forms, other methods. But know this: little Christian’s life is far from over—it will last over one hundred years. Around him, others will live and die, which we must also take into account. For the rest of the novel, when he will have become a man, Christian needs a last name—first names by themselves only work for children. So it’s time to choose one for him, Mortsauf, maybe, or Mortfaus or Morfaust…
The story isn’t over but the fairy tale ends here, at the moment when young Christian, fully recovered, climbed bravely up the gangway of the ocean liner while thinking about his yellow dog. And the ocean liner, which was called Afrique, carried him over the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, past the Canary Islands, Morocco, and Spain, to the railroad at Marseille. Then it was the Gare de Lyon and the greatest city in the world, with its coachmen, its Champs-Élysées, its Eiffel Towers, its numbers, its polytechnical schools, its theorems, and all of its pretty girls who reminded him of the pretty nun who had taken care of him at the hospital.
February 2, 1916
At the hospital again today, my sad contribution to the war effort. A nurse… what else can we do, we women, while all of our valiant men are at the front? To give myself courage, when I wake up and cross Paris on foot in the frosty night towards the Val-de-Grâce hospital, I only need to think of their sacrifices. What suffering!
Today, a young man came to us, almost a child, who left the hospital three weeks ago. That had already been his second injury; we gave him a few days of convalescent leave, then he left again for the Chemin des Dames and was injured once more. This time it was shrapnel—they had to amputate his right leg when he was still in the ambulance. And here, we trepanned him. As stoic as I must appear, my heart tightens when I think about him. At least they won’t send him back to the front this time. I pray that God grants courage to his poor mother, because she’s going to find him in such a state! And with only one leg, how will he be able to go back to working on a farm?
February 10, 1916
The Germans are barbarians. There is no other word to describe these bombardments, these injuries, these mutilations! Barbaric! All this suffering in order to satisfy the monstrous pan-German ambition! The most unbelievable thing is that these monsters call themselves Christians. They worship a god of terror and dedicate these sacrifices to him. Fortunately, we too have powerful weapons, thanks to which God will help us to conquer them and to defend both civilization and Christian values.
I spoke about this with a history student who was leaving our unit. He had been trepanned, his head injury had been treated, but he left with an empty shirt sleeve. He was crying as he told me about his best friend, who jumped out of a trench and was killed, at age nineteen, when he would have gone on to become the greatest poet of the century. When it comes to the Krauts, he concluded, you have to give them an eye for an eye.
The house is freezing. Mama is trying in vain to get the stove repaired.
February 29, 1916
Lots of snow these past few days.
This year has one more day than usual. For me, it’s one more day of war. They’ve been bringing injured men from the front—the battle rages in Verdun.
Today one of the wounded men in the unit was telling everyone about the date, February 29. 1916 is a leap year, and according to him, there are magic numbers in it. He’s a Jew, but also a former polytechnician who is very well raised and amiable. He has only been here for a few days and probably isn’t going to stay for very long, because his injury is pretty minor: a shell blew up near him and his head collided with a large stone. The problem is, all of his comrades were killed, which is also terrible for him, the sole survivor. I know this because the major told me, but the patient himself doesn’t talk about it. It’s true that the men here hardly speak about what they’ve gone through at the front. Usually, he remains peacefully in his corner, studying. He cries from time to time while writing mathematical formulas, but today he seemed rather excited and was looking at me in a strange way. Oh, that his god would give him the strength to bear his sadness!
Tuesday, March 7
Lots of snow fell again during the night. I had a really hard time getting to the hospital. How can one not picture the shroud that must be covering the battlefields? But can the snow’s whiteness mask such horrors?
Wednesday, March 15
Father de La Martinière told me that I should pray for a Jew’s soul, and so I now include Robert (that is, the polytechnician) in my evening prayers. He’s going to leave the hospital soon, and so I’m spending as much time with him as I can. How wonderful it would be to win over this soul to the true religion!
“Mademoiselle Marguerite, give me a number please!” he shouts out as soon as he sees me enter the room. I say a random answer, but he claims I always give him the same one. “No, not 11, you already gave me that one yesterday,” he tells me, so I say another number, 6. “Thank you,” he responds and starts calculating again. “It’s just that I’m solving equations, Mademoiselle Marguerite,” he says.
This morning, I asked him if he believed in heaven, and, with his eyes shining their brightest, he looked at me and said:
Then hell was silent.
Three injured men in the unit died today, almost at the same time.
October 4, 1916
When I was leaving the hospital this evening to go home, Major de Brisson held me back and asked if I would agree to change units—he said they need me in facial surgery. The major was a friend of Papa’s at boarding school, and he still comes to the house often, so I couldn’t refuse. He wants me to start tomorrow.
Maybe, in this unit, I won’t have any more time to think about Robert. That’s my hope as I start writing in this notebook again today. It will be no more time than I spent telling Mama about it, no more than I spent telling the priest about it, because there was nothing to confess, it seemed, and I just couldn’t write in here about what happened the day he left. Only the thought of Mama kept me from asking to be moved to a hospital at the front.
Sunday the 8th
I haven’t been able to write since last Thursday. As I was leaving mass this morning, I decided to force myself to. But how can I put down on paper what I do, what we do in this unit? Opening up their skulls, trepanning under chloroform—you have to approach it like it’s nothing. Nothing compared to changing the dressings, discovering the bruised flesh, the empty eye sockets, the… I can’t even finish my sentence. Lord, give me strength. They’ve suffered terrible injuries at such a young age, and now they’re disfigured for life. That’s what I said to Mama and Thérèse. I know Thérèse tries to imagine what’s under the bandages, but I know she can’t. You have to see it to believe it.
The hardest thing in this unit is when I have to tell them they’re free from harm. Not getting flustered when I say things like “You’re
