In the Earth
The Return
Volpatte and Fouillade
Sanctuary
Habits
Entraining
On Leave
The Anger of Volpatte
Argoval
The Dog
The Doorway
The Big Words
Of Burdens
The Egg
An Idyll
The Sap
A Box of Matches
Bombardment
Under Fire
The Refuge
Going About
The Fatigue-Party
The Dawn
The Vision
Mont blanc, the Dent du Midi, and the Aiguille
Verte look across at the bloodless faces that show
above the blankets along the gallery of the sanatorium.
This roofed-in gallery of rustic wood-work on the
first floor of the palatial hospital is isolated in
Space and overlooks the world. The blankets of
fine wool—red, green, brown, or white—from
which those wasted cheeks and shining eyes protrude
are quite still. No sound comes from the long
couches except when some one coughs, or that of the
pages of a book turned over at long and regular intervals,
or the undertone of question and quiet answer between
neighbors, or now and again the crescendo disturbance
of a daring crow, escaped to the balcony from those
flocks that seem threaded across the immense transparency
like chaplets of black pearls.
Silence is obligatory. Besides, the rich and
high-placed who have come here from all the ends of
the earth, smitten by the same evil, have lost the
habit of talking. They have withdrawn into themselves,
to think of their life and of their death.
A servant appears in the balcony, dressed in white
and walking softly. She brings newspapers and
hands them about.
“It’s decided,” says the first to
unfold his paper. “War is declared.”
Expected as the news is, its effect is almost dazing,
for this audience feels that its portent is without
measure or limit. These men of culture and intelligence,
detached from the affairs of the world and almost
from the world itself, whose faculties are deepened
by suffering and meditation, as far remote from their
fellow men as if they were already of the Future—these
men look deeply into the distance, towards the unknowable
land of the living and the insane.
“Austria’s act is a crime,” says
the Austrian.
“France must win,” says the Englishman.
“I hope Germany will be beaten,” says
the German.
They settle down again under the blankets and on the
pillows, looking to heaven and the high peaks.
But in spite of that vast purity, the silence is filled
with the dire disclosure of a moment before.
War!
Some of the invalids break the silence, and say the
word again under their breath, reflecting that this
is the greatest happening of the age, and perhaps
of all ages. Even on the lucid landscape at which
they gaze the news casts something like a vague and
somber mirage.
