or giving me a better
light, and I have never forgotten it.

Let me see--where was I? One's mind wanders around here and there and
yonder, when one is old. I think I said Joan comforted him. Certainly,
that is what she would do--there was no need to say that. She coaxed him
and petted him and caressed him, and laid the memory of that old hard
speech of his to rest. Laid it to rest until she should be dead. Then
he would remember it again--yes, yes! Lord, how those things sting, and
burn, and gnaw--the things which we did against the innocent dead! And
we say in our anguish, "If they could only come back!" Which is all very
well to say, but, as far as I can see, it doesn't profit anything. In my
opinion the best way is not to do the thing in the first place. And I am
not alone in this; I have heard our two knights say the same thing; and
a man there in Orleans--no, I believe it was at Beaugency, or one
of those places--it seems more as if it was at Beaugency than the
others--this man said the same thing exactly; almost the same words; a
dark man with a cast in his eye and one leg shorter than the other. His
name was--was--it is singular that I can't call that man's name; I had
it in my mind only a moment ago, and I know it begins with--no, I don't
remember what it begins with; but never mind, let it go; I will think of
it presently, and then I will tell you.

Well, pretty soon the old father wanted to know how Joan felt when
she was in the thick of a battle, with the bright blades hacking and
flashing all around her, and the blows rapping and slatting on her
shield, and blood gushing on her from the cloven ghastly face and broken
teeth of the neighbor at her elbow, and the perilous sudden back surge
of massed horses upon a person when the front ranks give way before a
heavy rush of the enemy, and men tumble limp and groaning out of saddles
all around, and battle-flags falling from dead hands wipe across one's
face and hide the tossing turmoil a moment, and in the reeling
and swaying and laboring jumble one's horse's hoofs sink into soft
substances and shrieks of pain respond, and presently--panic! rush!
swarm! flight! and death and hell following after! And the old fellow
got ever so much excited; and strode up and down, his tongue going like
a mill, asking question after question and never waiting for an answer;
and finally he stood Joan up in the middle of the room and stepped off
and scanned her critically, and said: