r gets killed,
or the Boche locate the mail waggon on the road every other delivery?
Nobody's going to inform you of the accident."

"And that does happen often?"

"Almost every day."

"Quite a common occurrence; there's nothing for you to worry about yet,
really now."

So "hope springs eternal" in the breasts of the bereaved parents, whose
smile gradually broadens out into a laugh when the artillery-man
recounts some grotesque tale, and gives his joyous nature free rein.

The convalescents who came to this particular city must have
recuperated in the minimum of time, if _regime_ had anything to do with
the re-establishment. In every house the cloth was always on the
table, the door open in sign of welcome.

"Come in and have a bite with us," people would call to them as they
passed by.

Certain among them were being treated for severe cases and had been in
the city a long time. The townspeople were proud of their progress and
their cure, almost as proud as of their notary, who on leaving for the
front was only a second lieutenant, but now had command of a battalion
of _chasseurs_. Nor must one forget Monsieur de P.'s son, cited for
bravery among the aces, and least of all ignore Monsieur Dubois, who
having lost both sons, shut up his house, settled his business and
without telling any one went off and enlisted as a simple private at
sixty-two years of age.

In coming to this distant little city I had sought to find repose for
my somewhat shattered nerves; dared hope for complete rest beneath this
hospitable, sympathetic roof. But the war was everywhere. Yes, far
from the sound of the guns one's eyes are spared the spectacles of
horror and desolation, but there is not a soul who for a single instant
really escapes the gigantic shiver that has crept over all the world.
Out here, far removed from the seat of events, life necessarily becomes
serious and mournful. The seemingly interminable hours lend themselves
most propitiously to reflections, foster distress and misgivings, and
one therefore feels all the more keenly the absence of the dear ones,
the emptiness due to the lack of news.

There are but two moments when real excitement ripples the apparent
calm of the little city; one in the morning when the paper boy
announcing his approach by blowing his brass horn, runs from door to
door distributing the dailies, while people rush forth and wait their
turns impatiently.

The evening _communique_ arrive