One Hundred Twenty-One Days

by Michèle Audin

  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 safe,” or “You made it through.” Afterwards, they ask me what’s under the bandages, what they look like, if they’re very disfigured. I promised to show two men their faces tomorrow morning, I’ll let them borrow the mirror from my handbag. There’s a third one recovering who is disfigured, but blind—at least he won’t have to see his “broken face.” It’s late, I have to stop writing and seek a little strength in prayer.

  Hail Mary, full of grace.

  October 16, 1916

  I am the bearer of bad news. I force myself to smile. They look at themselves in the mirror and they cry. One tried not to cry and started gallantly singing:

  Farewell to life, farewell to love,

  Farewell to all the girls,

  but he burst into tears. I know this song, it continues with:

  ’Cause we’ve all been sentenced to die,

  We’re the ones being sacrificed.

  How can you accept not being able to recognize your own face? The worst thing is that most of them refuse the comfort of religion. They prefer to spend their time hiding away with bottles of alcohol. How those got here, I don’t know.

  October 18

  And they continue to suffer. By the time they get here from the front, their jawbones have started to grow back together, but so poorly that many have difficulty eating. For some, it even hurts to speak.

  October 23, 1916

  Mama and Thérèse left last Friday to spend a few days at our house in Normandy; they brought enough material to knit blankets for our poor heroes who are starting to get cold again, especially in the mud. It’s the start of the third winter of war.

  As I’m alone at home, I worked on Saturday and Sunday (I even heard mass with the men), and I’m getting home later in the evenings.

  Today, while bringing medicine to one of our patients, I heard the young man in the next bed over breathing strangely. This patient’s face is so badly damaged that he can only breathe through his mouth. I quickly understood at that point that he could no longer breathe at all. The cause was a hemorrhage that was filling his throat with blood. I lifted up his head and drew out as much blood as I could with a syringe.

  Then I ran to find Doctor Debalme, who arrived a few minutes later. He wasn’t pleased that I hadn’t called him first; he told me rather firmly that I was only a nurse and it wasn’t up to me to decide if blood needs to be drawn out, since it’s a medical procedure.

  October 24, 1916

  Major de Brisson called me in this morning and congratulated me on saving the life of the young man with the hemorrhage. He said, “Marguerite, you saved him and you did well. Doctor Debalme would have arrived too late.”

  The patient is an artillery lieutenant. He was really unlucky—it’s rare for an artilleryman to be wounded in the face. The majority of those whom we treat here served in the infantry, they’re the ones who charge out of the trenches and take the most hits.

  Tuesday the 31st

  This morning, I again had to show a truly disfigured young man his new face. He’s the one who had the hemorrhage last week. He still has his left eye, his left check, and a bit—a tiny bit—of his left jaw, his forehead, and his chin. There’s a big lock of hair on his right temple that is growing back red, like an extra scar in his brown hair. A single bullet managed to do all this damage. But it must be said that it was practically shot point blank.

  He’s the first of my patients who didn’t cry at seeing his destroyed face. But he is very young, still a student.

  I don’t dare write anything about him because he is a polytechnician like Robert. There has already been another mathematician in the unit. That one left blind a week ago; he told me he was going to do a dissertation on geometry. I thought of Robert. I wonder what he’s doing now; maybe he’s still in the infernal trenches. I continue mentioning him in my evening prayers.

  We have taken back Douaumont.

  My cousin Jacques was killed in Verdun.

  We have never done so many operations in the unit as we did today.

  November 8, 1916

  This morning, I was taking off the polytechnician’s dressings so that he can undergo a bone graft (he already had a xenograft when he arrived; today they’re trying an autograft, using a fragment from one of his tibias), when he recited the following to me:

  You’ll be a Man, my son!

  He added that he really liked Kipling. I think I smiled, and then answered:

  But I do not tremble in seeing my weakness.

  He recognized it as one of Papa’s verses and said he really liked the poetry of Albert Janvier. I felt myself blush and said that the poet Albert Janvier was my father. Then I told him about how Papa died, the railroad accident, but I couldn’t talk for very long—they were taking him to the operating room and other unfortunate men were awaiting treatment.

  I wonder if he has a fiancée. I think about all those girls whose lovers will return disfigured, and all those whose lovers will never return… I don’t know which will need more courage.

  The worst will perhaps be for those who won’t know, because their men will have been declared missing.

