word for them: poor boy! The night for these ignominies--and then again
the morning. The day rises upon the swollen bodies of dead horses. In
the corner of a wood, carnage, long cold.

One sees only open sacks, ripped nose-bags. Nothing that looks like life
remains.

Among them some civilians, whose presence is due to the German
proceeding of making French hostages march under our fire.

If these notes should reach any one, may they give rise in an honest
heart to horror of the foul crime of those responsible for this war.
There will never be enough glory to cover all the blood and all the
mud.


_September 21, 1914._

War in rain.

It is suffering beyond what can be imagined. Three days and three nights
without being able to do anything but tremble and moan, and yet, in
spite of all, perfect service must be rendered.

To sleep in a ditch full of water has no equivalent in Dante, but what
can be said of the awakening, when one must watch for the moment to kill
or to be killed!

Above, the roar of the shells drowns the whistling of the wind. Every
instant, firing. Then one crouches in the mud, and despair takes