ade a dash for the bath-house, which is at the foot of the hill, at
Joncheroy. If they can't get bathed, disinfected, and changed before
dark, they have to sleep their first night in the straw with the horses,
as they are unfit, in more ways than I like to tell you, to go into
anyone's house until that is done, and they are not allowed.

These new arrivals had twenty-four hours' rest, and then, on
Thursday, they acted as escort to the second division, and with that
division went the Aspirant, and the men they relieved arrived Friday
afternoon, and now we are settled down for three weeks.

Before the Aspirant left he introduced into the house the senior
lieutenant, whom he had been replacing in the command on my hill, a
man a little over thirty--a business man in private life and altogether
charming, very cultivated, a book-lover and an art connoisseur. He is
a nephew of Lepine, so many years prefet de police at Paris, and a
cousin of Senator Reynault, who was killed in his aeroplane at Toule,
famous not only as a brave patriot, but as a volunteer for three
reasons exempt from active service--a senator, a doctor, and past
the age.

I begin to believe, on the testimony of my personal experiences, that
all the officers in the cavalry are perfect gentlemen. The lieutenant
settled into his place at once. He puts the coal on the fire at night. He
plays with the animals. He locks up, and is as quiet as a mouse and
as busy as a bee.

This is all my news, except that I am hoping to go to Paris for
Christmas, and to go by the way of Voulangis. It is all very uncertain.
My permission has not come yet.

It is over a year since we were shut in. My friends in Paris call me
their permissionaire, when I go to town. In the few shops where I am
known everyone laughs when I make my rare appearances and
greets me with: "Ah, so they've let you out again!" as if it were a huge
joke, and I assure you that it does seem like that to me.

The soldiers in the trenches get eight days' permission every four
months. I don't seem to get much more,--if as much.

XXXI

January 10, 1917

I went to Paris, as I told you I hoped to do. Nothing new there. In spite
of the fact that, in many ways, they are beginning to feel the war, and
there is altogether too much talk about things no one can really know
anything about, I was still amazed at the gaiety. In a way it is just now
largely due to the great number of men en permission. The s