On furlough one evening, eating supper in my favorite cafe in Paris, I observed a most horribly repulsive object. He had once been a poilu, but a shell battered his face so that it resembled humanity not at all. His nose was flattened out. His skin was mottled and discolored. A hole was where the mouth had been. Both eyes were gone and one arm was crippled. He sat and waited for food. Madame came from behind the counter and looked on. A fat boy, repulsed and sickened, forgot his appetite and gazed, unconsciously stroking his stomach, fascinated by that mutilated creature.
A very beautiful girl, whose face might pass her into Heaven without confession, left the well-dressed gourmands with empty plates. She went and served the unfortunate one. She cut his meat and held his napkin that caught the drippings. She was so kind and gentle and showed such consideration, I asked her:
“Is that the proprietor?”
“Oh, no.”
“Your husband or sweetheart, perhaps?”
“I have none.”
“Who was he?”
“Un pauvre poilu.”
Again, we were in a peasant woman’s farmhouse. She wore wooden shoes, without socks. Just home from work in the fields, she asked two convalescent soldiers to help drink a bottle of wine, and we sat and talked with her.
“Yes,” she said, her dark eyes shining with pride, “my husband was a soldier, too. He is now a prisoner in Germany. This is his photograph. Don’t you think he looks well? He was a machine gunner in Alsace. He did not run away when the Germans came, but stayed and worked the gun.” Then, speaking of a well dressed little girl sitting on my Egyptian comrade’s knee: “He has never seen her—she is only two years old and thinks every soldier is papa.”