossing the wretched country, which -seemed in our mind’s eye to be even more wretched and distorted by the -hideous machinery of war. The little train, with cries of weariness, -hobbled along with a rather hesitating gait, like a blind man -traversing an accustomed road. - -I was going back, my furlough being over. Feeling rather ill, I lay on -the seat. Opposite me, three officers were chatting. Their voices were -those of young men, but in military experience they were veterans. They -were rejoining their regiment. - -“This sector,” said one of them, “is fairly quiet at present.” - -“Certainly, there will be nothing doing until the spring,” replied the -other. - -Silence followed, broken by the restless clatter of the wheels running -on the rails. Presently we heard a young, laughing, satirical voice -saying, almost in a whisper: - -“Oh! we shall be compelled to do some mad thing before spring.” - -Then, without any connecting remark, the same man added: - -“It will be my twelfth attack. But I have always been lucky. I have -only been wounded once yet.” - -These two phrases were still echoing in my ears when the man who had -uttered them lighted a match and began smoking. The light gave a -furtive glimpse of a handsome face. The man belonged to an honoured -corps. The insignia of the highest awards that can be given to young -officers gleamed on his yellow tunic. A quiet and discreet courage -emanated from his personality. - -Darkness once more enfolded us. But would there ever be a night black -enough to extinguish the image which then flashed before me? Would -there ever be a silence so complete as to stifle the echo of the two -little phrases murmured amid the rattle of the train? - -Since that time I have often thought of the incident whenever, as on -that night, I have turned, with love and anguish, towards the past and -towards the future of these men of France--my brothers who, in such -great numbers, have given themselves up to die and are not ashamed -to utter the thoughts that lie nearest the heart; whose nobility of -soul, and unyielding intelligence and pathetic simplicity, the world -appreciates too little. - -How could I not think of it at a time which saw the long martyrdom of a -great people, who, across a night without bourne, search solely for the -paths along which they may at last find freedom and peace? - - - - - REVAUD’S ROOM - - -One never got tired in Revaud’s room. The roar of the war, the rumbling -of transport waggons, the spasmodic shocks of the gunfire, all the -whistling and gasping sounds of the killing machine beat against -the windows with a spent fury, as in the shelter of a creek resound -the echoes of a storm raging in the open sea. But this noise was as -familiar to the ear as the heart-beats of the miserable world, and one -never got tired in Revaud’s room. - -It was a long, narrow apartment where there were four beds and four -men. It was, notwithstanding, called Revaud’s room, because the -personality of Revaud filled it from wall to wall. It was just the -size for Revaud, exactly fitting like a tailor-made coat. In the -beginning of November there had been all kinds of nasty intrigues -hatched by Corporal Têtard to get Revaud removed elsewhere; and, the -intrigues succeeding, the poor man was taken up to another storey and -placed in a large dormitory of twenty beds--a bewildering desert, no -longer homely, but ravaged by a raw, cruel light. In three days, by an -involuntary decision of his body and soul, Revaud had got worse to such -an alarming extent that he had to be carried down with great haste and -placed behind the door in his own room, where the winter light came -filtering in, full of kindliness. - -And thus things remained; whenever a seriously wounded man, an -extraordinary case, was brought to the division, Mme. Baugan was asked -to go and see Revaud at once and “sound him on the question.” - -Revaud pretended to make things rather difficult at first, and ended by -saying: - -“Very well; I am quite willing. Put the man in my room....” - -And Revaud’s room was always full. To be there, you had to have more -than a mere bagatelle of a wound: a broken foot, or some trivial little -amputation in the arm. It was necessary to have “some unusual and queer -things”--a burst intestine, for example, or a displaced spinal cord, or -yet cases in which “the skull has been bent in or the urine doesn’t -come out where it used to before the war.” - -“Here,” Revaud used to say with pride, “there are only very rare cases.” - -There was Sandrap, “who had to have his needs satisfied through a hole -in his side”--Sandrap, a little man from the north, with a round nose -like a fresh apple, with beautiful eyes of a delicate grey colour of -silk. He had been wounded three times, and used to say every morning: -“They’d be surprised, the Boches, if they could see me now.” - -There was Remusot, who had a large wound in the chest. It made a -continual Faoo aoo ... Raoo aoo ... Faoo ... Raoo ...; and Revaud had -been asking from the first day: - -“What a funny noise you’re making! D’you do it with your mouth?” - -In a hoarse voice he wheezed: - -“It is my breath escaping between my ribs.” - -And lastly there was Mery, whose spine had been broken by an aerial -torpedo, and who “no longer felt the lower part of his body, as if it -didn’t belong to him.” - -All this little world was living on its back, each in his place, in a -promiscuous atmosphere of smells, of sounds, and sometimes of thought. -The men recognised each other by their voices rather than by their -faces; and there was one great week when Sandrap was seen by Revaud as -he was being carried to the dressing-room in a stretcher on a level -with the bed, and the latter exclaimed suddenly: - -“Hallo! is that you, Sandrap? What a funny head you have got! And your -hair is even funnier.” - -Mme. Baugan came at eight o’clock, and at once she began scolding: - -“There’s a nasty smell about. Oh! Oh! my poor Revaud, I’m sure you have -again----” - -Revaud avoided the question: - -“Very fine, thanks. I’ve slept very well. Nothing more to report. I’ve -slept quite well.” - -Then Mme. Baugan drew back the sheets, and, overcome by the sad and -ignoble smell, she muttered: - -“Oh! Revaud! you are unreasonable. Will you never be able to control -yourself!” - -Revaud could no longer dissemble. He confessed phlegmatically: “Ah, -it’s true enough! But whatever you say, nurse, I can’t help myself.” - -Mme. Baugan came and went, looking for fresh linen and water. She began -to wash him and dress him as if he were a child. - -But suddenly overcome with shame and a kind of despair, he moaned: - -“Madame Baugan, don’t be cross with me. I wasn’t like that in civil -life.” - -Mme. Baugan began to laugh, and Revaud without more ado laughed -too, for all the lines of his face and his whole soul were made for -laughing, and he loved to laugh even in the midst of the most acute -pain. - -This reply having pleased him, he trotted it out often, and, when -confessing to his little infirmity, he used to tell everyone “I wasn’t -like that, you know, before I joined up.” - -One morning, in making Mery’s bed, Mme. Baugan startled the room with -an exclamation. The paralytic lad had not been able to restrain himself. - -“What! Mery! You, too, my poor friend!” - -Mery, once a handsome country lad with a splendid body, looked at his -dead limbs and sighed: - -“It is quite possible, Madame. I can’t feel what’s going on.” - -But Revaud was delighted. All the morning he cried, “It isn’t only me! -It isn’t only me!” And no one grudged him his joy, for when you are in -the depths of despair you are glad to have companions in your misery. - -The most happy phrases have only a short-lived success. Revaud, who -had a sense of humour, soon felt the moment coming when he would no -longer find comfort in the remark that “he wasn’t like that before he -joined up.” It was then he received a letter from his father. It came -unexpectedly one morning. Revaud’s face had just been washed, and his -great Gallic moustache had been cut--from caprice--according to the -American pattern. All the hospital filed past at the corner of the door -in order to see Revaud who looked like a very sick “English gentleman.” - -He turned the letter over with his fingers that were deformed by misery -and toil; then he said uneasily, “What does the letter mean? Do they -still want to kick up a row?” - -Revaud was a married man; but during the six months in which he had -remained without news from his wife he had got used to his loneliness. -He was in his room, behind the door, and sought no quarrels with -anyone. Then why had a letter been sent to him? - -“It must be they want to make a row,” he repeated; and he handed the -letter to Mme. Baugan, for her to read. - -The letter came from Revaud’s father. In ten lines written in a -painstaking hand, with thick downstrokes and fine upstrokes, with -flourishes and a dashing signature, the old man announced that he was -going to visit him one day in the near future. - -Laughter came back again to Revaud, and with laughter a final -justification for living. All day he toyed with the letter, and used -gladly to show it and say: - -“We are going to have a visit. My father is coming to see us.” - -Then he began to be rather confiding. - -“My father, you know, is a fine fellow, but he has had some hard -knocks. You will see my father--he’s a fellow that’s up to a few -tricks, and, what’s worse, he wears a shirt collar.” - -Finally he ended by restricting his comments on his father’s character -to this statement: - -“My father!--you’ll see--he wears a shirt collar.” - -The days passed, and Revaud spoke so often of his father that in the -end he no longer knew whether the visitor had come or was yet to come. -Thus, by a special providence, Revaud never knew that his father did -not come to see him; and afterwards, when wanting to make allusion to -this remarkable period, he had recourse to a very ample phrase, and -used to say: - -“It was the time of my father’s visit.” - -Revaud was spoiled: he never lacked cigarettes or company, and he used -to confess so contentedly: “I’m the pet of this hospital.” - -Besides, Revaud was not difficult. Tarrissant had only to appear -between his crutches for the dying man to exclaim, “Here’s another -who’s come to see me. I told you I was the pet here.” - -Tarrissant had undergone the same operation as Revaud. It was a -complicated business, taking place in the knee. Only, in the case of -Tarrissant the operation had been more or less a complete success, and -in the case of Revaud, more or less a failure, because “it depends on -one’s blood.” - -From the operation itself Revaud thought he had learned a new word: -“His knee had been ‘dezected.’” He used to look at Tarrissant, and, -comparing himself with the convalescing young man, he came to the -simple conclusion: - -“We are both ‘dezected’ men, except that my old woman has left me; and, -too, I have been overworked.” - -It was the only allusion that Revaud ever made to his conjugal -misfortune and to his toiling past. - -But really, why think of all these things? Hasn’t man enough to do with -a troublesome leg, or this perpetual need which he cannot control? - -Every evening each one prepared to face the long night with little -preparations, as if they were about to set out on a journey. Remusot -was pricked in the thigh, and at once he was in a dreamland bathed in -sweat, in which the fever brought before his eyes things he never would -describe to anyone. Mery had a large mug of some decoction or other -prepared for him, and he had only to stretch out his arm to get it. -Sandrap smoked his last cigarette, and Revaud asked for his cushion. It -was a little cotton pillow, which was placed against his side. Only -when this was done was Revaud willing to say, “That’s it, boys! That’ll -do.” - -And from that moment they went off into a sleep that was horrible and -teeming like a forest waylaid with snares, and each of them wandered in -the pursuit of his dreams. - -While the mind was beating its wings, the four bodies remained still. A -little night-light relieved the darkness. Then, in slippered footfalls, -a night attendant came and put his head through the door and heard the -four tortured respiratory movements, and occasionally surprised the -open but absent look of Remusot; in contemplating these patched-up -human remains, he suddenly thought of a raft of shipwrecked men--of a -raft tossed by the waves of the sea, with four bodies in distress. - -The window-panes continued to vibrate plaintively with the echoes of -the war. Sometimes, in the course of the long night, the war seemed to -stop, as a woodcutter pauses to take breath between two blows of his -axe. - -It was then that, in the deep and sudden silence, they awoke with queer -painful sensations; and they thought of all the things that happen in -battle--they thought of these things when not a sound could be heard. - -Dawn broke reluctantly, those days of winter. The orderlies scrubbed -the floor. They blew out the spluttering night-light which stank of -burnt fat. Then there were the morning ablutions, and all the pains and -screams of wound-dressing. - -Sometimes, in the middle of the trivial duties of the day, the door was -solemnly opened and a general entered, followed by the officers of the -staff. He paused at first on the threshold, overcome by the unwholesome -air, then he made a few steps into the room and asked who were these -men. The doctor used to whisper in his ear, and the general replied -quite simply: - -“Ah, good! Excellent!” - -When he had gone, Revaud always used to assure us: - -“The general wouldn’t think of coming here without seeing me. He’s an -old pal.” - -After that, there was something to talk about the whole day. - -Many officers used to come as well--of the highest rank. They read the -papers pinned on the wall. “Frankly,” they said, “it’s a very fine -result.” - -One of them began one day to examine Mery. He was a doctor, with a -white-bearded chin, very large and corpulent, his breast decorated with -crosses and his neck pink with good living. He seemed a decent fellow -and disposed to show sympathy. He said, in fact: - -“Poor devil! Ah, but you see the same sort of thing might happen to me.” - -More often than not, nobody came, absolutely no one, and the day was -endured only by being taken in small mouthfuls, like their meat at -dinner. - -Once a great event happened. Mery was taken out and placed under the -X-rays. He came back, well content, remarking: - -“At least, it isn’t painful.” - -Another time Revaud’s leg was amputated. He had murmured when giving -his consent: “I’d done my best to keep it, this old leg of mine! Well! -well! So much the worse, so get on with it. Poor old thing!” - -He burst out laughing once again; and no one has laughed, and no one -will laugh again, as Revaud did that day. - -His leg then was to be amputated. The noblest blood in France flowed -once more. But it took place between four walls, in a little room -white-washed like a dairy, and no one heard of it. - -Revaud was put back to bed behind the door. He awoke, and like a child -said: - -“They’ve set me back quite warm and ‘comfy’ with this leg.” - -Revaud had rather a good night, and when, on the next day, Mme. Baugan -came into the room, he said to her, as he now was in the habit of -saying: - -“Fine, Madame Baugan. I’ve had a good night.” - -With this, his head dropped on one side, his mouth opened little by -little, and, without further remark or movement, he was dead. - -“Poor Revaud!” exclaimed Mme. Baugan. “Oh! he is dead.” - -She kissed his brow, and at once began to lay him out, for a long day -faced her and she could not afford to waste time. - -As Mme. Baugan dressed Revaud, she grumbled and scolded good-naturedly -because the corpse was difficult to manage. - -Sandrap, Mery and Remusot said nothing. The rain streamed down the -panes, which never stopped rattling because of the gunfire. - - - - - ON THE SOMME FRONT - - -I hadn’t the heart to laugh, but sometimes I felt vaguely envious. -I thought of the men who were carrying on the war, in the -newspapers--those who wrote: “The line has been pierced; why hesitate -to throw in fifty divisions?” Or: “we have only to bring our reserves -right up to the line. A hundred thousand men must at once fill the gap.” - -I longed to see that brave set compelled to find between Fouilly and -Maricourt a little corner as secure as their little heaps of paper -plans, on which a purring cat might find repose. I swear they would -have found it rather difficult. - -I thought abstractedly about my work as I went along; from time to time -I glanced round at the scene, and I assure you one hit upon some queer -things. - -Beneath the rows of poplar trees that stretched along the valley a huge -army had taken cover, with its battalions, its animals and wagons, -its iron and steel, its faded tarpaulins and leather trappings that -stank, and its refuse heaps. Horses nibbled at the bark of large -decaying trees, that were stricken with a premature autumnal disease. -Three meagre elm trees served as a shelter for a whole encampment: a -dusty hedge threw its protecting shadow over the ammunition train of -a regiment. But the vegetation was scarce and the shelter it afforded -most scanty, so that from all parts the army overflowed right on to the -bare plain, tearing up the surface of the roads and leaving a regular -network of tracks, as if great hordes of wild beasts had made their -passage along it. - -There were roads that marked off the British from the French. There you -could see marching by the splendid artillery of the British, quite new -and glistening, fitted with light-coloured harness and nickel-plated -buckles, with special rugs for the horses, that were well fed and -gleaming like circus mounts. - -The infantry were also filing past--young men, all of them. They -marched to the wild negro music of the flutes and gaily-coloured drums. -Then cars fitted with beds, tier upon tier, came slowly along, jolting -as little as possible, carrying the wounded fair-haired boys with -wondering eyes, looking as placid as a touring party of Cook’s. - -Our villages were packed to suffocation. Man had got everywhere, like a -plague or a flood. - -He had driven the cattle from their shelter and fixed his abode in -hutches, stables and cowsheds. - -The shell depôts seemed like pottery fields full of earthenware -pitchers. Barges floated on the slimy water of the canal. Some carried -food and guns: others served as hospital-boats. - -From the movements of this heaving mass of beings and the creaking of -their machinery, the panting of a giant seemed to issue forth and fill -the silence. The whole scene suggested a sinister fair, a festival of -war, a gathering of Bohemian clans and dancers of evil repute. - -The nearer you got to Bray the more congested the country appeared to -be. The motor-riding population held tyrannic sway over the roads, -forcing the lowlier horse-wagons to drive across the fields. Little -trollies running on rails clanked along pompously, showing great -independence, hugging the ground with their small wheels, and their -back loaded with millions of cartridges: in amongst the boxes some -fellows were squatting, half asleep, proclaiming to the world in -general the pleasure of being seated on something which does all the -walking for you. - -When I got above Chipilly, I beheld an extraordinary scene. An immense -plain undulated there, covered with so many men, things and beasts, -that over vast stretches the ground was no longer visible. Beyond the -ruined tower which looks upon Etinehem lay land of a reddish-brown -colour. I saw later that this colour was due to a great mass of horses -closely pressed against each other. Every day they were brought to the -muddy trough of the Somme to slake their thirst. The tracks were turned -into sloughs, and the air was filled with an overpowering smell of -sweat and manure. - -Then, towards the left, stood a veritable town of unbleached tents, -whose top coverings were marked with large red crosses. Farther on, -the ground sank down, only to curve up again suddenly towards the -battlefield quivering on the horizon in a black fog. From different -points a burst of discharging shells sent up white clouds, side by -side, in quick succession, like rows of trees on the roadside. In -the open sky more than thirty balloons formed a ring, giving one the -impression of spectators interested in a brawl. - -The Adjutant, pointing out the tents, said to me, “That’s Hill 80. You -will see more wounded passing there than there are hairs on your head, -and more blood flowing than the water in the canal. All those who are -hit between Combles and Bouchavesnes are brought to Hill 80.” - -I nodded, and we relapsed again into silence and reflection. The day -gave out in the unclean air of the marshes. The English were firing -their big cannon not far from us, and their roar crashed along the -alignment like an enraged horse dashing blindly away. The horizon was -so thick with guns that you could hear a continuous gurgle as of a huge -cauldron in the tormenting grip of a furnace. - -The Adjutant turned again to me. “Three of your brothers have been -killed,” he said. “In one sense you are out of the business. You won’t -be very badly off as a stretcher-bearer. In another it is unfortunate, -but a good thing for you. It’s hard work, stretcher-bearing, but it’s -better than the line. Don’t you think so?” - -I said nothing. I thought of that devastated little valley where I -had spent the first few weeks of the summer in front of the Plémont -hill--the deadly hours I spent looking at the ruins of Lassigny between -the torn and jagged poplars, and the apple-trees blighted with the -horror on the edge of the chaotic road, and the repulsive shell-holes -full of green slime and swarming with life, and the mute face of the -Château de Plessier, and the commanding hill which a cosmic upheaval -alone had made capable of giving rise to grim forebodings. There -during long nights I had breathed the fetid air of the corpse-laden -fields. In the most despairing loneliness I had been in turn terrified -of death and longing for it. And then some one came along one day to -tell me that “You can go back behind the lines. Your third brother has -been killed.” And many of the men looked at me, seeming to think with -the Adjutant, “Your third brother is dead. In a sense you are lucky.” - -Those were my thoughts as I entered upon my new duties. We were walking -along the plateau, which stood out before heaven, erect as an altar, -piled with millions of creatures ready for the sacrifice. - -It had been dry for several days, and we lived under the rule of King -Dust. The dust is the price we pay for fine weather: it attacks the -fighting pack, intrudes upon its work, its food and its thoughts; it -makes your lips filthy, your teeth crunch, and your eyes inflamed. But -when it disappears the reign of mud begins, and then we passionately -desire to stagnate again in the dust. - -Far away, like idly moving rivers, large columns of dust marked all the -roads in the district, and were filtered by the wind as they flowed -over the countryside. The light of day was polluted with it, as the sky -was ravaged by great flights of aeroplanes, and the silence violated -and degraded, and the earth with its vegetation torn and mutilated. - -I was not that day by any means disposed to be happy, but all this -plunged me into the deepest gloom. - -Looking all around me I found the only places where I could rest my -eyes were in the innocent looks of the horses or on some unfortunate -timid men who worked on the roadside. Everything else was nothing but a -bristling gesture of war. - -Night had fallen when we arrived at the city of tents. The Adjutant -took me to a tent and found me a place on some straw which was strongly -reminiscent of the pigsty. I took off my knapsack, lay down and fell -asleep. - - * * * * * - -I got up with the dawn and, wandering through the mist, tried to find -my bearings. - -There was the road leading from Albert--worn, hollowed, and terribly -overrun. It bore the never-ending stream of wounded. Alongside of it -stood the city of tents, with its streets, its suburbs, and its public -squares. Behind the tents, a cemetery. That was all. - -I was leaning on a fence and I looked at the cemetery. Though it was -overflowing, its appetite was insatiable. A group of German prisoners -were occupied in digging long dark pits that were like so many open and -expectant mouths. Two officers went by: one was fat, and looked as if -at any moment he would be struck with apoplexy. He was gesticulating -wildly to the other. “We have,” he said, “got ready in advance 200 -graves and almost as many coffins. No, you can’t say that this -offensive has not been planned.” - -As a matter of fact, a large number of coffins had been already -completed. They filled the tent where the corpses were to be -unceremoniously laid out. Outside in the open, a large gang of joiners -were engaged in cutting up planks of pinewood. They were whistling and -singing innocently, as is usual with those who work with their hands. - -I realised once again how a man’s opinion of great events is determined -by his vocation and aptitudes. There was a sergeant there whose views -of Armageddon varied with the quality of the wood which he had to use. -When the wood was bad he used to say, “This war is damned rot.” But -when the wood was clear of knots his view was: “We’ll get them licked.” - -The heavy and responsible task of running the hospital was entrusted -to a nervy and excitable young man. He appeared at every moment, his -fingers clutching bundles of papers, which he passed from one hand to -the other. I had few opportunities of hearing him speak, but, when I -did, each time I caught the same words: “That’s not my business--I am -getting crazy with it all. I have enough worries of that sort.” - -I knew then that he had to think of many things. Almost all day a -procession of motor cars, heavily laden with a groaning mass of -wounded, came along the winding road which was being hastily metalled, -looking like the ravenous gullet of this vast organism. On the top of -the bend the lorries were unloaded under a porch decorated with flags, -bearing no small resemblance to the festooned arch which on wedding -days is erected at church doors. - -From the first day I was ordered on night duty to deal with the -ambulance cars as they arrived. A dozen of us were grouped under the -porch for this purpose. - -Up to that time it was only in the trenches that I had seen my -comrades, wounded beside me, starting out on a long and mysterious -journey of which little was known to us. The man who was hit appeared -to be spirited away--he vanished from the battlefield. I was going -to know all the stages of the suffering existence he was then only -beginning. - -The night I went on duty there had been a scrap towards Maurepas or -Le Forest. Happening between two days of tremendous fighting, it was -one of those incidents which seldom call for a single line in the -communiqués. Yet the wounded streamed in all night. As soon as they -were lowered from the cars, we got them into a large tent. It was an -immense canvas hall lit with electricity. It had been pitched on ground -covered with stubble, and its rough soil was bristling with anæmic -grass and badly pressed clods. Those among the wounded who could walk -were directed along a passage railed off on both sides, as is done at -theatre entrances to make the crowd line up into a queue. They seemed -dazed and exhausted. We took away their arms, knives and grenades. They -let you do anything to them: they were like children overcome with -sleep. The massacre of Europe cannot proceed without organisation. All -the acts of the play are based on the most detailed calculation. As -these men filed past, they were counted and labelled; clerks verified -their identity with the unconcerned accuracy of customs officials. -They, on their part, replied with the patience of the eternal public -at government inquiry offices. Sometimes they even ventured to make a -remark. - -“Your name is Menu,” one cavalryman was asked. “Isn’t it?” - -And the cavalryman replied in a heart-rending tone: - -“Alas! it is, unfortunately.” - -I remember a little man whose arm was in a sling. A doctor was looking -at his papers, and said: - -“You have a wound in your right arm?” - -And the man replied so modestly: - -“Oh! it is not a wound. It is only a hole!” - -In one corner of the tent they were giving out food and drink. A cook -was carving slices of beef and cutting up a round of cheese. The -wounded seized the food with their muddy and blood-stained hands; and -they were eating slowly and with evident relish. The inference was -plain. Many were suffering primarily from hunger and thirst. They sat -timidly on a bench like some very poor guests at a buffet during a -garden party. - -In front of them there were a score of wounded Germans who had been -placed there indiscriminately. They were dozing or throwing hungry -glances on the food and the pails of steaming tea. Hitting on a popular -slang expression, a grey-haired infantryman, who was munching large -pieces of boiled beef, said suddenly to the cook: - -“Hang it all! Why not give them a piece of bully-beef?” - -“Do you know them then?” said the cook jocularly. - -“Do I know them! The poor devils! We have been punching each other the -whole blessed day. Chuck them a piece of meat. Why not?” - -A frivolous young man, short-sighted, with a turned-up nose, added in a -tense voice: - -“Ought to be done, you know--our honour....” - -And they went on gravely chatting and gulped down cupfuls of a hot -brew which was poured from a metal jug. From another angle in the tent -the scene was very different. The men were lying down: they had grave -wounds. Placed side by side on the uneven ground, they made a mosaic -of pain stained with mud and blood, the colours of war; reeking with -sweat and corruption, the smells of war; noisy with cries, moans and -hiccups which are the sounds and music of war. - -I shivered at the sight. I had known the bristling horror of the -massacre and the charge. I was to learn another horror, that of the -_tableau_--the accumulation of prostrate victims, the spectacle of the -vast hall swarming with human larvæ, in heaps, on the floor. - -I had finished my work with the stretcher and hastened to make my round -of the wounded. I was so deeply moved that I was rather hindered in -my work. Some of the men were vomiting, suffering unutterable agony, -and their brows streaming with perspiration. Others were very quiet -and could be more or less rational: they seemed to be following the -internal progress of their illness. I was completely upset by one of -them. He was a fair-haired sergeant with a slight moustache. His face -was buried in his hands and he was sobbing with despair and what seemed -like shame. I asked him if he was suffering pain. He scarcely replied. -Then, gently lifting his blanket, I saw that he had been terribly hit -by grape shot in his virility. And I felt a deep pity for his youth and -his tears. - -There was also a boy who used to utter a queer plaint, current in his -locality. But I could only catch these syllables: “Ah! mon ... don....” -A doctor who was passing said to him: - -“Come, come! a little patience! Do not cry out like that.” - -The child paused a moment before replying: “I’d have to lose my voice -first if I’m not to cry.” - -His neighbour was a big, rough, good-natured fellow with a powerful -jaw, strong and massive features, with the peculiar shape of the skull -and growth of hair that characterise the folk of Auvergne. - -He looked at the boy who was groaning at his side, and, turning to me, -commented, with a shrug of the shoulders: - -“Rotten luck being hit like that, poor child!” - -“And what’s the matter with you?” I said to him. - -“Oh, I think I have lost my feet; but I am fairly strong and my body is -solid.”