The New Book of Martyrs | Page 8

tide will set afloat at dawn.
He is putting on flesh, yet, strange to say, he seems to get lighter and
lighter. He is learning not to groan, not because his frail soul is gaining
strength, but because the animal is better fed and more robust.
His ideas of strength of mind are indeed very elementary. As soon as I
hear his first cry, in the warm room where his wound is dressed, I give
him an encouraging look, and say:
"Be brave, Marie! Try to be strong!"
Then he knits his brows, makes a grimace, and asks:
"Ought I to say 'By God!'?"
The zinc trough in which Marie's shattered leg has been lying has lost
its shape; it has become oxydised and is split at the edges; so I have
decided to change it.
I take it away, look at it, and throw it into a corner. Marie follows my
movements with a scared glance. While I am adjusting the new trough,
a solid, comfortable one, but rather different in appearance, he casts an
eloquent glance at the discarded one, and his eyes fill with copious
tears.
This change is a small matter; but in the lives of the sick, there are no
small things.
Lerondeau will weep for the old zinc fragment for two days, and it will
be a long time before he ceases to look distrustfully at the new trough,
and to criticise it in those minute and bitter terms which only a
connoisseur can understand or invent.
Carre, on the other hand, cannot succeed in carrying along his body by

the generous impulse of his soul. Everything about him save his eyes
and his liquid voice foreshadow the corpse. Throughout the winter days
and the long sleepless nights, he looks as if he were dragging along a
derelict.
He strains at it ... with his poignant songs and his brave words which
falter now, and often die away in a moan.
I had to do his dressing in the presence of Marie. The amount of work
to be got through, and the cramped quarters made this necessary. Marie
was grave and attentive as if he were taking a lesson, and, indeed, it
was a lesson in patience and courage. But all at once, the teacher broke
down. In the middle of the dressing, Carre opened his lips, and in spite
of himself, began to complain without restraint or measure, giving up
the struggle in despair.
Lerondeau listened, anxious and uneasy; and Carre, knowing that Marie
was listening, continued to lament, like one who has lost all sense of
shame.
Lerondeau called me by a motion of his eyelids. He said:
"Carre!..."
And he added:
"I saw his slough. Lord! he is bad."
Lerondeau has a good memory for medical terms. Yes, he saw Carre's
slough. He himself has the like on his posterior and on his heel; but the
tear that trembles in the corner of his eye is certainly for Carre.
And then, he knows, he feels that HIS wounds are going to heal.
But it is bad for Marie to hear another complaining before his own turn.
He comes to the table very ill-disposed. His nerves have been shaken
and are unusually irritable.

At the first movement, he begins with sighs and those "Poor devils!"
which are his artless and habitual expressions of self- pity. And then,
all at once, he begins to scream, as I had not heard him scream for a
long time. He screams in a sort of frenzy, opening his mouth widely,
and shrieking with all the strength of his lungs, and with all the strength
of his face, it would seem, for it is flushed and bathed in sweat. He
screams unreasonably at the lightest touch, in an incoherent and
disorderly fashion.
Then, ceasing to exhort him to be calm with gentle and compassionate
words, I raise my voice suddenly and order the boy to be quiet, in a
severe tone that admits of no parleying...
Marie's agitation subsides at once, like a bubble at the touch of a finger.
The ward still rings with my imperious order. A good lady who does
not understand at once, stares at me in stupefaction.
But Marie, red and frightened, controls his unreasonable emotion. And
as long as the dressing lasts, I dominate his soul strenuously to prevent
him from suffering in vain, just as others hold and grasp his wrists.
Then, presently, it is all over. I give him a fraternal smile that relaxes
the tension of his brow as a bow is unbent.
A lady, who is a duchess at the least, came to visit the wounded. She
exhaled such a strong, sweet perfume that she cannot have
distinguished the odour of suffering that pervades this place.
Carre was shown