Men in War | Page 8

style."
He sank down on the bench again and sat as though he were all broken up. His body was shaken by a low weeping, and his head rolled to and fro on his panting chest. A little circle of people had gathered behind his back. The old landsturm corporal was standing beside the physician with four sentries ready to intervene at a moment's notice. All the windows in the officers' wing had lighted up, and scantily clad figures leaned out, looking down into the garden curiously.
The sick man eagerly scrutinized the indifferent faces around him. He was exhausted.
His hoarse throat no longer gave forth a sound. His hand reached out for help to the Philosopher, who stood beside him, all upset.
The physician felt the right moment had come to lead him away.
"Come, Lieutenant, let's go to sleep," he said with a clumsy affectation of geniality. "That's the way women are once for all, and there's nothing to be done about it."
The physician wanted to go on talking and in conversing lure the sick man into the house unawares. But the very next sentence remained sticking in his throat, and he stopped short in amazement. The limp wobbling skeleton that only a moment before had sat there as in a faint and let himself be raised up by the physician and the Philosopher, suddenly jumped up with a jerk, and tore his arms away so violently that the two men who were about to assist him were sent tumbling up against the others. He bent over with crooked knees, staggering like a man carrying a heavy load on his back. His veins swelled, and he panted with fury:
"That's the way women are once for all, are they? Since when, eh? Have you never heard of the suffragettes who boxed the ears of prime ministers, and set fire to museums, and let themselves be chained to lamp-posts for the sake of the vote? For the sake of the vote, do you hear? But for the sake of their men? No. Not one sound. Not one single outcry!"
He stopped to take breath, overcome by a wild suffocating despair. Then he pulled himself together once more and with difficulty suppressing the sobs, which kept bringing a lump into his throat, he screamed in deepest misery like a hunted animal:
"Have you heard of one woman throwing herself in front of a train for the sake of her husband? Has a single one of them boxed the ears of a prime minister or tied herself to a railroad track for us? There wasn't one that had to be torn away. Not one fought for us or defended us. Not one moved a little finger for us in the whole wide world! They drove us out! They gagged us! They gave us the spur, like poor Dill. They sent us to murder, they sent us to die--for their vanity. Are you going to defend them? No! They must be pulled out! Pulled out like weeds, by the roots! Four of you together must pull the way we had to do with Dill. Four of you together! Then she'll have to come out. Are you the doctor? There! Do it to my head. I don't want a wife! Pull--pull her out!"
He flung out his arm and his fist came down like a hammer on his own skull, and his crooked fingers clutched pitilessly at the sparse growth of hair on the back of his head, until he held up a whole handful torn out by the roots, and howled with pain.
The doctor gave a sign, and the next moment the four sentries were on him, panting. He screamed, gnashed his teeth, beat about him, kicked himself free, shook off his assailants like burrs. It was not until the old corporal and the doctor came to their assistance that they succeeded in dragging him into the house.
As soon as he was gone the people left the garden. The last to go were the Mussulman and the Philosopher. The Mussulman stopped at the door, and in the light of the lantern looked gravely down at his leg, which, in its plaster cast, hung like a dead thing between his two crutches.
"Do you know, Philosopher," he said, "I'd much rather have this stick of mine. The worst thing that can happen to one out there is to go crazy like that poor devil. Rather off with one's head altogether and be done with it. Or do you think he still has a chance?"
The Philosopher said nothing. His round good-natured face had gone ashen pale, and his eyes were swimming with tears. He shrugged his shoulders and helped his comrade up the steps without speaking. On entering the ward they heard the banging of doors somewhere far away in the house and