The act of slaughter is always ignoble; sometimes necessary, but
always ignoble. Yes, hard and persistent murderers, that's what
we've been. But don't talk to me about military virtue because I've
killed Germans."
"Nor to me," cried another in so loud a voice that no one could have
replied to him even had he dared; "nor to me, because I've saved the
lives of Frenchmen! Why, we might as well set fire to houses for the
sake of the excellence of life-saving!"
"It would be a crime to exhibit the fine side of war, even if there
were one!" murmured one of the somber soldiers.
The first man continued. "They'll say those things to us by way of
paying us with glory, and to pay themselves, too, for what they
haven't done. But military glory--it isn't even true for us common
soldiers. It's for some, but outside those elect the soldier's glory
is a lie, like every other fine-looking thing in war. In reality,
the soldier's sacrifice is obscurely concealed. The multitudes that
make up the waves of attack have no reward. They run to hurl
themselves into a frightful inglorious nothing. You cannot even heap
up their names, their poor little names of nobodies."
"To hell with it all," replies a man, "we've got other things to
think about."
"But all that," hiccupped a face which the mud concealed like a
hideous hand, "may you even say it? You'd be cursed, and 'shot at
dawn'! They've made around a Marshal's plumes a religion as bad and
stupid and malignant as the other!"
The man raised himself, fell down, and rose again.
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