He was twenty-five years old. He was from the invaded countries, and had no one, no one at all, who could come. He had had no news of his people since the beginning of the war, nor had he been able to send his news to them. He had never been out of his little commune, except to go to the trenches. He had no name to give of any friend.
The patronne told me to go to the funeral, for there was no one else to go. None of the real nurses could be spared, and very few of the men from downstairs would be able to walk so far. It was to be at Pantin. We would go first to the church. We would leave the hospital at half-past three.
I tell of so many funerals. But there are so many, and they impress me so. Those men die for us, and we, who may not die--how could it be but that their dying means more to us than other things? There is nothing we can do for those who fall and lie on the battlefield. But with these, here, we go a little way.
I have got some decent clothes, and I go sometimes to see some one, and we pretend we are amused by bits of gossip. We say, "Oh, that's a hat from Rose-Marie!" and, "Where did you get your tricot?" But it is as if we went on a journey, and we come home tired from it, to the dark shelter of our thoughts.
One rests better following through endless poor streets after a pine-box with the flag upon it and the palms.
The people stand back, the men salute, the women make the sign of the Cross, and we keep our own small perfect silence with us as we pass. The piquet d'honneur walked with arms reversed, four on either side of him.
There was no one but me to bring him flowers, but he had a big fine tin wreath from his comrades of our service, and his palms from the Ville de Paris, and the spray of zinc flowers with the ribbon marked "Souvenir Français" that, Madame Bayle said, is always sent from the Ministère de la Guerre.
Madame Bayle came with us. She is fat and always ill, but she could be spared from the linen-room. I never had seen her before "en civil." She had a large black hat from which, she told me, she had, for the occasion, taken off fourteen red roses. I thought, as we walked together, "Why, she and I are bitter enemies! For nine months we have quarrelled every day!"