day long he writes, writes, on the paper. Always
and always, over and over again, he writes on the paper, and he gives
the paper to everyone who passes. He's got something on his mind that he
wants to get across, before he dies. But no one can understand him. No
one can read what he has written--it is just scrawls, scribbles,
unintelligible. Day and night, for he never sleeps, he writes on that
block of paper, and tears off the sheets and gives them to everyone
who passes. And no one can understand, for it is just illegible,
unintelligible scribbles. Once we took the paper away to see what he
would do and then he wrote with his finger upon the wooden frame of the
screen. The same thing, scribbles, but they made no mark on the screen,
and he seemed so distressed because they made no mark that we gave him
back his paper again, and now he's happy. Or I suppose he's happy. He
seems content when we take this paper and pretend to read it. He seems
happy, scribbling those words that are words to him but not to us.
Careful! Don't stand too close! He spits. Yes, all the time, at the end
of every line he spits. Far too. Way across the ward. Don't you see that
his bed and the bed next are covered with rubber sheets? That's because
he spits. Big spits, too, far across the ward. And always he writes,
incessantly, day and night. He writes on that block of paper and spits
way across the ward at the end of every line. He's got something on his
mind that he wants to get across. Do you think he's thinking of the
Germans? He's dying though. He can't spit so far today as he did
yesterday.

Death is dignified and life is dignified, but the intervals are awful.
They are ludicrous, repulsive.

Is that Erard, calling? Calling that the Generals are coming, both of
them, together? Hurry! Tidy up the ward! Rub away the froth from under
Rollin's nose! Pull his sheets straight! Take that wet towel, and clean
the mackintosh upon that bed and the bed adjoining. See if Henri's
finished. Take away the screens. Pull the sheets straight. Tidy up the
ward--tell the others not to budge! The Generals are coming!

PARIS,
9 May, 1916.

WOMEN AND WIVES

A bitter wind swept in from the North Sea. It swept in over many miles
of Flanders plains, driving gusts of rain before it. It was a biting
gale by the time it reached the little cluster of wooden huts composing
the field hospital, and rain and wind together dashed against the huts,
blew und