... - -It was true! I saw that both his feet had been torn away. - -Round the electric arcs, luminous rings were formed by the sickening -vapour. On the sides of the tent, in the folds, you could see the flies -sleeping in big black patches, overcome by the cold freshness of night. - -Large waves rolled on the canvas, passing like a shudder or violently -flapping, according as the wind or gunfire was the cause. - -I stepped carefully over some stretchers and found myself outside, -in a night that roared, illuminated by the aurora borealis of the -battlefield. - -I had walked, with my hands held out in front of me, until I came upon -a fence. Suddenly I knew what it was to be leaning against the parapet -of hell! - -What a human tempest! What explosions of hatred and destruction! You -would have said that a company of giants were forging the horizon -of the earth with repeated blows that filled the air with countless -sparks. Innumerable furtive lights gave one continuous great light -that lived, throbbed and danced, dazzling the sky and the land. Jets -of iridescent light were bursting in the open sky as if they fell from -the blows of the steam-hammer on white-hot steel. To me who had only -recently left the trenches, each of these firework displays meant -something--advice, commands, desperate calls, signals for slaughter; -and I interpreted this furnace as if it had expressed in words the fury -and distress of the combatants. - -Towards Combles, on the left of Maurepas, one section above all seemed -to be raging. It was just there that the junction was made between -the English and the French armies; and it was there that the enemy -concentrated a tumultuous and never-slackening fire. Every night, -during many weeks, I saw this place lighted up with the same devouring -flame. It was at each instant so intense that every instant appeared -to be the decisive one. But hours, nights and months went slowly by -in the eternity of time, and each of these terrible moments was only -one intense outburst out of an infinity of them. Thus often the agony -of wounds is such that you would hardly think it could be endured any -longer. But death comes not willingly at the desire of men: it strikes -at will, when it likes, where it likes, and hardly permits itself to be -directed or coaxed. - -Morning came. Those who have seen the daybreaks of the war, after -nights spent in fighting, or in the bloody work of the ambulance, will -understand what is the most ugly and mournful thing in the world. - -For my part, I shall never forget the green and grudging light of the -dawn, the desolating look of the lamps and the faces, the asphyxiating -smell of men attacked by corruption, the cold shiver of the morning, -like the last frozen breath of night in the congealed foliage of large -trees. - - * * * * * - -My work as a stretcher-bearer was over. I could return to carpentry. I -made heavy planks of green wood and thought of all sorts of things, as -the mind does when robbed of sleep and overwhelmed with bitterness. - -Towards eight o’clock in the morning the sun was hailed by a race of -flies as it was emerging painfully from the mist; and these animals -began to abandon themselves to their vast daily orgy. - -All those who were on the Somme in 1916 will never forget the flies. -The chaos of the battlefield, its wealth in carrion, the abnormal -accumulation of animals, of men, of food that had gone bad--all these -were factors in determining that year a gigantic swarm of flies. They -seemed to have gathered there from all parts of the globe to attend -a solemn function. Every possible kind of fly was there, and the -human world, victim of its own hatreds, remained defenceless against -this horrible invasion. During a whole summer they were the absolute -monarchs and queens, and we did not dispute the food with them. - -I have seen, on Ridge 80, wounds swarming with larvæ--sights which, -since the battle of the Marne, we had been able to forget. I have seen -flies dashing themselves on the blood and the pus of wounds and feeding -themselves with such drunken frenzy that, before they could be induced -to leave their feasting and fly away, they had to be seized with -pincers or with one’s fingers. The army suffered cruelly from them, and -it is amazing that, in the end, victory was not theirs. - -Nothing had a more lugubrious and stripped appearance than the plateau -on which stood the city of tents. Every morning heavy traction engines -went up the Etinehem hill and brought water to the camp. Several casks -placed in amongst the trees were filled with water of rather a sweet -taste, and this provision was to suffice, for a whole day, to slake -the thirst of the men and clean away the impurities and emissions of -disease. - -Except on the horizon line, not a bush was to be seen. Nowhere a -tuft of fresh grass. Nothing but an immense stretch of dust or mud, -according as the face of the sky was calm or stormy. To relieve this -desolate scene with a little colour, someone had had the happy idea -of cultivating a little garden between the tents. And the wounded, on -being lowered from the cars, were astonished to see, in the midst of -the ghastliness of military activity, the pale smile of a geranium, -or juniper trees uprooted from the stony ridges of the valley and -replanted hastily in the style of French gardens. - -I cannot, without being strangely moved, recall the tent in which about -twelve soldiers were dying of gaseous gangrene. Around this deathly -spot ran a thin little border of flowers, and an assiduous fellow was -calmly trying to bring into bloom crimson bell-flowers. - -Sometimes the earth, torrid with the month of August, seemed to reel -with the satiating deluge of a storm. At such moments the tents used to -crackle furiously and seemed, like great livid birds, to cling to the -earth in order better to resist the blast of the south wind. - -But neither the gusts of rain nor the galloping thunderclaps, none of -these tumults of Nature, interrupted man from his war. The operations -and the dressing of wounds continued on Hill 80 as, on neighbouring -hills, the batteries ploughed up the disputed ground. Often it seemed -that man insisted on speaking more loudly than Heaven, and the guns and -the thunder seemed determined to outbid each other. - -Once, I remember, the thunder had the last word: two sausage-shaped -balloons took fire, and the artillery, stricken blind, stammered and -then became mute. - -In a few days, I was given the job of furnishing the tents with little -pieces of joinery, benches and tables. I worked on the spot, taking -my tools with me, and I did my best not to disturb the patients, who -were already exhausted by the din of battle. This was very painful -work, because it made me a helpless spectator of unutterable misery. I -remember being greatly touched on one occasion: a young artilleryman, -wounded in the face, was being visited by his brother, a cadet in a -neighbouring regiment. The latter, very pale, was looking at the face -of the wounded man, of which only an eye could be seen and a stained -bandage. He took his hands, and bent down quite naturally to kiss him; -then he shrank back, only to come near again, victim of an emotion of -mingled horror and pity. Then the wounded man, who could not speak, had -an inspiration that was full of tenderness: with outspread fingers he -began to stroke the hair and face of his brother. This silent affection -told how willingly the soul gives up the spoken word and yields to its -most intimate gestures. - -In the same tent Lieutenant Gambin was dying. - -He was rather a crude, simple-hearted man, who had been engaged in -some obscure civilian employment, and who now, solely by dint of -his stubborn courage, had gained a commission. His large frame lay -exhausted from hæmorrhage, and for two days he lay dying. The breath -of life took two days to quit his ice-cold limbs, from which exuded -large beads of glutinous sweat. From time to time he sighed. At last, -leaving my screw-driver and iron nails, I asked him if he would like -something. He looked at me with wide-open eyes, full of memories and -sadness, and said: - -“No, thank you. But oh, I’ve got the hump!” - -I was almost glad to see him die: he was too conscious of his long, -dragging, terrible death. - -Little Lalau who died the same day was at least unconscious, though -delirious, to the last. - -He was a country lad, and had been struck in the spinal cord by a -piece of shell. A kind of meningitis ensued, and, at once, he lost -his reason. The pupils of his eyes swung to and fro with sickening -rapidity; he never ceased moving his jaw, apparently chewing like a -ruminant. One day I found him devouring a string of beads which had -been hung round his neck by a chaplain. An orderly kept his mouth open -while we removed several pieces of wood and steel. The poor wretch -laughed softly, repeating: “It’s a bit hard. It’s a bit hard to chew”; -and the lines of his face twitched with innumerable spasms of pain. - -Delirium upsets and wounds the spirit. For it constitutes the uttermost -disorder--that of the mind. But it perhaps betrays benevolence on -the part of Nature when it deprives man of the consciousness of his -misery. Life and death have it in their power to confer these mournful -blessings. Once I saw a soldier struck in so many places that the -doctors decided he was beyond the resources of their skill. Among other -wounds there was a long splinter of steel driven like a dagger through -his right wrist. The sight was so cruel and revolting that an attempt -was made to remove the steel. A doctor gripped it firmly and tried to -loosen it with sharp, short pulls. - -“Is it giving you pain?” he said from time to time. - -And the patient replied: - -“No; but I’m thirsty!” - -“How is it,” I asked the doctor, “that he can’t feel the pain you are -giving him?” - -“It’s because he is in a state of shock,” replied the surgeon. - -And I understood how the very extremity of pain sometimes obtains for -its victims a truce which is, in a way, a foretaste of the sweets of -death--the prelude to extinction. - -At each end of the large marquees one of those small bell tents had -been erected to which the soldiers had given the name of “mosques.” -They served as death chambers. There were placed the men who were lost -to human succour, in a loneliness that presaged the tomb. And some of -them were aware of this. There was a soldier with a riddled abdomen who -asked, on entering the tent, to be dressed in clean linen. - -“Don’t let me die,” he pleaded, “in an unclean shirt. Give me something -white. If you are too busy, I’ll put it on myself.” - -Sometimes, unutterably wearied by so much suffering, I asked for work -outside the camp, in order to sort out my ideas and renew the theme of -my reflections. It was always with a sigh of comfort that I got away -from the city of tents. I contemplated, from a distance, this sinister -agglomeration, which certainly bore comparison with an itinerant fair. -I tried to distinguish amid the white canvas and red crosses the -tops of these little “mosques.” I gazed also at the cemetery where -hundreds and hundreds of bodies had been buried; and, realising the -sum of the misery, despair and rage accumulated on that spot of the -earth, I thought of the people who, far away in the heart of France, -were crowding the concert cafés, the drawing-rooms, the cinemas, the -brothels, finding brazen enjoyment in themselves, in the world, in the -weather; and, sheltered by this quivering rampart of the sacrificed, -will not share in this universal anguish. I thought of these people -with more shame than resentment. - -The excursions in the open freshened me a little, and I found some -comfort in the sight of healthy men spared by the battle. - -Sometimes I went as far as the English sector. Masses of long-range -artillery were to be seen there. The guns were served by soldiers in -shirt-sleeves and long trousers stained by oil and cart-grease. They -looked more like factory workers than soldiers. You felt then how war -has become an industry--an engineering business devoted to mechanical -slaughter and massacre. - -One night, walking along the Albert road, I overheard the conversation -of some men who were sitting on the upturned earth of a pit. By their -accent they were peasants from the north and must have belonged to the -regiments which had just been under fire. - -“After the war,” said one of them, “those who are going to dabble in -politics, they’ll have to say they had a hand in this confounded war.” - -But this frank opinion, caught in passing one night along a road in the -front--this inconsequent, unanswered comment was lost in the tumult of -the gunfire. - - * * * * * - -I gained much by being stretcher-bearer. I came to know the men better -than I had ever done until then--to know them bathed in a purer light, -_naked_ before death, stripped even of the instincts which disfigure -the divine beauty of simple souls. - -In the midst of the greatest trials our race of peasants has remained -vigorous, pure, worthy of the noblest human traditions. I have known -them--Rebic, Louba, Ratier, Freyssinet, Calmel, Touche, and so many -others whom I must not name if I am not to mention the whole country. -It cannot be said that pain chose its victims, and yet, when I used -to pass by their beds where their destiny struggled--when I looked at -their faces, each one of them, they all seemed to me good, patient, -energetic men, and all of them deserved to be loved. - -Did Rebic, that grey-haired sergeant, not richly deserve that a loving -family waited longingly for him at home? One day we came to dress the -big gash in his side, and we hastened to bring him white linen and made -him a warm bed; he began to weep, good and simple man, and we asked -him why, and he made this sublime answer: - -“I cry because of the agony and misery I am giving you.” - -As for Louba, we could not expect to hear him speak: a shell had -smashed in his face. There remained nothing of it except one immense -cruel gash; an eye displaced, twisted; and forehead--a humble peasant -forehead. Yet one day, as we whispered some brotherly words, Louba -wished to show how pleased he was, and he smiled to us. They will -remember, those who saw the soul of Louba smiling faceless. - -Freyssinet, child of twenty, often lapsed into delirium, and was -aware of it in his conscious moments, and asked pardon of those whom -it might have disturbed. The hour came when he sank into the peace -everlasting. A much-decorated personage was making the round of the -wards attended by an imposing suite. He stopped at the foot of each -bed and uttered, in a fitting voice, words conferring whatever honour -which they represented in the minds of the patients. He stopped -before Freyssinet’s bed and began his speech. As he was an important -and methodical man, he said what he had to say without noticing the -many signs that were being made to make him desist. Having spoken, he -nevertheless asked those who were looking on: - -“You wanted to tell me something?” - -“Yes,” replied someone; “it is that the man is dead.” - -But Freyssinet was so modest, so timid, that the very attitude of his -corpse betrayed respect and confusion. - -It is there, also, that I made the acquaintance of Touche. - -He came to us, poor Touche! his head broken, having had to leave a -temporary hospital owing to its catching fire. I saw him turning out -with his groping hands a bag which contained all his possessions. - -“No, no,” he was saying, “they are all lost, and I’ll never find them.” - -“What are you looking for?” I asked. - -“I am looking for the little photos of my two boys and of my wife. -Unfortunately, they are lost. I shall miss them.” - -I helped him in his search, and then I saw that Touche was blind. - -Poor Touche! He easily recognised me by my voice and always had a smile -for me. He was awkward at table, as a man would naturally be who is not -yet accustomed to his infirmity. But he tried to manage by himself, and -used to tell us in a quiet voice: - -“I am doing my best, you see: I scrape my plate until I feel there is -nothing more.” - -Could I forget the name of the man who was brought in, one night, with -his two legs smashed, and who murmured simply: - -“It’s hard to have to die! But come! I’ll be brave.” - -But Calmel, Calmel! No one who knew him will ever wish to forget him. -Never did a man more passionately desire to live! Never did a man -attain greater nobility by his endurance and resignation! He suffered -mortal wounds which at every moment the light of the life within him -repudiated. It was he who, during a night bombardment, addressed his -hospital comrades, exhorting them to be calm, with his authoritative -moribund voice. - -“Come, come!” he used to say; “we are all men here, are we not?” - -Such is the strength of the spirit that these words alone, uttered -by such a man, were capable of restoring order and confidence in the -hearts of everyone. - -It was to Calmel that a plump civilian, entrusted with some business or -other with the armies, said one day with jubilant conviction: - -“You appear to be badly hit, my brave man. But if you knew what wounds -we inflict on them, with our 75! Terrible wounds, old boy, terrible!” - -Each day brought visitors to Hill 80. They came from Amiens in -sumptuous motor cars. They chatted as they traversed the great canvas -hall, as if at a prize exhibition of agricultural produce: to the -wounded they addressed a few words that were in keeping with their -personal station, their opinions and dignity. They wrote notes on -memorandum-books and sometimes accepted invitations to supper from -the officers. There were foreigners, philanthropists, politicians, -actresses, millionaires, novelists, and “penny-a-liners.” Those who -were looking for strange sensations were sometimes admitted to the -“mosque” or the operation-room. - -They went away, well content with their day when the weather was fine, -in the sure knowledge that they had seen some queer things, heroic -fighters, and a model establishment. - - * * * * * - -But silence! I have pronounced their names--Freyssinet, Touche, -Calmel--and the memories which they leave in my heart are too noble to -be mingled with bitterness. - -What has become of Hill 80 deserted? The battle has advanced towards -the east. Winter has come; the city of tents has furled its canvas, as -a fleet of sailing ships which must prepare for new destinies. - -Often, in imagination, I see again the bare plateau and the immense -burial ground left derelict in the fields and the mists, like the -wreckage of innumerable ships down in the depths of the sea. - - - - - RÉCHOUSSAT’S CHRISTMAS - - -Réchoussat repeated in a shrill, strained voice: “I tell you, they’re -not coming after all.” - -Corporal Têtard turned a deaf ear to this. He was sorting out his -stock on a table: lints, oil, rubber gloves reminiscent of the fencer, -probes enclosed in a tube like vanilla cornets, a basin of enamelled -sheet-iron resembling a big bean, and a bulging vase with a wide gaping -mouth, looking like anything at all. - -Réchoussat affected an air of indifference. “They needn’t come if they -don’t wish to. Anyway, I don’t care.” - -Corporal Têtard shrugged his shoulders. “But I tell you they will -come,” he said. - -The wounded man obstinately shook his head. “Here, old boy! nobody’ll -come here. All those who visit downstairs never come up here. I’m only -telling you. I don’t really care, you know.” - -“You may be sure they will come.” - -“Really, I don’t know why I have been placed here alone in the room.” - -“Probably because you must have quiet.” - -“Whether they come or not, it’s all one to me.” - -Réchoussat frowned to show his pride, then he added, sighing: - -“You can begin now with your bag of tricks.” - -As a matter of fact Corporal Têtard was ready. He had lighted a -candle-end and in one movement drew back the sheets. - -Réchoussat’s body was revealed, extraordinarily thin, but Têtard -scarcely noticed it, and Réchoussat had for three months now been -fairly accustomed to his misery. He knew quite well that to have a -piece of shell in the back is a serious matter, and that, when a man’s -legs and abdomen are paralysed, he is not going to recover quickly. - -“Feeling better?” asked Têtard in the course of his operation. - -“Yes,” he replied. “Now it’s six o’clock and they haven’t come. Good -thing! I don’t mind.” - -The corporal did not reply; with a weary expression he rubbed together -his rubber gloves. Riveted to the wick, the candle-flame leaped and -struggled, like a wretched prisoner yearning to escape and fly up alone -in the blackness of the room, and beyond, higher, higher, in the winter -sky, in regions where the sounds of the war of man are no longer heard. -Both the patient and the orderly watched the flame in silence, with -wide-open vague eyes. Every second a gun, far away, snapped at the -panes, and each time the flame of the candle started nervously. - -“It takes a long time! You’re not cold?” asked Têtard. - -“The lower part of my body does not know what cold means.” - -“But it will, one day.” - -“Of course it will. It’s dead now, but it must become alive again. I am -only twenty-five; it’s an age when the flesh has plenty of vigour.” - -The corporal felt awkward, shaking his head. Réchoussat seemed to him -worn out; he had large sores in the places where the body rested on the -bed. He had been isolated in order that his more fortunate comrades -should be spared the sight of his slow, dragging death. - -A long moment went by. The silence was so oppressive that for a moment -they felt their small talk quite inadequate. Then, as if he was -continuing a mental discussion, Réchoussat suddenly remarked: - -“And yet, you know, I’m so easily satisfied. If they came for two -minutes only.” - -“Hush!” said Têtard. “Hush!” - -He leaned, listening, towards the door. Obscure sounds came from the -passage. - -“Ah, here they are!” said the orderly. - -Réchoussat craned his neck. “Bah! No, I tell you.” - -Suddenly a wonderful light, rich in reflections of gold and crimson--a -strange fairy light--filled the passage. The wall in front stood out; -ordinarily as pale as December woods, now it suddenly exhibited the -splendour of an eastern palace or of a princess’ gown. In all this -light there was sound of happy voices and of laughter. No one could be -heard singing, yet the light itself seemed to be singing a magnificent -song. Réchoussat, who could not move, stretched his neck the more -vigorously, and raised his hands a little above the sheets, as if he -wanted to feel this beautiful sound and light. - -“You see, you see,” said Têtard. “I told you they would come.” - -Then there was a big blaze. Something stopped before the door: it was -a tree--a real fir-tree from the forests, planted in a green box. -There were so many Chinese lanterns and pink candles hanging from its -branches that it looked like an enormous torch. But there was something -grander to come: the wise and learned kings now entered. There was -Sorri, a Senegalese gunner, Moussa and Cazin. Wrapped in cloaks from -Adrianople, they wore long white beards made of cotton wool. - -They walked right into Réchoussat’s room. Sorri carried a little packet -tied with ribbon. Moussa waved aloft two cigars, and Cazin a bottle of -champagne. The three of them bowed punctiliously, as they had been -told, and Réchoussat found himself suddenly with a box of chocolates in -his right hand, two cigars in his left, and a glass of foaming wine on -his little table. - -“Ah, boys! No, no; you’re joking, boys.” - -Moussa and Cazin laughed. Sorri showed his teeth. - -“Ah! boys,” repeated Réchoussat, “I don’t smoke, but I’m going to keep -the cigars as a souvenir. Pass me the wine.” - -Sorri took the goblet and offered it as if it were a sacred cup. -Réchoussat drank gently and said: - -“It’s some wine! Good stuff!” - -There were more than a score of faces at the door, and they all smiled -at the gentle naïve Réchoussat. - -Afterwards, a veritable sunset! The wonderful tree receded, jolting -into the passage. The venerable kings disappeared, with their flowing -cloaks and their sham beards. Réchoussat still held the goblet and -gazed at the candle as if all the lights existed there. He laughed, -slowly repeating, “It’s some wine!” Then he continued to laugh and -never said a word. - -Quite gently the darkness entered the room again, and lodged itself -everywhere, like an intimate animal disturbed in its habits. - -With the darkness, something very sad insinuated itself everywhere, -which was the odour of Réchoussat’s illness. A murmuring silence rested -on every object, like dust. The face of the patient ceased to reflect -the splendour of the Christmas tree; his head sunk down, he looked at -the bed, at his thin ulcerated