news is true. The hospital exults, Badinguet
fallen! it is not too soon; good-by to the war that is ended at last.

The following morning Francis and I, we embrace and he departs. "Till we
meet again," he shouts to me as he shuts the gate; "and in Paris!"

Oh, the days that followed that day! What suffering! what desolation!
Impossible to leave the hospital; a sentinel paced up and down, in my
honor, before the door. I had, however, spirit enough not to try to
sleep. I paced like a caged beast in the yard. I prowled thus for the
space of twelve hours. I knew my prison to its smallest cranny. I
knew the spots where the lichens and the mosses pushed up through the
sections of the wall which had given way in cracking. Disgust for my
corridor, for my truckle-bed flattened out like a pancake, for my linen
rotten with dirt, took hold of me. I lived isolated, speaking to no one,
beating the flint stones of the courtyard with my feet, straying, like a
troubled soul, under the arcades whitewashed with yellow ochre the same
as the wards, coming back to the grated entrance gate surmounted by a
flag, mounting to the first floor where my bed was, descending to where
the kitchen shone, flashing the sparkle of its red copper through the
bare nakedness of the scene. I gnawed my fists with impatience, watching
at certain hours the mingled coming and going of civilians and soldiers,
passing and repassing on every floor, filling the galleries with their
interminable march.

I had no longer any strength left to resist the persecution of the
sisters, who drove us on Sunday into the chapel. I became a monomaniac;
one fixed idea haunted me; to flee as quickly as possible that
lamentable jail. With that, money worry oppressed me. My mother had
forwarded a hundred francs to me at Dunkirk, where it seems I ought to
be. The money never appeared. I saw the time when I should not have a
sou to buy either paper or tobacco.

Meanwhile the days passed. The De Frechedes seemed to have forgotten
me, and I attributed their silence to my escapades, of which they had
no doubt been informed. Soon to all these anxieties were added horrible
pains: ill-cared for and aggravated by my chase after petticoats, my
bowels became inflamed. I suffered so that I came to fear I should no
longer be able to bear the journey. I concealed my sufferings, fearing
the doctor would force me to stay longer at the hospital. I keep my bed
for a few days; then, as I felt my str