We had had all the windows opened. From their beds, the wounded could
see, through the dancing waves of heat, the heights of Berru and Nogent
l'Abbesse, the towers of the Cathedral, still crouching like a dying
lion in the middle of the plain of Reims, and the chalky lines of the
trenches intersecting the landscape.
A kind of torpor seemed to hang over the battle-field. Sometimes, a
perpendicular column of smoke rose up, in the motionless distance, and
the detonation reached us a little while afterwards, as if astray, and
ashamed of outraging the radiant silence.
It was one of the fine days of the summer of 1915, one of those days
when the supreme indifference of Nature makes one feel the burden of
war more cruelly, when the beauty of the sky seems to proclaim its
remoteness from the anguish of the human heart.
We had finished our morning round when an ambulance drew up at the
entrance.
"Doctor on duty!"