And you realized that they were suddenly boys no longer, that their faces had reddened in a hectic way, and that into their young minds had come the frightful insanity of war. With a sickening feeling you turned from them, and going away, thought that only last July, back in that Holstein village, they doubtless had been playing the games that German boys play; then you heard Max cry out: "And when we get better, Doctor, we're going back and each kill a hundred Russians!" And with his white hands you saw the boy lunge as though already he could hear the ripping steel.... What if you were his father? "There are many like that--eager to get out of bed and back to the front," said the doctor. "Not so young, of course, but they all want another chance at the game; that is, all but the older men. You ought to have been here the other day. Count Talleyrand-Perigord was here. He's the nephew of the great diplomat, French descent of course. The Count has an estate near here. He's a young chap. He's been simply splendid to us. I guess he never did very much work before; you can imagine how a young man of his position spends his time. When the war broke out he volunteered for the Red Cross, and they made him a sort of a personal escort for me, to see that everything goes right over here. He spends his entire time with us. He watches all the operations, is intensely interested, asks all sorts of questions about them, and goes with me from bed to bed, asking the men what they want, doing everything he can for them. I tell you it quite surprised me, a young man of his position, in the French nobility, bucking right down to things. Count Szechenyi, you know, who married Gladys Vanderbilt; he's stationed over just across the Austrian border. He came up the other day to see Count Talleyrand and they dropped in here in the afternoon to visit the patients. I had expected something different from Count Szechenyi. You know what that Austrian count is. But he was just as democratic as if he had been a private in the ranks." While talking, the doctor had been crossing the theater until he came to a side wall exit door that opened out on what appeared to be a promenade. It was glassed in, like a sun parlor and looked out on what had been a cheap beer-garden. Along one wall we saw a row of muddy brown and black boots. On the floor were piles of uniforms, German, Russian and Austrian, and knapsacks, drilled and nicked with bullets. Kicking over a filthy bundle of field gray, I saw that it was slashed.