In spite of all, she retains her feminacy. She is still as alluring, as good a comrade, as cheerful and gay, outwardly, as though her body was not racked by fatigue, her heart choked with sadness. Occasionally she forgets herself. The mask falls off and trouble stares through the windows of her soul. Catching that look in the eyes of his nurse, a soldier exclaimed: “Cheer up! It will be all right after the war.” She replied: “After the war? There will be no ‘after the war.’ You’ll be dead, I’ll be dead. We shall all be dead. There’ll be no ‘after the war.’” Many French girls have deliberately married mutilated cripples to cheer and to help them earn their living. A beautiful young woman, gazing into the eyes of her soldier, said: “Why should we not? They lost their legs and arms for us—we cannot do too much for them.” Does the poilu appreciate this? Does he? What if he did lose one leg for such a woman? He would give the other with pleasure! On furlough one evening, eating supper in my favorite cafe in Paris, I observed a most horribly repulsive object. He had once been a poilu, but a shell battered his face so that it resembled humanity not at all. His nose was flattened out. His skin was mottled and discolored. A hole was where the mouth had been. Both eyes were gone and one arm was crippled. He sat and waited for food. Madame came from behind the counter and looked on. A fat boy, repulsed and sickened, forgot his appetite and gazed, unconsciously stroking his stomach, fascinated by that mutilated creature. A very beautiful girl, whose face might pass her into Heaven without confession, left the well-dressed gourmands with empty plates. She went and served the unfortunate one. She cut his meat and held his napkin that caught the drippings. She was so kind and gentle and showed such consideration, I asked her: “Is that the proprietor?” “Oh, no.” “Your husband or sweetheart, perhaps?” “I have none.” “Who was he?” “Un pauvre poilu.” Again, we were in a peasant woman’s farmhouse. She wore wooden shoes, without socks. Just home from work in the fields, she asked two convalescent soldiers to help drink a bottle of wine, and we sat and talked with her. “Yes,” she said, her dark eyes shining with pride, “my husband was a soldier, too. He is now a prisoner in Germany. This is his photograph. Don’t you think he looks well? He was a machine gunner in Alsace. He did not run away when the Germans came, but stayed and worked the gun.” Then, speaking of a well dressed little girl sitting on my Egyptian comrade’s knee: “He has never seen her—she is only two years old and thinks every soldier is papa.” Hanging from the roof was a row of dried sausages. Pointing to them she said: “Yes, I send him a package every week and never forget to put in a sausage. Don’t you think from the photograph he looks well?”