Look! At this very moment, when you see him trotting so briskly with his basket under his arm, it is because the Military Hospital closes at five o'clock; and there are two Frenchmen waiting up there in that big black building, with its narrow-barred windows, where Christmas to illumine its coming has only the pale lights which guard the bedside of the dying....
These two Frenchmen are Salvette and Bernadou. They are infantrymen, two Provençals of the same village, enrolled in the same battalion, and wounded by the same shell. Only, Salvette is the stronger; and already he begins to get up, to make some steps from his bed to the window. Bernadou, for his part, will not recover. Between the wan curtains of his hospital cot his face looks thinner, more languid, day by day; and when he speaks of his country, of the return, it is with the sad smile of the invalid, in which there is more of resignation than of hope. Nevertheless, to-day he is a little animated, thinking of the beautiful Christmas festival, which in our Provençal country seems like a great bonfire lighted in the midst of winter, recalling the midnight mass, the church decorated, glowing with light, the dark village streets filled with people, then the long watch about the table, the three traditional torches, the "aioli,"[2] the snails, and the pretty ceremony of the Yule log, which the grandfather carries about the house, and anoints with steaming wine.
[2] A mayonnaise sauce richly flavored with garlic.
"Ah! my poor Salvette, what a sad Christmas we are going to have this year!... If we only had enough to buy a white roll and a bottle of claret!... How happy I would be if, once more, before taps sound for me, I could drink with you over the Yule log!"
The sick man's eyes brighten as he speaks of the wine and the white bread. But how is it to be done? They have nothing left—poor fellows!—no money, no watch. To be sure, Salvette still keeps in the lining of his jacket a money-order for forty francs. But that is for the day when they shall be free; for the first halt that they make in a French inn. That money is sacred. No way to touch that. But poor Bernadou is so ill! Who knows if he will ever be able to take up the journey home? And since here is a beautiful Christmas which they can still celebrate together, were it not best to profit by it?
So, without a word to his countryman, Salvette rips open his tunic, takes out the order, and when old Cahn has come, as every morning, to make his round in the halls, after long arguments and whispered discussions he slips into the old Jew's hand this square of paper, yellowed and stiff, smelling of powder, and stained with blood. From that moment Salvette maintains an air of mystery. He rubs his hands and laughs to himself as he looks at Bernadou. And now, as day falls, he is there on watch, his forehead pressed against the narrow panes until he sees, in the dusk of the deserted courtyard, old Augustus Cahn, all out of breath, a little basket on his arm.
This solemn midnight, which sounds from all the bells of the city, falls mournfully in this white camp of suffering. The hospital ward is silent, lighted only by the night lamps hung from the ceiling. Great wandering shadows float over the beds and the bare walls, with an incessant vibration which seems the oppressed breathing of all the sufferers stretched out there. At moments dreams talk aloud, nightmares groan, while from the street rises a vague murmur, steps and voices, confused in the cold, resonant air as if under the porch of a cathedral. One feels the devout hastening, the mystery of a religious festival, intruding upon the hour of sleep and throwing upon the darkened city the dim light of lanterns and the glow of church windows.
"Art thou asleep, Bernadou?"....
Very gently, on the little table near his friend's bed, Salvette has placed a bottle of Lunel wine and a round loaf—a comely Christmas loaf, in which the sprig of holly is planted upright. The sick man opens eyes darkly rimmed with fever. In the uncertain light of the night lamps and under the white reflection of the great roofs where the moon shines dazzling upon the snow, this improvised Christmas seems to him a phantasy.
"Come, comrade, wake up!... It shall not be said that two Provençals let Christmas Eve pass without toasting it in a cup of claret."... And Salvette raises him with a mother's tenderness. He fills the glasses, cuts the bread; and they drink, and talk of Provence. Little by little Bernadou rouses, becomes tender.... The wine, the recalling of old days.... With the childish spirit which comes again to the sick in their weakness, he asks Salvette to sing a Christmas carol of Provence. His comrade asks nothing better.