legs, the glass vessel full of unclean -liquid, the probe, all these incomprehensible things, and he said, -stammering with astonishment: - -“But ... but ... what is the matter then? What is the matter?” - - - - - LIEUTENANT DAUCHE - - -It was in the month of October 1915 that I made the acquaintance of -Lieutenant Dauche. - -I can never recall that time without deep emotion. We had been living, -before Sapigneul, through weeks of fire. The Champagne offensive had -for long been rumbling on our right, and its farthest eddies seemed -to break on our sector, as the waves scattered by a hurricane that -spends itself in the open sea. For three days our guns had made reply -to those of Pouilleuse, and we had waited, rifles at hand, for an order -which never came. Our minds were uneasy and vacant, still reeling -from that kind of resonant drunkenness which results from a prolonged -bombardment. We were glad at not having to make a murderous attack, and -at the same time we worried over the causes which had prevented it. - -It was then that I was wounded for the first time. Some chance -evacuation took me to the Château de S----, which is, for the Rheims -country, an indifferent piece of architecture. It stands in the midst -of soft verdure and looks, across the slope of the hill, upon the -delicate valley of the Vesle. - -My wound, though not serious, was painful enough. It made me a little -feverish and long for silence and solitude. It gave me pleasure -to remain, for long hours, in the presence of a pain which, while -endurable, made me test my patience and reflect on the vulnerable -nature of an organism in which, up till then, I had placed an -unshakable confidence. - -I occupied a bright room, decorated with Jouy tapestry and delicate -paintings. My bed was placed there together with that of another -officer, who walked silently up and down the room, and who respected my -reticence. The day came, however, when I was told to take solid food, -and that day we began chatting, no doubt because the most ancient human -traditions dispose those who eat together to enter into conversation. - -In spite of the moods which I then experienced, this talk was a -pleasure and gave me what I must have needed. - -I was absorbed in melancholy reflections, and brooded over the misery -of the times. Lieutenant Dauche from the first appeared to me to show a -serenity of mind and a quiet cheerfulness of spirit. Later, I saw that -he deserved to be greatly admired for maintaining such an attitude in -the face of an unending misfortune which had not spared him any trials. - -We were both natives of Lille; it gave us a point of contact. The event -of an inheritance, and the requirements of his position, early led -Dauche to settle in the Meuse district and set up a home there. - -His marriage was happy, and his young wife was mother of two fine -children. A third was about to be born when the German invasion swept -over the face of France, unsettling the world, ruining a prosperous -industry, violently separating Dauche from his children and his -pregnant wife, of whom, since, he had only heard uncertain and -disquieting news. - -I, too, had left in the invaded country those I loved, and also my -possessions. I felt, therefore, in the presence of Dauche the effect -of that solidarity which is aroused by a common misfortune. I ought, -however, to admit that my comrade had suffered more terrible calamities -than mine with greater fortitude, though he was more sensitive, as I -observed on several occasions. - -Of pleasing height, Dauche had the pink complexion and the fair hair -characteristic of my country. A delicate beard adorned and prolonged -a face full of gentleness and life, like those young men whom Flemish -artists have portrayed, often so happily, wearing a frilled collar and -a heavy golden chain gleaming on a waistcoat of dark velvet. - -A light bandage passed over his forehead. He seemed so little disturbed -by it that I did not trouble for some time to talk to him about his -wound. Besides, he never referred to it himself. I saw him once change -the dressing, and it was then that he explained to me in a few words -how a piece of grenade had struck him during a skirmish. He seemed to -treat the incident with the most perfect indifference. - -“Nothing draws me away from the front,” he added, with a melancholy -smile, “and I was intending forthwith to return to my corps; but the -doctor is flatly opposed to it.” - -He confessed it was not without pleasure that he looked forward to -spending the period of convalescence in the Château de S----, which -autumn adorned so nobly. - -From the second week, in spite of the state of my wound on my shoulder, -I was given permission to walk a little. Dauche helped me with a -brotherly tenderness, and it was through his encouragement that I was -able soon to venture in the avenues of the park. - -The doctor who looked after us both said to me in rather an embarrassed -tone: - -“You are going out with Lieutenant Dauche? See that you don’t go too -far.” - -This doctor was of a reticent nature. I did not ask for explanations; I -was confident in my recovered strength. It never struck me--naturally -enough--that the doctor was in fact thinking of Dauche. - -Several days went by, blessed with all that is warm, young, -affectionate in a growing friendship. The war, among a thousand other -miseries, has compelled us to live occasionally in the company of -men whom in time of peace we should have carefully avoided. It was, -then, with a trembling joy that I recognised in Dauche those qualities -which would move my nature to love and affection--a nature which had -ever perhaps been unduly difficult and uneasy. I thought that a deep -predestined purpose operated there: the men of this age who can become -my friends are marked, and determined, in the universe with the same -mysterious sign; but I may not know them all, and perhaps I shall never -be fated to meet my best friend. - -The times when it did not rain we passed in long conversations on the -hillside, under a plantation of pines and beech trees. My young friend -perceived and judged natural objects with the innocence, freshness -and originality of a child. He spoke of his scattered family with a -stubborn faith in their safety--a faith that usually is found only in -religious fanatics or in men unbalanced by fame or success. - -In the evening, when the approach of darkness tended to bring back to -the mind the awful things one had experienced and made one withdraw -into oneself, he used cheerfully to ask me to have a game of chess, and -this game of skill took us on to the threshold of sleep. - - * * * * * - -The pleasure I had in the company of Dauche led me one day to tell the -doctor how much I admired his character. - -The doctor, who was ceasing to be young, was tall, rather bent and -bald, with a sad, timid, and kind smile on his face half-hidden by a -straggling beard. - -“Fate,” I said, “is no respecter of victims. It is terrible to find -it striking down natures so generous, and it is a marvel that it has -failed to produce worse effects than it has.” - -We began chatting as we walked with measured steps along a narrow -pathway hidden away among the hazel trees. - -My companion made a queer little movement with his shoulders and looked -round to make sure that we were alone. - -“You appear to take great pleasure in Dauche’s company,” he said to me, -“and it is very natural. But I have already begged you never to prolong -your walks with him too far from the Château, and I must repeat the -warning.” - -The tone of his voice at once made me rather anxious, and I did not -hide my amazement. - -“Dauche,” I began, “seems to me to be convalescing slowly but surely. -Can there be anything serious in that scar on his forehead?” - -The doctor had stopped. He was trying to dislodge, with the tip of his -boot, a stone embedded in the road. - -“This scratch,” he said very quickly, still looking down, “is very much -more serious than you imagine.” - -A painful silence ensued, and as I remained quiet, the doctor went on, -with frequent pauses: - -“We are beginning to understand these injuries of the skull. Your -friend does not know, and must not know, how serious his condition is. -He doesn’t even know that we have failed to extract the projectile -which struck him. And even if the thing was possible....” - -Then suddenly the doctor went off into a philosophical dissertation in -which he seemed to be both at his ease and at a loss, as in a familiar -labyrinth. - -“We have accomplished much--very much. We have even restored the dead -to life; but we cannot restore all the dead to life. There are a few -very difficult problems.... We think we have solved them.... I do not -speak of God. The very idea of God seems to be detached from this -immense calamity. I do not speak of God, but of men. They must be -told quite simply: there are wounds which we cannot cure. Therefore, -let them stop inflicting such wounds, and the question will not arise -again. That is a solution; but the members of my profession are too -proud to make that suggestion to the world, and the world is too mad -to listen.” - -My respect for this digression prevented me from interrupting; when, -however, he had finished, I whispered: - -“Really, you say this missile----?” - -“You can’t get at it, you understand. Beyond reach! It’s rather -degrading for a proud man to admit it, but at least it’s honest. And, -besides, it’s a fact. Man placed it there; and it is beyond his power -to remove it.” - -Though embarrassed by the presence of the doctor, I was deeply moved by -his words. - -“Yet, in spite of it, one can live----” - -“No,” he said in a grave voice, “one can only die.” - -We walked as far as the edge of the wood. The clear light of an -open meadow seemed to bring the doctor back within the bounds of -professional etiquette; for he said in a different tone: - -“Excuse me, sir, for having made you consider things which must seem -strange to a man with your point of view. I do not regret having taken -this opportunity to speak to you about Dauche. He hasn’t, I believe, -any near relations in uninvaded territory. You are interested in him, -and I must warn you: he is lost. I’m going to add, since you seek his -friendship, that at any moment something will happen to him, bringing -death rapidly in its train.” - -I had only known Dauche for a short time, but I was overwhelmed. -Some meaningless words came to my lips. I said something like “How -terrible!” But the doctor, with a pale smile, ended by saying: - -“Alas! sir, you will do as I and many others have done: you will get -used to living in the presence of men who yet share our world, but of -whom one knows without a shadow of doubt that they are already dead.” - - * * * * * - -I could not get accustomed to such a thing. The conversation had taken -place towards noon. I spent the rest of the day in avoiding the sight -of Dauche--cowardly conduct which found justification in my inability -to conceal my thoughts. - -Night found me deprived of sleep, but it was doubly useful: it gave me -time to get the better of certain impressions, and enabled me to plead -sickness for my changed disposition. - -As I was getting out of bed, Dauche suggested that we should both go -for a walk in the woods. I was on the point of refusing; but his smile -was so affectionate and engaging that I hadn’t the courage to pretend -illness. Besides, the weather was radiant. - -The brilliant sunshine in which some vigour still remained, the -delicate tints of a landscape rich in the mists of early morning, and -perhaps a healthy desire to be cheerful and forget--all that suddenly -led my thoughts away from the depths into which they had sunk. - -Dauche began running amid the tall grass, which was slowly fading to -a pale amber. His laughter, you would have said, was that of a boy. -Recounting all kinds of anecdotes and sayings, he played the games -loved by his own children, and sometimes he used to stop suddenly and -speak with respect and affection of the child he did not yet know, and -of the mother who waited for him in exile. - -No natural thing seemed too trifling or unworthy of attention: he -delighted in the scent of the flowers, spared a momentary glance for -every object, rubbed the fragrant herbs between his fingers, and tasted -the blackberries and hazel nuts from the thickets. - -He made me notice a thousand things whose existence until then, I blush -to think, I was scarcely aware of. He dragged me after him through an -endless series of adventures, and I could only follow him, awkwardly -and grumbling, like an old man forced to dance a _ronde_. - -We were returning to the Château, congratulating ourselves on our -appetite and on the good time that we had had, when, in the bend of a -path, the words and the warning of the doctor burst with a shock upon -my consciousness. It was like a sharp imperious rap of the knuckle -against a door. I was aware then that I had never ceased thinking of it -in my subconsciousness. But looking once again at Dauche, sturdy and -blond like an ear of corn in the splendour of noon, I shook my head, -saying decidedly, “This worthy doctor is mistaken.” - -And, during the whole of that day, I remained happy. - -The next day, as I took a long time getting up, and, musing idly, -counted the gay flowers on the curtains, I caught, not far from me, -the regular breathing of Dauche, who was still sleeping. Immediately a -voice whispered in my ear, “That man is going to die.” - -I turned over on my other side, and the voice repeated, “That man over -there is a dead man.” - -Then I was seized with a desire to go away,--far away from Dauche and -from the Château, and to bury myself in the noise and activity of -civilian France. - -I was completely awake, and began to reason the matter out with cold -deliberation. - -“After all, I’ve known this man for so short a time and can do nothing -to help him. He has been in the hands of skilled surgeons who have -exhausted all the resources of their art for him.... I would forget -his terrible fate, as I had every right to in view of the fact that it -was shared by a large number of young men equally worthy of attention. -My presence could be of no use to him, and to be with him must indeed -often draw upon those reserves of moral energy of which I was strongly -in need.” - -These arguments ended in my asking the doctor, when I found myself -alone with him that same morning on some pretext or other, to hasten my -removal to another hospital. - -“From the present state of your wound,” he said to me, “I see no -objection to it. I’ll see the thing is done.” - -This ready assent, though so gratifying, caused me some surprise. But -my eye meeting the doctor’s, I found him looking so sad and perplexed -that I was ashamed. - -I was, indeed, so upset by my weakness that at the end of a quarter of -an hour I went again to the doctor and asked if it wasn’t possible for -me to change my mind, and to remain at the Château de S---- until I had -completely recovered. - -He smiled with a queer satisfied expression and assured me I could stay -as long as I liked. - -My decision, arrived at after so much delay and evasion, brought calm -to my mind. I passed most of the day in my room and found diversion -in reading. Towards evening a soldier from a regiment stationed near -us, taking French leave, came to see us and invited us to hear two -musicians of his regiment who were giving a concert in an orange garden. - -Though I had no precise intellectual understanding of music, I highly -appreciated it. And at that time I was, surely, in a position to remark -how a succession of notes and chords can interpret one’s prevailing -mood and quicken its emotions. - -A violin sonata of Bach was being played with piano accompaniment. -Several times I felt as if an invisible and unknown person touched me -on the arm and whispered, “How can you forget he is going to die?” - -I got up as soon as the concert ended and went quickly away, suffering -veritable torture. - -“What is the matter?” asked Dauche, running after me. “You seem ill or -unhappy.” - -“Both,” I replied, in a voice I could no longer control. “Didn’t you -hear the music of the violin?” - -“Yes,” he said musingly; “it was pure joy.” - -I looked at him furtively and withdrew nothing. But that evening, alone -with my thoughts in the dark, I understood that chance had reserved for -me a strange rôle to play in the fate of my friend--Dauche was doomed: -he had to die: he was about to die; but some one else, in some kind of -way, had to suffer his death-agony.... - - * * * * * - -I am not, I protest, different from other people. The war had severely -tried me, but my imagination remained unclouded, and my wound was not -of such a kind as to impair the normal working of a healthy average -brain. - -I am, therefore, thoroughly persuaded that the tense experience I -was to undergo, from that day, would have equally afflicted any man -confronted with the same calamitous circumstances. - -In spite of the sinister life of the battlefield, I was to be in -the presence of a form of death new and terrible in its duration. -It is hardly possible to live without at every moment visualising -what is going to happen at the next; and it was tragic to bear in -one’s consciousness a certainty which froze, at birth, every plan and -intention. Illness creates, in ordinary life, like conditions; but -their misery is tempered by hope, or even by the relief which comes -from resignation. On account of the war I was to undergo an agonising -experience that was unique, and to live by the side of a man to whom I -knew the frightful day of reckoning would suddenly come, and who had no -future except that which existed in hope and ignorance. - -This ignorance of ourselves is extremely precious, and makes us envy -that sovereign ignorance of the beasts and plants. It enabled Dauche -to live cheerfully on the edge of the abyss. I was there to assume the -burden of the tragedy, as if it were alien to the human rightness of -things that so much suffering should take place without a conscious -victim. - -The first days of November had come. Autumn was growing less -resplendent. We had not given up our walks. I was forced to continue -them in spite of myself, for dying Nature seemed to be giving intense -expression to our tragic friendship. - -We often climbed the hill which looked over the plain of Rheims. -Military life seemed, like the sap of the plants, to be getting stiff -and cold and withdrawing into the earth. The armies were preparing for -their winter sleep. The guns boomed wearily and without vigour. The -bareness of the trees revealed the signs of war which during summer -were hidden beneath the foliage. - -Autumn made me feel more acutely the fate that was to strike down my -friend, and Dauche himself made me realise with a cruel relentlessness -the fate of all men. The thought that this man was going to die weighed -so much on my mind that I was left without courage, weak and useless. -And, in fact, it was the helplessness of man which seemed to me to be -solely evident as I gazed at the curtain of poplar trees lit up with an -elusive glory. - -Then I was powerless before the terrible thought which haunted me: “He -will never see all this again.” - -There is in the memoirs of Saint-Simon a frightful page on the death -of Louis XIV. The historian cannot describe any of the gestures of the -dying monarch without repeating, with a persistence inspired by hate: -“And it was for the last time.” - -In the same way I constantly thought, when I saw my friend admiring the -beauty of autumn: “It’s for the last time....” But my thoughts, on the -contrary, were full of pain and compassion. - -After long hours at our outpost on the hill, we used to make up our -minds to return when the light of the rockets began to adorn the -twilight with pale constellations. - -Dauche appeared calm, cheerful, almost happy, as if he were having -continual glimpses of hope. - -He used to make plans: that was unendurable, and I felt so irritated -that I once said: - -“How happy you must be to dare to make plans at such a time as this!” - -The phrase was quite vague and general; but as soon as it was uttered -it appeared to me cruel and malevolent. I was trying to think how to -re-say it when Dauche replied: - -“As long as your heart beats isn’t that an adventure in itself? And, -besides, you must defy the future if you are not to fear it.” - -These words, so full of wisdom, perplexed me without affording me any -comfort. They only gave rise to another cause for anxiety. Did Dauche -have any inkling of his position? - -My mind was at that time so acutely affected by the secret that haunted -me that, for several days, the question tortured me. - -To-day, when the lapse of time enables me to look at things with the -necessary perspective, I can state that Dauche was unaware of the -calamity awaiting him. In fact, I never saw anything which made me -suppose he ever felt a twinge of uneasiness. I cannot recall any word, -allusion or weakness which, had he been aware, would not have failed to -escape him and reveal to me the depths of his consciousness. - -But on one occasion I was again assailed by doubt. A fellow-soldier in -my regiment, rescued by the Red Cross, lay dying, fatally wounded in -one of these numerous little scraps which have made Hill 108 the open -wound of our sector. We went to see him on his death-bed, and at once I -hastened to get Dauche away from the room, in which he was inclined to -linger. - -“He is, after all, better so,” I remarked, to break a painful silence. - -“D’you think so? Do you really think so?” the young man replied. - -A mysterious impulse, which was not mere chance, made us look into one -another’s eyes; and in those of my friend, usually so clear, I was -aware of something that quivered, elusive, frantic, like a wreck of a -ship lost in the desolate wastes of the sea. - -I endeavoured to change the conversation, and I succeeded. Dauche -turned back towards life, breathing deeply, and soon breaking into -shouts of laughter, in which I joined quite genuinely. - -In spite of this alarming incident, I had to recognise that Dauche -suspected nothing. What I saw in his eyes that day I would have, -without a doubt, surprised in every human look. Moreover, the flesh is -aware of things of which the mind is not, and the sharp anguish behind -that look was perhaps like one of those mute cries of the animal, which -are uttered without the inspiration or recognition of consciousness. - - * * * * * - -Dauche’s wound was now healed over. Mine required very little -attention. There was no difficulty about my recovery. I was waiting -for something else. I understood that perfectly when one day Dauche -asked me why I remained so long in the fighting zone. I hit upon a -reply in which I pleaded our great friendship and that I had few -attachments within the country. But when I faced the question myself I -saw quite well what was the real motive of my stay at S----. Always I -was waiting for that something to happen. - -In spite of these moods, the affection I had for Dauche continued to -grow. It had deepened with my pity, and the certainty that death would -shortly claim him contributed not a little to exalt it. I was by nature -inclined to be emotional, and I became passionately devoted to him. I -experienced all the apprehensions of a woman who tends a sick child, -and is filled with despair on the slightest symptoms or movements. - -There was in the park a tennis court, on which a few worm-eaten -wickets were lying. Dauche hit them often with some worn bowls which -the moisture was fast rotting. One morning, as he was throwing one -of these bowls, it crumbled into pieces between his fingers, causing -him to turn and stumble. At once he raised his hand to his brow, and I -thought he staggered. Already I was upon him, and I caught him in my -arms. - -“What is the matter with you?” he said, seeing my discomposed features. - -“I thought your head was giving you pain.” - -“No,” he replied smiling; “not at all. I was readjusting my bandages.” - -Another time, when I dropped a book I was running through very -abstractedly, he bent down, with his usual alacrity, to pick it up. -I thought he was slow in rising again, as if he was trying to master -an attack of giddiness. Leaning forward, I at once took the book from -his hands. His eyes were veiled with a thin reddish film. Perhaps I -imagined that, for it did not last a moment. - -“I forbid you,” I said, making a painful effort to be jocular--“I -forbid you to play any other part than that of a convalescent.” - -He looked at me, amazed, and asked: - -“Do you want me to believe that I am ill?” - -This reply showed me how tactless I had been, and I saw that I must -carefully take myself in hand if I were to hide the anxiety which -obsessed me. - -Henceforth I was never free from it. I noticed everything my friend ate -or drank, not daring to advise him, and itching sometimes to do so. - -I got clear away by myself and read in secret some medical treatise -which tended rather to lead me astray than instruct me. I made a -thousand resolutions and plans and rejected them in turn. They would -all have been ridiculous, or even comic, if death had not been at hand, -sacred and solemn. - -That night I awoke startled several times, and I listened to the -breathing of my companion, convinced, with the slightest pause, the -slightest change in the rhythm, that he was dying--that he was dead. - -We had not given up our walks, but I had abruptly shortened them, -without saying why. I discovered a thousand round-about ways in -order to avoid a rocky or slippery road; I pushed aside the branches -that grew across the paths with a care that could not fail to arouse -suspicion. Sometimes, in the course of a little excursion, feeling -that we had gone far from the village, I suddenly experienced an -overpowering terror which made me silent and stupid. - -I had given up chess, excusing myself on the ground of fatigue, -which soon indeed was no longer feigned. A time came when all these -emotions seriously affected my health. I kept my bed for several days -without being at all rested. I would rather have been left to myself -absolutely; but the thought of Dauche going out alone and not able to -take care of himself was unendurable. I could not imagine that the -fatality was to take place without my being present, because I was -always expectant, waiting.... - -So he always stayed with me, and used to pass the time by reading out -to me. I often wished to stop him and, being unable to say that I -felt anxious on his account, I complained of my head. The thing is -unbelievable. It was I who looked like the man who was doomed, and it -was he who seemed to be in full possession of his strength. I was right -in what I said: I was undergoing on his behalf the pangs of death. - -One night, during his first sleep, he uttered a kind of moan so -strangely animal in quality, that at once I was on my feet, and I gazed -at him for a long time in the glow of the night-light. - -The emotion I felt that night was mingled with something like an -intense desire for freedom. I was horrified to discover that my sick -soul not only waited for the inevitable thing, but was dominated by a -longing for the end. - - * * * * * - -I got up about the beginning of December, and our first walk was in the -pinewoods that clustered on the sandy hills south of the main road from -Rheims to Soissons. - -The afternoon was coming to a close. A wild west wind raged through -this war-scarred valley which, from ancient times, had borne the -ravaging ebb and flow of invasion. - -We were walking side by side, feeling rather chilled and silent, given -up to those formless thoughts that find no expression in the spoken -word and which are of the very colour and fabric of the soul. - -We got rather warm in climbing a hill, and when we got to the top I -suggested we should sit and rest ourselves on the trunk of a beech tree -that lay mutilated on the ground, and from which oozed a yellow liquid -streaked with purple. - -I was worn out, without hope, without courage, having lost all interest -in my doings, in the condition of a man whose will fails him and who -gives up the agonising struggle. - -Is it possible that there can be, between two beings, relations so -mysteriously intimate? Is it true that it was I who on that day gave up -the struggle? - -Overwhelmed