Part 7 (1/2)

X

Once upon a time, Paga would have been called un type; now he is un numero. This means that he is an original, that his ways of considering and practising life are unusual; and as life here is reduced entirely to terms of suffering, it means that his manner of suffering differs from that of other people.

From the very beginning, during those hard moments when the wounded man lies plunged in stupor and self-forgetfulness, Paga distinguished himself by some remarkable eccentricities.

Left leg broken, right foot injured, such was the report on Paga's hospital sheet.

Now the leg was not doing at all well. Every morning, the good head doctor stared at the swollen flesh with his little round discoloured eyes and said: ”Come, we must just wait till to-morrow.” But Paga did not want to wait.

Flushed with fever, his hands trembling, his southern accent exaggerated by approaching delirium, he said, as soon as we came to see him.

”My wish, my wis.h.!.+ You know my wish, doctor.”

Then, lower, with a kind of pa.s.sion:

”I want you to cut it off, you know. I want you to cut this leg. Oh! I shan't be happy till it is done. Doctor, cut it, cut it off.”

We didn't cut it at all, and Paga's business was very successfully arranged. I even feel sure that this leg became quite a respectable limb again.

I am bound to say Paga understood that he had meddled with things which did not concern him. He nevertheless continued to offer imperative advice as to the manner in which he wished to be nursed.

”Don't pull off the dressings! I won't have it. Do you hear, doctor?

Don't pull. I won't have it.”

Then he would begin to tremble nervously all over his body and to say:

”I am quite calm! Oh, I am really calm. See, Michelet, see, Brugneau, I am calm. Doctor, see, I am quite calm.”

Meantime the dressings were gradually loosening under a trickle of water, and Paga muttered between his teeth:

”He's pulling, he's pulling.... Oh, the cruel man! I won't have it, I won't have it.”

Then suddenly, with flaming cheeks:

”That's right. That's right! See, Michelet, see, Brugneau: the dressings have come away. Sergeant, Sergeant, the dressings are loosened.”

He clapped his hands, possessed by a furtive joy; then he suddenly became conscious, and with a deep furrow between his brows, he began to give orders again.

”Not any tincture of iodine to-day, doctor. Take away those forceps, doctor, take them away.”

Meanwhile the implacable forceps did their work, the tincture of iodine performed its chilly function; then Paga yelled:

”Quickly, quickly. Kiss me, kiss me.”

With his arms thrown out like tentacles, he beat upon the air, and seized haphazard upon the first blouse that pa.s.sed. Then he would embrace it frantically.

Thus it happened that he once showered kisses on Michelet's hands, objects by no means suitable for such a demonstration. Michelet said, laughing: