September 16, 1914.

The casemate is empty. My comrades have gone up to the nine o’clock roll-call. I am still “confined to my room by illness.” I am happy to be alone. It is cold. Wrapping my rug closely round me, I lie listening to the bitter wind. I am alone; I am free. It seems to me that the current of life has swept me away to the end of the world, depositing me amid dumb deserts of infinite vastness.

The straw upon which I have been lying for a fortnight is reduced to powder. I roll myself in it as if it were a dust bath for chickens. How thin is my rug! My limbs shake with the cold of fever. Yesterday for a quarter of an hour I dragged myself along in the east court, but I was unable to get as far as the first glacis. When I was coming downstairs on the way back, my legs seemed heavier than hand grenades. I am very cold. Through the upper part of the two screened windows I catch a glimpse of a strip of sky, grey and heavy, crushing down on the slope, on the portcullis on the top of the slope, on the wild rose bush which breaks the straight line of the portcullis. On the steep slope I see the long grass bending before the gusts.

I am alone. How delightful! What wealth! What a privilege! Here we are never alone.

We sleep, we dress, we eat, we amuse ourselves, we walk about, we hunt for lice, we attend to the calls of nature, we dream, we are filled with indignation, we soften, we caress the dear relics hidden in our knapsacks, we retire into ourselves—we do all this in public.

How well do I understand the phrase of St. Bernard, the phrase of a monk, O beata solitudo, sola beatitudo! Sometimes in the morning, when we awaken, this awakening devoid of dignity, full of oaths, when the same voices gabble the same platitudes, in the same eternal access of sterile boredom, makes me feel positively sick. How long will it continue, this life in a herd? It seems to me that the effluvium of the crowd, of the sweat of human cattle, has penetrated into all the interstices of my soul.

No, it is useless; the effort to pull myself together and to become what I was before these days in prison is too much for my poor strength. I am shivering with cold. To throw off this torpor I should need to eat three or four times as much as we are allowed. Alas! the wretched half loaf of the first few days has been reduced to a third of a loaf, for the German authorities are methodically restricting our rations. Even the dullest of the soldiers, heavy, good-natured fellows, those who never think and consequently waste very little energy, find it difficult to keep going. Poor mothers, could you but catch a glimpse of your sons, your fine lads, those whom you used to pet so tenderly! On the slopes and in the dry ditches of the fort you would see them gloomy and slow, with drawn features, with a yellow and dirty skin, almost always crouching on the ground. They look like shades in Purgatory. Are these the youths of France?

Sergeant Bertrand is the first to come down. Without saying a word, he throws himself on his heap of straw beside me. Then, one behind the other, come dreamily in Sergeant Boude and Guido, my terrible and dear Guido. Soon all the rest of the section enters, a stamping and noisy rout.

Bertrand does not move. Leaning against his knapsack, pipe in mouth—a pipe carved by Boude—he looks straight in front of him. He is in a fine fit of the blues, our “agent de change,” as he is nicknamed by his comrades from Marseilles. If his fiancÉe could see him thus, his fiancÉe of Ciotat!

At the end of the room, beneath the windows, two groups are playing cards for pfennig stakes. Beyond them, leaning against the bars, Sabatier, grave and mute like a bonze, is plaiting a horsehair watch-chain. Over there, from every mouth, from all the Bavarian pipes hanging over the players’ stomachs, there mount thick clouds of smoke.

In our corner, spoken of as the “club” by the men of the “fond” (the window end), every one is silent. Bertrand is in Ciotat. Guido, hunched against the wall, his kÉpi pulled down over his eyes, seems to be turning over thoughts even more disconsolate than those of the Imitation or of Ecclesiastes. Boude, the good Boude, with the soul of an artist who has lost his way in everyday life, stands up, looking at our trio.

All of a sudden, Bertrand, with a yawn, murmurs, “I would sell my life for a penny.”

Boude smiles at his alter ego. “For my part, old chap, I brought with me from Marseilles a certain store of philosophy.”

“That also gets used up, Sergeant Boude,” says Guido, “just as certainly as the cigar that you are smoking. And once your cigar is finished, in these times of dearth, you may find it difficult to get another.” Then, turning to me, and lowering his harsh voice: “Richeris,” he says, “is the happiest of us all. For him there is nothing but God. If God wills it, he is satisfied; if God does not will it, he is equally satisfied.”

Silence for a time.

Then Boude remarks quietly: “I’m going to visit big BoÉtti. His dreams seem to come true. On the 19th, the night before our capture, he had a red dream. Perhaps last night he may have had a blue one.”

“Oh,” observes Guido, with a laugh, “I too have, not dreams, but presentiments which come true. The day of BoÉtti’s dream, when we had left Bourdonnaye and were in the marshy wood just before you get to Dieuze, I said to myself, ‘This time it’s all up with you, old chap, absolutely all up!’ You see, it is all up, and for a good long time!”

Then Boude, “Oh, Guido, you see everything in dark colours.”

“Quite true, I see everything in dark colours. I leave it to you others to gaze through the rose-tinted window. I keep to the gloomy outlook. Until a day or two ago I had hopes of freedom in October. But since Riou has read us the news, what he calls ‘good news,’ I hope no longer.”

“All the same, I’m going to see BoÉtti,” declares Sergeant Boude, opening the door.

The club relapses into silence. Bertrand dreams. Guido, his faith in original sin thoroughly re-established, meditates upon misfortune and upon human malice.

Oh, how empty and sterile life is. My head swims.

Lambert, who sees that I am shaking with cold, little Lambert, kindly and gentle as a good grandfather, comes and wraps his rug round my shoulders. He gives me a cheerful smile, but says nothing. Returning to his place opposite mine, he devotes himself once more to the study of the civil code. The comrades at the other end of the room noisily continue their game of cards. Sabatier, hard at work, is standing up. It is raining, and the windows have been closed. Young Soulier, stretched at full length on his back, his hands beneath his head, staring at vacancy, whistles an unending succession of operatic airs, music-hall songs, waltzes, and tangos. I listen. Gradually this flow of sounds wearies me, and ends by exasperating me. What shall I do? Faces of those I love, how in this pit of fever and weariness I endeavour to revive you in memory. Where are you now? If one could only write. Very likely they think we are dead. Has the Ministry of War notified them of our imprisonment? Does the Ministry itself know?

Lambert’s rug has made me feel warmer. I have taken from my haversack the manual of French-German conversation the commandant has lent me. I read the dialogue which deals with agricultural life. Wiese, Wald, GebÜsch, Saatfeld, Ackerfurche, Herde, MÜhle, Landhaus. These humble words seem friendly. I read them again. I murmur them to myself half aloud. Laying the book on my knee, I repeat them slowly by heart.

Is there some magic charm in these simple vocables? Called up by the sounds, images of freshness, so soothing to my fever, come to keep me company. I forget Soulier and his music. I no longer hear the wrangles of the card-players. The misery of being nothing better than a poor sick mole at the bottom of a crypt is gradually effaced from my mind. The magic of words! Yet these words are the words of the enemy. My brain finds relief. My eyes are caressed by pure colours. My ears are delighted with the supple cadences of melodies which recall the scent of hay and pastoral quietude. It seems to me that I am in a sun-kissed village. In front of the pillared porch of the white church, dazzling white against the limpid blue sky, apple-cheeked girls are playing games. How charming is the aspect of their flaxen plaits against their mauve aprons! How graceful their movements! How angelic the clear ring of their voices! They smile in a comradely way as they look at me. But you are the daughters of the enemy, little sisters singing so sweetly, little sisters whom I love.…