The Broken Soldier and the Maid of France | Page 6

may not have known that I had it.
At all events, they did not know what to do for it. It did not pass. It
grew worse. But I hid it, talking very little, never telling anybody how I
felt. They said I was depressed and needed cheering up. All the while
there was that black snake coiled around my heart, squeezing tighter
and tighter. But my body grew stronger every day. The wounds were
all healed. I was walking around. In July the doctor-in-chief sent for me
to his office. He said: 'You are cured, Pierre Duval, but you are not yet
fit to fight. You are low in your mind. You need cheering up. You are
to have a month's furlough and repose. You shall go home to your farm.
How is it that you call it?' I suppose I had been babbling about it in my
sleep and one of the nurses had told him. He was always that way, that
little Doctor Roselly, taking an interest in the men, talking with them
and acting friendly. I said the farm was called 'L'Alouette'--rather a
foolish name. 'Not at all,' he answered; 'it is a fine name, with the song
of a bird in it. Well, you are going back to "L'Alouette" to hear the lark
sing for a month, to kiss your wife and your children, to pick
gooseberries and currants. Eh, my boy, what do you think of that? Then,
when the month is over, you will be a new man. You will be ready to
fight again at Verdun. Remember, they have not passed and they shall
not pass! Good luck to you, Pierre Duval.' So I went back to the farm as
fast as I could go."
He was silent for a few moments, letting his thoughts wander through
the pleasant paths of that little garden of repose. His eyes were
dreaming, his lips almost smiled.
"It was sweet at 'L'Alouette,' very sweet, Father. The farm was in pretty

good order and the kitchen-garden was all right, though the flowers had
been a little neglected. You see, my wife, Josephine, she is a very
clever woman. She had kept up the things that were the most necessary.
She had hired one of the old neighbors and a couple of boys to help her
with the plowing and planting. The harvest she sold as it stood. Our
yoke of cream-colored oxen and the roan horse were in good condition.
Little Pierrot, who is five, and little Josette, who is three, were as
brown as berries. They hugged me almost to death. But it was
Josephine herself who was the best of all. She is only twenty-six,
Father, and so beautiful still, with her long chestnut hair and her eyes
like brown stones shining under the waters of a brook. I tell you it was
good to get her in my arms again and feel her lips on mine. And to
wake in the early morning, while the birds were singing, and see her
face beside me on the white pillow, sleeping like a child, that was a
little bit of Paradise. But I do wrong to tell you of all this, Father."
"Proceed, my big boy," nodded the priest. "You are saying nothing
wrong. I was a man before I was a priest. It is all natural, what you are
saying, and all according to God's law--no sin in it. Proceed. Did your
happiness do you good?"
Pierre shook his head doubtfully. The look of dejection came back to
his face. He frowned as if something puzzled and hurt him. "Yes and
no! That is the strange thing. It made me thankful--that goes without
saying. But it did not make me any stronger in my heart. Perhaps it was
too sweet. I thought too much of it. I could not bear to think of
anything else. The idea of the war was hateful, horrible, disgusting. The
noise and the dirt of it, the mud in the autumn and the bitter cold in the
winter, the rats and the lice in the dugouts! And then the fury of the
charge, and the everlasting killing, killing, or being killed! The danger
had seemed little or nothing to me when I was there. But at a distance it
was frightful, unendurable. I knew that I could never stand up to it
again. Besides, already I had done my share--enough for two or three
men. Why must I go back into that hell? It was not fair. Life was too
dear to be risking it all the time. I could not endure it. France? France?
Of course I love France. But my farm, and my life with Josephine and
the children mean more to me. The thing that made me