Chapter XXVII (2)

So a man does not die of pain, or Leglise would certainly be dead. I see him still, opening his eyes desperately and checking the scream that rises to his lips. Oh! I thought indeed that he was going to die. But his agony demands full endurance; it does not even stupefy those it assails.

I call on every one for help.

"Genest, Barrassin, Prevot, come, all of you."

Yes, let ten of us do our best if necessary, to support Leglise, to hold him, to soothe him. A minute of his endurance is equal to ten years of such effort as ours.

Alas! were there a hundred of us he would still have to bear the heaviest burden alone.

All humanity at this hour is bearing a very cruel burden. Every minute aggravates its sufferings, and will no one, no one come to its aid?

We made an examination of the wounded man, together with our chief, who muttered almost inaudibly between his teeth:

"He must be prepared for another sacrifice."

Yes, the sacrifice is not yet entirely consummated.

But Leglise understood. He no longer weeps. He has the weary and somewhat bewildered look of the man who is rowing against the storm. I steal a look at him, and he says at once in a clear, calm, resolute voice:

"I would much rather die."

I go into the garden. It is a brilliant morning, but I can see nothing, I want to see nothing. I repeat as I walk to and fro:

"He would much rather die."

And I ask despairingly whether he is not right perhaps.

All the poplars rustle softly. With one voice, the voice of Summer itself, they say: "No! No! He is not right!"

A little beetle crosses the path before me. I step on it unintentionally, but it flies away in desperate haste. It too has answered in its own way: "No, really, your friend is not right."

"Tell him he is wrong," sing the swarm of insects that buzz about the lime-tree.

And even a loud roar from the guns that travels across the landscape seems to say gruffly: "He is wrong! He is wrong!"

During the evening the chief came back to see Leglise, who said to him with the same mournful gravity:

"No, I won't, Monsieur, I would rather die."

We go down into the garden, and the chief says a strange thing to me:

"Try to convince him. I begin at last to feel ashamed of demanding such a sacrifice from him."

And I too... am I not ashamed?

I consult the warm, star-decked night; I am quite sure now that he is wrong, but I don't know how to tell him so. What can I offer him in exchange for the thing I am about to ask him? Where shall I find the words that induce a man to live? Oh you, all things around me, tell me, repeat to me that it is sweet to live, even with a body so grievously mutilated.

This morning I extracted a little projectile from one of his wounds. He secretly concluded that this would perhaps make the great operation unnecessary, and it hurt me to see his joy. I could not leave him this satisfaction.

The struggle began again; this time it was desperate. For we have no time to lose. Every hour of delay exhausts our man further. A few days more, and there will be no choice open to him: only death, after a long ordeal....

He repeats:

"I am not afraid, but I would rather die."

Then I talk to him as if I were the advocate of Life. Who gave me this right? Who gave me eloquence? The things I said were just the right things, and they came so readily that now and then I was afraid of holding out so sure a promise of a life I am not certain I can preserve, of guaranteeing a future that is not in man's hands.

Gradually, I feel his resistance weakening. There is something in Leglise which involuntarily sides with me and pleads with me. There are moments when he does not know what to say, and formulates trivial objections, just because there are others so much weightier.

"I live with my mother," he says. "I am twenty years old. What work is there for a cripple? Ought I to live to suffer poverty and misery?"

"Leglise, all France owes you too much, she would blush not to pay her debt."

And I promise again, in the name of our country, sure that she will never fall short of what I undertake for her. The whole French nation is behind me at this moment, silently ratifying my promise.

We are at the edge of the terrace; evening has come. I hold his burning wrist in which the feeble pulse beats with exhausted fury. The night is so beautiful, so beautiful! Rockets rise above the hills, and fall slowly bathing the horizon in silvery rays. The lightning of the guns flashes furtively, like a winking eye. In spite of all this, in spite of war, the night is like waters dark and divine. Leglise breathes it in to his wasted breast in long draughts, and says:

"Oh, I don't know, I don't know!... Wait another day, please, please...."

We waited three whole days, and then Leglise gave in. "Well, do what you must. Do what you like."

On the morning of the operation, he asked to be carried down to the ward by the steps into the park. I went with him, and I saw him looking at all things round him, as if taking them to witness.

If only, only it is not too late!

Again he was laid on the table. Again we cut through flesh and bones. The second leg was amputated at the thigh.

