The city, formerly visited by the hopeful, Catholic sick, was now
invaded by a crowd no less dolorous but clad in carnival colors. All,
in spite of their physical distress, had a certain air of good cheer and
satisfaction. They had seen Death very near, slipping out from his bony
claws into a new joy and zest in life. With their cloaks adorned with
medals, their theatrical Moorish garments, their kepis and their African
headdresses, this heroic band presented, nevertheless, a lamentable
aspect.
Very few still preserved the noble vertical carriage, the pride of
the superior human being. They were walking along bent almost double,
limping, dragging themselves forward by the help of a staff or friendly
arm. Others had to let themselves be pushed along, stretched out on the
hand-carts which had so often conducted the devout sick from the station
to the Grotto of the Virgin. Some were feeling their way along, blindly,
leaning on a child or nurse. The first encounters in Belgium and in
the East, a mere half-dozen battles, had been enough to produce these
physical wrecks still showing a manly nobility in spite of the most
horrible outrages. These organisms, struggling so tenaciously to regain
their hold on life, bringing their reviving energies out into the
sunlight, represented but the most minute part of the number mowed down
by the scythe of Death.
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