"Yes, Colonel, we are on our way there to the hospital. It suits exactly."
That is the only thing that has occurred to him to say in complaint: "It suits exactly." And he says it with such a fine, quiet smile, while thanking me for taking an interest in him.
I hesitate to go closer to look at their gravely wounded man, who has remained without stirring, for fear I might disturb his last thoughts. I do go close to him, however, very gently, because they are going to carry him away.
Ah! He is a mere lad! A village boy; one can guess that at once by his bronzed cheeks, which have just begun to grow pale. The sun, as he wishes, floods his handsome 20-year-old face, which is at the same time vigorous and candid, and his hand is still held like a guard before his eyes, which are set and seem no longer to perceive anything. They must have given him morphine to keep him from suffering too much. Humble child of our countryside, brief little life, what is he dreaming of, if he is still dreaming? Perhaps of his kerchiefed mamma, who wept happy tears every time she recognized his childish writing on an envelope from the front? Or is he dreaming of the farm garden that held his earliest years?
I see on his breast the handkerchief with which they tried to cover his face; it is of fine linen, embroidered with a Marquis's coronet—the coronet of one of his bearers. He had wanted "to go on seeing things," doubtless in his terror of the great night. But even this sun, which must dazzle him, will soon cease suddenly to be recognizable for him; to begin with, it will be the half-darkness of the hospital, and, immediately afterward, will begin for him the long inexorable night, in which no sun will ever dawn again.
"VIVE LA FRANCE"—HOW MEN DIE FOR THEIR COUNTRY
Last Messages of French Soldiers
Told by Rene Bazin, Member of the French Academy