I took him in my arms to lay him on his bed, and he was so light, so light....

This time when he woke he asked no question. But I saw his hands groping to feel where his body ended.

A few days have passed since the operation. We have done all it was humanly possible to do, and Leglise comes back to life with a kind of bewilderment.

"I thought I should have died," he said to me this morning, while I was encouraging him to eat.

He added:

"When I went down to the operation-ward, I looked well at everything, and I thought it was for the last time."

"Look, dear boy. Everything is just the same, just as beautiful as ever."

"Oh!" he says, going back to his memories, "I had made up my mind to die."

To make up one's mind to die is to take a certain resolution, in the hope of becoming quieter, calmer, and less unhappy. The man who makes up his mind to die severs a good many ties, and indeed actually dies to some extent.

With secret anxiety, I say gently, as if I were asking a question:

"It is always good to eat, to drink, to breathe, to see the light. ..."

He does not answer. He is dreaming. I spoke too soon. I go away, still anxious.

We have some bad moments yet, but the fever gradually abates. I have an impression that Leglise bears his pain more resolutely, like one who has given all he had to give, and fears nothing further.

When I have finished the dressing, I turned him over on his side, to ease his sore back. He smiled for the first time this morning, saying:

"I have already gained something by getting rid of my legs. I can lie on my side now."

But he cannot balance himself well; he is afraid of falling.

Think of him, and you will be afraid with him and for him.

Sometimes he goes to sleep in broad daylight and dozes for a few minutes. He has shrunk to the size of a child. I lay a piece of gauze over his face, as one does to a child, to keep the flies off. I bring him a little bottle of Eau de Cologne and a fan, they help him to bear the final assaults of the fever.

He begins to smoke again. We smoke together on the terrace, where I have had his bed brought. I show him the garden and say: "In a few days, I will carry you down into the garden."

He is anxious about his neighbours, asks their names, and inquires about their wounds. For each one he has a compassionate word that comes from the depths of his being. He says to me:

"I hear that little Camus is dead. Poor Camus!"

His eyes fill with tears. I was almost glad to see them. He had not cried for so long. He adds:

"Excuse me, I used to see Camus sometimes. It's so sad."

He becomes extraordinarily sensitive. He is touched by all he sees around him, by the sufferings of others, by their individual misfortunes. He vibrates like an elect soul, exalted by a great crisis.

When he speaks of his own case, it is always to make light of his misfortune:

"Dumont got it in the belly. Ah, it's lucky for me that none of my organs are touched; I can't complain."

I watch him with admiration, but I am waiting for something more, something more....

His chief crony is Legrand.

Legrand is a stonemason with a face like a young girl. He has lost a big piece of his skull. He has also lost the use of language, and we teach him words, as to a baby. He is beginning to get up now, and he hovers round Leglise's bed to perform little services for him. He tries to master his rebellious tongue, but failing in the attempt, he smiles, and expresses himself with a limpid glance, full of intelligence.

Leglise pities him too:

"It must be wretched not to be able to speak."

To-day we laughed, yes, indeed, we laughed heartily, Leglise, the orderlies and I.

We were talking of his future pension while the dressings were being prepared, and someone said to him:

"You will live like a little man of means."

Leglise looked at his body and answered:

"Oh, yes, a little man, a very little man."

The dressing went off very well. To make our task easier, Leglise suggested that he should hold on to the head of the bed with both hands and throw himself back on his shoulders, holding his stumps up in the air. It was a terrible, an unimaginable sight; but he began to laugh, and the spectacle became comic. We all laughed. But the dressing was easy and was quickly finished.

The stumps are healing healthily. In the afternoon, he sits up in bed. He begins to read and to smoke, chatting to his companions.

I explain to him how he will be able to walk with artificial legs. He jokes again:

"I was rather short before; but now I can be just the height I choose."

I bring him some cigarettes that had been sent me for him, some sweets and dainties. He makes a sign that he wants to whisper to me, and says very softly:

"I have far too many things. But Legrand is very badly off; his home is in the invaded district, and he has nothing, they can't send him anything."

I understand. I come back presently with a packet in which there are tobacco, some good cigarettes, and also a little note....

"Here is something for Legrand. You must give it to him. I'm off."

In the afternoon I find Leglise troubled and perplexed.

"I can't give all this to Legrand myself, he would be offended."

