Part 7 (2/2)

In a man of thought there is a wide interval between the word and the deed. Even when a thing is decided upon, he finds pretexts for putting it off to another day, for he sees only too clearly what will follow; what pains and troubles. And to what end? In order to calm his restless soul he pours out a flood of energetic language on his intimate friends, or to himself alone, and in this way gains the illusion of action cheaply enough. In the bottom of his heart he does not believe in it, but like Hamlet, he waits till circ.u.mstances shall force his hand.

Clerambault was brave enough when he was talking to the indulgent Perrotin, but he had scarcely got home when he was seized again by his hesitations. Sharpened by his sorrow, his sensitiveness antic.i.p.ated the emotions of those around him; he imagined the discord that his words would cause between himself and his wife, and worse, without exactly knowing why, he was not sure of his daughter's sympathy, and shrank from the trial. The risk was too great for an affectionate heart like his.

Matters stood thus, when a doctor of his acquaintance wrote that he had a man dangerously wounded in his hospital who had been in the great Champagne offensive, and had known Maxime. Clerambault went at once to see him.

On the bed he saw a man who might have been of any age. He lay still on his back, swathed like a mummy, his thin peasant-face all wrinkled and brown, with the big nose and grey beard emerging from the white bandages. Outside the sheet you could see his right hand, rough and work-worn; a joint of the middle-finger was missing--but that did not matter, it was a peace injury. His eyes looked out calmly under the bushy eyebrows; their clear grey light was unexpected in the burned face.

Clerambault came close and asked him how he did, and the man thanked him politely, without giving details, as if it were not worth the trouble to talk about oneself.

”You are very good, Sir. I am getting on all right.” But Clerambault persisted affectionately, and it did not take long for the grey eyes to see that there was something deeper than curiosity in the blue eyes that bent over him.

”Where are you wounded?” asked Clerambault.

”Oh, a little of everywhere; it would take too long to tell you, Sir.”

But as his visitor continued to press him:

”There is a wound wherever they could find a place. Shot up, all over.

I never should have thought there would have been room enough on a little man like me.”

Clerambault found out at last that he had received about a score of wounds; seventeen, to be exact. He had been literally sprinkled--he called it ”interlarded”--with shrapnel.

”Wounded in seventeen places!” cried Clerambault.

”I have only a dozen left,” said the man.

”Did they cure the others?”

”No, they cut my legs off.” Clerambault was so shocked that he almost forgot the object of his visit. Great Heaven! What agonies! Our sufferings, in comparison, are a drop in the ocean.... He put his hand over the rough one, and pressed it. The calm grey eyes took in Clerambault from his feet to the c.r.a.pe on his hat.

”You have lost someone?”

”Yes,” said Clerambault, pulling himself together, ”you must have known Sergeant Clerambault?”

”Surely,” said the man, ”I knew him.”

”He was my son.”

The grey eyes softened.

”Ah, Sir! I _am_ sorry for you. I should think I did know him, poor little chap! We were together for nearly a year, and a year like that counts, I can tell you! Day after day, we were like moles burrowing in the same hole.... We had our share of trouble.”

”Did he suffer much?”

”Well, Sir, it _was_ pretty bad sometimes; hard on the boy, just at the first. You see he wasn't used to it, like us.”

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