road into the garden. It is time for their story--the story
of their attack on the redoubt. One of those who remained motionless on
the road was the doctor's son. If he had sprained his ankle at
manoeuvres, the whole company would have gossiped about the accident.
If he had died in the garrison hospital from pneumonia, the barracks
would have been blue for a week. If he had fallen in the charge across
the white posts, the day-laborer's son on his right and the judge's son
on his left would have felt a spasm of horror.

This is death, they would have thought; death that barely missed us;
death that lays a man in the full tide of youth, as we are, silent and
still forever.

Twelve hours after the war had begun, when the judge's son missed the
doctor's son from the ranks, he remarked:

"Then they must have got him!"

"Yes, I Saw him roll over on his side," said the laborer's son.

There was no further comment. The lottery had drawn the doctor's son
this time; it would get some one else with the next rush. Existence had
resolved itself into a hazard; all perspective was merged into a
brimstone-gray background. The men did not think of home and parents, as
they had on the previous night while they waited for the war to begin,
or of patriotism. Relatives were still dear and country was still dear,
but the threads of these affections were no longer taut. They hung
loose. Fatalism had taken the place of suspense. There is no occurrence
that frequency will not make familiar, and they were already familiar
with death.

A man might even get used to falling from a great height. At first, in
lightning rapidity of thought, all his life would pass in review before
him and all his hopes for the future would crowd thick. But what if he
were to go on descending for hours; yes, for days? Would not his
sensations finally wear themselves down to a raw, quivering brain and
the brain at length grow callous? Suppose, further, that a number of men
had been thrown over a precipice at the same time as he and that the
bottom of the abyss was the distance from star to star! Suppose that
they fell at the same rate of speed! The first to be dashed against a
shelf of rock would be a ghastly reminder to each man of his own
approaching end. But, proceeding on horror's journey, he would become
accustomed to such pictures. He would feel hunger and cold. Physical
discomfort would overwhelm mental agony. If a biscuit shot out from the
pocket of a co