ummer days. I could count the hot days on my fingers.
None of the things have happened on which I counted.

What a disappointment poor Russia has been to the big world, which
knew nothing about her except that she could put fifteen millions of
men in the field. However, as we say, "all that is only a detail." We are
learning things every day. Nothing has opened our eyes more than
seeing set at naught our conviction that, once the Rumanian frontier
was opened to the Russians, they would be on the Danube in no
time.

Do you remember how glibly we talked of the "Russian steam-roller,"
in September, 1914? I remember that, at that time, I had a letter from
a very clever chap who told me that "expert military men" looked to
see the final battle on our front, somewhere near Waterloo, before the
end of October, and that even "before that, the Russian steam-roller
would be crushing its way to Berlin." How much expert military men
have learned since then!

Still, wasn't it, in a certain sense, lucky that, in spite of the warning
of Kitchener, we did not, in the beginning, realize the road we had
to travel? As I look back on the two years, it all looks to me more
and more remarkable, seen even at this short perspective, that the
Allied armies, and most of all, the civilians behind the lines have, in
the face of the hard happenings of each day, stood up, and taken
it as they have, and hoped on.

I have got into a mood where it seems simply stupid to talk about it,
since I am, as usual, only eternally a spectator. I only long to keep my
eyes raised in a wide arc towards the end, to live each day as I can,
and wait. So why should I try to write to you of things which I do not
see, and of which only the last, faint, dying ripples reach us here?

You really must not pity me, as you insist upon doing, because
military restrictions draw a line about me, which I may not cross at my
own sweet will. I am used to it. It is not hard. For that matter, it is
much more trying to my French neighbors than it is to me.

I seem never to have told you that even they may not leave the
commune without a sauf-conduit. To be sure, they have only to go to
the mairie, and ask for it, to get it.

For months now the bridge over the Marne, at Meaux, has been
guarded, and even those going to market cannot cross without
showing their papers. The formality is very trying to them, for the
reason that the mairie opens at eight, and closes at twelve not to