I could not breathe this rare atmosphere. So far as I knew, there was no woman for me in earth or heaven, but certainly I would not have been able to look over a living woman's shoulder for her mystic counterpart, and long for death to consummate the real mating. But war teaches lovers many wonderful things. Paula Mantone was a kind of white silence. You had to listen keenly for her step and give your attention to her voice. She was utterly feminine--malleable like gold. Even to me, she was the meaning of love. I had no thought of her being _my_ woman, and yet she seemed spiritually to contain some sister who would answer for me. Soldiers worshipped her. I think each saw his own in her presence. It was the finished magic of the Trojan Helen again--every man's desire, as gold contains potentially all the metals, and the rose the essence of all the flowers.... She was the quietest woman I ever saw. She seemed formed of white cloud--the sun on the other side. That was it--Varsieff was shining on the other side. She answered him, light for light--gold for gold. For the rest of us, she had that white, saintly lustre. And even in that, we found much to make us brave and keep us pure. Deep within, there was some wonder about Varsieff and Paula Mantone which my brain could not interpret exactly. But the world had suddenly become to me, in her presence, a place of divided hearts--millions of divided lovers around the world. I had only known the shock and misery of war before, and the thrilling roar of comrades, the crash of the wreckers and the songs of the builders ever nearer. Now I heard the still voices of lovers everywhere. In the pressures of air--callings, cryings, yearnings made audible. It was a new door of the heart that she opened--her particular gift to me. That moment, though I had loved and served Varsieff for years, I knew more thrillingly than ever his greatness, because this woman loved him. To me, to all soldiers, she gave a reflection of that superb bounty. To him she gave its _incandescence_. Perhaps together they found it too terrible a light for earth, or perhaps they were unwilling to find their fulness of days in a world so charged with agony as these years. She left me a moment, answering some voice which I had not heard, and stood for several seconds beside the cot of a bearded soldier, her fingers upon his grey-white brow. I did not realise until after she moved, that she was there at the moment of his passing. I thought of it again: She was the white silence. I think the soldier died, believing that his woman was there. Twenty cots in the place--a low, cold room lit with a handful of candles. The smell of blood and sickness and soiled clothing mingled with the bitterness of iodoform as the chill draught swept through. The peasant soldiers knew only the meagrest care. Their wounds were dressed as often as possible, but there were five times too many cases for the service, and the whole corps was impoverished.