"I heard him say it."
The colonel and the mess-room looked at the man in silence. It is
a horrible thing to hear a man cry. A woman can sob from the top -
of her palate, or her lips, or anywhere else, but a man must cry
from his diaphragm, and it rends him to pieces.
"Poor devil!" said the colonel, coughing tremendously. "We ought
to send him to hospital. He's been man-handled."
Now the adjutant loved his carbines. They were to him as his
grandchildren, the men standing in the first place. He grunted
rebelliously: "I can understand an Afghan stealing, because he's
built that way. But I can't understand his crying. That makes it
worse."
The brandy must have affected Dirkovitch, for he lay back in his
chair and stared at the ceiling. There was nothing special in the
ceiling beyond a shadow as of a huge black coffin. Owing to some
peculiarity in the construction of the mess-room, this shadow was
always thrown when the candles were lighted. It never disturbed
the digestion of the White Hussars. They were in fact rather proud
of it.
"Is he going to cry all night?" said the colonel, "or are we
supposed to sit up with little Mildred's guest until he feels
better?"
The man in the chair threw up his head and stared at the mess.
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