with misery, I stood up quite involuntarily, and, with -unseeing eyes, I gazed towards the horizon at the leaping flight of -hills bristling with trees. - -Was it really a queer noise that made me turn round? Wasn’t it rather -a shock or a lacerating sensation taking place within me? The fact is -that, all of a sudden, I knew that behind me something was happening. -And then my heart began to beat violently, for it could only be the -thing--the frightful and expected thing.... - -It was! - -Dauche had slipped from the tree-trunk. It was some time before I -recognised him; his whole body was shaken by convulsions--hideous, -inhuman, like an animal struck down by the butcher’s mallet. His feet -and his hands were contracted and twitching. His face was purple and -forced round towards the right shoulder. He foamed at the mouth and -showed his white eyeballs. - -I feel a kind of shame in describing this scene. I had often been -in the presence of death, and the war had made me live in horrible -intimacy with it; but I had never seen anything so frightful and so -bestial. I, in my turn, began to tremble, as if the shiver of the -victim was contagious, and my feeling of despair and nausea grew more -intense. - -That lasted for an eternity of time, during which I never moved. I -let death do its work and I waited until it had finished. Gradually, -however, I became aware of a lull, and the grip on the victim seemed to -relax. - -Dauche’s body remained rigid, inert. A feeble moan escaped his lips. - -At the same moment I recovered from my stupor and, in spite of my -paralysed will, I set about removing from this place what had once been -my friend. - -In raising him from the ground I suffered terrible pain. His muscles -were contracted and he was terribly heavy. I caught hold of him with -my arms round his body and carried him with his breast on mine, like a -sleeping child. A thin stream of frothy saliva oozed from the corners -of his mouth, as from the snouts of cattle in harness. His head began -to sway heavily. - -Night was falling. I had to put my burden down every few yards, then -take it up again. - -My wound caused me acute suffering, but my mind was benumbed and my -movements almost involuntary. - -I do not know how I came within sight of the Château. On reaching the -foot of the hill, suddenly, in the bend of an avenue, I met the doctor, -who had been taking a solitary walk. It was almost dark; I did not see -the expression on his face. - -I placed the body on the ground, kneeled down beside it, my face -streaming with perspiration, and said, “Here he is.” Then I began to -weep. - -There were cries, shouts and lights. They carried away Dauche’s body, -and I was carried too. - - * * * * * - -It was really two days later that Dauche died. I did not wish to see -him again. I had been placed in a room far removed from him, where I -lived in a kind of semi-delirium, asking from hour to hour, “Has the -end come? Has it ended?” - -But I knew when the end came before I was told, and I let myself -fall into a dark dreamless sleep, of which I still retain the most -despairing impression. - -It appears that Dauche was buried in the little cemetery skirted by the -birch and dead fir trees that are to be seen at the village of C.... -in an arid field of white sand. I never could get myself to visit him -there. But I carried away with me a more sombre grave that time will -not efface. - -I left the Château de S---- towards the middle of December. I was weak -and enfeebled, weary with the thought that it was now my own life I -must live, and undergo for myself the struggle of my own life and -death. - - - - - COUSIN’S PROJECTS - - -Whenever I had a minute to spare I went and sat at the foot of Cousin’s -bed. He said to me: - -“See, there’s room for you now that they’ve cut my legs off. One would -think they’d done it on purpose.” - -This man of forty had a young and delicate face. On “shaving days,” -when the razor had done its work, it did one good to see the -everlasting, trustful smile of Cousin. It was a wonderful smile--rather -delicate, rather ironical, rather candid, rather convulsive; the very -smile of the race, made with lips discoloured by the loss of blood, and -features drawn by long and weary effort. In spite of everything, Cousin -had a confiding look--the air of one who trusted absolutely the whole -world, and especially himself, because he lived, because he was Cousin. - -One leg remained to him which, to speak frankly, was worth nothing -at all. The joint of the knee had been smashed by the explosion of a -torpedo. It was a bad business, of which people spoke in low voices, -shaking their heads. - -But, what matter? Cousin did not put his trust in his legs. Already he -had abandoned one; he did not seem to care much about a leg more or -less. Cousin, I think, did not put his trust in any particular part -of his chest, or his head, or his limbs. With or without legs, he was -himself, and in his clear green eyes burnt a generous flame that was -the expression of a pure soul. - -Whilst I was sitting on his bed Cousin told me all about himself. He -always took up the thread of events at the point where the war had -broken it off, and he had a natural inclination to unite the happy past -of Peace to a future not less delicious. Across the troubled and bloody -abyss he loved to stretch the life of yesterday until it touched the -life of to-morrow. Never a verb in the past tense, but an eternal and -miraculous present. - -“I am a dealer in _objets d’art_,” he told me. “It’s a profitable -business when one understands it. I trade mostly in candelabras and -chandeliers. I work with Cohen and Co., with Marguillé, with Smithson, -with all the great houses. Now, I have my own special way of working: I -keep my client to myself, and I undertake to make him understand what -he wants and to deliver the goods. - -“Suppose that a M. Barnabé comes and asks me for a drawing-room -chandelier. I say, ‘Right! I see what you want’; and I jump into a -taxi. I get to Messrs. Cohen’s. ‘It’s 25 per cent. commission. Is that -understood?’ Let us imagine that Cohen makes difficulties. Right! I -run downstairs, jump into the taxi again, and go to Smithson’s.... -Certainly it can be an expensive game. Supposing that Barnabé goes back -on me--well, then, I am left with the taxi to pay for.... But it’s -interesting! It’s a trade that keeps you going; it amuses you; you need -to have discrimination.” - -Looking at the animated face of Cousin, I smiled. His cheeks were like -imitation marble, not very good; he had the swollen eyes of a man who -had lain too long in bed with fever, and whose “inside” was not very -healthy. At forty one may feel one’s heart young, but one’s flesh does -not react from the effects of a torpedo as it does at twenty. I looked -at the legless Cousin with astonishment while he explained to me how, -in his trade, one rushed upstairs at Cohen’s; how one jumped about at -Marguillé’s; how one ran down Smithson’s stairs. - -A day came when Cousin’s leg began to bleed. The blood filtered through -the bandage in great drops, like scarlet sweat, or like morning dew on -the leaves of a cabbage. During four or five days Cousin’s wound bled -nearly every day. Every time he was carried away in haste; they put all -sorts of things into his wound, and the blood ceased to flow. Every -time Cousin came back to his bed a little paler, and he said to me as -he passed: - -“There, you see ... one never gets any peace.” - -One morning I went to sit beside Cousin, who was making his toilette. -He was out of breath. In spite of the puffiness of his face, one felt -it had grown thin, formless, devoured by an internal malady. Really, it -reminded one of a fruit rotten with vermin. - -“I have,” he told me, “good news of my boys--twelve and thirteen years -old. They’re getting on! Didn’t I tell you? I am thinking of taking -on, as well as the candelabras, clocks and chimneypieces. With the -connection that I have, I mean to do great things. One must always aim -high. _Dame!_ I shall have to get a move on. But I’ll manage, I’ll -manage. What one needs is to know the styles....” - -I tried to smile, without being able to control a contraction of -the heart. Cousin seemed uplifted by a sort of lyrical ecstasy. He -brandished his towel in one hand, and his soap in the other. He -described his great future career as if he saw it spread out, written -in big letters on the whiteness of the sheets. - -On the sheet, which I was just looking at, there appeared suddenly a -blot--a red blot which enlarged itself rapidly into a terrifying and -splendid stain. - -“Oh, dear!” murmured Cousin, “it’s bleeding again. One never gets any -peace.” - -I had called for help. A waterproof sheet was folded round Cousin’s -thigh. - -He said, “It’s all right; it’s all right. No need to worry.” - -He said this in a voice that was emphatic but very weak--a voice made -with the lips alone. - -The blood ceased to flow, and they carried Cousin once again to the -operating-table. There, he had a moment’s peace. The surgeons were -washing their hands. I heard them consulting in low voices on Cousin’s -case, and this made my heart beat and dried the tongue in my mouth. - -Cousin saw me a long way off, and made me a little sign with his -eyelids. I came close to him. He said to me: - -“One never gets any peace. Ah! what was it I was saying to you? Yes, I -was talking to you about styles. My strong point is that I understand -the different styles--the Louis XV, the Empire, the Dutch, the Modern, -and all the others. But it’s difficult. I want to explain to you----” - -“Go to sleep, Cousin,” said the surgeon softly. - -“I will explain all that to you when these gentlemen have done with me, -when I wake up.” - -Then, submissively, he began to breathe in the ether. - - * * * * * - -It is now a year since all this happened. I often think of the -explanations that Cousin never gave me--that he will never give me. - - - - - THE LADY IN GREEN - - -I do not know why I loved Rabot. Every morning as I went to and fro at -my usual work in the ward, I saw Rabot, or rather Rabot’s head, or less -still Rabot’s eye, hiding in a hurly-burly of sheets. He was a little -like a guinea-pig that rubs its nose in the straw and watches you -anxiously. - -Every time I passed I made a familiar sign to Rabot. This sign -consisted in shutting the left eye energetically and pressing the lips -together. At once Rabot’s eye shut itself, digging a thousand little -wrinkles in the withered face of the sick man. And that was all; we had -exchanged our salutations and our confidences. - -Rabot never laughed. He had spent his babyhood in a foundling hospital -and had not had enough milk. This under-feeding in infancy can never be -made up for afterwards. - -Rabot was sandy-haired, with a pale complexion splashed with freckles. -He had so little brain that he looked like a rabbit or a bird. Directly -a stranger spoke to him his underlip began to tremble and his chin -wrinkled all over like a walnut. You had first of all to explain to him -that you were not going to beat him. - -Poor Rabot! I would have given anything to see him laugh. Everything, -on the contrary, seemed to conspire to make him cry: there were the -terrible endless dressings that had to be renewed every day for months; -then he was compelled to lie so quiet and motionless that he was never -able to play with his comrades. And after all, the fact remained -that Rabot had never learned to play at all, and really was not much -interested in anything. - -I was, I think, the only one who became at all intimate with him; and, -as I said before, this intimacy consisted chiefly in shutting my left -eye when I passed near his bed. - -Rabot did not smoke. When cigarettes were handed round he would join in -with the others and play with them for a moment, moving his great thin -fingers, deformed and emaciated. Long illness seems to rob the fingers -of manual labourers of all beauty and significance: directly they lose -their hardness and their healthy appearance they look like nothing at -all in the world. - -I think that Rabot would have willingly offered his good cigarettes to -his neighbours; but it is so difficult to talk sometimes, especially -to give something to some one. The cigarettes got slowly covered with -dust on the table, and Rabot lay flat on his back, quite thin and -straight, like a bit of straw carried away by the torrent of war, and -understanding nothing of what was happening all around him. - -One day a staff officer came into the ward and went up to Rabot. - -“That is the man,” he said. “Well, I have brought him the Military -Medal and the Croix de Guerre.” - -He made Rabot sign a little paper and left him alone with his -playthings. Rabot did not laugh. He put the case out on the bedclothes -in front of him, and he looked at it from nine o’clock in the morning -till three in the afternoon. - -At three the officer returned, and said: - -“I made a mistake. The decorations were not for Rabot, but for Raboux.” - -Then he took the jewel-case, tore up the receipt, and went away. - -Rabot cried from three o’clock in the afternoon till nine o’clock in -the evening. Then he went to sleep. The next morning he began to cry -again. M. Gossin, who is a good Director, went to Headquarters and came -back with a medal and a cross just like the last; he even made Rabot -sign another paper. - -Rabot stopped crying. But his face was still haunted by a shadow--the -shadow of a constant dread, as if he feared that one day or other they -would come and take away all his treasures. - -Some weeks passed. I often looked at Rabot’s face, and I tried to -imagine what laughter would make of it. I imagined and looked in vain; -it was obvious that Rabot did not know how to laugh, and that his face -was not made that way. - -It was then that the lady in green arrived. - -She came in one fine morning through one of the doors, like everybody -else. On the other hand, she was not like everybody else: she was -more like an angel, a queen, or a doll. She was not dressed like the -nurses who worked in the wards, or like the mothers and wives who came -to visit their wounded husbands and sons. She was not even like the -women one meets in the streets. She was much more beautiful, much more -majestic. She made one think of the fairies of one’s childhood, or of -those splendid forms one sees on great coloured calendars under which -the artist has written “Reveries,” or “Melancholy,” or “Poetry.” She -was surrounded by well-dressed, good-looking officers, who attended -to her slightest word, and who lavished on her the most extravagant -compliments. - -“Come in, then, Madame,” said one of them, “since you wish to see some -of our wounded.”... - -She made two steps into the room, stopped short, and said in a deep -voice: - -“The poor things!” - -Every one in the ward opened his eyes and pricked up his ears. Mery -put down his pipe; Tarrissant changed his crutches from one hand to -the other, which, with him, is a sign of emotion; Domenge and Burnier -stopped playing and pressed their cards against their bodies to hide -them. Poupot did not move, because he is paralysed, but one could -easily see that he was listening with all his might. - -The lady in green went first to Sorri, the negro. - -“Your name is Sorri?” she asked, reading his card. - -The negro moved his head; the lady in green went on in a voice as sweet -and melodious as an actress: - -“You have come to fight for France, Sorri; and you have left your -beautiful country--the fresh and smiling oasis in an ocean of burning -sand. Ah, Sorri! how beautiful are the African evenings, at the hour -when the young woman returns along the avenue of palm trees, carrying -on her head an aromatic pitcher full of honey and cocoanut milk!” - -The officers murmured their appreciation, and Sorri, who understands -French, repeated, nodding his head, “Cocoa! cocoa!” - -Already the lady in green was gliding away over the tiled floor. She -came to Rabot, and sat down on the end of his bed, like a swallow on a -telegraph wire. - -“Rabot,” she said, “you are a brave man!” - -Rabot did not answer; but in his usual way he blinked his eyes, like a -child who fears a blow. - -“Ah, Rabot!” said the lady in green, “what gratitude do we not owe -you, who have guarded safely for us our dear France! But, Rabot, you -have already gained the great reward. Glory! The joy of battle! The -exquisite agony of plunging forward, your bayonet shining in the sun! -The pleasure of plunging the iron of vengeance into the bleeding side -of the enemy! And then the suffering--divine suffering to be endured -for the sake of all; the sacred wound which, of a hero, makes a god! -Ah! wonderful memories, Rabot!” - -The lady in green ceased, and a religious silence reigned in the ward. - -Then something unexpected happened. - -Rabot stopped looking like himself. All his features contracted, -changing in an almost tragic way. A hoarse noise burst forth in spasms -from his fleshless chest, and all the world realised that Rabot was -laughing. - -He laughed for over three-quarters of an hour. Long after the lady in -green had gone, Rabot was still laughing--in fits, as one coughs, with -a rattling noise. - -After that the life of Rabot changed a little. When he was on the verge -of tears and misery one could sometimes distract his attention and get -a little laugh out of him if one said at the right moment: - -“Rabot! they are going to bring the lady in green to see you.” - - - - - IN THE VINEYARD - - -Between Epernay and Château-Thierry, the Marne flows through an -exquisite valley, whose gay hills are rich in orchards and vine -plantations, and crowned with verdure like woodland goddesses, and -abundantly adorned with those plants which have made France a country -without price, beautiful and noble. - -It is the valley of rest. Jaulgonne, Dormans, Châtillons, Œuilly, -Port-à-Binson--those old smiling villages can never be repaid for -lavishing such hours of forgetful repose, that refresh like spring -water, on the exhausted troops leaving Verdun for the once quiet -sectors of the Aisne. - -During the summer of 1916 the ---- Corps was once again concentrated on -the Marne, ready to take its share in the immense and bloody sacrifice -on the Somme front. Our battalion was patiently waiting the word which -would send them up the line; as they waited, they passed the time in -calculating, from the top of the hills, the number of waggons that -could be seen struggling along far down in the valley, and as usual -they made all sorts of conjectures. - -Most of the time we passed in the fields with our friends, avoiding -serious thought as much as possible, and letting the body enjoy to the -full the repose which offered itself far from the murderous struggles -on the front. - -There had been a few days of dazzling heat, then the storm had come -with a thundering sky, the clouds wildly charging, and a wide sweeping -wind carrying along with it the dust or the mist. - -Late one afternoon we happened to be on the road which rises gently -from Chavenay to the copses of the south. - -There were three of us. Conversation flagged, and, imperceptibly, we -had each fallen back on our secret thoughts--thoughts that were full of -pain, and which the climbing road seemed to make harder to bear. - -“Let’s sit down on this bank,” said a voice softly. - -Without replying, we found ourselves all at once lying in the -silver-weed. We tore it up abstractedly, like men who are obliged to -work their muscles in order to think more freely. - -A little grape-vine was growing at our feet and reached, with two -graceful efforts, a ridge of earth gleaming with the freshness of -wet grass. It was a neat, pure little vine of Champagne, bursting -with juice, cared for like a divine and sacred thing. No wild plants; -nothing but the stubbly vine-stock and the soil--that rich soil which -the rains wash away and which, each season, the peasants carry up -again, on their backs, right to the summit of the hills. - -From amid this blend of green herbage we saw suddenly emerging an old -thin woman, with a rusty complexion and hair white and disordered. In -one hand she held a pail full of ashes, and with the other scattered -handfuls of it on the feet of the vines. - -On seeing us, she stopped, and adjusted with a dusty finger a coil of -hair blown about by the wind. She stared at us. Then she spoke: - -“What’s your regiment, you others?” - -“The 110th line, Madame.” - -“Mine did not belong to that regiment.” - -“You have boys in the army?” - -“Ah! I had once.” - -There was silence, broken by the cry of animals, the gusts of the high -wind, and the hissing murmur of the shaken foliage. The old woman -scattered a few handfuls of the ashes, and then came near and began in -a stumbling voice that often lost itself in the wind: - -“I once had boys in the army. Now I have none. The two youngest are -dead. I have one remaining--a poor wretch, who is hardly a soldier now.” - -“He is wounded, perhaps?” - -“Yes, he is wounded. He has lost both arms.” - -The old woman put her bucket of ashes on the ground, removed some grass -from her waist-belt and tied a wayward vine branch to a supporting -stick, and, standing erect again, she exclaimed: - -“He has been wounded as few have been. He has lost his two arms, and -in his thigh there is a hole big enough to contain a small bowl of -milk. For ten days he was on the verge of death. I went to see him, and -I said to him: - -“‘Clovis, you are not going to leave me all alone?’--for I must tell -you they had been for a long while without a father. - -“And he always used to reply: - -“‘I’ll be better to-morrow.’ - -“No one was gentler than this boy.” - -We remained silent. One of us at length murmured: - -“Your boy is brave, Madame!” - -The old woman, who was looking at her grape-vine, turned her dim eyes -towards us and said in an abrupt tone: - -“Brave! of course! My boys could not be anything else!” - -A laugh escaped her--a laugh almost of pride, a strangled laugh that -lost itself at once in the wind. Then she appeared to talk absently: - -“My poor unfortunate son will some day be able to look forward to -marriage, for there is no one so gentle as he is. But my two youngest, -my two little ones! It’s too much! Oh, God, it’s too much!” - -We could find nothing to say. There was nothing to say. With hair -flying in the wind, she began again to scatter the ashes, like a sower -of death. Her lips were compressed, and in her face there was a mixture -of despair, bewilderment and defiance. - -“What are you doing this for, Madame?” I asked, somewhat at random. - -“You see, I’m mixing the ashes with the sulphate. It’s the season. I -shall never finish: I’ve too much to do, too much to do.” - -We had got up, as if we felt ashamed of disturbing this tireless worker -in her task. Moved by a common impulse, we took off our hats to her. - -“Good-night,” she said, “and good luck, too, you others.” - -We climbed up the hill to the very edge of the wood without saying a -word. Then we turned round and had a last look at the valley. - -There on the hillside, in a mosaic of plots, as it were, the vine -plantation could be seen, with the old woman, ever so small, who -was still sowing the ashes in the wind heavy with rain clouds. The -gentle country maintained in face of the stormy heavens an attitude -of innocence and resignation. Here and there, humble villages that -glistened seemed to be set like coloured jewels in the earth. And right -in the fields that were dressed for the needs of August, small specks -that moved could be seen: a race of old men were at grips with the -soil. - - - - - THE RAILWAY JUNCTION - - -To die is simple enough; only you should have the good taste to die in -some selected spot--unless, of course, you are in China, where the dead -are supreme and exercise almost more authority than the living. But in -our country you have got to die properly, otherwise the living will -look askance at you and say, “What does this corpse want? There’s no -room for it here.” - -In 1915 I was going through a kind of probation period at the railway -junction of X., and I went on duty two or three times a week. Going -on duty meant being on the spot and doing small insignificant jobs, -being on guard or making a note of what was passing. Usually the man in -charge used to be found in some gloomy place leading to the lamp-room. -There he endured the long weary hours without interruption, and watched -the military trains passing, full of men who had undergone six months’ -campaigning. They sang while they journeyed from one hell to another, -because in war men do not let their thoughts travel far; as soon -as they have got away from the guns they abandon themselves without -restraint to the joy of being alive. - -One Saturday night I was lying on a thick mattress which served as a -bed. It was alive with mice. I felt these amiable little beasts at a -finger’s length from my ears, and I listened with wandering attention -to the noises coming from the junction. They were the sounds of a -great railway station: whistles, shrieks, puffing engines, cries of -the winches and the cranes, the vibrations of the taut iron rails, -the sharp clatter of the signals, the repeated clash of the buffers -of colliding trucks; and in the midst of it all, the clamour and the -rhythm of military movements, the swing of a detachment on the march, -the challenges of the sentries, commands, bell-ringings--all those -things which indicate the forcible possession by armed might of the -industrial organism. - -My thoughts were running along these lines when I saw Corporal -Bonardent entering my dug-out, blinding me with the flare of his -acetylene lamp. - -“Lieutenant!” - -“I’m all attention, Bonardent.” - -“Some poor devil in the food transport has just got himself done in, on -the semi-permanent way 17. I’m told it’s a dreadful----” - -“Let’s go there at once, Corporal!” - -Two men were waiting for me outside with a stretcher. It was a glorious -night, upon which the pale and flickering lights of the station hardly -made an impression. - -“It’s at La Folie,” said Bonardent: “it’s rather far from here.” - -La Folie is a road-crossing, about a mile off. I asked a porter how to -get there, and we started. - -What is really amazing, in a large station, is that the organising -imperative will which directs the rush of moving things lies hidden -behind an apparent state of chaos and entanglement. We began to walk -along lines of trucks that never ended. They seemed to have been left -there and forgotten since the beginning of the war--rolling-stock -that appeared to have had its day, with stiffened axles and couplings -devoured by rust; but suddenly our lamp would light up an open door, -and some soldiers were seen in a heap, sleeping on the straw, or there -were cattle with stupefied looks. A few compartments had been turned -into travelling offices, where clerks drudged through a mass of papers -in a light reflected from a drawing-room lamp-shade; one felt that the -terrible grasp of the administration had closed over the railways, just -as its monstrous grip was in possession from the deep-dug trenches to -the outfitting shops far away in the Pyrenees. Sometimes, crossing -wide, dark spaces, we slipped between two trains that seemed petrified -with eternal sleep; but all at once, though no one could be seen, the -trains began to move towards each other, their ends clashing with a -terrific clatter. Farther on we had to stop while hospital trains were -passing. They afforded little comfort then, and there came to us, as -the trains went by, a broadside of heart-rending coughs and puffs -of the saturated chloride air with which the hospitals reeked. In -addition, there were masses of fat mortars lashed on trucks, heaps of -kitchens on wheels, and machinery whose uses one could not possibly -guess, and all sorts of munitions of war, which night made fantastic. -Heavy circular armour protected the cowering engines snorting in the -pale light of the arc lamps. There were also, reminding one of former -times, suburban trains that bore along drowsy passengers and express -trains that swept over the intricate lines swift as a lash of the whip. -In a word, a tumultuous roar, in which military movements clashed with -the routine of civilian life. - -At last we arrived at La Folie. It was an inextricable network of -railways, discs, switches and metal cables. Three aged railway