  November 14, 1916

  Today, a surprise: Cousin Paul, dressed in full mourning attire, came to the unit. He had come to see a patient, and it was Lieutenant Mortsauf, my polytechnician! They spent the whole afternoon together, talking about mathematics. Paul had brought some books. I listened to their conversation while I was treating the others in the room—the
y were discussing things and writing formulas on sheets of paper that were then falling all around them onto the floor. When Paul left, I came over to remove the polytechnician’s stitches from his last operation. As I picked up the papers, he said, “So, Mademoiselle Marguerite, I take it you know Professor de Saint-Bonnet?” When I replied that he’s Mama’s cousin, he commended me. I told him that one of Paul’s sons had been killed in January and another last month, but he knew. He said that Paul was going to help him make use of his time at the hospital and that he was going to write a dissertation.

  Friday, December 1st

  As I move throughout the room, treating the other patients, I can see the polytechnician filling entire pages of his little yellow notebooks with calculations. Paul comes to see him two or three times a week. Sometimes he brings other mathematicians, and the patient always introduces me to them as “Mademoiselle Marguerite, the nurse who saved my life.” He tells me he owes his “second birth” to me. He explains his work to them; sometimes he tears sheets from his notebook and they take the papers with them. I don’t understand what they talk about, and besides, I don’t have time to listen, but I know that when they’re here, he smiles more. Even underneath the layers of gauze, I can discern a smile as soon as one is there. Today I heard them speaking in the stairwell as they were leaving.

  Paul was crying and I could see his colleague had teary eyes. I know Paul was thinking about his two sons. Jacques, his oldest, was so brilliant, and he hadn’t even had time to start working on anything. At least he died gloriously. Glory and honor are also (I don’t dare write what they are above all) death and tears.

  December 11, 1916

  Last week, like he asked me, I brought home a few pages from the polytechnician’s notebook to write out a clean copy in the evenings—that’s why I haven’t had time to write in this diary.

  I told him I really like his handwriting, but I don’t understand any of it and I hope I don’t write something foolish or add in mistakes.

  Maybe I spend a little too much time talking to him. I worry that the other patients in the room, behind the beige curtains, resent me. So I try to speak with some of them as well. I give words of comfort to those coming back from rehabilitation sessions, where heavier and heavier weights are attached to their lower jaws in order to help their muscles get used to opening their mouths, in spite of their deformed jawbones. Sometimes I write letters for those who don’t know how to write very well. Last night, I even played charades with two of them. Although I had to force myself at the beginning, we were soon laughing together. But laughing also makes them suffer.

  December 19, 1916

  I’ve finally finished copying the one hundred twenty pages that Christian (Lieutenant Mortsauf asked me to call him by his first name) gave to me. Fortunately, his handwriting is very readable. When I told him once more I didn’t understand any of it, he laughed and replied “Of course you don’t understand any of it, it’s not for girls, do you expect a girl to understand the transcendence of π?” But he seemed very satisfied. I could see him smiling under the bandages then, too.

  The battle of Verdun is finally over. Major de Brisson says 300,000 men died there. But their sacrifice was not in vain because the victory was ours.

  December 20, 1916

  I stayed very late at the hospital yesterday evening. The doctors aren’t finished with my polytechnician, so he’s going to have to stay here for the holidays. In any case, his family is in Africa, and it would be out of the question for him to get leave to visit them. He told me about the village where he was born, where his parents run a peanut plantation. He described a big river, with the Negroes’ pirogues, the pelicans, and beautiful trees called flame trees. He told me about his mother, Saint Theresa of Avila, Saint John of the Cross, and a little yellow dog, a kind of retriever, that he loved very much and that had died. If I were a man, I think I would like to travel and see such places. But a woman’s place is the home.

  He told me, very tenderly, about a nurse, a young nun who had cared for him in Africa. He also mentioned his injury and the evil fairy Carabosse.

  December 21, 1916

  I brought him a few books.

  Friday, December 22

  I stayed very late at Val-de-Grâce, but Major de Brisson drove me home. It was nighttime and very cold. I was so moved by what happened today that I couldn’t speak in the automobile.

  I spent the evening with my injured soldier; together we read the books I had brought him. He didn’t really appreciate Dante, whom I like a lot. I opened the book to the page where the song of Ulysses begins. “It’s very beautiful,” he said, “but I prefer Shelley,” and he quoted:

  The soul’s joy lies in doing.

