ould not be far off. His black eyebrows were contracted into a
frown, the eyelids closed and quivering. The grey nostrils were pinched
and dilated, the grey lips snarling above yellow, crusted teeth. The
restless lips twitched constantly, mumbling fresh treason, inaudibly.
Upon the floor on one side lay a pile of coverlets, tossed angrily from
the bed, while on each side the bed dangled white, muscular, hairy legs,
the toes touching the floor. All the while he fumbled to unloose the
abdominal dressings, picking at the safety-pins with weak, dirty
fingers. The patients on each side turned their backs to him, to escape
the smell, the smell of death.

A woman nurse came down the ward. She was the only one, and she tried to
cover him with the fallen bedding. Marius attempted to clutch her hand,
to encircle her with his weak, delirious, amorous arms. She dodged
swiftly, and directed an orderly to cover him with the fallen blankets.

Marius laughed in glee, a fiendish, feeble, shrieking laugh. "Have
nothing to do with a woman who is diseased!" he shouted. "Never! Never!
Never!"

So they gave him more morphia, that he might be quiet and less indecent,
and not disturb the other patients. And all that night he died, and all
the next day he died, and all the night following he died, for he was a
very strong man and his vitality was wonderful. And as he died, he
continued to pour out to them his experience of life, his summing up of
life, as he had lived it and known it. And the sight of the woman nurse
evoked one train of thought, and the sight of the men nurses evoked
another, and the sight of the man who had the _Croix de Guerre_ evoked
another, and the sight of the _joyeux_ evoked another. And he told the
ward all about it, incessantly. He was very delirious.

His was a filthy death. He died after three days' cursing and raving.
Before he died, that end of the ward smelled foully, and his foul words,
shouted at the top of his delirious voice, echoed foully. Everyone was
glad when it was over.

The end came suddenly. After very much raving it came, after terrible
abuse, terrible truths. One morning, very early, the night nurse looked
out of the window and saw a little procession making its way out of the
gates of the hospital enclosure, going towards the cemetery of the
village beyond. First came the priest, carrying a wooden cross that the
carpenter had just made. He was chanting something in a minor key, while
the sentry