Gégène's Croix de Guerre, One Thursday
When Gégène went to the Invalides to receive his Croix de Guerre, in the great Court of Honour, there was no one to go with him except Madame Marthe and me.
Gégène belongs to nobody. He is an "enfant de l'Assistance Publique." There is nobody nearer to him than the peasants he was hired out to work for, somewhere down in Brittany.
I do not know whether or not they were kind to him, whether or not they cared about his going off to war, or would take interest in the honours he has won. We know nothing but what the Assistance knows about him; and he himself can tell us nothing, for he cannot speak at all. His wound was in the head; he has been trepanned twice. He may live a long time, he is such a strong young boy, but he will never be able to speak. His right side is stiffened, he cannot use that hand, and the foot drags. Except for that, and not being able to speak, he is quite well.
Nobody knows how much he understands of it all, or what he thinks and feels. Sometimes he looks very sad. His boyish face, refined by pain, haunts me when I am away from the hospital. But sometimes he seems quite content, happy to be just well housed and fed and petted by us. We do not know what will become of him when he can no longer stay in the hospital.
Madame Marthe says, "What would you have? he is not the only one."
But she is very kind to him, and when she has a half-day's leave she often takes him out with her, for a little treat.
She and I hurried through the dressings this morning and had everything done, our cylinders sent to the sterilization, the apparatus in order, the ward quite neat, in time to go and have lunch, the three of us together, in a big café of the Boulevards.
Gégène was too excited to eat, and so was little Madame Marthe, in her cap of the "Ville de Paris" and her blue woollen shawl. She had to leave it for me to cut up Gégène's chicken and pour his red wine for him.
It rained; the crowd in the Place des Invalides stood under dripping umbrellas.
In the Court of Honour the arcades were packed with wet people, and out in the great central space there was no shelter but umbrellas for the poor great splendid heroes like Gégène.
There they all stood together, those who could stand, in all the pride and tragedy of their crutches and their bandages—one little blinded officer with his head cocked sideways like a bird's. And those who could not stand had chairs and benches; two or three were there on stretchers.
There was a group of women in deep mourning,—some of them with children—who had come to receive the decorations of their dead husbands or sons.
There were the great men of the General Staff,—maybe the Minister of War, maybe the President, maybe the Generalissimo himself—with all their high officers around them, already arrived, near the entrance, astir with preparation.
Out in the centre of the Court, grouped almost motionlessly, were the men who waited to receive their honours.
We could see our Gégène, standing up very tall and straight among them.
"Isn't he nice?" I said to Madame Marthe, "Isn't he nice?"
But Madame Marthe was crying—funny little tears, and her nose very red. "Oh!" she said, "Oh, what will happen when that man with the gold braid comes to Gégène? He will speak to Gégène, and Gégène cannot answer! He will hold out his hand to Gégène, and Gégène will not be able to take it!"
We clutched each other in panic, and then the music broke out into all the splendour of the Marseillaise.