It was the "le mauvais sang qu'il faisait," as Madame Marthe said, that kept him so long from getting well. His wound in the shoulder was pretty bad, but what was worse was his unceasing grief and dread. He would have died, of the wound and that, if he had not been so young and northern and strong.
His wound got itself well. The new ones needed his place in the hospital. He was given ten days' sick leave, and came to spend it in the room upstairs, because he had nowhere else to go.
Now his leave has come to an end, and he is going back to his depôt, and then to the Front. I may never see him again, my poor boy, whose face goes white and red, and white and red, and whose blue northern eyes fill with tears if one speaks kindly to him.
He sat in the little yellow chair and I sat in the big yellow chair, and we looked at each other in the wet grey early morning.
I said, "They gave you a good breakfast?"
"Oh, yes, madame."
"And your little package, for lunch in the train?"
"Oh, yes, madame, and the cigarettes."
"Some letter-paper to write to me on?"