21) 
LAND & WATER- 
Noxcmber 23, 1916 
same street. Sometimes an old' serving-man, with long grey 
hair and a bristly beard, with a comforter round his neck and 
a pair of yellow sjxjctacles on his nose, brings you or fetches 
you. Sometimes also he waits for you, always sitting un the 
same chair in tlie covered yard. He has been asked ([ues- 
tions, but he never gives an answer. 1 know only one th "g 
therefore, about you, which is that you are adoraliiy gond an 1 
l<ind and that you are also — I may say it, may I not f- — 
.idorably lieautiful. And it is perhaps. Little Mother Coralie, 
lecause 1 know nothing alwut your life that I imagine it so 
mysterious and, in some way, so sad. You give the im- 
jjression of living amid sorrow and anxiety : the feeling that 
\ou are all alone. There is no one who devotes himself to 
making you happy and taking care of you. So I thought 1 
iiave long thought and waited for an opportunity of telling 
you — 1 thought that you must need a friend, a brother, who 
would ad\ise and protect you. Am I not right, Little Mother 
Coralie .-■ 
As he went on, Coralie seemed to slnink into herself and to 
place a greater distance between them, as though she did not 
wish to penetrate those secret regions of which he spoke. 
" No," she murmured, " you are mistaken. My life is 
quite simple. I do not need to be defended." 
" You do not need to be defended ! " he cried, with increas- 
ing animation. " What about those men who tried to kidnap 
you .' That plot hatched against you ? That plot which 
your assailants are so afraid to see discovered that they go 
to the length of killing the one who allowed himself to be 
caught? Is that nothing ? Is it mere delusion on my part 
when I say that you are surrounded by dangers, that you 
have enemies who stick at nothing, that you have to be de- 
fended against their attempts and that, if you decline the 
offer of my assistance, I . . . well, I . . . ? " 
She persisted in her silence, showed herself mori' and more 
distant, almost hostile. The officer struck the marble mantel- 
piece with his fist and, bending over her, finished his sentence 
m a determined tone : 
" Well, if you decHne the ofTer of my assistance, I shall 
force it on you." She shook her head. 
" I shall force it on you," he repeated, firmly. " It is my 
duty and my right." 
" Xo," she said, in an undertone. 
" My absolute right," said Captain Belval, " for a reason 
which outweighs all the others and makes it unnecessary for 
me even to consult you. 
" What do you mean ? " , 
J-' I love you." 
He brought out the words plainly, not Uke a lover venturing 
on a timid declaration, but like a man proud of the sentiment 
that he feels and happy to proclaim it. She lowered her eyes 
and blushed ; and he cried, exultantly : 
" You can take it, Uttle mother from me. No impassioned 
outbursts, no sighs, no waving of the arms, no clapping of the 
hands. Just three little words, which I tell you without going 
on my knees. And it's the easier for me because you know it. 
Yes, Madame Coralie, it's all very well to look so shy, but you 
know my love for you and you've known it as long as I have. 
We saw it together take birth when your dear httle hands 
touched my battered head. The others used to torture me. 
With you, it was nothing but caresses. So was the pity in 
your eyes and the tears that fell because I was in pain. But 
can any one see yoh without loving j-ou ? Your seven patients 
wi.o were liere just now are all in love with you. Little Mother 
Coralie. Ya-Bon worships the ground you walk on. Only 
they are privates. They cannot speak. I am an officer ; 
and I speak without embarrassment. ' 
Coralie had put iTer hands to her burning cheeks and sat 
silent, bending forward. 
" You understand what I mean, don't you," he went on, in 
a voice that rang, " when I say that I speak withoiit hesita- 
tion or embarrassment ? If I had been before the war what 
I am now, a maimed man, I should not have had the same 
assurance and I should have declared my love for you humbly 
and begged your pardon for my boldness. But now ! . . . 
Believe me. Little Mother Coralie, when I sit liere face to face 
with the woman I adore, I do not think of my infirmity. Not 
for a moment do I feel the impression that I can ai)ix;ar ridicu- 
lous or presumptuous in your eyes." 
He stoppi-d, as though to take breath, and then, rising, 
went on : 
" And it must needs be so. People will have to understand 
that those who have been maimed in this war do not look 
upon themselves as outcasts, lame ducks, or lepers, but as 
absolutely normal men. Yes, normal ! One leg short ? 
What about it ? Does that rob a man of his brain or heart .' 
