ot it. I had
brought back instead an impression heroic, uplifting, altogether
inspiring.

By the time you come over, and I lead you out on that pilgrimage, it
will be even more beautiful. But, alas, I am afraid that day is a long
way off.

VIII

December 30, 1914

I would wish above all things, if some fairy gave me the chance, to be
a hibernating animal this year, during which the weather has almost
called an armistice along our front, locked from the Swiss border to
the sea.

There is but one consolation, and that is that, costly and terrible as
have been the first four months of the war, three of the great aims of
the German strategy have been buried too deep ever to be dug up--
their hope of a short war is gone; they did not get to Paris, and now
know that they never will; they did not, and never can get to Calais,
and, in spite of their remarkable feats, and their mighty strength, in
the face of those three facts even their arrogance cannot write
"victory" against their arms.

I have to confess that I am almost as cold as the boys out there in the
rain and the mud. I have managed to get a little coal--or what is called
coal this year. It is really charbon de forge--a lot of damp, black dust
with a few big lumps in it, which burns with a heavy, smelly, yellow
smoke. In normal times one would never dignify it by the name of
coal, but today we are thankful to get it, and pay for it as if it were
gold. It will only burn in the kitchen stove, and every time we put any
on the fire, my house, seen from the garden, appears like some sort
of a factory. Please, therefore, imagine me living in the kitchen. You
know the size of a compact French kitchen. It is rather close quarters
for a lady of large ideas.

The temperature of the rest of the house is down almost to zero.
Luckily it is not a cold winter, but it is very damp, as it rains
continually. I have an armchair there, a footstool, and use the kitchen
table as a desk; and even then, to keep fairly warm, I almost sit on
top of the stove, and I do now and then put my feet in the oven.

I assure you that going to bed is a ceremony. Amelie comes and puts
two hot bricks in the foot of the bed. I undress in the kitchen, put on
felt shoes, and a big wrap, and, with my hotwater bottle in one hand
and a book in the other, I make a dash for the arctic regions, and
Amelie tidies up the kitchen, locks the doors behind her, and takes
the keys away with her.