ed, trying to avoid
that light that tormented me; I collected my thoughts, which had
wandered far away whilst I was asleep, and had been replaced by
exquisite dreams, dreams of times of peace, of welfare, of good cheer,
and of gentle warmth.

Then I remembered: I had to take command of a detachment of a hundred
troopers of the regiment, who were to replace the hundred now in the
trenches. It was nearly a month since we had joined our Army Corps
near R., and every other day the regiment had to furnish the same
number of men to occupy a sector of the trenches. It was my turn, on
the 24th of December, to replace my brother-officer and good friend
Lieutenant de la G., who had occupied the post since the 22nd.

I had forgotten all this.... How cold it was! Brrr!...

Whilst Wattrelot was taking himself off I braced myself for the
necessary effort of getting out of the warm sheets. Like a coward, I
kept on allowing myself successive respites, vowing to rise heroically
after each.

"I will get up as soon as Wattrelot has reached the landing of the
first floor.... I will get up when I hear him walking on the pavement
of the hall, ... or rather when I hear the entrance-door shut, and his
boots creaking on the gravel path...."

But every noise was hushed. Wattrelot was already some way off, and I
still shied at this act, which, after all, was inevitable: to get out
of bed in a little ice-cold room at two o'clock in the morning.
Through the window, which had neither shutter nor curtain, I saw a
small piece of the sky, beautifully clear, in which myriads of stars
were twinkling. The day before, when I came in to go to bed, it was
freezing hard. That morning the frost, I thought, must be terrible.

"Come, up!" With a bound I was on the ground, and rushed at once to
the little pitch-pine washstand. Rapid ablutions would wake me up
thoroughly. Horror! The water in the jug was frozen. Oh! not very
deeply, no doubt; but all the same I had to break a coating of ice
that had formed on the surface. However, I was happy to feel more
nimble after having washed my face. Quick! Two warm waistcoats under
my jacket, my large cloak with its cape, my fur gloves, my campaigning
cap pulled over my ears, and there I was, with a candle in my hand,
going down the grand staircase of the chateau.

For I was quartered in a chateau. The very word makes one think of a
warm room, well upholstered, well furnished, with soft carpets and
comfortable arm