workers -were living there in a shed. They were in shirt sleeves, and were -turning the cranks, pulling the switches, directing with an orderly -calm born of experience all the whirling forces which accumulated in -that spot. They made me think of the foremen in past times who used to -carry on when the managing directors were indulging in the pleasures of -social life. - -Above the rumbling noises a telegraph bell could be heard patiently -ringing. - -“We have come for the A.S.C. man,” said Bonardent. - -“Oh! for that poor devil. He is there, under the sack and all around. -My God!” - -We entered the zone occupied by the corpse. I say “zone” deliberately, -for the poor wretch had been cut up and scattered like a handful of -grain at seed-time. - -“God in Heaven!” said a railwayman with white hair; “why did the poor -man come off the truck without looking round first? He made a terrible -mistake. Here there is too much traffic for anyone to leave one’s post.” - -The face of the dead man was intact, but sixty trucks had passed over -his body, splitting it diagonally from the feet to the shoulders. We -picked up, in one place and another, the remains--bleeding pieces of -flesh, intestines, and, as I well remember, a hand clutching a piece -of cheese. Death had struck the man as he was eating. - -The extraordinary thing was that his overcoat remained whole: it -concealed from view the hideous annihilation of the body. Lifting it -slightly, I saw his discipline book, on which one could decipher the -name Lamailleux. - -“I think,” I said, “we’ve got him all now.” - -An electric lamp, perched high up, gave a fitful light and seemed to be -suffering from irritating twitches. - -I decided that we should take a short cut back across “The -Artillery”--a huge siding where munition trains had been shunted. But, -as we got near the railways, a sentry appeared: - -“Halt! Who goes there?” - -None of us had thought of the password. The territorial barred the way -with his rifle. He was adamant: - -“I am sorry, Lieutenant, but you must go another way: those are my -orders.” - -A long turning brought us before another sentry. - -“The password, please! You can’t go through ‘The Artillery’ without it.” - -“My friend, we are taking away a dead body.” - -I raised the corner of the sacking and uncovered the bluish face. -In the light of the acetylene a portion of the pale skin with some -tattooed marks could be seen through the chaotic heap of clothes that -were saturated with blood. A look of horror passed over the guard’s -face, but he said again: - -“Lieutenant, go along the main line! It’s not possible this way.” - -We plunged back again along the network of rails, disturbed by the -clatter of the signals and the rumbling convoys. Sometimes the -exhausted stretcher-bearers stopped and placed their burden on the -stony embankment and carefully spat on their hands. Trains went by, -and we could see, in the bright compartments, women reading, tightly -clasping beautiful children who had fallen asleep. - -At last the station lights came into view. - -“Where are we taking the corpse?” I asked Bonardent. - -“I don’t know, sir.” - -I finally decided to present myself at the _Petite Vitesse_. A room -there had been taken to receive the wreckage cast off from the swirling -activity of the railway station--lost trunks, unemployed men, riderless -beasts, stores with no destination, and, when necessary, corpses. A -gendarme was smoking a cigarette in front of the door. - -“Lieutenant, there’s no room here to-day. It’s full of fugitives from -the north, with their kids and packages.” - -I uttered a few words of encouragement to my men, and made up my mind -to try the “draft-pavilion.” It was occupied by detachments that were -rejoining their corps. The men were sleeping in heaps on the straw. - -“Oh! you must see it’s quite impossible to put it here with the men,” -said an adjutant, shaking his head. He added, as if to excuse himself: - -“Put yourself in my place, Lieutenant. I have no authority.... I can’t -take charge of a corpse without orders....” - -I sat down on a stone. The stretcher-bearers, worn out, mopped their -brows and uttered the word “Drink!” I looked at the shapeless mass of -Lamailleux, which seemed quite indifferent to this last cross it had to -bear, and it waited for its eternal resting-place with the sovereign -patience of death. - -“I don’t suppose you are well acquainted with the station,” said the -Adjutant to me; “but there’s a guard-room there for the transport men -stationed here. I’ll go and see.” - -I let him go and began to smoke, contemplating the night, which was -warm and glorious. The tranquillity of the objects seemed, like the -agitation of the men, to say distinctly: “Why is this man upsetting -us all with this useless corpse?” And an insect, ecstatic in the rare -grass, emitted a sharpening crescendo of sound like a little being who -imagines that the whole earth exists and was made for him. - -The Adjutant emerged from the darkness. - -“It’s most unfortunate. A man is locked up there for drunkenness: he -has been sick all over the place.” - -“Well, all right! Let’s go and see the station-master.” - -He was asleep. His deputy was reading the illustrated papers. While -I stated my case he asked me to advise him what pictures he should -cut out to stick on the walls from among the little women of the _Vie -fantaisiste_, of which he seemed to be an inveterate reader. As I -remained surly, he said, as if in parenthesis: - -“As for this dreadful business, it is an awful pity that the hospital -is at the other end of the town. You can’t go there at this time of -night. Put the thing in a truck until to-morrow morning, old chap!” - -Having, by this wonderful suggestion, relieved himself of all -responsibility, the young man stuck his nose again into the illustrated -paper. - -At that time they had not erected at the railway stations those large -hospitals of wood and cardboard which are to be seen everywhere -now. The idea of the truck I did not entertain for two seconds. In -imagination I saw this improvised mortuary starting out during the -night and taking away the corpse. It was a mad idea! - -I went to the postmen: they were sorting out the letters. They were -humming: “It is I who am Nénesse.” There wasn’t room for a rat in their -hutch, and at once they regarded the question as quite beyond their -jurisdiction.... - -I came out overcome with a kind of annoyance. Really, nobody took the -slightest interest in my dead man. I muttered to myself: “Why, why, -Lamailleux, did you let yourself die in a place where corpses are -not wanted, and at a moment when no one has time to deal with them?” -But even as I said that, I felt none the less a kind of link being -established between me and this wreckage, and I looked at it as at -something which puzzles you, but which belongs to you in spite of -everything. - -“Where shall we put the poor man?” said Bonardent. - -Then the simplest solution struck me. - -“Follow me,” I said. - -Quietly we went back towards the lamp-room. - -“There’s no room there, Lieutenant.” - -“Proceed, Corporal.” - -I got the stretcher carried into the room reserved for my use. - -“Now, put it there, alongside my mattress, and go to bed.” - -The men went out, shaking their heads with amazement. I remained alone -with Lamailleux and lay down on the sheets. War had already taught me -to live and to sleep in the company of the dead, and I was surprised -that I had not, from the first, thought of so natural a solution. - -For a long time, in the light of a candle, I looked at the frightful -heap which was my night companion. There was no smell yet. I blew out -the candle and could think at leisure. - -From the stretcher there fell softly every second a drop of something -which must have been blood. For a long time I counted the drops, -thinking of many things that were as mournful as the epoch I lived in. -Loud whistles pierced the blackness, and I had already counted several -hundreds of the drops when I fell into a sleep that was like that of my -comrade--undisturbed by dreams. - - - - - THE HORSE-DEALERS - - -They have all been summoned to report at noon, though many of them will -not be wanted until evening. - -There they stand round the entrance--like a dark puddle, one would -almost say; others are scattered about in the garden, gloomily walking -up and down. - -It is an afternoon of February. The heavy and anxious sky is surcharged -in one limitless stretch. It appears to bear no relation to the little -events that happen down here, so melancholy is its mood. The wind is -surly. It must know what they are doing far away, but it says nothing; -not even the deepest rumble of the cannon is borne along the breeze; we -are far away, and must forget.... - -The wind swirls in between the buildings, sweeps back on itself, -enraged like a wild beast caught in a trap. - -The men pay no attention to the sky, or to the wind, or to the chilling -light of winter; they are thinking of themselves. - -They do not know each other; they have been brought here by a cause -which is common to all of them. They are so bewildered and exhausted -that they cannot even pretend to be indifferent. - -On a closer view, there is about them something that sets them all into -a class apart: a lack of physical vitality, a sickly look about the -body, too much flesh or too little, eyes blazing with fever, sometimes -an obvious infirmity, more often a wan skin faintly coloured with very -poor blood. Never a joyous relaxation of healthy muscles: all of them -have the slow, dragging movement of the snail. - -Finding themselves herded together an unendurable thought, some have -started a conversation to satisfy their pride; others are silent, too -proud to talk. - -There are wage-earners there, professional men, and long-haired -intellectuals whose bitter looks are veiled by spectacles. - -Everybody smokes. Never has it been so clear that tobacco is an anodyne -for soul sickness. - -From time to time, two or three men reach the garden gate and -disappear for a few minutes. They return wiping their mouths, their -breath reeking with wine. - -Every few minutes the door opens. A gendarme appears and calls out some -names. Those who are called push their way through the crowd, as if -drawn by threads. - -Their mouths twitch a little at the corners. They affect a detached, -bored, or chaffing expression, and they vanish under the arch. - -They no longer see the February sky; no longer do they breathe the -cold odorous wind: they are pushed one against the other into a filthy -corridor, from the walls of which--painted Heaven knows how!--oozes a -thick, slimy sweat. - -They remain there herded for some time, until another door opens. -A gendarme counts them off by the dozen, like fruit or cattle, and -hustles them into a large hall where the Thing is to take place.... - -At once a sickening smell of man makes them gasp. They cannot at first -see very clearly what all the movement going on there is about. But -they are left no time to think. - -What indeed is the good of thinking at a time when an immense lamenting -cry escapes from the entire stricken nation--a desperate call, the -death-rattle of a drowning people? - -Why think? Does that frenzied, roaring whirlwind which lays waste the -old continent, does _that_ think? No, it is not indeed the time for -thought. - -The men have to undress quickly and fall in--in rows. - -The hall is huge and forbidding. Its walls are decorated with texts, -and there are busts of unknown men; in the centre a table, as at a -tribunal. - -Some big-wig, white-haired and rather arrogant, is enthroned there; -he seems exhausted, but pertinacious. He is assisted by some obscure -supernumeraries. - -In front of the table, two doctors in white overalls--one old and -wizened, the other still young, with a preoccupied, listless look. - -The men advance in single files towards each of the doctors in white: -they march one behind the other like suppliants proceeding to the altar -of an angered God. They do not know what to do with their arms. - -They are not the flower of the race: for a long time now the finest -men in the land have been living up to their waists in mud, alert as -cats to the dangers threatening them. It is long since the farmer found -anything in his winnow except chaff and dust, and it is there still -that he searches with an avaricious hand for a few scattered grains. - -The men are not cold: hot blasts of air come rushing along the floor -from a blazing heating apparatus. Yet many of the men shiver. Balancing -sometimes on one hip, sometimes on another, they fold and unfold their -arms, then drop them, failing to strike any attitude. They are ashamed -of their nakedness. - -In the corner, near the door, a gendarme is pushing and hustling a -thin, frail little worker who is too slow in undressing: he thought he -need not pull off his socks and pants. He is forced to do so, however, -and he discloses two unwashed feet. - -The men in overalls work with feverish haste, like scene-shifters on -the stage. - -They ask short, succinct questions, and at once they feel and press -with their quickly moving hands. - -The victim is rather pale. A warm dew comes out in beads on his -temples. He mumbles and speaks entreatingly. Then, examined once again, -he replies with more assurance. - -“You only suffer from that. Do you cough?” - -“Yes.” - -“You are sure you suffer from palpitation of the heart?” - -“Oh, quite sure, quite!” - -“Then you have pain in talking?” - -“Yes; that above all.” - -“Your digestion is not good?” - -“No; it never has been.” - -The man seemed quite reassured. He replied with a kind of -enthusiasm--like some one who is at last understood. But, all at once, -the old doctor shrugs his shoulders and reveals the trap: - -“You’ve got everything wrong with you--that’s quite clear. Well, you -are classed A1--the fighting line.” - -“But surely you are aware----” - -“You have too many illnesses; there’s nothing wrong with you. Get out! -The fighting line for you!” - -Sometimes somebody coughs, and at once a storm of coughing breaks out -among the men gathered there. - -A big grey-haired fellow comes out of a dark corner. Everybody shrinks -away from him, with a kind of disgust. Then he remonstrates with his -neighbours: - -“Hang it! D’you think that spots on the skin....” - -Behind him, collapsed almost on a bench, a tall man who might be -anything between twenty and sixty years of age is carefully undressing. -His face makes you feel very sorry for him: he seems plunged in -the depths of human despair. He takes off an incredible amount of -clothing, knitted vests and woollen things; and then there appear some -very touching articles: satchels, flannel fronts, scapularies, objects -of devotion. All these he places on the bench. The men next to him -shift suddenly, and his clothes slip on the floor and are trodden upon -by those who have just come in. The man is very pale, as if people were -trampling upon his intimate life and his self-respect. - -A discussion suddenly breaks upon the silence. The old doctor was -exclaiming in a furious tone: - -“I tell you I can hear nothing!” - -With both hands he was pressing down the shoulders of a poor weak -wretch as thin as a poker, and who looked terrified. - -With one word the poor devil was ordered into the fighting forces, and -he went away, more upset, trembling and panic-stricken than he would -ever be in the trenches in front of the machine-guns. - -But at the other end of the hall something unusual was happening. - -“I tell you I can walk,” protested a rasping voice, eaten away by -goodness knows what disease. - -“No,” replied the young doctor, “no; be reasonable, and go home. We’ll -take you later when you’ve recovered.” - -“If you don’t want me, I shall do myself in.... But I tell you I have -reasons for going to the front. I am not going to stand any more -insults day after day.” - -A short silence takes possession of everyone in the room: the echo of a -tragedy is felt. The man is obviously very ill. His chest is horrible, -distorted by violent breathing. He can hardly stand on his swollen -legs, which are marked with large purple veins. - -“Rejected!” cries the judge. - -And the unfortunate creature returns to his rags, with lowered -shoulders, his eyes dazed like a bull that has been felled. - -The man who followed was a fatalist: he refused to discuss his position. - -“That won’t prevent you serving.” - -“Bah! just as you like.” - -“Then, the fighting line!” - -“As you wish; I don’t care a damn.” - -And he withdraws immediately, liberated like a man who stakes his -future on a mere throw of the dice. - -All those who go away leave behind them something of the heavy smell of -unwashed bodies. Curious thing, they all have a fetid breath; for that -day they have eaten too quickly, badly digested their food, smoked and -drunk too much. From all these mouths comes the same warm, sour breath -which betrays the same emotion--the same breakdown of the machine. - -The atmosphere of the room gradually thickens. The lamps, which -had been lit quite early, appear to be lined with a heavy clinging -moisture that affects all the objects in the room. But above all hovers -something more elusive and discordant--the air seems to be charged with -nervous energy, the fragments of broken wills, the wreckage of the -thoughts abandoned there by men who had to strip themselves naked, who -were afraid, who yearned and did not yearn, who measured with anguish -their powers of resistance and the sacrifice they had to make, who -fought with all their might against the forces of destiny. - -The men in overalls continue to move about among these human bodies. -They do not stop feeling, manipulating, judging. They sink the ends of -their fingers into the flesh of the shoulders and sides; they press -the biceps with their thumb and middle finger, move joints, examine -teeth and the inside of eyelids, pull hair, and tap chests as customs -officers do casks. Then they make the men walk from left to right, and -right to left. They make them bend, straighten themselves, kneel down, -or expose the most secret parts of their person. - -Sometimes a breath of fresh air seems to come into the room: two -well-built young men are asking to be enlisted. One hardly understands -why they are there.... The whole tribunal looks at them with -astonishment, as at pieces of golden ore in a handful of mud. - -They pass with a proud, rather forced smile. Again the procession -begins of pathetic ugliness, terrors, despairs, incurable and ravaged -fears. The tribunal made one think of a jagged cliff against which -persons are dashed like sea-birds blown by a storm. - -The doctors show signs of exhaustion. The oldest, who is rather deaf, -throws himself doggedly into his work, like a boar into the thicket. -The young doctor is obviously suffering and irritated. He has the -shrinking and uneasy look of some one engaged in an odious task and who -finds no relief. - -And always human flesh abounds; always from the same corner of the room -comes the long row of wan bodies, who walk gingerly on the floor. - -Sacred human flesh, sacred substance which serves thought, art, love, -everything great in life--it is now nothing but a vile, evil-smelling -lump of suet which one handles with disgust to find whether it is yet -ready for the slaughter. - -Everybody begins to suffer from an insistent headache. - -The work goes on as in a dream, with the silences, the dragging -movements, and the dark gaps of bad dreams. Two hours more pass in -this way. Then suddenly some one says: - -“Here are the last ten.” - -They come in and undress one after the other. They have waited so -long they seem exhausted, emptied, crushed. They accept the verdict -listlessly and mechanically, as if felled by a blow; they go away in -haste, without speaking, without looking round. - -The doctors wash their hands, as once did Pontius Pilate; they sign -some papers ceremoniously and disappear. - -Night has come. The wind has fallen. A fog that absorbs the factory -smoke still hangs over the town. Leaning against a lamp-post one of the -last men examined vomits, after excruciating efforts, the wine he drank -in the afternoon. The road is dark and deserted. - -The whole place reeks with the stench of the vomiting and the fog. - - - - - A BURIAL - - -As we seated ourselves at the table M. Gilbert asked: - -“What time is Lieutenant Limberg’s funeral?” - -“Three o’clock, Doctor,” replied the faithful Augustus; “an infantry -platoon will come from his own regiment, which is at the moment leaving -the firing line and is billeted at Morcourt.” - -“That’s right; send for Bénezech.” - -And we began to enjoy the piquancy of a cucumber salad. September was -fading slowly, but the furnace on the Somme was getting ever fiercer. -The roar of the cannon seemed to fill the immensity of the heavens, -as if a great tragedy was happening in the heart of the world. We -were slightly stupefied through having spent many nights without -sleep--nights passed in trying to stem the torrent of blood, and save -some of the wreckage that swept down with it. - -Lieutenant Limberg was one of the saddest cases: for two weeks we tried -to drag him out of the swirling eddy, when, all of a sudden, he sank -rapidly, attacked by virulent meningitis, stammering and uttering aloud -fantastic things, which gave his death a monstrous atmosphere of comedy. - -Nothing gives greater offence or greater pain than to witness the -torture and delirium suffered by men injured in the brain. How many -times have I wished, when confronted with these terrible sights, that -our indifferent rulers should be forced to look at them! But it is -useless insisting on this. If people have no imagination, they can -never learn. I had better go on with my tale. - -We were struggling with a tough piece of beef when Bénezech came in. - -The Abbé Bénezech, a second-grade hospital orderly, combined various -functions, including those of a secretary and chaplain. He was a plump, -slow-witted man, with a formidable jaw. He grew a large unkempt beard, -and he badly felt the want of those cares and attentions which a -devoted flock had showered on him. Much too holy a person to attach any -importance to cares of the toilette, he had gradually degenerated into -a slovenly old man. But it was with patience that he waited for his -return to the sweet amenities of his living. - -“Bénezech,” said M. Gilbert, rather familiarly, “what time do you bury -Lieutenant Limberg?” - -“Three o’clock, sir.” - -“The body has been taken out?” - -“It should be in the mortuary shed.” - -“Good! Was the lieutenant a Catholic?” - -“Oh! yes; he most certainly was, sir. Thank God! He took the sacrament -yesterday.” - -“Then everything is all right. Thank you, Bénezech.” - -The chaplain went out. Relapsing again into our somnolent state, we -returned to our unappetising dish of vermicelli. As we were finishing, -an orderly came in and handed a card to M. Gilbert. - -“The officer,” he added, “insists on seeing you at once.” - -M. Gilbert repeatedly looked at the card with the strained attention of -a man who feels he is falling asleep. - -“Oh! well,” he sighed; “show him in.” - -And he added, turning towards us: - -“Second Lieutenant David? Do you know him? You don’t?” - -The Second Lieutenant was already at the door. Over his frizzly hair -he wore the small cap distinctive of the light infantry. He had big -lips, a faint, twisted moustache, the magnificent dark eyes of a Jewish -trader, a hint of corpulence, short fat hands. - -“Monsieur,” he said, “my battalion is going up the line, and I’m taking -advantage of my passing here to get permission to see one of your -patients--Lieutenant Limberg, a friend of mine.” - -M. Gilbert, who had rather an expressive little nose, showed by a -convulsive movement of that organ that he was much upset. - -“Give the lieutenant a chair,” he began, with the calm good sense of a -man who knows how to break bad news. Then he proceeded: - -“My dear friend, the news I have to give you of Lieutenant Limberg -is very sad: the unfortunate man had a serious wound in the skull, -and----” - -“He is dead?” asked the officer, in a strangled voice. - -“Yes, he is dead. We are burying him to-day at three o’clock.” - -Second Lieutenant David remained for some time without moving. A -nervous twitch began to work one side of his face. He looked stunned, -and wiped his temples, that suddenly began to sweat profusely. We -showed our respect for this evident pain. In a moment or two he got up, -saluted, and was about to take leave of us. - -“Excuse me, sir,” he said, “he was my best friend....” - -In an absent way he gave each of us his plump clammy hand to shake, and -he was going out, when he stopped on the doorstep. - -“One word more, Doctor. My friend Limberg was a Jew--I am too--I -thought it was better to tell you....” - -He was gone. A short silence intervened, then M. Gilbert began to -strike the table with the handle of his knife--a succession of rapid -knocks. - -“What did he say? Limberg a Jew? It’s really too much! Call Bénezech.” - -M. Gilbert was a stubborn, explosive man, given to violent reactions. -He seemed to forget the heat, his exhaustion, and his digestion. He -began to throw little pellets of bread-crumbs wildly all over the room. -He had the intense, expectant air of a cartridge the fuse of which -has been set alight. Bénezech came to an abrupt stop at the door, -overwhelmed by the might of the doctor’s vocal organs, which left no -one in doubt as to what he felt. - -“Ah! it’s you, is it? A fine mess you were going to get me in!” - -“Doctor!” - -“Listen! Lieutenant Limberg was a Jew, and you were going to give him a -Catholic funeral.” - -“A Jew!” - -“Yes; I say a Jew!” - -The priest smiled, supremely incredulous. - -“He was not a Jew, Doctor, because I administered the sacrament to him -yesterday again.” - -M. Gilbert stopped short, like a horse who shies at a wheelbarrow. Then -he whispered absently: - -“Then you don’t believe a word I say!” - -“Oh, Doctor!” protested the priest, and he raised his hands, the palms -outwards, with an unction that was surprising in a soldier who arranged -his putties so dapperly in corkscrew fashion from his ankles. - -“Yes, you may quite well have given him the sacrament,” said M. -Gilbert; “but what did he have to say in the matter?” - -“I’m sure I don’t know what he could say,” interrupted Augustus, “when, -as you know, for the last ten days he has been quite delirious.” - -“That’s true,” remarked M. Gilbert. “What have you got to say to that, -Bénezech?” - -“I don’t know what to think, Doctor; but I can’t believe that a young -man as well educated as Lieutenant Limberg was not a Catholic. He took -the sacrament twice with me.” - -“That may be; but did he tell you he was a Catholic?” - -“But, Doctor, how could I insult him by asking him, especially when he -was in such a sad state. Besides, he came here wearing crosses on his -neck. I gave him several myself, which he willingly took.” - -“Evidently there is something wrong,” said M. Gilbert. “You tell me -that Limberg was a Catholic; well, we have just been told that he was -Jewish. You had better send first for the rabbi of the division. Then, -to make sure, send me a despatch-rider from Limberg’s battalion. We -shall find out from them.” - -Bénezech went out, raising his hands several times, his fingers spread -apart, looking perplexed. - -“Let’s go to the mortuary tent,” said M. Gilbert, getting up from the -table. - -It was a disused tent where coffins were placed on biers ready for -burial services. - -Wrapped in an old flag, Limberg’s coffin had been placed on two -boxes. A ray of sunlight broke obliquely across the shadow, revealing -a glittering swarm of mosquitos. Some hens were pecking at the fine -gravel. This place of death seemed like a haven of rest on the edge of -the tempest of war. - -An orderly came in, placed two candles on the table, lit them, and -stood a crucifix between them. - -“Damn!” muttered M. Gilbert between his teeth; “it’s very tiresome, all -this fuss.” - -As we were coming out of the place, we saw Bénezech and the -despatch-rider. Bénezech’s beard seemed to bristle with triumph. With -his fingers on his _képi_, he saluted as if he were pronouncing the -benediction, and he said in a celestial voice: - -“Information from the battalion, Doctor: Lieutenant Limberg was a -Catholic.” - -“Confound it all!” cried the doctor. “Have you a written note?” - -“No,” replied the cyclist. “The officers only discussed the matter -among themselves, and they said he was a Catholic. You will see them -yourself presently: they are coming to the funeral with the infantry -platoon.” - -M. Gilbert stamped on the ground. He was very red, and the unruly -movements of his nose showed that a decision was about to be made. - -“Can I get ready for the service?” asked Bénezech, with the innocent -and measured tone of a man who does not press home his victory. - -“What!” said M. Gilbert. “The service? As you please--get ready as much -as you like. I have my own idea now.” - -Our devoted Augustus, who had left us for a few minutes, came back with -a packet of envelopes. - -“I have been looking into the private correspondence of the lieutenant. -I find nothing conclusive, except perhaps this postcard, signed -by a Mr. Blumenthal, who calls Lieutenant Limberg ‘his cousin.’ -Blumenthal--that’s a Jewish name.” - -“Perhaps so,” said M. Gilbert; “but I don’t mind now. I have my own -idea.” - -“It is true,” said Augustus hesitatingly, “that you could still--have -the coffin opened.” - -“No! you mustn’t think of it!” M. Gilbert firmly replied; “and I -repeat, I have my own idea. Let’s go back to our work.” - -We returned then to work; and that lasted about two and a half hours. -Then the orderly reappeared. - -“Monsieur, the Jewish chaplain wants to see you.” - -“I’m coming,” he said. - -He put on his four-striped _képi_, took off his overalls, and -disappeared. - -Looking through the window, I saw the rabbi of the division arriving. -He got out of a pedlar’s cart drawn by a crook-kneed mule. With his -black skull-cap, his flowing beard, his long coat, his cross-hilted -stick, his tall bent figure in the distance, he seemed to me like the -Polish Jews one reads of in popular novels. He appeared a man of mature -age, and got off the step with the dignity of a patriarch. - -My curiosity was aroused, and I went out to see what was going to -happen. Twenty steps from the cart, in the bend of an avenue, I again -saw the rabbi, without at first recognising him: his beard was black, -rather frizzly, he had a very slight tendency to corpulence, his smile -was that of an Assyrian god, and there was something in his looks of -the Eastern calm of the Mediterranean Sea. - -I skirted a shed and found myself face to face with the doctor and the -Jewish chaplain. I saw at once that I had been twice mistaken. He was a -man of the world, not old at all, wearing pince-nez, with a studious, -attentive appearance, aloof and erudite--the “distinguished” air of a -university graduate. He spoke the rather cosmopolitan French of a man -who knows six or seven languages, but who has not perfectly mastered -the correct accent of any of them. - -“Really, Doctor,” he was saying, “we have many Limbergs in the East. I -know several families.” - -“I’m sure you do,” replied M. Gilbert courteously. “But I have finally -decided what to do. Will you come along now, sir?” - -We walked slowly to the tent. As we got near, the ground vibrated with -the rapid tread of a small company on the march, and the infantry -platoon appeared. Some officers followed, a little distance off. - -Everybody stopped before the tent, and we saw Bénezech coming out. Over -his jacket he had thrown an ancient surplice, which seemed to have -seen service not only in the present war, but in every war of the past -century. - -“Gentlemen,” said the doctor rather emphatically, “an unfortunate -thing has happened. We cannot tell with certainty what was Lieutenant -Limberg’s religion. The information you have sent us would tend to show -he was Catholic.” - -“A practising Catholic,” added Bénezech, taking advantage of a pause. - -“May I ask you,” continued the doctor, “on what you base your judgment?” - -The officers looked at one another, as if they had been caught unawares. - -“Why!” said one of them, “he never told us he was a Jew.” - -“But----” - -“Oh! I have definite evidence,” said a captain: “he went to Mass -several times with me.” - -“But, hang it!” said M. Gilbert to this obtuse soldier, “that proves -nothing. Why! I go myself to Mass sometimes.... It’s true,” he added, -“I’m not a Jew. As for Limberg: to-day I saw one of his intimate -friends, who informed me that the lieutenant held the Jewish faith.” - -Another pause intervened. The soldiers had piled arms in the avenue. -All present seemed perplexed and hesitating. The two priests had not -looked at one another yet, and seemed to be examining the uniform of -the officers with the greatest care. - -At that moment two stretcher-bearers came out of the tent carrying the -coffin draped with the French colours. They took three paces forward, -and the priest and the rabbi found themselves suddenly one on each side -of the corpse. - -“Gentlemen,” said the doctor, in a voice a prophet would use when -thinking of Solomon--“gentlemen, because of the uncertainty, I have -decided that Lieutenant Limberg shall be buried according to the rites -both of the Roman Catholic and of the Hebrew Church. There will then -be no possibility of a mistake being made; at most, one superfluous -service. We know that God recognises his own. These gentlemen will -proceed in turn. I believe I am doing a wise and just thing.” - -The officers nodded their heads, without betraying what they thought. -The two priests, for the first time, looked at one another. They looked -at each other over the coffin, and bowed as if they had only just -arrived. Moved by the same impulse, they both affected a curious smile; -but their eyes had no share in it. They confronted each other like two -members of a family who have a feud of centuries behind them, and who -meet in the presence of a man of the world. - -Between them, the stake was, not a soul, but a box containing a stiff -body, distorted by a death-agony of ten days--a box wrapped in a -symbolic shroud which a light breeze ruffled. - -The two priests looked at one another with interest for one long -moment. On one side, the country priest, with an ungainly peasant -build: on the other the cultured and cosmopolitan rabbi, with the -sophisticated smile, old as the Bible. - -“Really,” whispered Augustus in my ear--“really, Bénezech has done it -often enough in his time; he might let the other have a chance.” - -“You be quiet!” said M. Gilbert, who had overheard him. “You are a fool -to talk like that. This is no laughing matter.” - -Bénezech was just very slightly shrugging his shoulders; he lowered his -eyes and stammered: - -“Monsieur, if Lieutenant Limberg was really of the Hebrew faith, I -would prefer to withdraw.” - -“Do as you think best, Bénezech,” said M. Gilbert. - -The rabbi continued to smile. He had the patient look of a believer who -knows that the Messiah once failed to appear at the appointed time, -and that one must continue to expect him for thousands of years again. - -“Then,” said Bénezech, quite low, “I withdraw, Doctor.” - -He made a few steps, and we heard him murmur as he withdrew: - -“The chief thing is that he should receive the sacrament. And he -has--twice.” - -The rabbi was still smiling, as if he was thinking: “As for me, I -remain.” - -M. Gilbert made a sign. Commands rang out, and everybody stood at the -salute. - - - - - FIGURES - - -No, my dear fellow, the war hasn’t changed everybody. - -You didn’t know M. Perrier-Langlade? - -He was what we should call a great organiser--a man who might, for -instance, hit upon a spot where everything was going on all right, and -everyone knew his job and was busy at it. But to M. Perrier-Langlade, -who had very original views as to what was practical, everything was -going quite wrong. Objects had at once to be moved from their places -and jobs had to be exchanged. He walked with a stick in his right -hand--_his_ working tool--which he waved like a fencer or an orchestral -conductor: he tapped everybody with this annoying stick, and commands -fell from him like hail from a cloud. One works-section which his -genius had reorganised was several weeks before it could be set going -again with anything like its old smoothness. M. Perrier-Langlade had -ideas: and that is an event of momentous importance. For ordinary -mortals, you know, can never pretend to ideas: these are the preserve -of the great. And the height of M. Perrier-Langlade’s ingenuity was -to think that the suggestions we had all been wanting to work out -were entirely his own. But that again did not lead to efficiency; for -this rare mind was ever open to the latest thing in ideas--showing, -let us admit, a very generous disposition. He bent to every gust of -wind. He was indeed so unpractical that his sense of the relation -between thought and action was of the haziest. But that of course -is the penalty of an exalted position, and in other respects M. -Perrier-Langlade was a great organiser. - -He loved figures. Let us do him this justice: he handled them with -the freedom of an expert. He saw in them a deep meaning which always -escaped our unmathematical minds. - -M. Perrier-Langlade I had only seen from a distance--and on rare -occasions; but at last I was to talk to him. What am I saying!--I am -presuming a great deal: you know what my rank is--well, then, I was -at last to be admitted to the presence of M. Perrier-Langlade, to -hear him discourse, to profit by the kind of education which the most -insignificant of his utterances and movements were able to bestow. - -It occurred last winter, during the weeks of intense cold. For a -fortnight it had been blowing--a sharp, despairing, cold east wind. - -The cold and the wind had given rise to an epidemic of fires on the -front. The little stoves had been stuffed to their fullest capacity, -and they crackled and smoked convulsively, and the corners of sheds -sometimes caught their fever. A flame stuck its nose outside: the wind -snapped at it, twisted, stretched it, swelled it like a sail, and most -often it cost five or six thousand francs in wood, paper, canvas, and -other materials. When the Germans saw it happening within gunshot -distance, they despatched a few explosives with the charitable object -of helping on its sinister designs. It’s what you must expect, you -know. You either make or you don’t make war. And the miserable world -has made it--there’s no shadow of doubt about that. - -We had lost in this way many huts, which were happily cut off from the -others, and it had been a useful warning to us when, one night, about -one o’clock, a fire--a terrible fire--broke out in Hut 521, which could -be seen on the plain three or four miles away from us. - -We had just put on our boots and had gone out to watch it. What a sight -it was! The huge furnace with its tongues of flame, the bluish country -benumbed with frost, the wind which seemed to ripple like water in the -moonlight, and the reflections of the fire on the Siberian landscape, -honeycombed with the old trenches of 1915. - -We were horrified at the thought of what was happening there; but we -did not dare to leave our post. - -And we did right; for towards 3 A.M. a long line of motors came hooting -before the door--some of the wounded rescued from the fire were being -brought to us. - -We got them out of the cars. How patient they were, poor things! Two -with fractured skulls, one with an amputated leg, and another with -a broken leg, and several less seriously wounded. They had lost in -the fire all the possessions which, as soldiers, they were allowed to -have--the linen bag you see hanging on the bed, containing a knife, a -box of matches, three or four old letters, and a small lead pencil. I -repeat, they did behave well; but they were pitiful to look at. They -really looked like people who for one awful moment had lain helpless -in their beds while the flames surrounded them, and who were conscious -of only one agonising thought: “If help doesn’t come at once, in five -minutes it will be too late.” - -We put them into bed, and got them warm again: they needed it. I well -remember seeing icicles glistening on the bandages of the man with the -broken leg. It was a sorry business. The whole night long we looked -after them; and only in the morning were we able to chat round the -coffee-pot. The wounded were dozing. The hut was almost warm. We had -made them wear cotton caps and woollen vests, and drink a cupful of -boiling milk. They were in a half-dozing, half-waking state and seemed -to be thinking: “Lord! what a narrow shave! And it’s the second one -too. We had better look out for the third.” - -It was then, old fellow, that M. Perrier-Langlade arrived on the scene. - -I had gone out--I don’t remember why--and I was kicking my heels on -the frosty ground, when I saw a sumptuous motor-car come to a stop on -the road. The door clicked open, and M. Perrier-Langlade came out, -staggering under a heavy, luxurious fur cloak. - -I at once thought: “Ah, good! Here’s M. Perrier-Langlade coming to -cheer up my poor patients.” - -I had a hundred yards to cover. I leaped over some dizzy gratings, and -I arrived, rather out of breath, just in time to spring to attention -before the door. M. Perrier-Langlade stamped with annoyance. - -“What!” he said to me. “There is no one here to receive me!” - -“I ask your pardon, Monsieur----” - -“Hold your tongue! You can see for yourself there is no one here. You -have to-night taken in some of the wounded from Hut 521. I went to see -the fire myself--at two o’clock in the morning--risking an attack of -pneumonia. I’m not bothering about that, though; but it is my wish that -some one should be here to receive me--here--when I come out of the -car. If you hadn’t come there would have been no one, and I will not be -kept waiting these very cold days. In future you will have an orderly -permanently stationed here.” - -“But you understand, Monsieur----” - -“Hold your tongue! How many wounded did you take in to-night?” - -“Thirteen, Monsieur. It is true that----” - -“Enough! Thirteen! Thirteen!” - -M. Perrier-Langlade began to repeat the number, presumably for his own -benefit. It was quite clear that this number suggested to his mind -thoughts of a deep and wide significance. I don’t know what foolish -impulse made me then open my mouth. - -“But note, sir----” - -“Be quiet!” he said angrily. “Thirteen! Thirteen!” - -I felt extremely confused and took refuge in complete silence. That -didn’t last long. Ravier was approaching as fast as his legs could -carry him: he had seen the motor, and had galloped.... He stopped dead -at five paces, his two heels stuck in the crunching snow, and saluted. - -“There you are,” remarked M. Perrier-Langlade--“not too soon either. -How many wounded have you taken in to-night that you wouldn’t have -ordinarily?” - -Ravier gave me a despairing look. I showed him my open hand, holding -apart my fingers, and Ravier, in spite of his discomfiture, replied: - -“Five, sir.” - -“Five! Five!” said M. Perrier-Langlade. “Then it is not thirteen, but -five!” - -I jumped as if some one had stuck a hatpin in me. - -“But note, sir, that----” - -“Hold your tongue!” he said, with an authoritative calm. “Five! Five!” - -And he began to repeat this word, with an air that was at once Olympian -and indulgent, like some one who cannot reproach men who are too -ignorant to enjoy the supreme delights of arithmetic. - -We looked at one another, astounded, when we heard the tread of a pair -of hobnailed boots, and M. Mourgue appeared, his nose blue with cold, -his little beard quite stiff, and emitting, as he panted, a cloud of -steam. - -“Ah! at last!” cried M. Perrier-Langlade. “Here you are, Monsieur -Mourgue. Will you be good enough to tell me how many men you have at -present in your huts?” - -M. Mourgue appeared to sink into himself before replying, in a -preoccupied tone: - -“Twenty-eight, sir.” - -M. Perrier-Langlade this time laughed a bitter, discouraged laugh. - -“Well, well! it is not thirteen, nor five, but twenty-eight! -Twenty-eight! And I was suspecting----” - -“But, sir----” we cried all together excitedly. - -From beneath the cloak of fur he thrust out his hand, which, in spite -of its velvet glove, was none the less a mailed fist. - -“Be silent, gentlemen! You do not understand. Twenty-eight!” - -We looked at each other as if we had suddenly gone mad. M. -Perrier-Langlade, carried away by sublime meditation, walked to and fro -repeating, “Twenty-eight! Twenty-eight!” - -I noticed his voice had almost a provincial inflection, and was not -without geniality. For a few moments he repeated, first shaking his -head, then with increasing joy, “Twenty-eight! Twenty-eight!” And I was -convinced that to him figures did not mean the same thing as they do to -you or me. - -Then he abruptly saluted, with a supreme, imperious courtesy. - -“Good-bye, gentlemen! Twenty-eight! Twenty-eight!” - -And he went off to his car, rubbing his hands together, with the savage -joy of a man who has got hold of some absolute truth. - - - - - DISCIPLINE - - -Frankly, I do not regret those four days’ imprisonment. True, they cost -me a terrific cold--and perhaps I may here be allowed to say that the -guard-room was anything but clean--still, I learnt some very useful -things. Indeed, I can hardly cry out against the injustice of it in -view of the inestimable benefit I received and the insight it gave me. -No, I am not sorry for having experienced, at the age of forty-six, the -straw of the prison cell that every one admits to be damp and unhealthy. - -When the sergeant, who is not at all a bad fellow, though afflicted -with a painful disease, came and told me, “Monsieur Bouin, you’ve got -four days guard-room,” I was at first amazed and incredulous. At the -same time, it was early in the day, and the sergeant, who never joked -before his morning operation, added with a doleful expression: - -“Some one named Bouin ought to have been on duty last night in the -hospital. But no one turned up. It wasn’t perhaps you, my poor Monsieur -Bouin, who cut your job, but it’s certainly you who have four days’ -imprisonment.” - -The sergeant stopped. I felt something gripping me in the pit of the -stomach, and a heavy blush added to my discomfort. Right up to the -first weeks of the war, my life had been peaceful and happy: there were -some emotions I had not until then experienced, and I could not get -accustomed to them, so that I was acutely conscious of the indignity I -now had to suffer. - -“Sergeant,” I said, “it can’t be true. I was on hospital duty the day -before yesterday, and I am to-morrow again. It wasn’t my turn last -night, I am quite certain.” - -I must have been very red and trembling, for the sergeant looked at me -for a moment or two, evidently feeling very sorry. Then he said, “Just -wait a moment. I’ll go and see the orderly officer”; and he went out. - -I went back to my scrubbing. That is very tiring work for a man who has -spent his life studying mathematics; but in September 1914 a spirit of -determination and of sacrifice had aroused all Frenchmen worthy of the -name. I had volunteered to serve my country humbly, proudly, within the -extreme limits of my strength; and as it was upon my physical strength -that the demand was chiefly being made, I used every day to scrub the -floor with enthusiasm. On that morning I threw myself frantically into -the job, with such a will indeed that heavy drops of perspiration undid -my work. I suffered, but was quite content: we water our native soil -with what we can. Don’t you think so? - -The sergeant came back. - -“Monsieur Bouin,” he said, “it’s you all right. You’ve got four days’ -clink, and it’s a dirty trick they are playing on you. Quite lately a -doctor joined up who has the same name as yours, but he hasn’t yet been -given his rank. As he does the work of a major, he hasn’t to stick it -on night duty. But the clerks, who never know anything, put him down -for duty, and that’s how no one turned up. You understand? Then the -colonel ordered four days’ imprisonment. But the orderly officer got -him to see that he couldn’t punish the doctor, who’s got his job to -do! But you see the punishment has been posted under the name Bouin; -and as some one has got to be punished, I suppose it’s got to be -you....” - -I was holding one of those scrubbing-sticks at the end of which a piece -of wax was usually fixed. I was so astounded that I let the thing fall. -The clumsy clatter seemed to be cruelly emphasised by the echoing walls -of the room. It sounded like a smack. I felt so wretched. - -“Go yourself and see the officer,” said the sergeant, rather touched, -shifting from one leg to the other. “I have now to see about the -signatures....” - -I let him go; for when this good fellow talks of signatures, he is -tortured by a very necessary need, which he cannot satisfy without -suffering those shooting pains.... - -I placed my scrubbing implements in a corner, and I hastened to -the office, buttoning my little jacket with trembling fingers: my -equanimity was never real, and I felt some difficulty in controlling my -emotions. - -I knew the officer: he was an old Alsatian whom the war had dragged -out of a _mairie_ where he was spending the days of his retirement. -He had not, up till then, appeared to me a difficult person, nor -needlessly fussy; and I did not despair of being able to make him -unbend and to acknowledge himself in the wrong. - -“Ah! it’s you, Bouin,” he said coolly. “Well, you’ve got to do four -days’ imprisonment. You begin at noon.” - -“But, sir,” I said, “while my name is Bouin--Bouin, Léon--and----” - -He cut me short. - -“It doesn’t matter what your Christian name is. There was no Christian -name on the list. You have seen the name Bouin: you’ve only got to -carry out----” - -“But, sir, the times I go on duty have been definitely fixed for the -last two weeks. I haven’t noticed----” - -The man jumped to his feet, and I saw he was short--almost ridiculously -short. He came towards me angrily, sputtering into his moustache. - -“A punishment has been ordered. Some one has got to take it; and it’s -you who’ve got to do so. What is your profession?” - -“A teacher of mathematics, and a volunteer.” - -He added in a tense voice: - -“It doesn’t follow that because you are not a conscript you’re going to -be cock of the walk here. Besides, men of education like yourself ought -to be an example to the others. Follow my advice, and do your four -days, my boy.” - -“But, _Monsieur l’officier_----” - -“You do as I advise you. This is not the moment, when the enemy is -hammering at the gates of the capital--this is not the moment, I -repeat, to scatter germs of indiscipline.” - -“But, sir, discipline----” - -Lines appeared on his brow and round his mouth. Then he muttered in a -tone that was at once arrogant, sad and sententious: - -“Discipline!--why, you don’t know what it is! You can’t teach me -anything about that. Do your four days.” - -I understood from the gesture accompanying these words that I must -depart. An unexpected reply escaped me. - -“Sir,” I said, “I shall send in a complaint to the colonel.” - -The dwarf brought down his fists on a pile of documents. - -“Good! good! Another row! And we think we are going to win with such -people! Get out of my sight, will you!” - -I thought he groaned, and I found myself in the passage. Midway between -the floor and the ceiling ran a water-pipe, making a babbling noise. It -seemed to have been installed there in the silence since the days of -Adam. - -I went staggering back to my work. - -The doctor of the third division at that time was a man named -Briavoine. What a delightful and sympathetic person he was! He had such -a jolly way of feeling convinced about everything he said. And how I -loved to see him smile, with the wrinkles on his wide bare forehead and -round his eyes! - -M. Briavoine was in his office when I arrived; but on that day no -smile lit up his face, which was frowning and majestic. - -“No, no!” he was saying to those around him. “Dufrêne is a general, but -I--I am mere Briavoine.” - -A silence full of respect greeted this firm avowal. The reputation of -M. Briavoine was more than European. He had distinguished himself in -the delicate art of making childbirth a less difficult and painful -process, and many princesses had benefited by his care. - -I was so obsessed with my little affair that I began to wander over -the room without any real or apparent aim; and, in doing so, I very -clumsily knocked up against M. Briavoine. - -“Be careful, my friend,” said this kind and courteous man. - -The urbanity of M. Briavoine, the gentleness of his voice, his correct -and exquisite gesture, soothed my violated self-respect. I retired -gratefully and with modesty to a corner where papers were being -classified. And I thought: “How very polite he is, from every point of -view!...” - -Gradually I regained my equanimity and took an interest in the -conversation of the officers--an interest which soon became very keen. - -They were expecting, that very day, a visit from the Chief of the -Medical Staff of the Forces--General Dufrêne. The imperious and -diligent visits which this weighty person paid to the armies were -worthy of the highest praise, and were, too, occasions for keen -criticism. - -M. Briavoine took off his braided tunic: gold and silver stripes -adorned the sleeves. - -“Give me my overalls,” he said. “Monsieur Dufrêne wishes to be received -by his subordinates in full-dress uniform; but the needs of our -profession require a coat like this.” - -A breath of rebellion disturbed the atmosphere. Those standing round M. -Briavoine were understood to murmur their assent, in which there was at -once something of bitterness, irony and defiance. Dressed in white, the -great doctor looked at himself contentedly. - -“I am going to receive Dufrêne,” he said, “as I am now, in overalls, -without my _képi_; if he takes it into his head to object, he may -find that though I may be a subordinate, I am a man who has a right to -some independence. That I serve my country disinterestedly no one can -dispute, and I am not going to be lorded over. What have I to gain? My -work in civil life is worth all the honours that I could ever get here.” - -These sensible views were hardly uttered before Professor Proby came -in. He was a very tall man, with straw-coloured hair, and a look that -expressed a seriousness bordering on stupidity. He used to bawl in -talking, cutting up his sentences with all kinds of interjections and -expletives which completely altered the sense of what he wanted to say. -He plunged into a conversation with as much good manners as a buffalo. - -“What! What are you telling me? But I don’t care a hang.... Him! Why he -knows quite well that--what! I am Paul Proby! And I am a member of the -Academy; and I....” - -It was true: Professor Proby honoured the Academy with his -contributions. He beat his foot on the ground, jingling his glittering -spurs, and the rather showy parts of an accoutrement that had remained -unused in a cupboard until the outbreak of war. - -“Dufrêne! that man!” he said again. “I’ve always been on good terms -with him. But one mustn’t ... how annoying it is ... that man!” - -M. Briavoine, who had tact, thought the conversation was getting -incoherent. With one turn of the rudder, he brought the ship back to -its course. - -“It’s not a question of personalities, but a question of principle. We -are not, like our enemies, a race that has been brutally enslaved....” - -This generalisation seemed to bring an atmosphere of philosophy into -the sunlit room. Everybody began to listen attentively, and the spirit -of revolt became measured and serious. - -Since my interview with the orderly officer, one single word leaped -and danced in my head. I repeated it mechanically. I dissected its -syllables, obsessed and anxious. - -Suddenly I felt that the word was going to be uttered; that it was -ripe, fertile, bursting; that it was going to spring out of my -head--escape--and alight, in turn, on every mouth that was speaking -there. - -“You cannot,” said M. Briavoine, “ask Frenchmen to accept without -question an authority that has no bounds. I will even admit without any -shame that our race is the least disciplined in the world.” - -“Authority, like alcohol, is a poison which makes man mad,” said a -spectacled young man with sharp looks. - -“I thoroughly agree,” cried the doctor. “As for discipline....” - -A sigh of satisfaction escaped me. It was done. The word had come out, -and I saw it disporting itself outside of me with a feeling at once of -deliverance and curiosity. I gazed at the celebrated doctor with a very -real gratitude. My satisfaction was indeed so great that in spite of my -low rank I vigorously nodded to show how completely I agreed with Dr. -Briavoine. And approval being always acceptable from any one however -insignificant, Dr. Briavoine gave me in passing one of those generous -smiles of his that were half-hidden away in his beard. - -“Discipline,” he was saying, “is not perhaps a French virtue. But, God -be praised! we have others; and our critical spirit alone, so subtle, -incisive and delicate, is worth all the heavy qualities of our enemies.” - -Doctor Coupé had come in almost unseen in the midst of the general -interest. Taken to task by his colleagues, this excellent old man -looked like a late-season leaf which the storm was trying to tear away -from a bough. For a few seconds he hesitated between his innate terror -of authority and his love of mischief. The vehemence of the views, -however, that prevailed left him no option; and the dry leaf sped away, -swirling in the gale. - -“We are ready to shed our blood, if we are called upon,” the doctor -said, stating a principle; “but, in God’s name! they should ask us -politely.” - -“The very least! Manners!” muttered Professor Proby. “I am disciplined -enough--on condition ... what?... We ask for some consideration.” - -“You know what Dufrêne did, the day before yesterday?” ventured an -important-looking person, who was trying by a clever adjustment of -his collar and movement of his chin to keep his beard in a horizontal -position, and who acquired in this way an air of extraordinary majesty. -“Listen then....” And in the middle of a chorus of protestations -and laughter he began to tell the latest little scandal invented by -imaginations which are not content with the reading of the communiqués -of those glorious and tragic days. - -There were about a dozen doctors in the room. Four or five were indeed -princes among doctors. The war had given me a unique opportunity of -knowing these distinguished personalities, and I assure you I felt -a not unnatural emotion in hearing them speak freely before me. My -conversation of the morning with my orderly officer had very much upset -me. - -Mathematics impose on the mind stubborn habits of order. I am -unfortunately a bachelor, but I have quite rational, serious views -on the family and society, as you would expect from my tastes and my -profession. I know that very learned mathematicians have been able to -imagine triangles which did not have three sides, or parallel lines -which ended in meeting in a point.... I cannot follow these masters -on such a path: perhaps I am too old to follow such tracks. Anyhow, -I am satisfied with what I do know. When looking at my library, and -turning over the pages of my lecture note-books, I always experienced -a pleasant sensation of order and discipline. Besides, the study of -mathematics makes you logical. And what had happened to me that morning -was not logical--in other words, was not just. And the thought that the -demands of order required an illogical action even in the midst of the -chaos of war, appeared to me the wildest incoherence. - -You can then imagine the relief, even enthusiasm, I felt on hearing -these eminent men justify my rebellious attitude. I listened to -their words, marking them with approving nods of the head. I felt a -keen, almost trembling enjoyment, mingled with pride and a kind of -superstitious terror. - -Gradually I became aware that the last emotion was becoming the -dominant one. I feared I was relying too much on reason; without -knowing my position, these gentlemen were too excited and earnest in -their approval. This verbal exaltation of indiscipline made me feel -an exquisite uneasiness, almost of pain. Forced to be quiet out of -respect, I nevertheless mentally and repeatedly begged them to be calm: -“Take care, gentlemen! Be calm, sirs!” - -Such were my thoughts when, in the general uproar of voices, a bell was -heard ringing: it was the visitors’ office bell. Immediately the room -was strangely quiet. - -“_Monsieur le principal!