The Ordway new era., 1920-06-18

| want you to take my Croix de
Guerre. When I go nowhere"
Even when speech returned to the
Individual he was man OF curt re-
sponses and stlnging monosyllables-
problem to the surgeons, a problem
to the nurses and III the expression in
MS eyes meant anything. an over.
whelming problem to himself. 1t ap-
peared that. after all. 1t wasn't simply
women that he hated-it was the uni.
verse.
His military book. implied that he
had no parents. no close relations, no
friends to notify, no axed abode. He
received no visitors. no letters, no
packages freighted with magical de-
light. But to those who pltied him in
all his loneliness he was utterly con-
temptuous; he even went so far as to
fillip sidel0ng to the floor religious
post card rendered him by a devOut
and sentimental passer-by, and he did
1t In her presence. unashamed Later,
when smiling orderly picked up that
post card and tucked 1t under his pill.
low he was no less contemptuous I'm
permitting 1t to remain. But the one
stupendous fact which. more than all
else combined, made him an object of
bewIldered curiosity was this-that of
the scores and scores of men with
head-wounds who were reborn at Neu-
lily that spring and summer. he was
the only one who had never asked for
mirror.
This. of Itself. wouldn't have been
astonishing as long as he DELAYED In
the preliminary stages OF recovery, for
now and then man with head-wounds
proves to be representative; but In
the second stage 1t was remarkable.
ana In the third stage 1t was unique.
Inc stan held It to be extraordinary
from social as well as from n path
illogical viewpoint. that man so ter
ribly disfigured should have no inter-
est-not even morbid interest-in
his own appearance. And it wasn't
that the Individual was simply indif-
ferent to the mirror; on the contrary.
his aversion to 1t WAS active and ener-
getic; he fiinched, and motioned 1t
frantically away as though the mere
conception of seeing himself as others
saw him was too repellant. and too
unthlnkable to endure.
There came day In April when
photograph was requested of him.
Surely he knew where there was a
likeness OF himself. didn't he? His
old passport photograph, which had
mysterIously disappeared. or
The Individual glanced up from his
present task: the wound In his arm
was still annoying and he was ab-
sorbed In learning to write with his
left hand
what for" he muttered.
"Why," said the nurse. cheerfully.
'for a model. To help the surgeons.
They'll take your picture for guide
and make you look almost exactly the
way you did before"
! The Individual from America sat up
straight. so that the nurse was startled
by his animation. which was without
a parallel in his local history.
| WHAT" he said.
| "Certainly!' The nurse spoke in
the tone one uses to an ailing child.
you've known that. haven't your
| The Individuals voice was queerly
unmanageable and strained. "You
mean to say they're going to make me
look the wny Could they do that?
Could they? Even now?"
| "Why. of course" she assured him.
| "You never told me that! he said.
passionately. "why didn't you? why
couldn't you have told mel And here
I've been :" He put his hands to
his bandaged face and seemed to
shrink within himself. Then all at snce