The New Book of Martyrs Part 21

"That's quite enough."

Scarcely have the stretcher-bearers touched his bed, when Gregoire begins to cry out in a doleful, irritable tone:

"Ah! don't shake me like that! Ah, you mustn't touch me."

The stretcher-bearers I give him are very gentle fellows, and he always has the same: Paffin, a fat shoe-maker with a stammer, and Monsieur Bouin, a professor of mathematics, with a grey beard and very precise movements.

They take hold of Gregoire most carefully to lay him on the stretcher.

The wounded man criticises all their movements peevishly:

"Ah! don't turn me over like that. And you must hold my leg better than that!"

The sweat breaks out on Baffin's face. Monsieur Bouin's eye-gla.s.ses fall off. At last they bring the patient along.

As soon as he comes into the dressing ward, Gregoire is pale and perspiring. His harsh tawny beard quivers, hair by hair. I divine all this, and say a few words of encouragement to him from afar.

"I shan't be long with you this morning, Gregoire. You won't have time to say 'oof'!"

He preserves a sulky silence, full of reservations. He looks like a condemned criminal awaiting execution. He is so pre-occupied that he does not even answer when the sarcastic Sergeant says as he pa.s.ses him:

"Ah! here's our grouser."

At last he is laid on the table which the wounded men call the "billiard-table."

Then, things become very trying. I feel at once that whatever I do, Gregoire will suffer. I uncover the wound in his thigh, and he screams.

I wash the wound carefully, and he screams. I probe the wound, from which I remove small particles of bone, very gently, and he utters unimaginable yells. I see his tongue trembling in his open mouth. His hands tremble in the hands that hold them, I have an impression that every fibre of his body trembles, that the raw flesh of the wound trembles and retracts. In spite of my determination, this misery affects me, and I wonder whether I too shall begin to tremble sympathetically. I say:

"Try to be patient, my poor Gregoire."

He replies in a voice hoa.r.s.e with pain and terror: "I can't help it."

I add, just to say something: "Courage, a little courage."

He does not even answer, and I feel that to exhort him to show courage, is to recommend an impossible thing, as if I were to advise him to have black eyes instead of his pale blue ones.

The dressing is completed in an atmosphere of general discomfort.

Nothing could persuade me that Gregoire does not cordially detest me at this moment. While they are carrying him away, I ask myself bitterly why Gregoire is so deficient in grace, why he cannot suffer decently?

The Sergeant says, as he sponges the table: "He's working against one all the time." Well, the Sergeant is wrong. Gregoire is not deliberately hostile. Sometimes I divine, when he knits his brows, that he is making an effort to resist suffering, to meet it with a stouter and more cheerful heart. But he does not know how to set about it.

If you were asked to lift a railway-engine, you would perhaps make an effort; but you would do so without confidence and without success. So you must not say hard things of Gregoire.

Gregoire is unable to bear suffering, just as one is unable to talk an unknown language. And, then, it is easier to learn Chinese than to learn the art of suffering.

When I say that he is unable to bear suffering, I really mean that he has to suffer a great deal more than others.... I know the human body, and I cannot be deceived as to certain signs.

Gregoire begins very badly. He reminds one of those children who have such a terror of dogs that they are bound to be bitten. Gregoire trembles at once. The dogs of pain throw themselves upon this defenceless man and pull him down.

A great load of misery is heavy for a man to bear alone, but it is supportable when he is helped. Unfortunately Gregoire has no friends. He does nothing to obtain them, it almost seems as if he did not want any.

He is not coa.r.s.e, noisy and foul-mouthed, like the rascal Groult who amuses the whole ward. He is only dull and reserved.

He does not often say "Thank you" when he is offered something, and many touchy people take offence at this.

When I sit down by his bed, he gives no sign of any pleasure at my visit. I ask him:

"What was your business in civil life?"

He does not answer immediately. At last he says: "Odd jobs; I carried and loaded here and there."

"Are you married?"

"Yes."

"Have you any children?"

"Yes."

"How many?"

"Three."

The conversation languishes. I get up and say: "Good-bye till to-morrow, Gregoire."

"Ah! you will hurt me again to-morrow."

I rea.s.sure him, or at least I try to rea.s.sure him. Then, that I may not go away leaving a bad impression, I ask:

"How did you get wounded?"

"Well, down there in the plain, with the others...."

That is all. I go away. Gregoire's eyes follow me for a moment, and I cannot even say whether he is pleased or annoyed by my visit.

Good-bye, poor Gregoire. I cross the ward and go to sit down by Auger.

Auger is busy writing up his "book."

It is a big ledger some one has given him, in which he notes the important events of his life.

Auger writes a round schoolboy hand. In fact, he can just write sufficiently well for his needs, I might almost say for his pleasure.

"Would you care to look at my book?" he says, and he hands it to me with the air of a man who has no secrets.

Auger receives many letters, and he copies them out carefully, especially when they are fine letters, full of generous sentiments. His lieutenant, for instance, wrote him a remarkable letter.

He also copies into his book the letters he writes to his wife and his little girl. Then he notes the incidents of the day: "Wound dressed at 10 o'clock. The pus is diminishing. After dinner Madame la Princesse Moreau paid us a visit, and distributed caps all round; I got a fine green one. The little chap who had such a bad wound in the belly died at 2 o'clock...."