It was all over in five minutes. Then the General was gone, his staff was gone, and the ward was left to its own reflections.
Opposite Marius, across the ward, lay a little joyeux. That is to say, a soldier of the Bataillon d’Afrique, which is the criminal regiment of France, in which regiment are placed those men who would otherwise serve sentences in jail. Prisoners are sent to this regiment in peace time, and in time of war, they fight in the trenches as do the others, but with small chance of being decorated. Social rehabilitation is their sole reward, as a rule. So Marius waxed forth, taunting the little joyeux, whose feet lay opposite his feet, a yard apart.
“Tiens! My little friend!” he shouted so that all might hear. “Thou canst never receive the Croix de Guerre, as François has received it, because thou art of the Bataillon d’Afrique! And why art thou there, my friend? Because, one night at a café, thou didst drink more wine than was good for thee—so much more than was good for thee, that when an old boulevardier, with much money in his pocket, proposed to take thy girl from thee, thou didst knock him down and give him a black eye! Common brawler, disturber of the peace! It was all due to the wine, the good wine, which made thee value the girl far above her worth! It was the wine! The wine! And every time an attempt is made in the Chamber to abolish drinking the good wine of France, there is violent opposition. Opposition from whom? From the old boulevardier whose money is invested in the vineyards—the very man who casts covetous eyes upon thy Mimi! So thou goest to jail, then to the Bataillon d’Afrique, and the wine flows, and thy Mimi—where is she? Only never canst thou receive the Croix de Guerre, my friend—La Patrie Reconnaissante sees to that!”
Marius shouted with laughter—he knew himself so near death, and it was good to be able to say all that was in his heart. An orderly approached him, one of the six young men attached as male nurses to the ward.
“Ha! Thou bidst me be quiet, sale embusqué?” he taunted. “I will shout louder than the guns! And hast thou ever heard the guns, nearer than this safe point behind the lines? Thou art here doing woman’s work! Caring for me, nursing me! And what knowledge dost thou bring to thy task, thou ignorant grocer’s clerk? Surely thou hast some powerful friend, who got thee mobilized as infirmier—a woman’s task—instead of a simple soldier like me, doing his duty in the trenches!”
Marius raised himself in bed, which the infirmier knew, because the doctor had told him, was not a right position for a man who has a wound in his stomach, some thirty centimetres in length. Marius, however, was strong in his delirium, so the infirmier called another to help him throw the patient upon his back. Soon three were called, to hold the struggling man down.
Marius resigned himself. “Summon all six of you!” he shouted. “All six of you! And what do you know about illness such as mine? You, a grocer’s clerk! You, barber! You, cultivateur! You, driver of the boat train from Paris to Cherbourg! You, agent of the Gas Society of Paris! You, driver of a Paris taxi, such as myself! Yet here you all are, in your wisdom, your experience, to nurse me! Mobilized as nurses because you are friend of a friend of a deputy! Whilst I, who know no deputy, am mobilized in the first line trenches! Sales embusqués! Sales embusqués! La Patrie Reconnaissante!”
He laid upon his back a little while, quiet. He was very delirious, and the end could not be far off. His black eyebrows were contracted into a frown, the eyelids closed and quivering. The grey nostrils were pinched and dilated, the grey lips snarling above yellow, crusted teeth. The restless lips twitched constantly, mumbling fresh treason, inaudibly. Upon the floor on one side lay a pile of coverlets, tossed angrily from the bed, while on each side the bed dangled white, muscular, hairy legs, the toes touching the floor. All the while he fumbled to unloose the abdominal dressings, picking at the safety-pins with weak, dirty fingers. The patients on each side turned their backs to him, to escape the smell, the smell of death.
A woman nurse came down the ward. She was the only one, and she tried to cover him with the fallen bedding. Marius attempted to clutch her hand, to encircle her with his weak, delirious, amorous arms. She dodged swiftly, and directed an orderly to cover him with the fallen blankets.
Marius laughed in glee, a fiendish, feeble, shrieking laugh. “Have nothing to do with a woman who is diseased!” he shouted. “Never! Never! Never!”