Struck plagiarizes the A.F.R. train-cult essay — "The first in a round to…"
‘The first in a round to quail and jump walks home from there, alone under the moon, disgraced and ashamed. […] ‘But even the first to quail and jump has jumped. Far beyond prohibited, not to jump at all is regarded as impossible. To “perdre son coeur ” and not jump at all is outside le Jeu’s limit. The possibility simply does not exist. It is unthinkable.
Context
The moral architecture that makes the leglessness elective: shame attaches to jumping first, not to losing legs — mutilation sits above cowardice in the cult's whole value-order, and refusing to play at all ("perdre son coeur," known ever after as "Faire un Bernard Wayne") is literally outside the game's ontology. Marathe applies the term to his own contemplated defection at p. 753; the wheelchair is what keeping your heart looks like.