e not been really killed today? I
remember, too, certain deeds of devotion, the kindly patience of the
great man, exiled in war as in life--and the rest does not matter. His
ideas themselves are only trivial details compared with his
heart--which is there on the ground in ruins in this corner of Hell.
With what intensity I lamented this man who was so far asunder from me
in everything!

Then fell the thunder on us! We were thrown violently on each other by
the frightful shaking of the ground and the walls. It was as if the
overhanging earth had burst and hurled itself down. Part of the
armor-plate of beams collapsed, enlarging the hole that already pierced
the cavern. Another shock--another pulverized span fell in roaring
destruction. The corpse of the great Red Cross sergeant went rolling
against the wall like the trunk of a tree. All the timber in the long
frame-work of the cave, those heavy black vertebrae, cracked with an
ear-splitting noise, and all the prisoners in the dungeon shouted
together in horror.

Blow after blow, the explosions resound and drive us in all directions
as the bombardment mangles and devours the sanctuary of pierced and
diminished refuge. As the hissing flight of shells hammers and crushes
the gaping end of the cave with its thunderbolts, daylight streams in
through the clefts. More sharply now, and more unnaturally, one sees
the flushed faces and those pallid with death, the eyes which fade in
agony or burn with fever, the patched-up white-bound bodies, the
monstrous bandages. All that was hidden rises again into daylight.
Haggard, blinking and distorted, in face of the flood of iron and
embers that the hurricanes of light bring with them, the wounded arise
and scatter and try to take flight. All the terror-struck inhabitants
roll about in compact masses across the miserable tunnel, as if in the
pitching hold of a great ship that strikes the rocks.

The aviator, as upright as he can get and with his neck on the ceiling,
waves his arms and appeals to God, asks Him what He is called, what is
His real name. Overthrown by the blast and cast upon the others, I see
him who, bare of breast and his clothes gaping like a wound, reveals
the heart of a Christ. The greatcoat of the man who still monotonously
repeats, "What's the use of worrying?" now shows itself all green,
bright green, the effect of the picric acid no doubt released by the
explosion that has staggered his brain. Others--the rest,