nd almost legendary and incomprehensible.

3

Raymond Bon was a child of the south, of that Provence which, day
after day, is shedding torrents of its blood to wipe out slanders
which we can no longer remember without turning pale with anger and
indignation. He was born at Avignon, the old city of the Popes and the
cicadas, where men have louder accents and lighter hearts than
elsewhere. He was a little boxing-master, who earned a livelihood at
Nice for himself and his destitute parents by giving lessons in the
noble art of self-defence with the good, ever-ready weapons which
nature has bestowed upon us. He boasted no other education than that
which a lad picks up at the primary school; but, almost illiterate as
he was, he possessed all the refinement, the innate culture, the
unconscious delicacy and tact, the kindliness of speech and feeling
and the beautiful heart of that comely race whose foremost sons seem
to be purified and spiritualized from their first childish steps by
the most radiant sunshine in the world. One would say that they were
directly related to those exquisite ephebes of ancient Greece who
sprang into existence ready to understand all things and to
experience life's purest emotions before they themselves had lived. My
reason for insisting upon the point is that, in this respect above
all, he represented thousands and thousands of young men from that
wonderful region where all the best and most lovable qualities of
mankind lie hidden all around beneath the indifferent surface of
everyday existence, only awaiting a favourable occasion to blossom
into astonishing flowers of grace and generosity and heroism.

4

When I heard that he had gone to the front, I felt a melancholy
certainty that I should never set eyes on him again. He was of those
whose fate there is no mistaking. He was one of those predestined
heroes whose courage marks them out beforehand for death and laurels.
I but too well knew his eagerness, his unbounded sincerity and
single-mindedness and his great heart: that admirable heart devoid of
all caution or ulterior motive or calculation, that heart turned, at
all times and with all its might, purely towards honour and duty. He
was bound to be in the trenches and in the bayonet-charge the same man
that I had so often seen in the ring, taking risks from the start,
taking them wholesale, unremittingly, blindly and cheerfully and
always ready with his pleasant smile, like that of a sh