i went to lie down a little way off, at the foot of a tree. at last i had a free moment. at last i belonged to myself!
the funereal refrain resounded in me anew: victor killed! i expected.... dead, dead, my brother! a procession of regrets was bound to follow! in spite of myself, paltry worries came back to annoy me, my sore foot as usual. i lost my temper. despicable solicitude! when i had been so hard hit!
revolving these thoughts in my mind, i was suddenly seized with terror, with that terror which always freezes me at the sudden disappearance of any being with whom i have come into contact. but for all this terror i must confess that i was only moderately afflicted, however reluctant i might be to admit it.
it went no doubt to prove that i was incapable of moral suffering. it filled me with shame. i longed ardently to overcome it. but in what way? who could believe that i went as far as to ask myself, "what happens when one loses an only brother; how does one feel?"
and then all at once i lost patience. come along! come along! let's be frank. had i not sworn long ago to avoid all juggling with words. no[pg 191] shammed grief for me! quite true i had lost my brother! but what was he to me? i remember the impression, corroborated so often, that we had nothing in common. he, the classical type of soldier, a slave to his convictions. i, reared on philosophy, moulded of doubt and detachment. a brother to whom i had never for a moment opened my heart, with whom i had had no intimate converse. how pitifully trite, too, our correspondence had been! he for his part lived engrossed in the wife chosen and schooled to his liking, and in his children, who interested me only as being pretty little creatures. my brother simply by an accident of birth! i obviously could not mourn for him in the same way as for someone i had loved!
this reasoning calmed me. but the question still persisted mechanically: "then whom did i love?" suddenly the answer, the cruel answer, presented itself: "no one on earth! i was quite alone!"
why was the thought of my heart withered beyond all help, so odious to me to-day? why, in order to dispel it, was i driven to conjure up the sorrow which years and years ago had made my child's heart bleed?
my mother. my sweet mother. fourteen years had passed in vain, since that terrible day; the wound had never healed. she had been ill no time; a bad attack of influenza, a great deal of fever, threatened pneumonia. i had spent part of the afternoon in her room. she complained of nothing but thirst. i got her what she wanted and reminded her when it was time to take her medicine. she was not very much pulled down. i remember that she had congratulated me on obtaining a good place in latin prose. some[pg 192] artless remark on the maid's part had tickled us both.... and that night the hospital nurse who had arrived a few hours before, knocked at my door, panic-stricken.... it was all over. what a thunderbolt it had been.
i felt my heart swell and my eyes fill again at the memory of it! i still mourned for her to-day, for her, for her! so i was not quite lacking in all humane feeling. and it was not my fault if the present stroke of destiny failed to move me at all deeply.
i felt softened, however. the dear shade exhaled some tender property. i had been my mother's confidant as a child. it was to me that she liked to unbosom herself, morning and evening, as she bent her harmonious face over my face. she used to say to me: "we two understand each other, don't we?"
had she not once or twice gently and seriously confided in me the secret of certain fears? supposing anything were to happen to her, she seemed to fear for the future union of the family. she felt that she was the bond between us, that as long as she was alive, she concentrated our affections. my father, without entirely fathoming her, adored her, and so did my brother, though brought up away from her at school. if she were the first to go.... it was an odd presentiment.
so my mother had foreseen this estrangement between beings of the same blood; had grieved about it beforehand. alas! she could never have believed that the breech could have yawned so large.... if she could have suspected that a day would come when her michel would hear of the other's death with dry[pg 193] eyes and an untouched heart, what bitterness it would have been to her! the thought weighed on my mind.
i got up and walked a few steps. i was limping slightly.
boom! boom! boom! ever since it had been light, the deafening uproar had redoubled.
frémont who was lying on his side gave me a friendly wave.
"what are you doing there?"
"writing my diary."
he waved a bundle of closely written sheets.
"my wife can't grumble! i sent her the same amount yesterday."
"are you telling her that we can hear firing?"
"rather not! i'm giving her a description of our humdrum existence at orne."
"will you lend me your stylo, when you've finished?" i asked.
"half a minute! i'm just ending it off."
he got up.
"i recommend you to try my desk; this big stone. most handy! got some writing paper?"
"yes, thanks."
i settled down. the idea of writing had been put into my head by the sight of frémont. by doing so it seemed to me that i might atone for or lessen my lack of....
i sent my condolences first of all to my father, to whom victor was everything; his sole object in existence. fragments of a recent conversation floated across my mind. in what a voice he had said: "they will nearly all stay there!" the old spartan! but had he not counted too much on his strength of mind.[pg 194]... and yet, no. i was certain of his unshakable constancy. i foresaw that in case of victory, the old man would not utter a complaint, but would congratulate himself on having contributed to it by his loss.
oh, come along. it had got to be done.... luckily i need not write much. the noise of the cannonade was a good excuse for brevity. a few sentences would be enough, a suitable expression of my compassion. i signed it. then i wrote a line to my sister-in-law. that of course was obligatory. poor little woman! a widow, at twenty-four, with two kids.... the idea of her loneliness and misery saddened me. my pen raced over the paper. i was soon at the end of a sheet.
i fastened up these letters with a sigh of relief at having done my duty. but it suddenly struck me that i could not send them. they would run the risk of getting there before the official intimation. i shuddered at the idea.
then why should i have been in such a hurry?
meanwhile i felt about in my pocket, and pulled out a third card. did i realise at once where my steps were taking me? i think not. i had only written the heading.... and yet! i was smiling; but i was strangely troubled.
a line to announce this loss which clouded my campaign, a pitying allusion to the misery of the survivor. what should i add? i was not dissatisfied with the manly words in which i describe us as sending a friendly greeting to a few beings in the world, just as we were about to hurl ourselves into the ghastly furnace.
i re-read them with a smile, half-tender, half-scepti[pg 195]cal, and slowly and rather dreamily, i addressed the envelope.
mademoiselle jeannine landry
rue faidherbe.
st-mandé.
when should i be able to despatch this letter?
perhaps i should fall with it on my breast....
and people would think i had been writing to my fiancée!
