Thirty Hours with a Corpse, and Other Tales of the Grand Guignol

Under Ether

IN THE evenings, when the wounded were asleep, when there were left burning in the halls only the Argand lamps, shaded by hoods of cardboard, the old doctor used to take a little turn up and down the road.

His pipe stuck between his teeth, he used to climb the little hill, from which through the trees he could see the denuded plain, the villages, whose mutilated profiles made strange, sharp-drawn figures against the sky, and, further off, St. Quentin, which for eight days past had been illuminated by the glare of incendiary fires.

Then, his back bent forward, his hands in his pockets, he watched going up in smoke the city in which for twenty years he had visited the poor and the rich—the peaceful little city where formerly the old people whom he had cared for and the children whom he had brought into the world greeted him as he passed by; the sorrowful little city, now in captivity, where his mother awaited him. Now and then, as the wind blew aside the smoke and the flames licked the black horizon, he would say:

“It is the factory which is afire. Or maybe it is the city hall—or the church.”

Clenching his fists, his lips trembling, he made his way back to the hospital—older, more weary, heavier at heart.

On the mornings of the days of the attacks, when the cannon passed at a gallop, when the tread of regiments on the march echoed through the silence, he stole softly from his bed to watch, buoyed with the hope that this time at last they were going to retake his city; that he would re-enter it and see there once more his old mother, his old home and his old friends.

But when he saw the soldiers coming back, when the thunder of the cannonade slackened and died away, he would sigh, “Not this time, either,” and resume his tasks.

One day when there had been sharp fighting, they brought into the hospital a batch of wounded prisoners. One of them, a Feldwebel (sergeant-major), whose shoulder was shattered by a shell, astonished him by the dignity of his bearing and the refinement of his talk. Examining the wound, he asked the prisoner in German:

“Where do you come from?”

“From Magdeburg, in Saxony, Monsieur le Médecin-Majeur,” replied the sub-officer, in good French.

“Ah,” said the doctor, with an intonation of regret, for he had hoped that the wounded man was an Alsatian, conscripted by force. The latter seemed to understand, and murmured:

“What can you expect, Doctor? War is war. But that doesn’t prevent me from loving France, where I grew up.”

Of a sudden the blood mounted to the face of the old surgeon. Pushing up his glasses and looking sternly at the prisoner, he hurled at him this question:

“And are you not ashamed to ravage this country, to ruin these poor people, who before the war, received you with kindness?”

“Yes,” the other answered softly. “I am often ashamed. For my part I have always striven to be humane, to be just, to avoid mistreating anybody and to alleviate mistreatment by others as far as lay in my power. The combat over, one becomes a human being again; and the inhabitants of the occupied regions are not responsible. Their persons and their property ought to be sacred. I have to apologize for those of my companions who have not understood this. For instance, my regiment has been for the last six months at St. Quentin—”

The doctor gave a start.

“You have been at St. Quentin for six months? I come from St. Quentin. Perhaps you can give me some news. Often in the evenings I see fires—now in one quarter of the city, now in another. You haven’t destroyed the place systematically, have you, as you did Noyon, Péronne and Bapaume?”

“Alas, Doctor, that is a foul blot on our arms.”

“But,” pursued the surgeon, his voice almost choked, “you have been burning only public buildings, haven’t you? Not private houses?”

“No; the private houses are practically untouched up to now.”

“Ah! Do you know a street called Beffroi Street?”

“I know it very well. It is there—”

“It is there that my old mother lives,” said the doctor slowly. “My name is Journau. Do you know my mother?”

“I was quartered in her house.”

“Ah! Mon Dieu! How is she?”

“She is well—very well. She is a very worthy person and I suffered from the annoyance which our presence caused her. I, too, have an old mother in Magdeburg, and I thought of her when I saw your mother weeping. But such is war!”

The doctor breathed freely. Big tears ran down his cheeks. But he collected himself, and, bending again over the wound, he announced:

“We are going to put you to sleep right away. It is nothing serious. You will soon be well.”

While they washed the wound with tincture of iodine and an assistant got ready to administer ether, the wounded man gave some more details:

“Yes, your mother is well and suffers no inconveniences. The house is always in order, as if for a fête. Her rooms are so neat and the floors so scrupulously polished that it is a pleasure to look at them in passing. She waters her flowers; she trims her rose bushes. An attractive house! A fine woman!”

Then his voice wavered a little; he grew stiff; soon he relaxed and softly passed into slumber.

In the midst of the operation he gave a start, turned his head to one side and babbled some meaningless words. The assistant was about to administer more gas, but the surgeon stopped him.

“Not too much. We are nearly through.”

The prisoner began to talk again. This time his words were precise, his phrases clean-cut. His voice, which a little while before had been so calm, became harsh and imperious, and he smiled between his phrases with a huge smile which shook his abdomen and his arms.

“Go ahead! Go ahead! Take that old wardrobe out and burn it! Break it open for me first! Linen? That’s good to wipe our shoes with. What does she say? A spigot for the wine casks? Ho, there, the rest of you! Get an ax and draw the wine out in buckets.”

The doctor’s hand trembled.

“Hurrah!” the wounded man went on. “Seize the old woman! Tie her to a chair if she is obstinate! She has a son who is an officer? Ha! Ha! Slap her on the head till she gives us the key to her strong box!”

The old doctor stood erect, very pale. For an instant his terrible eyes ran from his fingers to the neck of the Boche. Then, in a very low voice he said to his assistant, as he bent down again:

“Give him a little more gas. Unless you do so I am afraid I can’t go ahead.”