In spite of the agony of these
silences, when any second might be fatal to the loved one, his perfect
confidence (exaggerated perhaps, through affection, or superstition)
communicated itself to them all. His letters were running over with
youth and exuberant joy, which reached its climax in the days that
followed the victory of the Marne. The whole family yearned towards
him as one; like a plant the summit of which bathes in the light,
stretching up to it in a rapture of mystic adoration.
People who but yesterday were soft and torpid, expanded under the
extraordinary light when fate threw them into the infernal vortex of
the war, the light of Death, the game with Death; Maxime, a spoiled
child, delicate, overparticular, who in ordinary times took care
of himself like a fine lady, found an unexpected flavour in the
privations and trials of his new life, and wondering at himself he
boasted of it in his charming, vainglorious letters which delighted
the hearts of his parents.
Neither affected to be cast in the mould of one of Corneille's heroes,
and the thought of immolating their child on the altar of a barbaric
idea would have filled them with horror; but the transfiguration
of their petted boy suddenly become a hero, touched them with a
tenderness never before felt.
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