A nearer trouble shook his peace of mind. When he returned to his home one evening, he found Dona Luisa with a terrified aspect holding her hands to her head.
"The daughter, Marcelo . . . our daughter!"
Chichi was stretched out on a sofa in the salon, pale, with an olive tinge, looking fixedly ahead of her as if she could see somebody in the empty air. She was not crying, but a slight palpitation was making her swollen eyes tremble spasmodically.
"I want to see him," she was saying hoarsely. "I must see him!"
The father conjectured that something terrible must have happened to Lacour's son. That was the only thing that could make Chichi show such desperation. His wife was telling him the sad news. Rene was wounded, very seriously wounded. A shell had exploded over his battery, killing many of his comrades. The young officer had been dragged out from a mountain of dead, one hand was gone, he had injuries in the legs, chest and head.
"I've got to see him!" reiterated Chichi.
And Don Marcelo had to concentrate all his efforts in making his daughter give up this dolorous insistence which made her exact an immediate journey to the front, trampling down all obstacles, in order to reach her wounded lover. The senator finally convinced her of the uselessness of it all. She would simply have to wait; he, the father, had to be patient. He was negotiating for Rene to be transferred to a hospital in Paris.
The great man moved Desnoyers to pity. He was making such heroic efforts to preserve the stoic serenity of ancient days by recalling his glorious ancestors and all the illustrious figures of the Roman Republic. But these oratorical illusions had suddenly fallen flat, and his old friend surprised him weeping more than once. An only child, and he might have to lose him! . . . Chichi's dumb woe made him feel even greater commiseration. Her grief was without tears or faintings. Her sallow face, the feverish brilliancy of her eyes, and the rigidity that made her move like an automaton were the only signs of her emotion. She was living with her thoughts far away, with no knowledge of what was going on around her.
When the patient arrived in Paris, his father and fiancee were transfigured. They were going to see him, and that was enough to make them imagine that he was already recuperated.
Chichi hastened to the hospital with her mother and the senator.
Then she went alone and insisted on remaining there, on living at the wounded man's side, waging war on all regulations and clashing with Sisters of Charity, trained nurses, and all who roused in her the hatred of rivalry. Soon realizing that all her violence accomplished nothing, she humiliated herself and became suddenly very submissive, trying with her wiles, to win the women over one by one. Finally, she was permitted to spend the greater part of the day with Rene When Desnoyers first saw the wounded artilleryman in bed, he had to make a great effort to keep the tears back. . . . Ay, his son, too, might be brought to this sad pass! . . . The man looked to him like an Egyptian mummy, because of his complete envelopment in tight bandage wrappings. The sharp hulls of the shell had fairly riddled him. There could only be seen a pair of sweet eyes and a blond bit of moustache sticking up between white bands. The poor fellow was trying to smile at Chichi, who was hovering around him with a certain authority as though she were in her own home.
Two months rolled by. Rene was better, almost well. His betrothed had never doubted his recovery from the moment that they permitted her to remain with him.
"No one that I love, ever dies," she asserted with a ring of her father's self-confidence. "As if I would ever permit the Boches to leave me without a husband!"
She had her little sugar soldier back again, but, oh, in what a lamentable state! . . . Never had Don Marcelo realized the de-personalizing horrors of war as when he saw entering his home this convalescent whom he had known months before--elegant and slender, with a delicate and somewhat feminine beauty. His face was now furrowed by a network of scars that had transformed it into a purplish arabesque. Within his body were hidden many such. His left hand had disappeared with a part of the forearm, the empty sleeve hanging over the remainder. The other hand was supported on a cane, a necessary aid in order to be able to move a leg that would never recover its elasticity.
But Chichi was content. She surveyed her dear little soldier with more enthusiasm than ever--a little deformed, perhaps, but very interesting. With her mother, she accompanied the convalescent in his constitutionals through the Bois de Boulogne. When, in crossing a street, automobilists or coachmen failed to stop their vehicles in order to give the invalid the right of way, her eyes shot lightning shafts, as she thundered, "Shameless embusques!" . . . She was now feeling the same fiery resentment as those women of former days who used to insult her Rene when he was well and happy. She trembled with satisfaction and pride when returning the greetings of her friends. Her eloquent eyes seemed to be saying, "Yes, he is my betrothed . . . a hero!" She was constantly arranging the war cross on his blouse of "horizon blue," taking pains to place it as conspicuously as possible. She also spent much time in prolonging the life of his shabby uniform--always the same one, the old one which he was wearing when wounded. A new one would give him the officery look of the soldiers who never left Paris.
As he grew stronger, Rene vainly tried to emancipate himself from her dominant supervision. It was simply useless to try to walk with more celerity or freedom.
"Lean on me!"
