pe.

A kind of torpor seemed to hang over the battle-field. Sometimes, a
perpendicular column of smoke rose up, in the motionless distance, and
the detonation reached us a little while afterwards, as if astray, and
ashamed of outraging the radiant silence.

It was one of the fine days of the summer of 1915, one of those days
when the supreme indifference of Nature makes one feel the burden of
war more cruelly, when the beauty of the sky seems to proclaim its
remoteness from the anguish of the human heart.

We had finished our morning round when an ambulance drew up at the
entrance.

"Doctor on duty!"

I went down the steps. The chauffeur explained:

"There are three slightly wounded men. I am going to take on further,
and then there are some severely wounded..."

He opened the back of his car. On one side three soldiers were seated,
dozing. On the other, there were stretchers, and I saw the feet of the
men lying upon them. Then, from the depths of the vehicle came a low,
grave, uncertain voice which said:

"I am one of the severely wounded, Monsieur."

He was a lad rather than a man. He had a little soft down on his chin,
a well-cut aquiline nose, dark eyes to which extreme weakness gave an
appearance of exaggerated size, and the grey pallor of those who have
lost much blood.

"Oh! how tired I am!" he said.

He held on to the stretcher with both hands as he was carried up the
steps. He raised his head a little, gave a glance full of astonishment,
distress, and lassitude at the green trees, the smiling hills, the
glowing horizon, and then he found himself inside the house.

Here begins the story of Gaston Leglise. It is a modest story and a very
sad story; but indeed, are there any stories now in the world that are
not sad?

I will tell it day by day, as we lived it, as it is graven in my memory,
and as it is graven in your memory and in your flesh, my friend Leglise.

Leglise only had a whiff of chloroform, and he fell at once into a sleep
closely akin to death.

"Let us make haste," said the head doctor. "We shall have the poor boy
dying on the table."

Then he shook his head, adding:

"Both knees! Both knees! What a future!"

The burden of experience is a sorrowful one. It is always sorrowful to
have sufficient memory to discern the future.

Small splinters from a grenade make very little wounds in a man's legs;
but great disorders may enter by way of those little wounds, and the
knee is such