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PinkMonkey.com Digital Library - PinkMonkey.com-The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane


of his comrades. During this moment of leisure
they seemed all to be engaged in staring with
astonishment at him. They had become specta-
tors. Turning to the front again he saw, under
the lifted smoke, a deserted ground.

He looked bewildered for a moment. Then
there appeared upon the glazed vacancy of his
eyes a diamond point of intelligence. "Oh," he
said, comprehending.

He returned to his comrades and threw him-
self upon the ground. He sprawled like a man
who had been thrashed. His flesh seemed strange-
ly on fire, and the sounds of the battle continued
in his ears. He groped blindly for his canteen.

The lieutenant was crowing. He seemed
drunk with fighting. He called out to the youth:
"By heavens, if I had ten thousand wild cats like
you I could tear th' stomach outa this war in
less'n a week!" He puffed out his chest with
large dignity as he said it.

Some of the men muttered and looked at the
youth in awe-struck ways. It was plain that as
he had gone on loading and firing and cursing
without the proper intermission, they had found
time to regard him. And they now looked upon
him as a war devil.

The friend came staggering to him. There
was some fright and dismay in his voice. "Are yeh
all right, Fleming? Do yeh feel all right? There
ain't nothin' th' matter with yeh, Henry, is there?"

"No," said the youth with difficulty. His
throat seemed full of knobs and burs.

These incidents made the youth ponder. It
was revealed to him that he had been a barbarian,
a beast. He had fought like a pagan who de-
fends his religion. Regarding it, he saw that it
was fine, wild, and, in some ways, easy. He had
been a tremendous figure, no doubt. By this
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PinkMonkey.com Digital Library - PinkMonkey.com-The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane



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