To these intellectual motives may be added one of feeling.  The wounded soldier does not like to speak of the War because he does not like to think of it:  there are too many horrors; he has had to bear too many privations, too much suffering.  As soon as he finds himself out of it, he tries to turn his mind away from it as much as possible, and to shake off the impression of it, as the sick man in the morning shakes off his fevered nightmare.  Later on, doubtless, when his memories have lost their keen edge, they may attract him again.  All he asks for the moment is to forget.  One thing especially afflicts his heart and tightens his lips:  it is the thought of the comrades he has lost.

Such are the reasons why the later wounded, differing from those at the beginning of the War, shut themselves up in a silence full of gravity.

[Sidenote:  The men in hospital are grateful.]

[Sidenote:  Infirmities are less felt.]

In spite of this, however, you would have a false idea of the military hospital if you thought of it as a place of mournful desolation.  Doubtless our earlier patients regained their spirits more quickly, having no years of suffering behind them.  But the quiet and serious resignation which reigns in the hospital of to-day does not exclude a certain sweetness; the wounded man appreciates the intelligent and devoted care lavished upon him, he congratulates himself and thanks God for having escaped from mortal peril, for not having fallen to the bottom of the abyss, for remounting now the slope at the summit of which he has a glimpse of the recovery of his strength and activity.  If his wound leaves no serious traces, he rejoices to live again as he did before; if it has deprived him of the use of his limbs or of some necessary organ, he consoles himself by the thought that the War is over for him and that soon he will take his place at home.  His infirmities, which perhaps will weigh more heavily upon him later, he feels less here, where they are the normal thing and where it is the exception to appear intact.

It is a rest for him not to hear the voice of the cannon.  And he likes the moral peace with which the wise kindness of the doctors, the devotion of the nurses, the friendship of the chaplain, surround him; he especially enjoys the many letters he receives from his family, and those which he slowly writes himself, or dictates to an amiable neighbor.  Often he has friends and relatives in the neighborhood who come to see him, but what he likes best of all is the visit from his family, his mother, father, wife, his young children.

[Sidenote:  A dying man is decorated.]

[Sidenote:  A legacy of honor for his family.]