_” said a sergeant who had just appeared at the -door; “the motor-car of the Chief of the Medical Staff is at the gate.” - -“Good heavens!” said some one whom everybody called familiarly Father -Coupé. Then automatically he adjusted his _képi_ on his head, and -stepped towards the door. - -“Where are you going?” asked Professor Proby in a voice that was -arrogant yet without much self-assurance. - -“I’m going to receive him at the entrance,” replied the old fellow. - -“What! There are other people for that. We can wait for him here while -we work.” - -“You mustn’t think of it,” said M. Coupé. “The custom----” - -“Why, I used to call that fellow Dufrêne, without the Mr., in civil -life,” muttered Professor Proby. “And I contend that ... ha! the idea!” - -“It’s a question of courtesy,” commented M. Briavoine. “Let’s go to the -door. Give me my tunic.” - -“Don’t you wish to keep on your overalls, my dear master?” said the -young man with the sharp look. - -“Of course. But I’m afraid of catching cold. Give me my _képi_ as well; -I can’t walk across the garden with nothing on my head.” - -M. Briavoine turned towards me. - -“My friend,” he said, “look for the registers, and be so good as to -come along with me.” - -Then he repeated, putting on his hat: - -“There is no point in catching cold.” - -A warm ray of sunlight entered by the open window! I thought M. -Briavoine had no reason to fear colds, and I took the registers. - -The group of officers were now going down the wide stairs, in a tumult -of voices and footsteps. - -A feeling of uneasiness, it seemed to me, gave a slight chill to the -conversation. As we arrived under the arches, I heard M. Briavoine -saying to M. Coupé: - -“It’s the first time, since the war, that I meet the Chief of the -Medical Staff, General Dufrêne.” - -He added, not without a certain gravity of tone: - -“Vernier, go back and see if they have swept the subalterns’ room. -Some cotton was lying about there just now.” - -“Hang it!” mumbled Proby; “he must not come and interfere with us. And -he’s going to be received like this! We’ll tell him--what!--we’ll tell -him a thing or two.” - -“We will tell him, right enough,” said M. Briavoine with decision. -“We’ll tell him that the hospital is badly lighted; the gas-pipes and -water-pipes are innumerable; that the food is not as it should be----” - -“I shall not stick at anything,” interrupted Father Coupé: “I shall -insist on the important improvements I want for my work.” - -As we got to the steps of the entrance, Professor Proby became suddenly -irascible, and, taking on one side one of the attendants who was -wearing a white coat, said to him: - -“You, there! Get yourself into uniform. It looks better.” - -The motor-car of the Chief of the Medical Staff was coming to a stop -in front of the door. It opened like a dry fruit, and shot out its -contents on the pavement. - -What an impressive personage! He was tall and, it seemed to me, of -enormous proportions. A typically military face--no one could mistake -it--deep features over which the fingers and the nails of the sculptor -must have passed again and again; on the nose, too, the sculptor’s -thumb must have been at work, pressing and moulding delicately the -lumps of flesh; a bristling white moustache and imperial, of the -kind specially reserved for soldiers advanced in age. He wore an old -general’s uniform, which many give up with the greatest difficulty, -like old ideas. Gold, jewellery, velvet, and silk facings adorned his -body with such refulgence that the imagination could hardly conceive -that, beneath this barbarous splendour, there were lungs, muscles, -bones and a shrivelled skin covered with grey hair. - -A look escaped from beneath his bushy eyebrows, which was at once -violent, questioning, and suggestive of unutterable pride. - -He came forward in grave silence. - -I expected a scene; but from that moment what took place has remained -mysteriously veiled in my memory. - -In one single movement everybody there took up a certain position, and -they made a correct military salute according to the rules taught so -patiently in barracks to recruits from the country. - -Faces imperceptibly became rigid. The light in one’s eyes became dull -and fixed. Ten centuries of a habit imposed and accepted petrified -tongues, muscles and minds. - -Some thistleseed flew away with the breeze. As I saw it fluttering, -white, woolly, without weight, I thought--I don’t know why--of that -subtle, fine, delicate, critical spirit. It vanished in a gust of wind. -A big insect loaded with pollen could be heard buzzing around. - -I felt stupid! A long pause; then the white-moustached gentleman -decided to let these words fall from his lips: - -“Good-day, gentlemen!” - -The visit began in the rooms which had been packed with the wounded -from the Marne front. There young men were lying who had been face to -face with War, and who had calmly recognised it as the old Devil of -the Species. From that time they spoke of it just as they always will, -now that three years of blood, suffering and torture have decimated, -maimed and broken them. - -But nobody bothered about their thoughts. Sheets were drawn back, -bandages were undone, wounds were left open to the air. It was now a -question of “cases” and of lesions. - -A scientific discussion was commencing, to which I listened with an -eager curiosity. As I have said, doctors were present who were princes -in their profession. They came on the scene with minds, I thought, -which were profoundly independent--even aggressive. And I looked -forward to an interesting controversy. - -M. Dufrêne was closely examining some one’s thigh, in which a dark, -quivering hole had been made by a shell. - -“What do you put in it, Proby?” he said. - -Professor Proby began a detailed explanation of the way in which such -wounds ought to be treated. - -“It has been my habit,” he said, “for thirty years to put in some -cotton wool--I lectured to the Academy of Medicine--what! And nothing -gives me such good results, because----” - -At that point the Medical Inspector-General struck the sick man’s -little table drily with his pencil. - -“Hurry up, Proby,” he said, in a calm, cutting voice. - -Proby started a little, and mumbled again: - -“For thirty years I have always used cotton wool----” - -“Believe me, Proby, that’s enough. You will not put any of it in the -wounds. You understand.” - -M. Dufrêne turned his back and began examining the next wounded man. - -I watched Professor Proby’s face. I was sure the honoured academician -was going to burst in again. The much-expected scientific controversy -was at last about to take place before my eyes, and ideas would cross -to and fro like glittering swords. I waited, holding my breath. - -In grave silence, the academician replied: - -“Very good, _Monsieur le médecin inspecteur-général_!” - -I looked at everybody in turn. It seemed to me that a glove had been -thrown down, and that some one was going to pick it up with polite -audacity. But everybody looked vague and attentive. Professor Proby -went up to the Medical Inspector-General, and repeated mechanically: - -“Very good, _Monsieur le médecin inspecteur-général_!” - -The experience of thirty years’ practice vanished like a light that -went out. - -M. Dufrêne went from bed to bed, heavy and majestic. “You made a -mistake in operating upon this man: you would have done better to -wait,” he said. Sometimes he approved: “Here is a result which -justifies our theories.” Most often his criticism was unrestrained: -“Why didn’t you use my apparatus--the Dufrêne apparatus? I wish to see -it used here.” - -Then murmurs of assent and promises were heard. To everything Proby -replied invariably, “_Oui, Monsieur le médecin inspecteur-général_.” - -Doctor Coupé got red and confused in trying to express appreciations of -the Inspector’s methods that seemed like excuses for his own. - -I was watching M. Briavoine: he was nodding his head unceasingly, and -murmured in a dignified way: - -“Obviously, _Monsieur le médecin inspecteur-général_.... Of course, -_Monsieur le médecin inspecteur-général_.” - -These words were always being repeated by everybody. They were repeated -as a refrain to almost every syllable and pronounced with a mumbling -mechanical promptitude, so that every sentence, and every reply, seemed -to end with this ritualistic rhythm: “_Mossinspecteurjral_.” - -M. Dufrêne, more and more, gave expression to a kind of triumphant -lyric. He spoke of himself, of his works, with a growing volubility -and frequency. I thought he was disposed to qualify as “quite French,” -or “national,” and sometimes as “a work of genius,” methods and ideas -which were strictly his own. But this attempt to objectify things had -a very slight connection with modesty. - -At one moment this towering personality came towards me without seeing -me with such vehemence that I nimbly got out of the way, as I would -before a train. I uttered hasty words, which were: - -“I beg your pardon, _Monsieur le médecin inspecteur-général_.” - -I had never, in the obscure life of a teacher, had the good fortune to -be in the presence of a military man of high rank and hear him speak. -I had only imagined, or come across in my reading, the virile outline -of the real old soldier. As I looked at this doctor in his military -boots and listened to his comments, I repeated to myself: “At last! the -real thing!” I was overwhelmed, crushed, but in spite of that I was -able to enjoy a feeling of security and confidence, and I always ended -by thinking: “The sheer impudence of it! Still, it takes some doing to -carry it off like that with such fellows as those doctors.” - -The Medical Inspector-General had seized a fountain pen and was -covering the walls with prescriptions. He explained in emphatic -sentences what decisions ought to have been made and what action must -be taken. After each diagnosis, those who attended him chanted the -liturgic refrain: “_Oui, Mossinspecteurjral._” - -“You must,” he was saying, “remember that you are soldiers -before everything. In putting on the uniform, you have put on -responsibilities. The independence of science has to yield before the -necessity of a uniform method. Personal experience has to give way to -discipline.” - -With this simple injunction, personal experience yielded to the sway -of discipline. In one voice the least disciplined race in the world -replied: - -“Of course, that is quite understood, _Monsieur le médecin -inspecteur-général_.” - -The spectacled young man was standing near me, his arms rigidly at -attention and eyes front. I heard him whisper a strange thing to his -neighbour: - -“Times have changed: every dog has his day.” - -But his neighbour made a slight gesture of impatience, and the young -man took up again his stiff attitude of respect. - -His remark was quite out of place, I thought. Yet it got me out of my -trance, and I began to reflect painfully on the incredible phenomenon -which was then occurring before my eyes. - -And it was now entering upon a critical phase. The inspector was -examining the room where wounds were dressed. - -“This room,” he said, “is large and well arranged. It was altered -according to instructions I made in 1895 when I was reorganising this -hospital. In fact, the whole place seems fairly satisfactory. Have you -any complaints to make, Coupé?” - -Doctor Coupé blushed, was rather upset, and ended by saying: - -“Nothing at all, _Mossinspecteurjral_.” - -M. Briavoine, when asked in his turn, appeared to ponder, and then -replied that everything was as he wished. - -Professor Proby, recovering from his coma, hastened to stammer: - -“Ha! here everything is all right, _Mossinspecteurjral_.” - -I remembered something M. Briavoine had said. I seemed to see him -again buttoning his linen coat and saying, “What have I to gain?” -Then I looked, greatly astonished, at his attentive face and -respectful bearing. In the same way I observed his colleagues and, -thinking of these men who had nothing to gain from their effacement -and who had given way so completely, so hopelessly, I experienced a -great admiration for them, and I had an insight into the meaning of -discipline. But the perceptions of the intellect are often betrayed by -other less noble impulses, for at the very same moment I could hardly -restrain an inclination to laugh. - -M. Dufrêne had stopped in the middle of a dormitory. Fifty wounded men -were lying there: some talked in low voices, others groaned from time -to time, and others again were delirious. The Inspector-General clapped -his hands: at once the silence was complete. The least disciplined -race in the world stopped moaning; they ceased from their delirium. - -“Soldiers!” he said in a formidable voice, “the Government of the -Republic has sent me to you to see how you are looked after. See how -the Government of the Republic cares for you.” - -From one end of the room to the other heads were raised, necks were -stretched, and all those who had any breath left in them replied -together: - -“Thank you, General.” - -M. Dufrêne was going out. Behind him, the least disciplined race in the -world followed in good order down a staircase leading to the gardens. - -I followed too, bringing up the rear. - -I was enveloped in the shadows of the stairs, and before my bewildered -eyes interrogation marks began to dance multicoloured. They vanished, -and I then imagined a theatre where men appeared in their turn, said -what they had been taught, and arranged themselves in good and proper -order, some to speak again, others to dance, some to carry heavy -loads, and others to die. Across the top of the stage a word was -engraved which I could not make out, but which suddenly became luminous -when I heard the spectacled young man on my right whisper to his -comrade: - -“It is a convention--a great convention in the midst of all the other -conventions of life. It’s very queer, but not more so than that which -compels us to arrange the words of a conversation in such or such an -order.” - -We were now in the garden. The green and amber glow of late summer put -an end to one’s dreams. - -The inspector had grouped his audience and was saying: - -“You, Coupé, I congratulate you heartily. And in so doing I am -conscious of the real pleasure I am giving you.” - -M. Dufrêne was making no mistake, for the excellent doctor felt so -pleased indeed that he blushed to the roots of his white hair. - -There were other congratulations too, and also criticisms. Those who -had been praised were surrounded by courtiers. Those who had been -blamed were humiliated and left alone. Thus Professor Proby could be -seen withdrawing, alone and abashed, like a schoolboy sent into a -corner. - -M. Briavoine closed the door of the motor-car with his own hands. -As the vehicle was about to start, the phenomenon of the salute -was witnessed once more: left arms to the sides, right arms raised -simultaneously. - -The most undisciplined race in the world stiffened itself into the -regulation attitude. - -The motor-car started off with a hoot. - -“All the same, he’s a very remarkable man,” said Doctor Coupé, who -seemed to be still half-asleep. And he repeated: “Yes, all the same----” - -“He behaved well,” said M. Briavoine. - -I noticed the person with the horizontal beard. His fine growth seemed -to point down towards his chest, but he readjusted it by a voluntary -movement of the chin, and said: - -“Certainly, very well; but I would never hesitate, on occasion, to tell -him exactly what I thought.” - -“Certainly,” said M. Briavoine, “obedience should never go to the -length of surrendering your reasoning powers.” - -Everybody looked as if he had been doped with a subtle poison, but was -gradually getting back to consciousness. - -The sweet-smelling breeze played over the grass. I saw fluttering -before my eyes the flighty thistleseed, winged and fleecy. With a neat -little movement M. Briavoine caught it as he would a fly, and looked at -it absently as he ended his sentence: - -“Discipline,” he said, “does not imply, with us, the suppression of our -critical spirit.” - -And I saw, in fact, that the critical spirit had returned. - -The group was disappearing. I was contemplating the tips of my shoes. -The registers weighed heavily on my arm, and I tried to understand--to -understand it all, when a hand struck my shoulder. - -“Well! you are not in the guard-room, my boy! Good! That’s right!” - -Purple, apoplectic, the orderly officer looked at me furiously but -there was also in his eyes a sad, pleading expression. He added: - -“You make your complaint. You’ll see what’ll happen.” - -I raised my eyes towards the hospital. A clock adorned its front. - -Then, clicking my heels together, raising my right hand to the height -of my _képi_, I replied quite simply: - -“Sir, I am not going to complain. It is five minutes to twelve. At -twelve I shall be in prison.” - -The bulldog face relaxed. I thought he was going to thank me. He was -finally content to mumble: - -“That’s a good thing!” - -He went away. I proceeded, without laughing, to the guard-room. - -You know the rest: I passed four days and four nights there. It was -in the middle of September. At that time the flower of the French army -were accomplishing such deeds of valour that an immense feeling of -gratitude seemed to stir the whole country from end to end. And it was -in a prison that I was fated to offer these men my humble thanks. - -During those four days I thought of many queer things. But of them I -will tell you another time. - - - - - CUIRASSIER CUVELIER - - -The Cuvelier affair made a deep and lasting impression on me. M. -Poisson is not a bad man--far from it! But he is too old, you know. - -All these old men ought not to have been allowed to take part in the -war. You know what it cost us. And the curious thing was, sir, that -everybody admitted it; for in the end all these old fellows were sent -out of harm’s way to Limousin, one after the other. But let’s talk of -something else: this is almost politics, and is no business of mine. - -Talking about M. Poisson, he has one great fault: he drinks. Apart from -that, as I have told you, he wasn’t a bad sort. But the stuff a man is -made of soon degenerates by being soaked continually with small doses, -and often large ones too. M. Poisson drinks, and that’s unfortunate in -a man who fills a responsible post. - -What makes him even more peculiar is that he is not made as we others. -He is in himself a unique type. The world, as M. Poisson sees it, -falls into two classes. On one side, all those who are above him. -When he is facing that way he salutes and says, “I understand, _mon -général_; of course, colonel.” On the other side, all those who -are below him. And when facing them, he gets purple with shouting, -“Silence, will you!” and things of that kind. At bottom, I think he is -right, and that he is bound to behave like that in his work. I repeat -he isn’t a bad man--only timid. He shouts in order to convince himself -he is not afraid. - -But after all, that is a question of army administration, and it’s no -business of mine. Let us talk of something else. It is a principle of -mine never to speak of these things: it’s forbidden ground. - -But I have a personal grudge against M. Poisson for having put me in -the mortuary--I who can write in round hand or slanting hand, in Gothic -or flowing hand, and a dozen others, and would have made such a capable -secretary. - -Just imagine how I was received: I arrive with my helmet, knapsack, -and all my rig-out. I am shown into a hut, and am told: “The doctor is -in there.” - -At first I see no one. M. Poisson is buried up to his hair in papers: -I can just hear his asthmatical breathing, like wind blowing through -keyholes. Suddenly he comes out of his hiding-place, and considers -me. I see a rather heavy old man, short-legged, not very clean, with -black-lined nails, an excess of skin on the back of the hand, a -freckled skin that overlaps. He examines me carefully, but behaves as -if he does not see me. I, on my part, look straight at him and observe -him in detail: on his nose he has little varicose veins, his cheeks are -rather blue, and under his chin hangs some loose skin, like the snout -of beasts, and beneath his eyes two pouches that are never still, and -brandy-coloured, which you feel like pricking with a pin. - -He looks at me once again, spits, and says: - -“Yes....” - -I reply immediately: - -“At your service, sir!” - -Then he begins to shout in a hoarse voice: - -“Speak when you are spoken to. Be quiet, will you! You see I’m up to my -neck with this offensive, the wounded, and all these things here.” - -What could I reply? I stand at attention and again say: - -“Yes, sir; at your service, sir!” - -He lights a cigarette and begins to wheeze, as you may have noticed, -from the effects of alcohol on his chest. - -At this juncture an officer comes in. M. Poisson exclaims: - -“It’s you, Perrin? Oh, my dear fellow, let me alone, will you, to get -on with this job! You see I am tired out with the work. Just look at my -list: nineteen! I’ll never get to the end! Nineteen!” - -The officer takes me by the arm and says: - -“Oh! but this is the extra man that has been sent to us.” - -Then M. Poisson comes nearer, looks at me closely, and bellows, his -breath reeking with alcohol: - -“Send him to the mortuary! Some one is wanted there. He can help -Tanquerelle. To the mortuary! And no more nonsense!” - -Ten minutes later I am stationed at the mortuary. - - * * * * * - -I became, sir, very wretched. I am fairly cheerful as a rule, but -moving corpses about all day long cannot be called life. And such dead! -The flower of the country, degraded to a depth which imagination cannot -fathom. - -Tanquerelle is an old butcher’s assistant. He too drinks. He is always -given the most unpleasant work because he drinks, and his unpleasant -work is an excuse for giving him more drinks. But I am not going to -expatiate on that. The drink question is not my business, unfortunately. - -Tanquerelle is no company: he is a calamity, a scourge, a breed apart, -so to speak. When he is hungry, he never speaks; but he never is -hungry. Usually he indulges in small talk--the comments of a drunkard, -painful to hear in the presence of these corpses. - -We are told, sir, that dead bodies mean very little to one after a -time, and that when you habitually live with them they become nothing -more than stones to you. Well, that’s not my experience. Every one of -these corpses, with which I pass my days, ends in being a companion to -me. - -I get to like some of them, and I am almost sorry to see them taken -away. Sometimes, when I carelessly hit up against them with my elbow, -it is with an effort that I do not say, “I beg your pardon, my friend.” -I look at them, with their blistered hands, and their feet covered with -corns after long trudging over the roads, and my heart understands and -is touched. - -I note a flighty ring on a finger, a birthmark on the skin, an old -scar, sometimes even tattoes, and finally one of the things which man -does not leave behind him: his poor grey hair, the lines of his face, -the relic of a smile around his eyes, more often traces of terror. -And all that sets my mind thinking. From their bodies I can read their -history: I imagined how much they had worked with those arms, the many -things they had seen with their eyes, how they had kissed with those -lips, how proud they must have been of their moustache and their beard, -on which now the lice were crawling, away from the cold, dead flesh. I -think of these things as I sew up the corpses in the sacking; and the -emotion I feel rather startles me, because mingled with my misery is a -feeling of pleasure. - -But I am wandering off into philosophy. Not being a philosopher, I -haven’t the right to bore you. - -I think I was speaking to you about Cuirassier Cuvelier. Well, let me -return to the story. - -It takes us back to the May offensives. I assure you, I wasn’t idle -in those days. What numbers of dead passed through my hands! The poor -unfortunate widows and mothers need have no anxiety: in my way, I did -my duty. All of them were taken away with their mouths tightly closed -with a chin-cloth, arms crossed on their bodies--that is, of course, -if they still possessed mouths and arms--and I carefully wrapped them -in the sacking. I do not mention their eyes: it was beyond my power to -close them. It is too late, you know, by the time they arrive at the -mortuary. Oh, I took good care of my dead! - -One day they brought me one with no identification mark at all. His -face was crushed in; bandages everywhere on his limbs, but no ticket, -no disc on his wrist, nothing at all. - -I placed him on one side, and the doctor was informed. - -In a moment the door opened and M. Poisson came in. - -His deportment was always good after he had some drink; you could tell -it too from his manner of coughing and spitting and fingering his -cross, for, you know, he was an Officer of the Legion of Honour. - -“You have one too many here,” he said. - -“Sir, I don’t know whether there is one too many, but there is a body -here without an identification card.” - -“It isn’t only that,” replied M. Poisson, “I see you have eight bodies -here. Just wait a moment....” - -He took out of his pocket a rumpled piece of paper, looking at it from -every possible angle, then he shouted: - -“Seven! Seven only! You ought only to have seven! You fool! Who brought -this corpse here? I don’t want it. It’s not on the list. Where in the -world did it come from?” - -I began to tremble, and replied stammering: - -“I didn’t notice which section brought it here.” - -“Ah! You didn’t notice! And what do you think I’m going to do with it? -Now, what is the man’s name?” - -“But, sir, that’s just what I want to know. He hasn’t been identified.” - -“Not identified! Now we’re in for it. You’ll hear again of this from -me. It simply won’t do. To begin with, come along with me at once!” - -We go from hut to hut, M. Poisson asking at each door: - -“Did any of you send us a body without identification papers?” - -You can well imagine that when asked in this way all M. Poisson’s men -took cover immediately. Some laughed secretly: others were alarmed. All -made the same reply: - -“A dead body without identification papers! Certainly not, Doctor; we -never brought it.” - -M. Poisson began to breathe heavily. - -He spat everywhere; he was so angry that his voice was no longer -human--it was hoarse, ragged and torn. In spite of his insufferable -temper, I actually felt pity for the old man. - -Back he goes to the office, I following close at his heels. Dashing to -his papers and documents, he shuffles them about like a spaniel in the -mud. Then, shouting angrily, he says: - -“Here you are!