So then we have to devise a discreet method of presentation.

It takes some minutes. He invents romantic possibilities. He becomes flushed, animated, interested.

"Think," I say, "find a way. Give it to him yourself, from some one or other."

But Leglise is too much afraid of wounding Legrand's susceptibilities. He ruminates on the matter till evening.

The little parcel is at the head of Legrand's bed. Leglise calls my attention to it with his chin, and whispers:

"I found some one to give it to him. He doesn't know who sent it. He has made all sorts of guesses; it is very amusing!" Oh, Leglise, can it be that there is still something amusing, and that it is to be kind? Isn't this alone enough to make it worth while to live?

So now we have a great secret between us. All the morning, as I come and go in the ward, he looks at me meaningly, and smiles to himself. Legrand gravely offers me a cigarette; Leglise finds it hard not to burst out laughing. But he keeps his counsel.

The orderlies have put him on a neighbouring bed while they make his. He stays there very quietly, his bandaged stumps in view, and sings a little song, like a child's cradle-song. Then, all of a sudden, he begins to cry, sobbing aloud.

I put my arm round him and ask anxiously: "Why? What is the matter?"

Then he answers in a broken voice: "I am crying with joy and thankfulness."

Oh! I did not expect so much. But I am very happy, much comforted. I kiss him, he kisses me, and I think I cried a little too.

I have wrapped him in a flannel dressing-gown, and I carry him in my arms. I go down the steps to the park very carefully, like a mother carrying her new-born babe for the first time, and I call out: "An arm-chair! An arm-chair."

He clings to my neck as I walk, and says in some confusion:

"I shall tire you."

No indeed! I am too well pleased. I would not let any one take my place. The arm-chair has been set under the trees, near a grove. I deposit Leglise among the cushions. They bring him a kepi. He breathes the scent of green things, of the newly mown lawns, of the warm gravel. He looks at the facade of the mansion, and says:

"I had not even seen the place where I very nearly died."

All the wounded who are walking about come and visit him; they almost seem to be paying him homage. He talks to them with a cordial authority. Is he not the chief among them, in virtue of his sufferings and his sacrifice?

Some one in the ward was talking this morning of love and marriage, and a home.

I glanced at Leglise now and then; he seemed to be dreaming and he murmured:

"Oh, for me, now..."

Then I told him something I knew: I know young girls who have sworn to marry only a mutilated man. Well, we must believe in the vows of these young girls. France is a country richer in warmth of heart than in any other virtue. It is a blessed duty to give happiness to those who have sacrificed so much. And a thousand hearts, the generous hearts of women, applaud me at this moment.

Leglise listens, shaking his head. He does not venture to say "No."

Leglise has not only the Military Medal, but also the War Cross. The notice has just come. He reads it with blushes.

"I shall never dare to show this," he says; "it is a good deal exaggerated."

He hands me the paper, which states, in substance, that Corporal Leglise behaved with great gallantry under a hail of bombs, and that his left leg has been amputated.

"I didn't behave with great gallantry," he says; "I was at my post, that's all. As to the bombs, I only got one."

I reject this point of view summarily.

"Wasn't it a gallant act to go to that advanced post, so near the enemy, all alone, at the head of all the Frenchmen? Weren't they all behind you, to the very end of the country, right away to the Pyrenees? Did they not all rely on your coolness, your keen sight, your vigilance? You were only hit by one bomb, but I think you might have had several, and still be with us. And besides, the notice, far from being exaggerated, is really insufficient; it says you have lost a leg, whereas you have lost two! It seems to me that this fully compensates for anything excessive with regard to the bombs."

"That's true!" agrees Leglise, laughing. "But I don't want to be made out a hero."

"My good lad, people won't ask what you think before they appreciate and honour you. It will be quite enough to look at your body."

Then we had to part, for the war goes on, and every day there are fresh wounded.

Leglise left us nearly cured. He left with some comrades, and he was not the least lively of the group.

"I was the most severely wounded man in the train," he wrote to me, not without a certain pride.

Since then, Leglise has written to me often. His letters breathe a contented calm. I receive them among the vicissitudes of the campaign; on the highways, in wards where other wounded men are moaning, in fields scoured by the gallop of the cannonade.

And always something beside me murmurs, mutely:

"You see, you see, he was wrong when he said he would rather die."

I am convinced of it, and this is why I have told your story. You will forgive me, won't you, Leglise, my friend?

