MY VERY DEAR MOTHER,--What shall I say to you to-day--a day monotonous
with fog. Occupations that are stupefying, not in themselves, but
because of the insipid companionship. I fall back on myself. Yesterday I
wrote you a long letter, telling you among other things how dear your
letters are to me. When I began to write on this sheet I was a little
weary and troubled, but now that I am with you I become happy, and I
immediately remember whatever good fortune this day has brought me.

This morning the lieutenant sent me to get some wire from headquarters,
in a devastated village which we have surrounded for six weeks. I went
down through the orchards full of the last fallen plums. A few careless
soldiers were gathering them up into baskets. A charming scene, purely
pastoral and bucolic, in spite of the red trousers--very faded after
three months' campaign. . . .

I am happy in the affection of Ch---- R----. His is a nature according
in all its elements with my own. I am sure that he will not be cross
with me for not writing, especially if you give a kind message from me
to his wife.

The little task confided to me meant walking from nightfall until nine
o'clock, but I occasionally lay down in a shelter or in a barn instead
of getting back to the trenches for the night.

I do not have good nights of reading now, but sometimes when S---- and I
are lying side by side in the trench, you would not believe what a
mirage we evoke and what joy we have in stirred-up memories. Ah, how
science and intellectual phenomena lead us into a very heaven of
legends, and what pleasure I get from the marvellous history of this