be faithfuler than he was, and he was a devil and the son of a devil
when he turned himself loose with his ax. He was so big that he
made the Paladin look like an ordinary man. He liked to like
people, therefore people liked him. He liked us boys from the start;
and he liked the knights, and liked pretty much everybody he came
across; but he thought more of a paring of Joan’s finger-nail than
he did of all the rest of the world put together.
Yes, that is where we got him–stretched on the wain, going to his
death, poor chap, and nobody to say a good word for him. He was
a good find. Why, the knights treated him almost like an equal–it
is the honest truth; that is the sort of a man he was. They called
him the Bastille sometimes, and sometimes they called him
Hellfire, which was on account of his warm and sumptuous style in
battle, and you know they wouldn’t have given him pet names if
they hadn’t had a good deal of affection for him.
To the Dwarf, Joan was France, the spirit of France made flesh–he
never got away from that idea that he had started with; and God
knows it was the true one. That was a humble eye to see so great a
truth where some others failed. To me that seems quite
remarkable. And yet, after all, it was, in a way, just what nations
do. When they love a great and noble thing, they embody it–they
want it so that they can see it with their eyes; like liberty, for
instance. They are not content with the cloudy abstract idea, they
make a beautiful statue of it, and then their beloved idea is
substantial and they can look at it and worship it. And so it is as I
say; to the Dwarf, Joan was our country embodied, our country
made visible flesh cast in a gracious form. When she stood before
others, they saw Joan of Arc, but he saw France.
Sometimes he would speak of her by that name. It shows you how
the idea was embedded in his mind, and how real it was to him.
The world has called our kings by it, but I know of none of them
who has had so good a right as she to that sublime title.
When the march past was finished, Joan returned to the front and
rode at the head of the column. When we began to file past those
grim bastilles and could glimpse the men within, standing to their
guns and ready to empty death into our ranks, such a faintness
came over me and such a sickness that all things seemed to turn
dim and swim before my eyes; and the other boys looked droopy,
too, I thought–including the Paladin, although I do not know this
for certain, because he was ahead of me and I had to keep my eyes
out toward the bastille side, because I could wince better when I
saw what to wince at.
But Joan was at home–in Paradise, I might say. She sat up straight,
and I could see that she was feeling different from me. The
awfulest thing was the silence; there wasn’t a sound but the
screaking of the saddles, the measured tramplings, and the
sneezing of the horses, afflicted by the smothering dust-clouds
which they kicked up. I wanted to sneeze myself, but it seemed to
me that I would rather go unsneezed, or suffer even a bitterer
torture, if there is one, than attract attention to myself.
I was not of a rank to make suggestions, or I would have suggested
that if we went faster we should get by sooner. It seemed to me
that it was an ill-judged time to be taking a walk. Just as we were
drifting in that suffocating stillness past a great cannon that stood
just within a raised portcullis, with nothing between me and it but
the moat, a most uncommon jackass in there split the world with
his bray, and I fell out of the saddle. Sir Bertrand grabbed me as I