THE THIRD SYMPHONY

Every morning the stretcher-bearers brought Vize-Feldwebel Spat down to the dressing ward, and his appearance always introduced a certain chill in the atmosphere.

There are some German wounded whom kind treatment, suffering, or some more obscure agency move to composition with the enemy, and who receive what we do for them with a certain amount of gratitude. Spat was not one of these. For weeks we had made strenuous efforts to snatch him from death, and then to alleviate his sufferings, without eliciting the slightest sign of satisfaction from him, or receiving the least word of thanks.

He could speak a little French, which he utilised strictly for his material wants, to say, for instance, "A little more cotton-wool under the foot, Monsieur," or, "Have I any fever to-day?"

Apart from this, he always showed us the same icy face, the same pale, hard eyes, enframed by colourless lashes. We gathered, from certain indications, that the man was intelligent and well educated; but he was obviously under the domination of a lively hatred, and a strict sense of his own dignity.

He bore pain bravely, and like one who makes it a point of honour to repress the most excusable reactions of the martyred flesh. I do not remember ever hearing him cry out, though this would have seemed to me natural enough, and would by no means have lowered Monsieur Spat in my opinion. All I ever heard from him was a stifled moan, the dull panting of the woodman as he swings his axe.

One day we were obliged to give him an anaesthetic in order to make incisions in the wounds in his leg; he turned very red and said, in a tone that was almost imploring: "You won't cut it off, gentlemen, will you?" But no sooner did he regain consciousness than he at once resumed his attitude of stiff hostility.

After a time, I ceased to believe mat his features could ever express anything but this repressed animosity. I was undeceived by an unforeseen incident.

The habit of whistling between one's teeth is a token, with me as with many other persons, of a certain absorption. It is perhaps rather a vulgar habit, but I often feel impelled to whistle, especially when I have a serious piece of work in hand.

One morning accordingly, I was finishing Vize-Feldwebel Spat's dressing, and whistling something at random. I was looking at his leg, and was paying no attention to his face, when I suddenly became curiously aware that the look he had fixed upon me had changed in quality, and I raised my eyes.

Certainly, something very extraordinary had taken place: the German's face glowed with a kind of warmth and contentment, and was so smiling and radiant that I hardly recognised it. I could scarcely believe that he had been able to improvise this face, which was sensitive and trustful, out of the features he generally showed us.

"Tell me, Monsieur," he murmured, "it's the Third Symphony, isn't it, that you are... what do you call it?--yes... whistling."

First, I stopped whistling. Then I answered: "Yes, I believe it is the Third Symphony"; then I remained silent and confused.

A slender bridge had just been flung across the abyss.

The thing lasted for a few seconds, and I was still dreaming of it when once more I felt an icy, irrevocable shadow falling upon me--the hostile glance of Herr Spat.

GRACE

It is a common saying that all men are equal in the presence of suffering, but I know very well that this is not true.

Auger! Auger! humble basket-maker of La Charente, who are you, you who seem able to suffer without being unhappy? Why are you touched with grace, whereas Gregoire is not? Why are you the prince of a world in which Gregoire is merely a pariah?

Kind ladies who pass through the wards where the wounded lie, and give them cigarettes and sweet-meats, come with me.

We will go through the large ward on the first floor, where the windows are caressed by the boughs of chestnut-trees. I will not point out Auger, you will give him the lion's share of the cigarettes and sweets of your own accord; but if I don't point out Gregoire, you will leave without, noticing him, and he will get no sweets, and will have nothing to smoke.

It is not because of this that I call Gregoire a pariah. It is because of a much sadder and more intimate thing... Gregoire lacks endurance, he is not what we call a good patient.

In a general way those who tend the wounded call the men who do not give them much trouble "good patients." Judged by this standard, every one in the hospital will tell you that Gregoire is not a good patient.

All day long, he lies on his left side, because of his wound, and stares at the wall. I said to him a day or two after he came:

"I am going to move you and put you over in the other corner; there you will be able to see your comrades."

He answered, in his dull, surly voice:

"It's not worth while. I'm all right here."

"But you can see nothing but the wall."

"That's quite enough."

Scarcely have the stretcher-bearers touched his bed, when Gregoire begins to cry out in a doleful, irritable tone:

"Ah! don't shake me like that! Ah, you mustn't touch me."

