dulous smile.

"With an artificial leg, Plaquet, you will, of course, be able to go
out. It will be almost as it was before."

Plaquet shakes his head again, and says in a low voice:

"Oh, I shall never go out!"

"But with a good artificial leg, Plaquet, you will be able to walk
almost as well as before. Why shouldn't you go out?"

Plaquet hesitates and remains silent.

"Why?"

Then in an almost inaudible voice he replies:

"I will never go out. I should be ashamed."

Plaquet will wear a medal on his breast. He is a brave soldier, and by
no means a fool. But there are very complex feelings which we must not
judge too hastily.

IX

In the corner of the ward there is a little plank bed which is like all
the other little beds. But buried between its sheets there is the smile
of Mathouillet, which is like no other smile.

Mathouillet, after throwing a good many bombs, at last got one himself.
In this disastrous adventure, he lost part of his thigh, received
several wounds, and gradually became deaf. Such is the fate of
bombardier-grenadier Mathouillet.

The bombardier-grenadier has a gentle, beardless face, which for many
weeks must have expressed great suffering, and, which is now beginning
to show a little satisfaction.

But Mathouillet hears so badly that when one speaks to him he only
smiles in answer.

If I come into the ward, Mathouillet's smile awaits and welcomes me.
When the dressing is over, Mathouillet thanks me with a smile. If I
look at the temperature chart, Mathouillet's smile follows me, but not
questioningly; Mathouillet has faith in me, but his smile says a
number of unspoken things that I understand perfectly. Conversation
is difficult, on account of this unfortunate deafness--that is to say,
conversation as usually carried on. But we two, happily, have no need of
words. For some time past, certain smiles have been enough for us. And
Mathouillet smiles, not only with his eyes or with his lips, but with
his nose, his beardless chin, his broad, smooth forehead, crowned by the
pale hair of the North, with all his gentle, boyish face.

Now that Mathouillet can get up, he eats at the table, with his
comrades. To call him to meals, Baraffe utters a piercing cry, which
reaches the ear of the bombardier-grenadier.

He arrives, shuffling his slippers along the floor, and examines all the
laughing faces. As he cannot hear, he hesitates to sit down, and this
time his smile betrays embarras