came to my senses and had rest. It was wonderful. I thought that I
had died and gone to heaven. Would God it had been so! Then I should
have been with my lieutenant. They told me he had passed away in
the redoubt. But that hospital was beautiful, so clean and quiet
and friendly. Those white nurses were angels. They handled me like
a baby. I would have liked to stay there. I had no desire to get
better. But I did. One day several officers visited the hospital.
They came to my cot, where I was sitting up. The highest of
them brought out a Cross of War and pinned it on the breast of my
nightshirt. 'There,' he said, 'you are decorated, Pierre Duval! You
are one of the heroes of France. You are soon going to be perfectly
well and to fight again bravely for your country.' I thanked him,
but I knew better. My body might get perfectly well, but something
in my soul was broken. It was worn out. The thin spring had snapped.
I could never fight again. Any loud noise made me shake all over.
I knew that I could never face a battle--impossible! I should
certainly lose my nerve and run away. It is a damned feeling, that
broken something inside of one. I can't describe it."

Pierre stopped for a moment and moistened his dry lips with the
tip of his tongue.

"I know," said Father Courcy. "I understand perfectly what you want
to say. It was like being lost and thinking that nothing could save
you; a feeling that is piercing and dull at the same time, like a
heavy weight pressing on you with sharp stabs in it. It was what
they call shell-shock, a terrible thing. Sometimes it drives men
crazy for a while. But the doctors know what to do for that malady.
It passes. You got over it."