THE HOSPITAL‘He [Jesus Christ] has revealed to the world this truth, that one’s country is not everything, and that the man is before, and higher than, the citizen.’Ernest Renan, La Vie de JésusI AM LYING IN A HOSPITAL BED and covered in dressings. A sheet is attached to the head of the bed on which is sketched a human body, front and back. A dozen marks in red ink indicate the wounds on this body: my body. On the left wrist, the throat, the legs, the right foot. ‘Nothing in the chest or guts, jolly good!’ the little doctor had told me down in the cellar at La Targette where I’d had to wait after the assault from the parapet. Next to the sketch is a temperature chart, at the foot of which can be read: ‘Admitted: 7 October 1915. Operated: 20 October. Discharged . . .’ I am hoping that this bit stays blank for as long as possible.On my bedside table there are books, cigarettes, lozenges, writing materials; in the drawer, my wallet, some letters, my knife, my pen, my identity tag which is now useless, and my little aluminium mug which I found in a haversack that had stayed with me.
