ch it is to be a
_joyeux_, to belong to a regiment of criminals, and to have no family to
speak of.

Grammont knew that it would be better for him to die, but he did not
like to protest against this painful prolonging of his life. He was
pretty well sick of life, but he had to submit to the kind treatment
meted out to him, to twist his mouth into a wry smile when the
_Directrice_ asked him each day if he was not better, and to accept
without wincing all the newest devices that the surgeon discovered for
him. There was some sense in saving other people's lives, but there was
no sense in saving his. But the surgeon, who was working for a
reputation, worked hand in hand with the _Directrice_ who wanted her
hospital to make a reputation for saving the lives of the _grands
blesses_. Grammont was the victim of circumstances, as usual, but it was
all in his understanding of life, this being caught up in the ambitions
of others, so he had to submit.

After about three months of torture, during which time he grew weaker
and smelled worse every day, it finally dawned on the nurse that
perhaps this life-saving business was not wholly desirable. If he got
"well," in the mildest acceptation of the term, he would be pretty well
disabled, and useless and good for nothing. And if he was never going to
get well, for which the prospects seemed bright enough, why force him
along through more weeks of suffering, just to try out new remedies?
Society did not want him, and he had no place in it. Besides, he had
done his share, in the trenches, in protecting its best traditions.

Then they all began to notice, suddenly, that in bed Grammont was
displaying rather nice qualities, such as you would not expect from a
_joyeux_, a social outcast. He appeared to be extremely patient, and
while his face twisted up into knots of pain, most of the time, he did
not cry out and disturb the ward as he might have done. This was nice
and considerate, and other good traits were discovered too. He was not a
nuisance, he was not exacting, he did not demand unreasonable things,
or refuse to submit to unreasonable things, when these were demanded of
him. In fact, he seemed to accept his pain as God-given, and with a
fatalism which in some ways was rather admirable. He could not help
smelling like that, for he was full of rubber drains and of gauze
drains, and if the doctor was too busy to dress his wounds that day, and
so put him off till the next, it was not