"Don't be disturbed," said Pierre de Prans seriously; "take care of yourself. A woman like you has services to give."
"Well, I must do something," said Odette, trembling under her veil, "and as it is, I am doing absolutely nothing with my ten fingers!"
[XVI]
"Whenever the cloud of anguish rises even a little from the sky of Paris," said La Villaumer, "this city, so marvellously alive, clasps to itself life, of whatever kind, with a simple, natural impulse, without immoderation, but with a secret smile, always ready. Yet this power of life, on the whole so beautiful, has something that brings a frown to the brow of the onlooker; for it has within it insensibility and forgetfulness.
"How disconcerting it is to see this new, mutilated humanity, pass in the streets almost without attracting attention. Young men in uniform, or returned to civil life minus a leg, on crutches, with an artificial limb, leaning on a cane like an old man, with an empty coat sleeve, an eye gone, nothing left of the nose but two breathing-holes, the jaw moulded over like a lump of potter's clay—or led along, sightless! They hardly arouse compassion, seldom even curiosity. There are so many of them! You can see the like in any place. War crosses, military medals, the Legion of Honor on the breast of a mere youth, which at one time would have attracted admiring glances and brought tears to women's eyes, are now hardly noticed. There are so many who have received or have deserved them! Most of those who possess them now wear only the ribbon on their jackets like civilians. The long duration and the barbarism of the war have spoiled everything. Men whose exploits cast into the shade the most famous examples of history with which the memory of school children is crammed, refuse to be called heroes. Heroes! There are so many of them! It was not to distinguish themselves, nor to cover their families with honor, nor even to set a noble example, that so many men have wrought prodigies; they did them modestly, because they had to be done in order to put an end to an abomination. With many the idea even of the country is attenuated in favor of something which makes much less appeal to the heart, the motive of which is only the cold persuasion that militarism must be destroyed; one must fight for very hatred of fighting. And here is something new, this vast uprising for war is producing no enthusiasm for war; it is animated only by hatred of war. All these brave men, riddled like sieves, rescued from an ordeal without precedent, are cherishing no ambition to march in a procession of victors, under waving flags, amid the acclamations of women, children, and old men; they had the rudimentary purpose of the peasant who struggles with a mad dog, and who having downed him digs a hole, buries the carrion, washes his hands at the pump, and goes in to dinner.
"Germany has robbed man of his divine childhood. In less than two years all these men have grown old; that charming faculty of innocent enthusiasm which had often deceived him, but which had given him joys never to be replaced, has been withered. The most deplorable ruins which the monster has spread abroad over our land are perhaps not so much the splendid monuments of Belgium and France, as the youth of humanity, that had seemed eternal, that was bearing it on to a great outburst of a common hope—faith in Fraternity, faith in Liberty, faith in Justice, potent religion of Progress. Cold reason, like the German gas, has poisoned all this fresh and ebullient vigor. The whole world has become allied, only to strangle a jackal. No man who has come back from the too severe ordeal will ever again feel the desire to enjoy the days that yet remain to him. Scepticism, which used to seem only a way of looking at things, cherished by very distinguished gentlemen, has now taken possession of the mass. But it has become commonplace, and so has ceased all relations with its brother, dilettantism. You will see what sort of thing realistic scepticism will become."
"People will always dream," said Odette.
[XVII]
Odette returned to Surville in the beginning of August. It was a time of great heat. The second anniversary of mobilization had been observed. War had become an accepted condition. Many already found it difficult to remember a state of peace. At the hospital there were even discussions as to how things had been there before the war. There were those who, though they had then been living in Surville, could not recall them to mind. "You remember the inaugural address of the head doctor, the 16th of August, before the first train of wounded came?" Some of the women insisted that he had given an antimilitarist lecture; others that he had spoken only against alcohol; others that he had given an eloquently patriotic address; some said that it was not he who had spoken, but the surgeon, a very handsome man; and still others that the address was given on another date. One lady could only remember the first time she had posed to the photographer in white blouse and cap. The first arrival of wounded, who had come from Charleroi on August 25, were confused with those who had come in September. Two years! What a long time when one has seen only wretchedness upon wretchedness! Nothing pleasant for twenty-four months! The communiqué of the battle of the Marne? Yes, that counted for something; but at the time no one understood its full importance; there had been no public rejoicing. Our later long and magnificent victories that merely held back the enemy presented to the mind nothing like what is generally thought of as military success; it was only after a while that their importance was recognized, when new misfortunes had touched us elsewhere. Two years of dull, black weariness, of constant apprehension, of bereavement upon bereavement.
This year a good many foreigners had invaded the beach. The tennis-courts were occupied by young men from beyond the sea, bringing up the memory of former days; the crowd was enlivened by a profusion of multicolored Japanese lanterns; the sea dashed against the glossy flesh of women who seemed as natural as Aphrodite; automobiles were almost as much in the way as in happier days; and between the rows of tents among the manifold tints of colored stuffs, beside the waves where so many beautiful limbs were disporting themselves, was a race of beings that might have been deemed peculiar, coming, going, or remaining motionless; they were the men who had escaped from the fire. They wore nondescript garments, they lacked one limb or even two, they hobbled, their armpits strained by crutches, or lay at length on the warm sand, smoking, timid of appearance, exchanging remarks hardly comprehensible, keeping silent, too, thinking—of what?