--1236 came in; 561 have gone out. Do you understand? -Six remain at present. That’s it: one is missing, and it must be the -one. And nobody knows who he is! We are in a mess! We are in a mess!” - -I confess that M. Poisson’s assurance made a great impression on me. -Especially was I surprised at the accuracy of his figures. It is -wonderful, sir, to note the efficiency of military organisation. We -learn, for instance, that twenty-three stretchers out of a hundred have -been lost--not one more, not one less; or 1000 wounded were brought in; -50 died; therefore 950 are still alive. To maintain this mathematical -order, it is therefore clearly well worth while taking the trouble to -make a list of everything that comes in and goes out. Listening to -M. Poisson making his calculation, I saw, too clearly, how my poor -unfortunate corpse was one too many. - -The doctor repeated, “We are in a mess,” and added, “Now, you there! -Come along with me.” - -M. Poisson bustled off again in all directions, to the left and to the -right. I followed him, my head lowered, having been gradually seized by -the fever that tortured him. He stopped all the officers. - -“I’m fed up with this job! Go and see if the body wasn’t sent out from -your huts.” - -He entered the operating theatres and asked the surgeons: - -“You didn’t send me an unidentified dead body?” - -And every time he took out his rumpled piece of paper and added a -cross, a number, with his pencil. - -Towards evening he fixed me with another look. There were red patches -underneath his eyes as highly coloured as raw ham. - -“You!--go back to the mortuary! You’ll hear more of me yet!” - -I went back, and sat down, feeling very wretched. Three fresh corpses -had been brought in. Tanquerelle was hoisting them into coffins with -the help of the carpenter. - -On the table, temporarily shrouded in tent material, the unknown dead -man was waiting his fate. Tanquerelle was completely drunk and was -singing “The Missouri,”--not exactly the thing to do in the midst of -corpses. I went and drew aside the shroud and looked at the ice-cold -body. His smashed face was covered with linen bandages. A few locks of -fair hair could be seen. As for the rest, just an ordinary body, like -yours or mine, sir. - -Night had fallen. The door opened and M. Poisson, accompanied by -another officer, appeared with a lantern. He seemed calm and replete, -like a man who has dined well. - -“You are an idiot,” he said to me. “Why couldn’t you see that this was -the body of Cuirassier Cuvelier?” - -“But, sir----” - -“Oh, shut up! It’s Cuirassier Cuvelier.” - -Coming up to the table, he noted the size of the corpse and exclaimed: - -“Of course! He’s tall enough to be a cuirassier. You see, Perrin, -Cuvelier was brought in the day before yesterday. According to the -register, he was not taken out. As he is no longer under treatment, he -is dead, and this must be he. That’s clear.” - -“Obviously,” said Perrin, “it’s he right enough.” - -“Yes; don’t you agree?” replied M. Poisson. “It’s Cuvelier; that is -quite plain. Poor devil! Now we can go to bed....” - -Then he turned towards me: - -“You!--you will put him in the coffin, and stick on the lid: ‘Cuvelier, -Edouard, 9th Cuirassiers.’ And then, you mind! no more pranks of this -kind.” - -When the officers had gone, I put Cuirassier Cuvelier in a coffin, and -then I lay down for a few hours on my mattress. - - * * * * * - -The next morning I was preparing to nail down the coffin of Edouard -Cuvelier, when I saw M. Poisson coming up once again. His face was not -so calm as on the previous evening. - -“Wait; don’t bury that man yet,” he said. - -He walked round the coffin, and nibbled the end of a cigarette; he -appeared indeed so uneasy that I knew at once he had not yet decided -to thrust Cuvelier out into the abyss. It was not going to be done: -the dead body was getting in the way and refused to be swallowed up. I -don’t know whether M. Poisson had a high idea of his duty, or merely -was afraid of complications; whatever it was, I sympathised greatly -with him at that moment. - -He turned towards me and, as he did not like to be alone, “Come along -with me,” he said. - -Off we went again, making the round of the huts. - -“Hut No. 8?” began M. Poisson. “The seriously wounded are here, aren’t -they? Is Cuirassier Cuvelier here?” - -The men there made inquiries, and replied “No.” - -We went on to the next. - -M. Poisson began again: - -“Hut No. 7? Have you here a man named Cuvelier, of the 9th -Cuirassiers?” - -“No, _Monsieur le médecin-chef_.” - -M. Poisson was delighted with his success. - -“Of course! They can’t have him, because he’s dead. I am doing this to -satisfy my conscience. I’m made like that.” - -We met M. Perrin. - -“You see, Perrin,” said the doctor, “in order to be quite sure, I am -looking in every hut to see if a Cuvelier may not be anywhere. And -I can’t find a man of that name. Of course, I only look where the -seriously wounded are quartered. I am not a fool. If he is dead, he -must have been seriously wounded.” - -“Obviously,” said M. Perrin. - -After we had been to all the huts, M. Poisson held himself very -proudly, causing many folds in the loose flesh under his chin, and he -concluded by saying: - -“It’s Cuvelier, sure enough. Now you see what it is to have order. -With me it’s not the same as with Ponce and Vieillon, who are awful -bunglers.” - -“Perhaps,” M. Perrin said, “you would be wise to inquire among the -lightly wounded.” - -“Oh! well, if you think so,” said M. Poisson, rather indifferently. - -And we proceeded to the huts of the “quick removals.” We went in, and -asked the usual question. No one replied. On going out, M. Poisson -repeated: - -“Cuvelier isn’t here?” - -Then suddenly we heard some one shouting: - -“Yes; Cuvelier, present!” - -And a tall, curly-headed man jumps off a bed, raising a hand that was -very lightly bandaged.... - -Things take a tragic turn. M. Poisson turns dark purple, like a man -stricken with apoplexy. He spits two or three times. He smacks his -thighs, and says in a choking voice: - -“God! he must be alive then!” - -“I am Cuvelier,” the soldier remarks. - -“Cuvelier, Edouard?” - -“Yes; Edouard!” - -“Of the 9th Cuirassiers?” - -“That’s right: of the ‘9th Cuir’!” - -M. Poisson goes out like a madman, followed by M. Perrin and myself. -He goes to the mortuary, and he stands before the coffin, dribbles on -his tunic, and says quite shortly: - -“If it’s not Cuvelier, we have to begin all over again.” - - * * * * * - -Ah, sir! what a day it was! - -The offensive was going on during that time. The dead were filling -the place which had been reserved for them. But the very life of the -service seemed to have been held up. - -You have seen ships come to a stop in the middle of a river and holding -up all the traffic? Well, this unknown corpse gave that impression. -It was stranded right across our work and began to upset everything, -beginning with the health of the unfortunate M. Poisson, who suggested -taking sick leave. - -Every hour he came and glanced at the body, which was beginning slowly -to decompose. He stared at it stolidly. - -During the afternoon I had a moment’s rest while M. Poisson took his -siesta. About six he came again, and I hardly recognised him. His hands -were almost clean, he wore a white collar, his beard was trimmed, and -his breath like that of a man who has just rinsed his mouth in _vieux -marc_. - -“What!” he said, “you haven’t yet closed down the German’s coffin! You -are an incapable ass!” - -“But, sir----” - -“Hold your tongue! And write this inscription, and be quick!--‘An -unknown German.’ D’you understand?” - -M. Perrin had just come in. The two officers had one more look at the -corpse. - -“It’s obviously a Boche,” said M. Poisson. - -“Yes; look at his fair hair.” - -“Perrin, you ought to have thought of it sooner,” added the doctor. - -The officers were about to go out, when M. Poisson turned round and -said: - -“Take the thing out of the coffin; since he’s a German, put him in the -earth as he is, with all the other Huns.” - - - - - CIVILISATION - - -I must know first what you mean by civilisation. That is a question I -can well put to a man of understanding and intelligence like yourself; -and then, too, you are always boasting of this famous civilisation. - -Before the war I was an assistant in a commercial laboratory; but now -I swear that, if ever I have the doubtful privilege of surviving this -horror, I will never take up the work again. The country--the pure, -fresh country for me! Anywhere away from these filthy factories--far -from the roar of your aeroplanes and all the machinery in which -formerly I took an interest when I did not understand things; but which -horrify me now because I see in them the very spirit of the war--the -principle and the cause of the war. - -I hate the twentieth century as I hate this degenerate Europe--as -I hate the world which Europe has polluted. I know it may seem -ridiculous--this high talk. But what do I care! I’m not speaking to -the crowd, and besides I might as well be laughed at for this as for -anything else. I repeat, I shall fly to the hills, and I shall see -to it that I am as much alone as I possibly can be. I had thought of -escaping among the savages, but there are no real savages now. _They_ -are all riding bicycles and clamouring for medals and honours.... I am -not going to live with the savages--we have done our best to corrupt -them: I have seen it done too well at Soissons. - -In the spring of this year I was at Soissons with the G.B.C. I see -that G.B.C.[2] rather mystifies you, but you must blame civilisation -for that: the Tower of Babel is being rebuilt by it, and soon we shall -have so debased our mother tongue that it will be nothing more than a -telegraphic code, ugly and colourless. - -The retreat of the Germans had taken the line back towards Vauxaillon -and Laffaux, and there fighting went on pretty vigorously. In one -sector there was a spot--the Laffaux mill--which was a veritable thorn -in a wound, keeping it always inflamed. About the beginning of May -a great attack was launched on the mill, and nearly the whole of my -division had to turn out on field duty. - -“You, sergeant,” said one officer to me--“you will remain at the -hospital and take charge of the A.C.A.[3] section. I’ll send a number -of men to help you.” - -I was by this time thoroughly conversant with the subtleties of -military speech. When I was told that a number of men were to be -put under my charge, I understood perfectly that there would be no -one; and in point of fact I was given four miserable outcasts--weak, -half-imbecile creatures of no use to any one. - -From Saturday onwards the wounded arrived in batches of a hundred. I -got them arranged as methodically as I could in the wards of the A.C.A. - -But the work was not going on at all well. My absurd -stretcher-bearers, unable to fall in with each other’s movements, -stumbled like broken-kneed, miserable nags, causing the wounded to -scream with pain. In a nibbling, haphazard sort of way, they tried -to deal with the waiting masses of the injured, and the whole A.C.A. -seemed to stamp with impatience. The effect was rather like a human -meat factory which has its machinery going at full strength without -being fed with oil and materials. - -I must really describe the A.C.A. to you. In war slang it means -an automatic hospital (“autochir”)--the latest thing in surgical -invention. It’s the last word in science, just like our 400 m.m. -calibre guns which run on metal rails: it follows the armies with -motors, steam-driven machinery, microscopes, laboratories, the -complete equipment of a modern hospital. It is the first great repair -depôt which the wounded man enters on coming out of the destructive, -grinding mill on the extreme front. Here are brought the parts of the -military machine that are most spoiled. Skilled workmen take them in -hand at once, loosen them quickly, and with a practised eye examine -them, as one would a hydro-pneumatic break, an ignition chamber or -a collimator. If the part is seriously damaged, it goes through the -usual routine of being scrapped; but if the “human material” is not -irretrievably ruined, it is patched up ready to be used again at the -first opportunity, and that is called “preserving the effectives.” - -My stretcher-bearers, with the jolting clumsiness of drunken dockers, -were bringing to the A.C.A. a few of the injured, who were at once -swallowed up and eliminated. And the factory continued to growl, like -some Moloch whose appetite has been whetted by the fumes of the first -sacrifice. - -I had picked up a stretcher. Helped by a gunner who had been wounded in -the neck, and whose only desire was to be of some use while awaiting -his operation, I led my crew in amongst the heap of men that lay on -the ground. It was then that I saw some one passing along wearing a -high-grade officer’s hat--a sensible sort of man who smiled in spite -of his solicitous bearing. - -“There is something wrong with your ambulance work,” he said. “I’ll -send you eight negroes. They are excellent stretcher men, these fellows -from Madagascar.” - -Ten minutes afterwards the negroes had come. - -To be exact, they were not all natives of Madagascar: they were types -selected from the 1st Colonial Corps which was at that very moment -strenuously fighting before Laffaux. There were a few natives of the -Soudan, whose age was difficult to tell, sombre and wrinkled, and -concealing under their regimental tunics charms that were coated with -dirt, and smelling with leather, sweat and exotic oils. The negroes of -Madagascar were of medium height, looking like embryos, very dark and -silent. - -They slipped on the straps, and at my command began carrying the -wounded with quiet unconcern, as if they were unloading bales of cotton -at the docks. - -I was content, or rather reassured. The A.C.A., surfeited at last, -worked at high pressure, and hummed like well-tended machines that drip -with oil, shining and flashing from every point. - -Flash! The word is not too strong. I was dazzled on entering the -operating hut. Night had just fallen--one of those warm beautiful -nights of this brutal spring. The gunfire came and went in short -spasms, like a sick giant. The wards of the hospital overflowed with a -heaving mass of pain, and death was trying to restore order there. I -breathed in deeply the night air of the garden and, as I was saying, I -entered the operating hut. - -It had been partitioned off into several rooms. The one I suddenly -stepped into made a bulge in the side of the building. It was as hot -as a puddling-oven. Men were cleaning, scrubbing, and polishing, with -scrupulous care, a mass of shining instruments, while others were -stoking fires which gave out the white heat of soldering lamps. With -never a pause, orderlies were coming and going, carrying trays held -out rather stiffly at arm’s length, like hotel-keepers devoted to the -ceremonious rites of the table. - -“It’s warm here,” I murmured, in order to say something. - -“Come over here: you’ll find it all right,” said a grinning little chap -as hairy as a kobold. - -I lifted a lid, feeling I was opening the breast of some monster. In -front of me steps led to a kind of throne on which, seated like a king, -the heart of the thing was to be found. It was a steriliser--an immense -pot in which a calf could easily have been cooked whole. It lay on its -stomach and emitted a jet of steam that stupefied one, and its weary -monotony made one hardly conscious of time and space. But suddenly the -infernal noise stopped, and it was like the end of eternity. On the -back of the machine a load of kettles continued to spit and gurgle. A -man looking like a ship’s pilot was turning a large heavy wheel, and -the lid of the cauldron, suddenly unbolted, rose, exposing to view -its red-hot bowels, from which all sorts of boxes and packages were -taken out. The heat of the furnace had given way to the damp, crushing -atmosphere of a drying-stove. - -“But where do they operate on the wounded?” I asked a boy who was -washing a pair of rubber gloves in a big copper tub. - -“Over there, in the operating-room, of course. But don’t go in that -way.” - -I went out again into the freshness of the night, and proceeded to the -waiting-room to find my stretcher-bearers. - -At that moment it was the turn of the cuirassiers to be brought in. A -division of “foot cavalry” had been fighting since morning. Hundreds of -the finest men in France had fallen, and they waited there like broken -statues which are still beautiful in their ruins. Their limbs were -so strong, and their chests so solid, that they could not believe in -death, and as they felt their rich healthy blood dripping from their -wounds, they held at bay, with curses and laughter, the weakness of -their broken flesh. - -“They can do what they like with this flesh of mine,” said one of the -two; “but to make me unconscious, damn me! I’m not having any.” - -“Yes, whatever they like,” said another, “but not amputation! I want my -paw; even done to the world, I want it!” - -These two men were coming out of the X-ray ward. They lay naked under a -sheet, and carried, pinned to their bandages, papers of different sizes -and shapes, rough sketches, formulæ, and something like an algebraical -statement of their wounds, the expression in numbers of their misery -and disordered organs. - -They spoke of this their first visit to the laboratory like clever -children who realise that the modern world would not know how to live -or die without the meticulous discipline of the sciences. - -“What did he say, the X-rays major?” - -“He said it was an antero-posterior axis.” - -“Just what I feared.” - -“It’s in my belly. I heard him say _abdomen_. But I am sure it’s in my -belly. Ah, damn it! but I’m not going to be put to sleep. That I won’t -stand!” - -The door of the operating theatre opened at this point, and the -waiting-room was flooded with light. A voice cried: - -“The next lot! And the belly chap first!” - -The black bearers adjusted their straps, and the two talkers were -carried off. I followed the stretchers. - -Imagine a shining rectangular block set in sheer night like a jewel -in coal. The door closed again, and I found myself imprisoned in that -light, which was reflected from the spotless canvas of the ceiling. The -floor, level and springy, was strewn with red soaked linen which the -orderlies picked up quickly with forceps. Between the floor and the -ceiling, four strange forms that were men. They were dressed completely -in white, their faces hidden behind masks which, like those of Touareg, -only admit the eyes to view. Like Chinese dancers, they held in the air -their hands covered with rubber, and the perspiration streamed from -their brows. - -You could hear the muffled vibrations of the motor which generated -the light. Filled up again to overflowing, the steriliser disturbed -the world with its piercing lament. Small radiators were snorting like -animals when they are stroked the wrong way. It all made a savage, -flamboyant music, and the men who were moving about seemed to perform -rhythmically a religious dance--a kind of austere and mysterious ballet. - -The stretchers glided in between the tables like canoes in an -archipelago. The instruments were set out on spotless linen and -sparkled like jewels in glass cases; and the little Madagascar negroes, -alert and obedient, took great care in handling their burden. They -stopped on the word of command, and waited. Their dark slender necks -yoked with the straps, and their fingers clutching the handles of the -stretchers, reminded one of sacred apes trained to carry idols. The -heads and feet of the two wan and enormous cuirassiers stuck out beyond -the limits of the stretchers. - -A few gestures that were almost ritualistic, and the wounded men were -placed on the operating-tables. - -At that moment I caught the eye of one of the negroes, and I -experienced a feeling of extreme discomfort. It was the calm deep -look of a child or a young dog. The savage was slowly turning his -head from left to right and looked at the extraordinary men and the -extraordinary things all around him. His dark eyes stopped lightly -on all the wonderful parts of this workshop devoted to repairing the -human machine. And those eyes, which betrayed no thought, were on that -account even more disquieting. For one second I was fool enough to -think “How astonished he must be!” But the absurd thought soon left me, -and I was overwhelmed with unutterable shame. - -The four negroes left the room. That afforded me a little comfort. The -wounded looked dazed and bewildered. The ambulance men hastened to bind -their hands and feet and rub them with alcohol. The masked men were -giving orders and moving about the tables with the deliberate gestures -of officiating priests. - -“Who is the head here?” I whispered to some one. - -He was pointed out to me. He was a man of medium height and was sitting -down, with his gloved hands held up, dictating something to a clerk. - -Fatigue, the blinding light, the booming of the guns, the rumble of -the machinery acted as a sort of lucid drug on my brain. I remained -fixed where I was, in a veritable whirl of thought. Everything here -worked for one’s good ... it was civilisation finding within itself -the supreme reply, the corrective to its destructive excesses; nothing -less than this complex organism would suffice to reduce by the smallest -degree the immense evil creation of the machine age. I thought again of -the indecipherable look of the savage, and my emotion was a mixture of -pity, anger and loathing.... - -The man who, as I had learnt, was in charge of the operating theatre -had finished dictating. He remained fixed in the position of a heraldic -messenger and seemed to be absorbed in thought. I noticed that behind -his spectacles gleamed a look that was solemn, tranquil and sad, -though full of purpose. Scarcely anything of his face was visible, -the mask hiding his mouth and beard; but on his temples could be seen -a few fresh grey hairs, and a large swollen vein marked his forehead, -betraying the strained efforts of a tense will. - -“The man’s unconscious,” said some one. - -The surgeon approached the table. The man had indeed lost -consciousness; and I saw it was the very one who swore he would -not take the anæsthetic. The poor man had not dared even to make a -protest. Caught, as it were, in the cogs of the wheel, he was at once -overpowered, and he delivered himself up to the hungry machine, like -pig-iron devoured by the rolling-mills. And then, too, he must have -known it was for his good, because this is all the good that is left to -us in these days. - -“Sergeant,” some one remarked, “you are not allowed to remain in the -operating theatre without a cap.” - -On going out, I looked once again at the surgeon. He hung over his work -with an assiduity in which, despite his overalls, his mask and his -gloves, a feeling of tenderness was plainly marked. - -I thought with conviction: “No! No! He, at least, has no illusions!” - -And I found myself once more in the waiting-room, that smelt of blood, -like a wild beast’s lair. - -A dim light came from a veiled lamp. Some wounded were moaning; others -chatted in low voices. - -“Who said tank?” said one of them. “Why, I was wounded in a tank.” - -There was silence, brief and respectful. The man, who was buried in -bandages, added: - -“Our petrol-tank burst: my legs are broken and I am burnt in the face. -Oh! I know all about tanks!” - -He said that with a queer emphasis in which I recognised the age-long -torment of humanity--pride. - - * * * * * - -I went out into the night to enjoy a smoke. The world seemed to be -dazed, bewildered, tragic; and I think that in reality.... - -Believe me, sir, when I speak of civilisation and regret it, I quite -know what I am saying; and it is not wireless telegraphy that will -alter my opinion. It is all the more tragic because we are helpless; we -cannot reverse the course which the world is taking. And yet! - -Civilisation--the true civilisation--exists. I think often of it. In -my mind it is the harmony of a choir chanting a hymn; it is a marble -statue on an arid, burnt-up hillside; it is the Man who said, “Love one -another,” or “Return good for evil.” But for two thousand years these -phrases have been merely repeated, and the chief priests have too much -vested interest in temporal things to conceive anything of the kind. - -We are mistaken about happiness and about good. The noblest natures -have also been mistaken, for silence and solitude are too often denied -them. I have seen the monstrous steriliser on its throne. I tell you, -of a truth, civilisation is not to be found there any more than in the -shining forceps of the surgeon. Civilisation is not in this terrible -trumpery; and if it is not in the heart of man, then it exists nowhere. - - - THE END - - - Printed by SPOTTISWOODE, BALLANTYNE & CO. LTD. - Colchester, London & Eton, England - - - FOOTNOTES: - -[2] G.B.C., abbreviation for _groupe de brancardiers du corps_ (the -corps ambulance division). - -[3] A.C.A., abbreviation for _ambulance du corps d’armée_. - - - * * * * * - - - SWARTHMORE PRESS BOOKS - - - Mr. Sterling Sticks it Out - - By HAROLD BEGBIE - - Author of “Broken Earthenware,” - “Living Water,” etc, etc., etc. - - Crown 8vo. 6_s._ net. - -_This_ powerful and much-discussed novel, though written in the winter -of 1917, could not be published until recently owing to the action -of the Censors. It is a study of the character of two brothers, both -of whom are faithful to their ideals--the one dying on the field of -battle, and the other falling a victim to his harsh treatment in prison -as a Conscientious Objector. The story has been splendidly received, -and the whole press has joined in condemning in most indignant terms -the folly of the Press Bureau in withholding the book so long from -circulation. 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