Polk County news. [volume] (Benton, Tenn.) 191?-1983, 1920-03-04

| want you to take my Croix de
Guerre. g.. When / go nowhere"
Even when speech returned to the
Individual he was man of curt re-
sponses and singing mOnosyllables-
a problem t. the surgeons, a problem
to the nurses and (if the expression in
his eyes meant anything), an over
whelming problem to himself. 1t APP
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 fixed abode. He
received no visitors, no letters, no
packages freighted with magical de-
light But to those who pitied him in
all his loneliness he was utterly con-
temptuous; he even went so far as to
flip sidelong to the floor religious
post card rendered him by a devout
and sentimental passer-by, and he did
it 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 in
permitting it 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
a 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 headwOunds
proves to be Super-sensitive but In
the second stage it was remarkable.
and in the third stage 1t was unique.
The staff held it to be extraordinary
from a social as well as from path
illogical viewpoint, that man so ter
ribly disfigured should have no inter-
eSt-not even a morbid lnterest-in
his own appearance. And 1t wasn't
that the Individual was simply indif-
ferent to the mirror; on the contrary,
his aversion to it was active and ener-
getic; he flinched, and motioned II
frantically away as though the mere
conception of seeing himself as others
saw him was too repellant. and too
unthinkable to endure.
There came a day in April when
photograph was requested of him.
Surely he knew where there was d
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 stiIl annoying and he was alb
sorbed in learning to write with his
left hand.
what for?" he muttered.
"Why," said the nurse, cheerfully,
"for Il model. TO help the surgeons.
They'll take your picture for a 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 niling chlld'
you've known that, haven't your
The individuals voice was queerlS |
and strained. You |
mean TO say they're going TO make me |
look the way Could they do that! |
Could they1 Even nowT
"Why, of course" she assured MIN.
"You never told me thatl" he said,
"Why didn't YOU? Why |
couldn't you have told me And here
I'VE been =" He put his hands to
his bandaged face and seemed to
shrink within himself. Then all at once