He reenters his regiment as the traveler reenters his own country, and
his only sadness is to find that during his absence so many old comrades
have fallen, so many newcomers have filled the gaps. But the welcome of
the survivors warms his heart.
[Sidenote: He goes into the trenches at night.]
Although it is night--for only at night do they go into the
trenches--the sky is ploughed with illuminating fireworks, with
projections and projectiles, of various kinds which bursting sow quick
flashes of light, and a death often as prompt. In a maze of narrow and
complicated paths our friend advances without knowing where and feeling
his way: nearer and nearer he approaches to enemies whose sleepless hate
growls menacingly below his feet in the ground, around him on the earth,
above him in the sky filled with sinister gleams. He goes his way
without enthusiasm, but without hesitation, without boasting, but
without fear, knowing by long experience what peril he runs, but
offering himself calmly to his formidable destiny, ready to answer:
"Present!" if God and his country demand his life.
[Sidenote: There are no heroes in past history so grand.]
What hero in all the centuries of history attains to the grandeur of our
hero? Who ever defended, in a war so terrible, a cause so important to
the future of the world? Who has striven so hard, suffered so much, so
often passed through death? To prove himself equal to his high mission,
he has had to rid himself of all egoism, renounce lucre and vain honors,
sacrifice family joys; many times he has known the worst extremes of
weariness, thirst, hunger and cold; he equals and surpasses in
austerity the severest of monks; he practices an obedience and humility
that monasteries and Thebaides know nothing of, constantly ready to
expose himself, as soon as he receives the order, to a terrible and
invisible death.
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