"Give him anything he asks for.... Send a telegram to his family."
Carre protests timidly: "Why a telegram? I have no one but my poor old mother; it would frighten her."
The little old gentleman emerges from his varnished boots like a variegated plant from a double vase.
Carre coughs—first, to keep himself in countenance, and, secondly, because his cruel bronchitis takes this opportunity to give him a shaking.
Then the old gentleman stoops, and all his medals hang out from his tunic like little dried-up breasts. He bends down, puffing and pouting, without removing his gold-trimmed KEPI, and lays a deaf ear on Carre's chest with an air of authority.
Carre's leg has been sacrificed. The whole limb has gone, leaving a huge and dreadful wound level with the trunk.
It is very surprising that the rest of Carre did not go with the leg.
He had a pretty hard day.
O life! O soul! How you cling to this battered carcase! O little gleam on the surface of the eye! Twenty times I saw it die down and kindle again. And it seemed too suffering, too weak, too despairing ever to reflect anything again save suffering, weakness, and despair.
During the long afternoon, I go and sit between two beds beside Lerondeau. I offer him cigarettes, and we talk. This means that we say nothing, or very little.... But it is not necessary to speak when one has a talk with Lerondeau.