iots.

* * * * *

I can say with truth that in those moments when the idea of a possible
return comes to me, it is never the thought of the comfort or the
well-being that preoccupies me. It is something higher and nobler which
turns my thoughts towards this form of hope. Can I say that it is even
something different from the immense joy of our meeting again? It is
rather the hope of taking up again our common effort, our association,
of which the aim is the development of our souls, and the best use we
can make of them upon earth.

_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. . . .

_November 20._

From the window near which I write I see the rising sun. It shines upon
the hoar-frost, and gradually I discover the beautiful country which is
undergoing such horrors. It appears that there were many victims in the
bayonet charge which I heard yesterday. Among others, we are without
tidings of two sections of the regiment which formed part of our
brigade. While these others were working out their destiny, I was on the
crest of the most beautiful hill (I was very much exposed also at other
times).