Even this was not all, and when he had poured out the bitterness
of his heart--and Clerambault's compassion encouraged him to speak
further--he got down to the worst of the trouble, which he and his
comrades felt like a cancer that one does not dare to look at. Through
his obscure, violent, and miserable talk, Clerambault at last made out
what it was that tore the hearts of these young men. It is easy enough
for dried-up egotists, withered intellectuals, to sneer at this love
of life in the young, and their despair at the loss of it; but it
was not alone their ruined, blasted youth that pressed on these poor
soldiers,--though that was terrible enough--the worst was not to know
the reason for this sacrifice, and the poisonous suspicion that it was
all in vain. The pain of these victims could not be soothed by the
gross appeal of a foolish racial supremacy, nor by a fragment of
ground fought for between States. They knew now how much earth a man
needs to die on, and that the blood of all races is part of the same
stream of life.
Clerambault felt that he was a sort of elder brother to these young
men; the sense of this and his duty towards them gave him a strength
that he would not otherwise have had, and he charged their messenger
with words of hope and consolation.
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