moment by the novelty of that vacant, spacious feeling on my left
side--wondering if I could shave now with one arm--without another hand
to pull my face into hard little hummocks for the razor.

I heard the soft quick tread of a hospital steward, and standing before
me, he took from its envelope the letter Solon Denney had sent me to say
that she was dead. I handed it back, told him to burn it, and I shut my
eyes to the sickening shapes of life. My fever came up again, and in the
night I felt inch by inch over ground wet with blood for a picture I had
relinquished in a Quixotic moment. I must have been troublesome, for
they gave me the drug of dreams and I awakened peacefully. I watched the
field surgeons gather about a young line officer brought in with a shot
through his neck. For the better probing of the wound they removed his
head and gave it to me to hold. Seeing that it was Solon Denney's head,
I was seized with a mood of jest--I would hide it and make Solon search.
I advanced craftily down an endless corridor, but came to the edge of a
wood, where there was a wicked spitting of shots. I cried out again, and
once more they gave me the drug. Then I dreamed more quietly. I saw that
the soul of my dead arm searched for her soul--that it would soon be
drawn to her and offer itself to comfort her and never, never leave her.
It would say, "At least take the arm, since you may have it without the
face." It seemed that my other arm should go to her, too. This side of
her there could be nothing for either to close upon. It appeared to me
that I fell asleep on this fancy and dreamt that I awoke painfully to a
poor, one-sided life, effortless, barren, forbidding.

A year later I went back to the Little Country to be counsellor at law
to its people in time of need, and a father to Solon Denney and his two
children. Solon could direct large affairs acceptably, but he and his
babes were as thistle-down in a prairie wind.