  I must confess that I thought of Robert again. But we mainly read Papa’s poems:

  Jesus, the wounded one, the sinner, the wanderer

  Washes his ailing heart in the flow of Your blood.

  That’s when I felt a real bond between us. Then we talked a lot; he asked me how we had fared after Papa’s death, I explained how he had made some shrewd investments, and how since Mama was wealthy, too, we were living quite comfortably. He seemed pleased with this, as well as when I said that Papa had bought a beautiful house in Normandy and that we also owned an apartment on Rue d’Artois, where Papa had worked and which Mama was renting out. It’s really nice of him to be so interested in us.

  I have leave for Christmas, so I’m going to spend the holidays with Mama and Thérèse.

  Christmas

  I got up early this morning and decided to take stock of my feelings in this diary.

  I have to revisit what happened with Robert in March. He needed a lot of support, both morally and, I think, spiritually. I admit, I really enjoyed our conversations. But I didn’t expect him to ask me to marry him. Naturally, I refused. He asked me why, like a child, and I answered that we were too different.

  I haven’t even told Mama about it. I know Papa would never have agreed for me to marry a Jew, Papa who, along with Cousin Paul and a few others, founded the League of the French Homeland during the affair with that man Dreyfus.

  Wednesday the 27th

  I returned to the hospital today. Lots of work, as if the Germans wanted to celebrate Christmas by killing as many of our men as possible. Yet there’s talk of a truce here and there. I didn’t have time to talk to him.

  January 2, 1917

  Today I had to try to comfort two wounded men who were crying because they were thinking about their fiancées. “I’m a monster,” one was saying, “She won’t want me anymore,” the other was saying, “No one will want me,” said the first, all of this in sobs.

  I hope their fiancées will think of the sacrifice they have made for our country and will love them for their moral greatness. I asked to pray with them, but one told me that while he would be grateful if I could pray for him, he could never pray again. The other, who works in an automobile factory in civilian life, turned his back and pretended to sleep.

  The weather is so misty and sad.

  January 5, 1917

  Lieutenant Mortsauf has finished writing his dissertation. Cousin Paul will come get it tomorrow. In the meantime, I wrote out the dedication in beautiful lettering, for which he thoughtfully put:

  “To the Polytechnicians Who Died on the

  Field of Honor in a Just War”

  with all those pretty capital letters.

  He told me he was very satisfied with what he had done, and I’m sure it’s true, given how happy he seemed.

  January 8, 1917

  So much work. I couldn’t even stop to eat at midday.

  No time to write again this evening.

  January 9, 1917

  He’s still working in his yellow notebooks. Paul told him he’ll probably win a prize for his dissertation. He also told me Paul was his Saint Christopher. I didn’t really understand what he meant by that.

  When I congratulated him for the glorious prize he was going to receiv
e, he answered:

  If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

  And treat those two impostors just the same;

  (…) You’ll be a Man, my son!

  Thursday, February 1st

  Today I begin a new notebook, the third for this diary I’ve been keeping in secret since Papa’s death. I was so young then!

  I haven’t had very much time to write. I’ve often stayed late in the evening to talk to the men, who also need moral support. I’ve talked to Christian the most. We told each other what we like—I told him I like flowers. He told me he likes dogs. I really prefer cats, and I told him so. He told me that his dream, before the war, was to have a house with three dogs and six children, six boys. I told him I’d really like to have a little girl.

  He’s going on a few days’ leave to defend his dissertation. I would’ve liked to go but I didn’t dare say so; after all, it’s not the place for a young lady, and I couldn’t imagine asking permission to leave the hospital for that.

  So much snow again this year.

  Thursday, March 1st, 1917

  At least we haven’t had a February 29th this year. A year already, I remember the numbers: 29 and 479, which are prime numbers, Robert had shouted to everyone in the room, as if to announce some good news. “But why 479?” one of the patients had asked, while the others, with their bandaged heads, tried to escape the racket. “Because,” Robert replied, “if there is a February 29th, it’s because 1916 is divisible by 4, so divide it, divide it!” he had shouted.

  Today, while I was changing his dressings, my patient took out a photo of himself from under his blanket. “That’s how I was before. No one will want me now,” he said—him, too. I told him as gently as I could that he must not say that.

  I prayed for God to give me the strength to understand my feelings more clearly.