The stretcher-bearers I give him are very gentle fellows, and he always has the same: Paffin, a fat shoe-maker with a stammer, and Monsieur Bouin, a professor of mathematics, with a grey beard and very precise movements.

They take hold of Gregoire most carefully to lay him on the stretcher. The wounded man criticises all their movements peevishly:

"Ah! don't turn me over like that. And you must hold my leg better than that!"

The sweat breaks out on Baffin's face. Monsieur Bouin's eye-glasses fall off. At last they bring the patient along.

As soon as he comes into the dressing ward, Gregoire is pale and perspiring. His harsh tawny beard quivers, hair by hair. I divine all this, and say a few words of encouragement to him from afar.

"I shan't be long with you this morning, Gregoire. You won't have time to say 'oof'!"

He preserves a sulky silence, full of reservations. He looks like a condemned criminal awaiting execution. He is so pre-occupied that he does not even answer when the sarcastic Sergeant says as he passes him:

"Ah! here's our grouser."

At last he is laid on the table which the wounded men call the "billiard-table."

Then, things become very trying. I feel at once that whatever I do, Gregoire will suffer. I uncover the wound in his thigh, and he screams. I wash the wound carefully, and he screams. I probe the wound, from which I remove small particles of bone, very gently, and he utters unimaginable yells. I see his tongue trembling in his open mouth. His hands tremble in the hands that hold them, I have an impression that every fibre of his body trembles, that the raw flesh of the wound trembles and retracts. In spite of my determination, this misery affects me, and I wonder whether I too shall begin to tremble sympathetically. I say:

"Try to be patient, my poor Gregoire."

He replies in a voice hoarse with pain and terror: "I can't help it."

I add, just to say something: "Courage, a little courage."

He does not even answer, and I feel that to exhort him to show courage, is to recommend an impossible thing, as if I were to advise him to have black eyes instead of his pale blue ones.

The dressing is completed in an atmosphere of general discomfort. Nothing could persuade me that Gregoire does not cordially detest me at this moment. While they are carrying him away, I ask myself bitterly why Gregoire is so deficient in grace, why he cannot suffer decently?

The Sergeant says, as he sponges the table: "He's working against one all the time." Well, the Sergeant is wrong. Gregoire is not deliberately hostile. Sometimes I divine, when he knits his brows, that he is making an effort to resist suffering, to meet it with a stouter and more cheerful heart. But he does not know how to set about it.

If you were asked to lift a railway-engine, you would perhaps make an effort; but you would do so without confidence and without success. So you must not say hard things of Gregoire.

Gregoire is unable to bear suffering, just as one is unable to talk an unknown language. And, then, it is easier to learn Chinese than to learn the art of suffering.

When I say that he is unable to bear suffering, I really mean that he has to suffer a great deal more than others.... I know the human body, and I cannot be deceived as to certain signs.

Gregoire begins very badly. He reminds one of those children who have such a terror of dogs that they are bound to be bitten. Gregoire trembles at once. The dogs of pain throw themselves upon this defenceless man and pull him down.

A great load of misery is heavy for a man to bear alone, but it is supportable when he is helped. Unfortunately Gregoire has no friends. He does nothing to obtain them, it almost seems as if he did not want any.

He is not coarse, noisy and foul-mouthed, like the rascal Groult who amuses the whole ward. He is only dull and reserved.

He does not often say "Thank you" when he is offered something, and many touchy people take offence at this.

When I sit down by his bed, he gives no sign of any pleasure at my visit. I ask him:

"What was your business in civil life?"

He does not answer immediately. At last he says: "Odd jobs; I carried and loaded here and there."

"Are you married?"

"Yes."

"Have you any children?"

"Yes."

"How many?"

"Three."

The conversation languishes. I get up and say: "Good-bye till to-morrow, Gregoire."

"Ah! you will hurt me again to-morrow."

I reassure him, or at least I try to reassure him. Then, that I may not go away leaving a bad impression, I ask:

"How did you get wounded?"

"Well, down there in the plain, with the others...."

That is all. I go away. Gregoire's eyes follow me for a moment, and I cannot even say whether he is pleased or annoyed by my visit.

Good-bye, poor Gregoire. I cross the ward and go to sit down by Auger.

Auger is busy writing up his "book."

It is a big ledger some one has given him, in which he notes the important events of his life.