Then, because the war has deprived me of a leg, or an arm, or 
even both legs or both arms, I have no longer the right to love 
a woman save at the risk of meeting with a rebuff or imagining 
that she pities me ? Pity ! But we don't want the woman 
to p;ty us, nor to make an effort to love us, nor even to think 
that she is doing a charity because she treats us kindly. What 
we demand, from women and from the world at large, from 
those whom we meet in the street and from those who b( long 
to the same set as ourselves, is absolute equality with the 
rest, who have been saved from our (ale bj' their lucky stai-s 
or tlieir cowardice." 
The captain once more struck the manteljiiece : 
" Yes, absolute equality! We all of us, whether we have 
lost a leg or an arm, whether blind in one eye or two, whether 
crippled or deformed, claim to Ix- just as good, physie.iiis 
and morally, as any one you please ; and perhaps better. 
What ! Shall men who have used their legs to rush upon the 
enemy be outdistanced in life, because tliey no longer luive 
those legs, by men who have sat and warmed their toes at an 
office-fire ? What nonsense ! We want our place in the sun 
as well as the others. It is our due ; and we shall know how- 
to get it and keep it. There is no happiness to which we are 
not entitled and no work for which we are not capable with a 
little exercise and training. Ya-Bon 's right hand is already 
worth any pair of hands in the wide world ; and Captain 
Belval's left leg allows him to do his five miles an hour if he 
jileases." 
He began to laugh : 
" Right hand and left leg ; left hand and right leg : what 
does it matter which we have saved, if we know how to use it ? 
In what respect have we fallen off ? Whether it's a question 
of obtaining a jjosition or jx'rpctuating our race, are we not 
as good as we were ? .And perliaps even better. I venture to 
say that the children which we shall give to the country will 
be just as well-built as ever, with arms and legs and the 
rest . . . not to mention a mightv legacj' of pluck and 
spirit. That's what we claim. Little'^ Mother Coralie. We 
refuse to admit that our wooden legs keep us back or that we 
cannot stand as upright on our crutches as on legs of fiesh 
and bone. We do not consider that devotion to us is any 
sacrifice or' that it's necessary to talk of heroism when a girl 
has the honour to marry a Ij'lind soldier ! Once more, we are 
not creatures outside the pale. We have not fallen off in any 
way whatever ; and this is a truth before which everybixly 
will low for the next two or three generations. You can 
understand that, in a country like I'Vanee, when maimed 
men are to be met by the hundred tiiousand, the conception 
of what makes a perfect man will no longer be as hard and last 
as It was. In the new form of humanity which is preparing, 
there will be men with two arms and men with only one, 
just as there are fair men and dark, bearded men and clean- 
shaven. And it will all seem ciuite natural. And everv one 
will lead the life he pleases, without needing to be cotnplete 
in every limb. And, as my life is wrajjped up in j'ou. Little 
Mother Coralie, and as my happiness depends on you. I 
thought 1 would wait no longer before making von my little 
speech. . . . Well ! That's finished ! I have plenty more 
to say on the subject, but it can't all be said in a day, can 
it ? . . ." > 
He broke off, thrown out of his stride after all bv Coralie's 
silence. ■ She had not stirred since the first words ot love that 
he uttered. Her hands had sought her forehead ; and her 
shoulders were shaking slightly. 
He stooped and, with infinite gentleness, drawing aside the 
slender fingers, uncovered her beautiful face. 
" \\hy are you crying, Little Mother Coralie ? Have 
f made you cry ? " he asked. 
" No," she said, in a low voice, " it's all of you who upset 
me. It's your cheerfulness, your pride, vour wav not of 
submitting, to fate, but mastering it. The" humblest of you 
raises'himself above his nature without an ellort ; and I know 
nothing finer nor more touching than that indifference." 
He .sat down beside her : 
" Then you're not angry with me for saying . . . what 
I said ' " 
" Angry with vou ' " she replied, jirctending to mistake 
his meaning. " Why, every woman thinks as you do. If 
women, in bestowing their affection, had to choose among the 
men returning from the war, the choice I am .sure would be 
in favour of those who have suffered most cruelly." 
He shook his head : - 
" You see, I am asking for something more than affecti( n 
and a more definite answer to what 1 said. Shall I remind 
you of my words ? " 
" No." I 
" Then' your answer . . . ? " 
" My answer, dear friend, is that you must not speak those 
words again." " , 
He put on a solemn lir : 
You forbid me ? " 
" I do." 
" In that case, I .swear to sav Odlliing iii..ir until I sit mhi 
again." 
" You will not see me again." she mmnnned. 
(Continued on pa^c jj) 
