“You do not see it as only brutalizing, as that book ‘Gaspard,’ of which we are so much ashamed?”
“No, if that were the only side, France would not be living to-day.”
“Thank you, Monsieur,” she said, in sudden friendliness.
“The truth is in neither point of view. We cannot say that war ennobles or brutalizes mankind. I have thought about this much, and this is what I think: the man who is fundamentally a brute is made more brutal; the man who has in him a spark of nobility, even unsuspected, is lifted up. What war does is to search our souls and discover the ultimate truth. You see, in times of peace, we all more or less wear a mask for our neighbors. Well, when you’ve once gone into the trenches, that all disappears: you find out what you believe. When all may be over at any moment, you do what you want to do. And the strange thing is that each respects the other’s point of view.”
“I think there is one thing you have left out,” she said, after a moment’s thought.
“What is that?”
“The question of leadership. When he who leads is simple and high of heart, the poilu always responds.”
“Yes, that is true, absolutely true.”
“War is a time when the leader is everything, isn’t it?” She thought a moment, and added, with a little weariness in her voice: “That is why I think, no matter what the hideous suffering that comes, it does set us right and turn us from false leaders.”