The New Book of Martyrs Part 19

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 a.s.saults 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 compa.s.sionate 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 cus.h.i.+ons. 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: