It was really two days later that Dauche died. I did not wish to see him again. I had been placed in a room far removed from him, where I lived in a kind of semi-delirium, asking from hour to hour, “Has the end come? Has it ended?”
But I knew when the end came before I was told, and I let myself fall into a dark dreamless sleep, of which I still retain the most despairing impression.
It appears that Dauche was buried in the little cemetery skirted by the birch and dead fir trees that are to be seen at the village of C.... in an arid field of white sand. I never could get myself to visit him there. But I carried away with me a more sombre grave that time will not efface.
I left the Château de S—— towards the middle of December. I was weak and enfeebled, weary with the thought that it was now my own life I must live, and undergo for myself the struggle of my own life and death.
COUSIN’S PROJECTS
Whenever I had a minute to spare I went and sat at the foot of Cousin’s bed. He said to me:
“See, there’s room for you now that they’ve cut my legs off. One would think they’d done it on purpose.”
This man of forty had a young and delicate face. On “shaving days,” when the razor had done its work, it did one good to see the everlasting, trustful smile of Cousin. It was a wonderful smile—rather delicate, rather ironical, rather candid, rather convulsive; the very smile of the race, made with lips discoloured by the loss of blood, and features drawn by long and weary effort. In spite of everything, Cousin had a confiding look—the air of one who trusted absolutely the whole world, and especially himself, because he lived, because he was Cousin.
One leg remained to him which, to speak frankly, was worth nothing at all. The joint of the knee had been smashed by the explosion of a torpedo. It was a bad business, of which people spoke in low voices, shaking their heads.
But, what matter? Cousin did not put his trust in his legs. Already he had abandoned one; he did not seem to care much about a leg more or less. Cousin, I think, did not put his trust in any particular part of his chest, or his head, or his limbs. With or without legs, he was himself, and in his clear green eyes burnt a generous flame that was the expression of a pure soul.