On all sides they turn towards him; half rising, they listen
to the incoherent lamentations which end by dying in the dark. At
the same moment, in another corner, two prostrate wounded, crucified
on the ground, so curse each other that one of them has to be
removed before the frantic dialogue is broken up.
I go farther away, towards the point where the light from outside
comes through among the tangled beams as through a broken grating,
and stride over the interminable stretchers that take up all the
width of the underground alley whose oppressive confinement chokes
me. The human forms prone on the stretchers are now hardly stirring
under the Jack-o'-lanterns of the candles; they stagnate in their
rattling breath and heavy groans.
On the edge of a stretcher a man is sitting, leaning against the
wall. His clothes are torn apart, and in the middle of their
darkness appears the white, emaciated breast of a martyr. His head
is bent quite back and veiled in shadow, but I can see the beating
of his heart.
The daylight that is trickling through at the end, drop by drop,
comes in by an earth-fall. Several shells. falling on the same spot,
have broken through the heavy earthen roof of the Refuge.
Here, some pale reflections are cast on the blue of the greatcoats,
on the shoulders and along the folds. Almost paralyzed by the
darkness and their own weakness, a group of men is pressing towards
the gap, like dead men half awaking, to taste a little of the pallid
air and detach themselves from the sepulcher.
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