An unspeakable sunrise to-day!  Another spring draws near. . . .  I want to tell you about our three days in the first line.

Snow and frost.  We went down the slopes leading to our emplacement in the village.  The night was then so beautiful that it moved the heart of every soldier to see it.  I could never say enough about the fine delicacy of this country.  How can I explain to you the chiselled effect, allied to the dream-like mists, with the moon soaring above?  For three days my night-service took me straight to the heart of this purity, this whiteness.

Tarnished gold-work of the trees.  And, in spite of the mist, many colours, rose and blue.

There are hours of such beauty that those who take them to themselves can hardly die.  I was well in front of the first lines, and never did I feel better protected.  This morning, when I came, a pink and green sunrise over the blue and rosy snow; the open country marked with woods and covered fields; far off, the distance, in which the silvery Meuse fades away.  O Beauty, in spite of all!

February 2.

DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,—­Your letter of the 29th has this moment come to the billet.  A nameless day, a day without form, yet a day in which the spring most mysteriously begins to stir.  Warm air in the lengthening days; a sudden softening, a weakening of Nature.  Alas, how sweet this emotion would be if it could be felt outside this slavery, but the weakness which comes ordinarily with spring only serves here to make burdens heavier.

Dear mother, how glad I am to feel the sympathy of those who are far away.  Ah, what sweetness there is!

I am delighted by the Reviews; in an admirable article on Louis Veuillot I noticed this phrase:  ’O my God, take away my despair and leave my grief!’ Yes, we must not misunderstand the fruitful lesson taught by grief, and if I return from this war it will most certainly be with a soul formed and enriched.

I also read with pleasure the lectures on Moliere, and in him, as elsewhere, I have viewed again the solitude in which the highest souls wander.  But I owe it to my old sentimental wounds never to suffer again through the acts of others.  My dearly loved mother, I will write to you better to-morrow.

February 4.

Last night, on coming back to the barn, drunkenness, quarrels, cries, songs and yells.  Such is life!. . .  But when morning came and the wakening from sleep still brought me memories of this, I got up before the time, and found outside a friendly moon, and the great night taking wing, and a dawn which had pity on me.  The blessed spring day gilds everything and scatters its promises and hopes.

Dear, I was reflecting on Tolstoi’s title, War and Peace.  I used to think that he wanted to express the antithesis of these two states, but now I ask myself if he did not connect these two contraries in one and the same folly—­if the fortunes of humanity, whether at war or at peace, were not equally a burden to his mind.  By all means let us keep faithful to our efforts to be good; but in spite of ourselves we take this precept a little in the sense of the placards:  ‘Be good to animals.’  How hard it is, in the midst of daily duties, to keep guard upon oneself.