_November 19, in the morning._

MY VERY DEAR MOTHER,--To-day I was wakened at dawn by a violent
cannonade, unusual at that hour. Just then some of the men came back
frozen by a night in the trenches. I got up to fetch them some wood, and
then, on the opposite slope of the valley, the fusillade burst out
fully. I mounted as high as I could, and I saw the promise of the sun in
the pure sky.

Suddenly, from the opposite hill (one of those hills I love so much), I
heard an uproar, and shouting: 'Forward! Forward!' It was a bayonet
charge. This was my first experience of one--not that I saw anything;
the still-dark hour, and, probably, the disposition of the ground,
prevented me. But what I heard was enough to give me the feeling of the
attack.

Up till then I had never imagined how different is the courage required
by this kind of anonymous warfare from the traditional valour in war, as
conceived by the civilian. And the clamour of this morning reminds me,
in the midst of my calm, that young men, without any personal motive of
hate, can and must fling themselves upon those who are waiting to kill
them.

But the sun rises over my country. It lightens the valley, and from my
height I can see two villages, two ruins, one of which I saw ablaze for
three nights. Near to me, two crosses made of white wood. . . . French
blood flows in 1914. . . .