I am becoming tired of it all once again—­inexpressibly tired.  It seems to me at times now as if those of us who remain had been very sick, and then, when we had become convalescent, had been ordered by some cruel fate to remain sitting in our sick-rooms forever.  A siege is always a hospital—­a hospital where mad thoughts abound and where mad things are done; where, under the stimulus of an unnatural excitement, new beings are evolved, beings who, while having the outward shape of their former selves, and, indeed, most of the old outward characteristics, are yet reborn in some subtle way and are no longer the same.

For you can never be exactly the same; about that there is no doubt.  You have been made sick, as it were, by tasting a dangerous poison.  Great soldiers have often told their men after great battles have been fought and great wars won that they have tasted the salt of life.  The salt of life!  Is it true, or is it merely a mistake, such as life-loving man most naturally makes?  For it can be nothing but the salt of death which has lain for a brief instant on the tongue of every soldier—­a revolting salt which the soldier refuses to swallow and only is compelled to with strange cries and demon-like mutterings.  Sometimes, poor mortal, all his struggles and his oaths are in vain.  The dread salt is forced down his throat and he dies.  The very fortunate have only an acrid taste which defies analysis left them.  Of these more fortunate there are, however, many classes.  Some, because they are neurotic or have some hereditary taint, the existence of which they have never suspected, in the end succumb; others do not entirely succumb, but carry traces to their graves; yet others do not appear to mind at all.  It is a very subtle poison, which may lie hidden in the blood for many months and many years.  I believe it is a terrible thing.

Nobody should have been allowed to stay behind after hearing for so many weeks that ceaseless roar, sustaining that endless strain, enduring so much.  They should have been made to forget—­by force.

And yet even this nobody understands or cares to speak of, although a number of men are still half mad.  The newcomers, soldiers and civilians alike, who never cease streaming in now to gaze and gape and inquire how it was all done, are quite indifferent.  Some say that it must have been an immense farce—­that there was really nothing worth speaking about.  Others wish to know curious details which have no general importance.  The Englishmen are proud, and want to know whether you were inside the British Legation, their Legation, and when they have heard yes or no their interest ceases.  They little know what the Legation stood for.  The Americans march up to the Tartar Wall, talk about “Uncle Sam’s boys,” and exclaim that it requires no guessing to tell who saved the Legations.  The French are the same, so are the Germans, so even the Italians.  Only the Japanese and the Russians say nothing.