I remember, above all, a youth twenty years old, who had such a
complicated wound in the chest that it is indescribable. I held the
poor, inert body while the surgeon lay wide open the thorax. "Take him
back," said the surgeon, "and be careful." I did so. Then from the
deep, bleeding wound the whole chest emptied itself, as one empties a
bucket of I don't know what unnamable liquid. The surgeon approached
then, and leaning over the now visible palpitating lung murmured:
"What can be done? It will only begin again." However, he did find
out what could be done. He had him put back in his bed--he was still
unconscious. Sitting near him, filled with anxiety I waited his
awakening. I wanted him to be saved, that child! While he was being
chloroformed a few minutes before, while he was holding my hand without
saying a word, there was in his look, before his eyes closed, such a
gentle desire to live, such a prayer for protection--such confidence
in the infinite aid I gave him. If he died I should have felt myself
guilty--I don't know of what.
He awoke--looked at me and smiled. He then murmured: "Why are you so
good to us, madame? We are not near to you."
To this dying child, to give him back his life, it was necessary I
should explain to him his glory. I said: "Not near, my boy? Why,
understand then what I owe you! If the enemy has not entered our
Paris--if Notre Dame is intact--if I, myself, am living--it is because
you gave your blood for us. But that is not all. When you fight for
France you do not only fight for your country, you do not only save
your native land; you save an ideal, an ideal supreme, universal.
In helping all that is pure and beautiful in the world you save the
liberty of peoples, the liberty of the soul. You say to each one of us
'the yoke that weighs you down I shall help you to cast off.'
"You do not understand me well, my boy. But see--you must live. Later
in the eternal books of history you will learn the meaning of the
blood you have given. You must live! _You must live!_ Years from now
your little children will look at you with eyes of love and admiration
because you were a soldier in the great war. They will know the meaning
of the medal shining on your chest, and for generations they will be
proud of the honour of their name. You must live, my dear boy!"
As I spoke something wonderful illuminated the youth's eyes. "Oh, I
shall live, madame. One only has to will it. I shall live."
He is saved!
I do not know why I stopped to recount the agony and resurrection of
that child, because almost all of them are divinely alike--childlike,
confident, smiling.
Another had had a whole leg amputated--a young man of twenty-two, with
a charming face. Doubtless he had already been loved by some pretty
girl. At last the day came when for the first time he was to get out of
bed and try to walk with crutches. I dreaded that moment. I expected
complaints. I already had made up my consoling arguments.
Ah, how little I knew the soul of our children of France. He arose,
poor boy, so thin, on his one leg; and as he was also wounded in one
arm, in spite of the crutches he couldn't balance himself. That made
him laugh; _made him laugh_!
I turned him over to a nurse because tears were choking me. But they
were not tears of sorrow; they were sobs of tenderness, respect,
admiration.
Another had received nine wounds. He didn't want to have them spoken
of. He only wanted to talk about his days of battle--to live them
over again. "Those last days, madame, we were so near the enemy that
they could not get to us to bring us our rations. We had to find our
nourishment ourselves. When evening arrived some of us would steal out
of the trenches and pick carrots--we lived eleven days like that. One
day I brought down a pigeon. When I was able to get it we broiled it
with matches. Ah, that was a royal feast! How glad we were!"
"Content" (glad, happy), that was the word he used most frequently. One
morning when I got to the hospital, believing him still very ill, he
greeted me with, "I go back to my depot in three days; in a fortnight
I shall be under fire! Oh, how 'content' I am!"
Since then he has written me, "I received the tobacco. We had an awful
fight at ----. I have a finger less and am still in the ambulance, but
still 'content.'"