They ought not to have cut off all the light in this manner, and it
would not have been done, perhaps, if...
There is a kind of mania for organisation which is the sworn enemy of
order; in its efforts to discover the best place for everything, it ends
by diverting everything from its right function and locality, and making
everything as inopportune as itself. It was a mistake to cut off all the
lights this evening, on some pretext or the other. The rooms of the
old mansion are not packed with bales of cotton, but with men who have
anxious minds and tortured bodies.
A mournful darkness suddenly reigned; and outside, the incessant storm
that rages in this country swept along like a river in spate.
Little Rochet was dreaming in the liquid light of the lamp, with hands
crossed on his breast, and the delicate profile of an exhausted saint.
He was dreaming of vague and exquisite things, for cruel fever has
moments of generosity between two nightmares. He was dreaming so sweetly
that he forgot the abominable stench of his body, and that a smile
touched the two deep wrinkles at the corners of his mouth, set there by
a week of agony.
But all the lamps have been put out, and the noise of the hurricane has
become more insistent, and the wounded have ceased talking, for darkness
discourages conversation.
There are some places where the men with whom the shells have dealt
mercifully and whose wounds are only scratches congregate. These have
only the honour of wounds, and what may be called their delights....
But here, we have only the worst cases; and here they have to await the
supreme decision of death.
Little Rochet awoke to a reality full of darkness and despair. He heard
nothing but laboured breathing round him, and rising above it all, the
violent breath of the storm. He was suddenly conscious of his lacerated
stomach, of his lost leg, and he realised that the fetid smell in the
air was the smell of his flesh. And he thought of the loving letter he
had received in the morning from his four big sisters with glossy hair,
he thought of all his lost, ravished happiness....
Renaud hurries up, groping his way among the dark ambushes of the
corridor.
"Come, come quickly. Little Rochet has thrown himself out of bed."
Holding up a candle, I take in the melancholy scene. We have to get
Rochet into bed again, readjust his bandages, wipe up the fetid liquid
spilt on the floor.
Rochet's lips are compressed. I stoop to his ear and ask softly:
"Why did you do this?"
His face remains calm, and he answers gently, looking me full in the
eyes: "I want to die."
I leave the room, disarmed, my head bowed, and go in search of Monet,
who is a priest and an excellent orderly. He is smoking a pipe in a
corner. He has just had news that his young brother has been killed in
action, and he had snatched a few minutes of solitude.
"Monet," I say, "I think Rochet is a believer. Well, go to him. He may
want you."
Monet puts away his pipe, and goes off noiselessly.
As to me, I go and wander about outside. On the poplar-lined road, in
company with the furious rain and the darkness, I shall perhaps be able
to master the flood of bitterness that sweeps over me.
At the end of an hour, my anxiety brings me back to Rochet's bedside.
The candle is burning away with a steady flame. Monet is reading in a
little book with a clasp. The profile of the wounded man has still the
pitiful austerity of a tortured saint.
"Is he quieter now?"
Monet lifts his fine dark eyes to my face, and drops his book.
"Yes. He is dead."