_May 28._--Since that day the regular siege has continued. We are
utterly cut off from the world, surrounded by a circle of fire. Would it
be wise like the scorpion to sting ourselves to death? The fiery shower
of shells goes on day and night. H.'s occupation, of course, is gone;
his office closed. Every man has to carry a pass in his pocket. People
do nothing but eat what they can get, sleep when they can, and dodge the
shells. There are three intervals when the shelling stops either for the
guns to cool or for the gunners' meals, I suppose,--about eight in the
morning, the same in the evening, and at noon. In that time we have both
to prepare and eat ours. Clothing cannot be washed or anything else
done. On the 19th and 22d, when the assaults were made on the lines, I
watched the soldiers cooking on the green opposite. The half-spent balls
coming all the way from those lines were flying so thick that they were
obliged to dodge at every turn. At all the caves I could see from my
high perch, people were sitting, eating their poor suppers at the cave
doors, ready to plunge in again. As the first shell again flew they
dived, and not a human being was visible. The sharp crackle of the
musketry-firing was a strong contrast to the scream of the bombs. I
think all the dogs and cats must be killed or starved: we don't see any
more pitiful animals prowling around.... The cellar is so damp and musty
the bedding has to be carried out and laid in the sun every day, with
the forecast that it may be demolished at any moment. The confinement is
dreadful. To sit and listen as if waiting for death in a horrible
manner would drive me insane. I don't know what others do, but we read
when I am not scribbling in this. H. borrowed somewhere a lot of
Dickens's novels, and we reread them, by the dim light in the cellar.
When the shelling abates, H. goes to walk about a little or get the
"Daily Citizen," which is still issuing a tiny sheet at twenty-five and
fifty cents a copy. It is, of course, but a rehash of speculations which