ength diminishing, I wished to get
up, in spite of all, and I went downstairs into the yard. Sister Angele
no longer spoke to me, and in the evening, while she made her rounds in
the corridor and in the mess, turning so as not to notice the sparks of
the forbidden pipes that glowed in the shadows, she passed before me,
indifferent, cold, turning away her eyes. One morning, however, when I
had dragged myself into the courtyard and sunk down on every bench to
rest, she saw me so changed, so pale, that she could not keep from a
movement of compassion. In the evening, after she had finished her visit
to the dormitories, I was leaning with one elbow on my bolster, and,
with eyes wide open, I was looking at the bluish beams which the moon
cast through the windows of the corridor, when the door at the farther
end opened again, and I saw, now bathed in silver vapor, now in shadow,
and as if clothed in black crepe, according as to whether she passed
before the casements or along the walls, Sister Angele, who was coming
toward me. She was smiling gently. "To-morrow morning," she said to me,
"you are to be examined by the doctors. I saw Madame de Frechede to-day;
it is probable that you will start for Paris in two or three days." I
spring up in my bed, my face brightens, I wanted to jump and sing;
never was I happier. Morning rises. I dress, and uneasy, nevertheless, I
direct my way to the room where sits a board of officers and doctors.

One by one the soldiers exhibit their bodies gouged with wounds or
bunched with hair. The General scraped one of his finger nails, the
Colonel of the Gendarmerie {8} fans himself with a newspaper; the
practitioners talk among themselves as they feel the men. My turn
comes at last. They examine me from head to foot, they press down on
my stomach, swollen and tense like a balloon, and with a unanimity of
opinion the council grants me a convalescent's leave of sixty days.

8 Armed police.

I am going at last to see my mother, to recover my curios, my books! I
feel no more the red-hot iron that burns my entrails; I leap like a kid!

I announce to my family the good news. My mother writes me letter after
letter, wondering why I do not come. Alas! my order of absence must be
countersigned at the division headquarters at Rouen. It comes back after
five days; I am "in order"; I go to find Sister Angele; I beg her to
obtain for me before the time fixed for my departure permission to go
into the