From the depths of my torpor, I have understood. "Yes, take it off! Take it off!" I implore them. "That's right! Very sensible!" He nodded. "A leg! They make such excellent substitutes! And then...." He emphasised this point: "You'll suffer no more, you know!" Oh, how well he knows my weak spot. No more suffering--or fever.... How did it all happen? I had no notion of anything. I came round from the chloroform to find myself in my bed. My father said to me, with tears in his eyes: "That's all over, Michel, you're saved!" I slept and slept. I come to life again. I open my eyes. Have I been dreaming? I should be tempted to think so. I have difficulty in persuading myself of the reality of my misfortune. My gaze never rests without astonishment on the fold in my bed-clothes, where it sinks down over the stump of my excised thigh. Stupefaction, yes: rather than distress. I am less crushed by it than I should have expected. What an abominable thing the existence of beings mutilated in this way used formerly to seem to me. To-day the fate which awaits me does not make me revolt. I smile, without too much melancholy, at the motherly words of encouragement from the excellent nun. I take note, almost with amusement of the sensations of itching in my missing sole and big toe, common in patients who have had a leg amputated. The secret of my serenity is to be found in the fact that my thoughts return to the decisive engagement when leading my men. I had consented to the sacrifice. Intoxicating moments which could only be paid for with my life! And this last week again, I had seen my coffin open; death flowed in my veins. Now Destiny had had mercy on me. I might well consider myself blest! But this period did not last long. At the end of a few days, the memory of my recent tortures paled. The withdrawal of this shadow robbed my present condition of its tinge of consolation. There were ten of us in this ward, all seriously wounded, and operated on under favourable conditions. The general atmosphere was one of cheerfulness. I was soon out of sympathy with it. I had made friends with my next-door neighbour, a recruit of twenty, Cadieu, by name. He was always in the most uproarious spirits and quite irresistible. I compared him with Judsi. What vitality there must be in a race which produces such men by thousands! His leg amputated too, and like mine, in the "upper third," he gaily made the best of it. First of all there was the pension. And then as an adjuster of scales it wouldn't worry him so much as all that! And then, what was a leg more or less after all?