Auger writes a round schoolboy hand. In fact, he can just write sufficiently well for his needs, I might almost say for his pleasure.

"Would you care to look at my book?" he says, and he hands it to me with the air of a man who has no secrets.

Auger receives many letters, and he copies them out carefully, especially when they are fine letters, full of generous sentiments. His lieutenant, for instance, wrote him a remarkable letter.

He also copies into his book the letters he writes to his wife and his little girl. Then he notes the incidents of the day: "Wound dressed at 10 o'clock. The pus is diminishing. After dinner Madame la Princesse Moreau paid us a visit, and distributed caps all round; I got a fine green one. The little chap who had such a bad wound in the belly died at 2 o'clock...."

Auger closes his book and puts it back under his bolster.

He has a face that it does one good to look at. His complexion is warm and fresh; his hair stiff and rather curly. He has a youthful moustache, a well-shaped chin, with a lively dimple in the middle, and eyes which seem to be looking out on a smiling landscape, gay with sunshine and running waters.

"I am getting on splendidly," he says with great satisfaction. "Would you like to see Mariette?"

He lifts up the sheet, and I see the apparatus in which we have placed the stump of his leg. It makes a kind of big white doll, which he takes in both hands with a laugh, and to which he has given the playful name of "Mariette."

Auger was a sapper in the Engineers. A shell broke his thigh and tore off his foot. But as the foot was still hanging by a strip of flesh, Auger took out his pocket-knife, and got rid of it. Then he said to his terror-stricken comrades: "Well, boys, that's all right. It might have been worse. Now carry me somewhere out of this."

"Did you suffer terribly?" I asked him.

"Well, Monsieur, not as much as you might think. Honestly, it did not hurt so very, very much. Afterwards, indeed, the pain was pretty bad."

I understand why every one is fond of Auger. It is because he is reassuring. Seeing him and listening to him one opines that suffering is not such a horrible thing after all. Those who live far from the battle-field, and visit hospitals to get a whiff of the war, look at Auger and go away well satisfied with everything: current events, him, and themselves. They are persuaded that the country is well defended, that our soldiers are brave, and that wounds and mutilations, though they may be serious things, are not unbearable.

Yet pain has come to Auger as to the rest. But there is a way of taking it.

He suffers in an enlightened, intelligent, almost methodical fashion. He does not confuse issues, and complain indiscriminately. Even when in the hands of others, he remains the man who had the courage to cut off his own foot, and finish the work of the shrapnel. He is too modest and respectful to give advice to the surgeon, but he offers him valuable information.

He says:

"Just there you are against the bone, it hurts me very much. Ah! there you can scrape, I don't feel it much. Take care! You're pressing rather too hard. All right: you can go on, I see what it's for...."

And this is how we work together.

"What are you doing? Ah, you're washing it. I like that. It does me good. Good blood! Rub a little more just there. You don't know how it itches. Oh! if you're going to put the tube in, you must tell me, that I may hold on tight to the table."

So the work gets on famously. Auger will make a rapid and excellent recovery. With him, one need never hesitate to do what is necessary. I wanted to give him an anaesthetic before scraping the bone of his leg. He said:

"I don't suppose it will be a very terrible business. If you don't mind, don't send me to sleep, but just do what is necessary. I will see to the rest."

True, he could not help making a few grimaces. Then the Sergeant said to him:

"Would you like to learn the song of the grunting pigs?"

"How does your song go?"

The Sergeant begins in a high, shrill voice:

Quand en passant dedans la plai-ai-ne
On entend les cochons...
Cela prouve d'une facon certai-ai-ne
Qu'ils non pas l'trooo du... bouche.

Auger begins to laugh; everybody laughs. And meanwhile we are bending over the wounded leg and our work gets on apace.

"Now, repeat," says the Sergeant.

He goes over it again, verse by verse, and Auger accompanies him.

Quand en passant dedans la plai-ai-ne...

Auger stops now and then to make a slight grimace. Sometimes, too, his voice breaks. He apologises simply:

"I could never sing in tune."

Nevertheless, the song is learnt, more or less, and when the General comes to visit the hospital, Auger says to him:

"Mon General, I can sing you a fine song."

And he would, the rascal, if the head doctor did not look reprovingly at him.

It is very dismal, after this, to attend to Gregoire, and to hear him groaning:

"Ah! don't pull like that. You're dragging out my heart."

