effort to demand of it.

_January 4, despatched on the 7th_
(in a mine).

I am writing to you at the entrance to an underground passage which
leads under the enemy emplacement. My little job is to look out for the
safety of the sappers, who are hollowing out and supporting and
consolidating an excavation about twelve metres deep already. To get to
this place we have to plunge into mud up to our thighs, but during the
eight hours we spend here we are sheltered by earthworks several metres
thick.

I have six men, with whom I have led an existence of sleeplessness and
privation for three days: this is the benefit I derive from the joyful
event of my new status; but as a matter of fact I am glad to take part
in these trials again.

Besides, in a few days the temporary post which I held before may be
given to me altogether. Horrible weather, and to make matters worse, I
burnt an absolutely new boot, and am soaking wet, like the others, but
in excellent health.

Dear, I am now going to sleep a little.

_January 6, evening._

DEAR MOTHER,--Here we are in a billet after seventy-two consecutive
hours without sleep, living in a nameless treacly substance--rain and
filth.

I have had several letters from you, dear beloved mother; the last is
dated January 1. How I love them! But before speaking of them I must
sleep a little.

_January 7, towards mid-day._

This interrupted letter winds up at the police-station, where my section
is on guard. The weather is still horrible. It's unspeakable, this
derangement of our whole existence. We are under water: the walls are of
mud, and the floor and ceiling too.

_January 9._

. . . My consolations fail me in these days, on account of the weather.
This horrible mess lets me see nothing whatever. I close with an ardent
appeal to our love, and in the certainty of a justice higher than our
own. . . .

Dear mother, as to sending things, I am really in need of nothing.
Penury now is of another kind, but courage, always! Yet is it even sure
that moral effort bears any fruit?

_January 13, morning_ (in the trench).

I hope that when you think of me you will have in mind all those who
have left everything behind: their family, their surroundings, their
whole social environment; all those of whom their nearest and dearest
think only in the past, saying, 'We had once a brother, who, many years
ago, withdrew from this world, we know nothing of his fate.' Then I,
feeling