January 20, morning.

Do not think that I ever deprive myself of sleep.  In that matter our regiment is very fitful:  one time we sleep for three days and three nights; another time, the opposite.

Now Nature gives me her support once more.  The frightful spell of rain is interrupted by fine cold days.  We live in the midst of beautiful frost and snow; the hard earth gives us a firm footing.

My little grade gets me some solitude.  I no longer have my happy walks by night, but I have them in the day; my exemption from the hardest work gives me time to realise the beauty of things.

Yesterday, an unspeakable sunset.  A filmy atmosphere, with shreds of tender colour; underneath, the blue cold of the snow.

Dear mother, it is a night of home-sickness.  These familiar verses came to me in the peace: 

’Mon enfant, ma soeur,
Songe a la douceur
D’aller la-bas vivre ensemble
Au pays qui te ressemble.’

Yes, Beaudelaire’s Invitation au voyage seemed to take wing in the exquisite sky.  Oh, I was far from war.  Well, to return to earthly things:  in coming back I nearly missed my dinner.

January 20, evening.

Acceptation always.  Adaptation to the life which goes on and on, taking no notice of our little postulations.

January 21.

We are in our first-line emplacements.  The snow has followed us, but alas, the thaw too.  Happily, in this emplacement we don’t live in water as we do in the trenches.

Can any one describe the grace of winter trees?  Did I already tell you what Anatole France says in the Mannequin d’Osier?  He loves their delicate outlines and their intimate beauty more when they are uncovered in winter.  I too love the marvellous intricate pattern of their branches against the sky.

From my post I can see our poor village, which is collapsing more and more.  Each day shells are destroying it.  The church is hollowed out, but its old charm remains in its ruins; it crouches so prettily between the two delicately defined hills.

We were very happy in the second line.  That time of snow was really beautiful and clement.  I told you yesterday about the sunset the other day.  And, before that, our arrival in the marvellous woods. . . .

January 22.

. . .  I have sent you a few verses; I don’t know what they are worth, but they reconciled me to life.  And then our last billet was really wonderful in its beauty.  Water running over pebbles . . . vast, limpid waters at the end of the park.  Sleeping ponds, dreaming walks, which none of this brutality has succeeded in defiling.  To-day, sun on the snow.  The beauty of the snow was deeply moving, though certainly we had some bad days, days on which there was nothing for us but the wretched mud.

It seems that we won’t be coming back to this pretty billet.  Evidently they are making ready for something; the regularity of our winter existence has come to an end.