I point out that if he won't let us attend to him, he will become much worse. Then he begins to cry.

"What do I care, since I shall die anyhow?"

He has depressed the orderlies, the stretcher-bearers, everybody. He does not discourage me; but he gives me a great deal of trouble.

All you gentlemen who meet together to discuss the causes of the war, the end of the war, the using-up of effectives and the future bases of society, excuse me if I do not give you my opinion on these grave questions. I am really too much taken up with the wound of our unhappy Gregoire.

It is not satisfactory, this wound, and when I look at it, I cannot think of anything else; the screams of the wounded man would prevent me from considering the conditions of the decisive battle and the results of the rearrangement of the map of Europe with sufficient detachment.

Listen: Gregoire tells me he is going to die. I think and believe that he is wrong. But he certainly will die if I do not take it upon myself to make him suffer. He will die, because every one is forsaking him. And he has long ago forsaken himself.

"My dear chap," remarked Auger to a very prim orderly, "it is no doubt unpleasant to have only one shoe to put on, but it gives one a chance of saving. And now, moreover, I only run half as much risk of scratching my wife with my toe-nails in bed as you do. ..."

"Quite so," added the Sergeant; "with Mariette he will caress his good lady, so to speak."

Auger and the Sergeant crack jokes like two old cronies. The embarrassed orderly, failing to find a retort, goes away laughing constrainedly.

I sat down by Auger, and we were left alone.

"I am a basket-maker," he said gravely. "I shall be able to take up my trade again more or less. But think of workers on the land, like Groult, who has lost a hand, and Lerondeau, with his useless leg!... That's really terrible!"

Auger rolls his r's in a way that gives piquancy and vigour to his conversation. He talks of others with a natural magnanimity which comes from the heart, like the expression of his eyes, and rings true, like the sound of his voice. And then again, he really need not envy any one. Have I not said it! He is a prince.

"I have had some very grand visitors," he says. "Look, another lady came a little while ago, and left me this big box of sweets. Do take one, Monsieur, it would be a pleasure to me. And please, will you hand them round to the others, from me?"

He adds in a lower tone:

"Look under my bed. I put everything I am given there. Really, there's too much. I'm ashamed. There are some chaps here who never get anything, and they were brave fellows who did their duty just as well as I did."

It is true, there are many brave soldiers in the ward, but only one Military Medal was given among them, and it came to Auger. Its arrival was the occasion of a regular little fete; his comrades all took part in it cordially, for strange to say, no one is jealous of Auger. A miracle indeed! Did you ever hear of any other prince of whom no one was jealous?

"Are you going?" said Auger. "Please just say a few words to Groult. He is a bit of a grouser, but he likes a talk."

Auger has given me a lesson. I will go and smoke a cigarette with Groult, and above all, I will go and see Gregoire.

Groult, indeed, is not altogether neglected. He is an original, a perverse fellow. He is pointed out as a curious animal. He gets his share of presents and attention.

But no one knows anything about Gregoire; he lies staring at the wall, and growing thinner every day, and Death seems the only person who is interested in him.

You shall not die, Gregoire! I vow to keep hold of you, to suffer with you, and to endure your ill-temper humbly. You, who seem to be bearing the misery of an entire world, shall not be miserable all alone.

Kind ladies who come to see our wounded and give them picture-books, tri-coloured caps and sweetmeats, do not forget Gregoire, who is wretched. Above all, give him your sweetest smiles.

You go away well pleased with yourselves because you have been generous to Auger. But there is no merit in being kind to Auger. With a single story, a single clasp of his hand, he gives you much more than he received from you. He gives you confidence; he restores your peace of mind.

Go and see Gregoire who has nothing but his suffering to give, and who very nearly gave his life.

If you go away without a smile for Gregoire, you may fear that you have not fulfilled your task. And don't expect him to return your smile, for where would your liberality be in that case?

It is easy to pity Auger, who needs no pity. It is difficult to pity Gregoire, and yet he is so pitiable.

Do not forget; Auger is touched with grace; but Gregoire will be damned if you do not hold out your hand to him.

God Himself, who has withheld grace from the damned, must feel pity for them.

It is a very artless desire for equality which makes us say that all men are equal in the presence of suffering. No! no! they are not. And as we know nothing of Death but that which precedes and determines it, men are not even equal in the presence of Death.

NIGHTS IN ARTOIS