n climbing by Voulangis to
the Forest of Crecy on the way to Fontenay by moonlight even more
lovely, with the panorama of Villiers and the valley of the Morin seen
through the trees of the winding road, with Montbarbin standing,
outlined in white light, on the top of a hill, like a fairy town. Tired as
they were, I do hope there were some among them who could still
look with a dreamer's eyes on these pictures.

Actually the only work I have done of late has been to dig a little in the
garden, preparing for winter. I did not take my geraniums up until last
week. As for the dahlias I wrote you about, they became almost a
scandal in the commune. They grew and grew, like Jack's beanstalk--
prodigiously. I can't think of any other word to express it. They were
eight feet high and full of flowers, which we cut for the Jour des Morts.
I know you won't believe that, but it is true. A few days later there
came a wind-storm, and when it was over, in spite of the heavy poles
I put in to hold them up, they were laid as flat as though the German
cavalry had passed over them. I was heart-broken, but Pere only
shrugged his shoulders and remarked: "If one will live on the top of a
hill facing the north what can one expect?" And I had no reply to
make. Fortunately the wind can't blow my panorama away, though at
present I don't often look out at it. I content myself by playing in the
garden on the south side, and, if I go out at all, it is to walk through
the orchards and look over the valley of the Morin, towards the south.

My, but I'm cold--too cold to tell you about. The ends of my fingers
hurt the keys of my machine.

VI

November 28, 1914

I am sorry that, as you say in your letter of October 16, just received,
you are disappointed that I "do not write you more about the war."
Dear child, I am not seeing any of it. We are settled down here to a
life that is nearly normal--much more normal than I dreamed could be
possible forty miles from the front. We are still in the zone of military
operations, and probably shall be until spring, at least. Our
communications with the outside world are frequently cut. We get our
mail with great irregularity. Even our local mail goes to Meaux, and is
held there five days, as the simplest way of exercising the censorship.
It takes nearly ten days to get an answer to a letter to Paris.

All that I see which actually reminds me of the war--now that we are
used to the absence of the me