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"I was the most severely wounded man in the train," he wrote to me, not without a certain pride. Since then, Leglise has written to me often. His letters breathe a contented calm. I receive them among the vicissitudes of the campaign; on the highways, in wards where other wounded men are moaning, in fields scoured by the gallop of the cannonade.
Some one in the ward was talking this morning of love and marriage, and a home. I glanced at Leglise now and then; he seemed to be dreaming and he murmured: "Oh, for me, now..." Then I told him something I knew: I know young girls who have sworn to marry only a mutilated man. Well, we must believe in the vows of these young girls.
Oh, Leglise, can it be that there is still something amusing, and that it is to be kind? Isn't this alone enough to make it worth while to live? So now we have a great secret between us. All the morning, as I come and go in the ward, he looks at me meaningly, and smiles to himself. Legrand gravely offers me a cigarette; Leglise finds it hard not to burst out laughing. But he keeps his counsel.
Rockets rise above the hills, and fall slowly bathing the horizon in silvery rays. The lightning of the guns flashes furtively, like a winking eye. In spite of all this, in spite of war, the night is like waters dark and divine. Leglise breathes it in to his wasted breast in long draughts, and says: "Oh, I don't know, I don't know!... Wait another day, please, please...."
"How can I sleep with all the things I am thinking about?" Then he adds faintly: "Must you? Must you?" The darkness gives me courage, and I nod my head: "Yes!" As I finish his dressings, I speak from the depths of my heart: "Leglise, we will put you to sleep to-morrow. We will make an examination without letting you suffer, and we will do what is necessary."
He reads it with blushes. "I shall never dare to show this," he says; "it is a good deal exaggerated." He hands me the paper, which states, in substance, that Corporal Leglise behaved with great gallantry under a hail of bombs, and that his left leg has been amputated. "I didn't behave with great gallantry," he says; "I was at my post, that's all. As to the bombs, I only got one."
But Leglise is too much afraid of wounding Legrand's susceptibilities. He ruminates on the matter till evening. The little parcel is at the head of Legrand's bed. Leglise calls my attention to it with his chin, and whispers: "I found some one to give it to him. He doesn't know who sent it. He has made all sorts of guesses; it is very amusing!"
"But I don't want to be made out a hero." "My good lad, people won't ask what you think before they appreciate and honour you. It will be quite enough to look at your body." Then we had to part, for the war goes on, and every day there are fresh wounded. Leglise left us nearly cured. He left with some comrades, and he was not the least lively of the group.
You must give it to him. I'm off." In the afternoon I find Leglise troubled and perplexed. "I can't give all this to Legrand myself, he would be offended." So then we have to devise a discreet method of presentation. It takes some minutes. He invents romantic possibilities. He becomes flushed, animated, interested. "Think," I say, "find a way. Give it to him yourself, from some one or other."
All our attempts at conversation break down one by one. We always end in the same silence and anxiety. To-day Leglise said to me: "Oh! I know quite well what you're thinking about!" As I made no answer, he intreated: "Perhaps we could wait a little longer? Perhaps to-morrow I may be better..." Then suddenly, in great confusion: "Forgive me. I do trust you all. I know what you do is necessary.
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