ted guests--there are rarely more than
half a dozen civilians. Behind the reserved seats are a few benches
for the captains and lieutenants and the rest of the space is given up
to the poilus, who are allowed to rush when the doors are opened.

Of course the room is much too small, but it is the best we have. The
wide doors are left open. So are the wide windows, and the boys are
even allowed to perch on the wall opposite the entrance, from which
place they can see the stage.

The entire programme is given by the poilus; only one performer had
a stripe on his sleeve, though many of them wore a decoration. What
seems to me the prettiest of all is that all the officers go, and applaud
like mad, even the white-haired generals, who are not a bit backward
in crying "Bis, bis!" like the rest.

The officers are kind enough to invite me and the card on my chair is
marked "Mistress Aldrich." Isn't that Shakesperian? I sit among the
officers, usually with a commandant on one side and a colonel on the
other, with a General de Division, and a General de Brigade in front of
me, and all sorts of gilt stripes about me, which I count with curiosity,
now that I have learned what they mean, as I surreptitiously try to
discover the marks that war has made on their faces--and don't find
them.

The truth is, the salle is fully as interesting to me as the performance,
good as that is--with a handsome, delicate-looking young professor of
music playing the violin, an actor from the Palais Royale showing a
diction altogether remarkable, two well-known gymnasts doing
wonderful stunts on horizontal bars, a prize pupil from the
Conservatory at Nantes acting, as only the French can, in a well-
known little comedy, two clever, comic monologists of the La Scala
sort, and as good as I ever heard even there, and a regimental band
which plays good music remarkably. There is even a Prix de Rome in
the regiment, but he is en conge, so I 've not heard him yet. I wonder
if you take it in? Do you realize that these are the soldiers in the ranks
of the French defence? Consider what the life in the trenches means
to them!

They even have artists among the poilus to paint back drops and
make properties. So you see it is one thing to go to the theatre and
quite another to see the soldiers from Verdun giving a performance
before such a public--the men from the trenches going to the play in
the highest of spirits and the greatest good humor.

At the first