n a package.
The events of the day before yesterday, albeit pacific, had so hustled
me that I was not able to attend to this unfortunate parcel as I should
have liked. Also, I was divided between two anxieties: the first, lest
the package should not reach you, and lest these notes, which have been
my life from the 1st to the 20th of October, should be lost. The second,
on the contrary, was lest it should reach you before the arrival of
explaining letters, which might seem strange to you, the sending-off
having probably been done in another name, and the cover of my copybook
bearing my directions that the notes should be forwarded to you if
necessary.

* * * * *

. . . To-day we are living in the most intimate and delicate Corot
landscape.

From the barn where we have established our outpost, I see, first, the
road with puddles left by the rain; then some tree-stumps; then, beyond
a meadow, a line of willows beside a charming running stream. In the
background, a few houses are veiled in a light mist, keeping the
delicate darks which our dear landscape-painter felt so nobly.

Such is the peace of this morning. Who would believe that one has but to
turn one's head, and there is nothing but conflagration and ruin!. . .

_November 7, 8 A.M._

I have just had your card of the 30th announcing the sending-off of a
packet. How kind this is! how much thought is given to us! All this
sweetness is appreciated to the full.

Yesterday, a delicious November day. This morning, too much fog for the
enjoyment of nature. But yesterday afternoon!

Delicate, refined weather, in which everything is etched as it were on a
misty mirror. The bare shrubs, near our post, have been visited by a
flock of green birds, with white-bordered wings; the cocks have black
heads with a white spot. How can I tell you what it was to hear the
solitary sound of their flight in this stillness!--That is one good
thing about war: there can be only a certain amount of evil in the
world; now, all of this being used by man against man, beasts at any
rate are so much the better off--at least the beasts of the wood, our
customary victims.

If you could only see the confidence of the little forest animals, such
as the field-mice! The other day, from our leafy shelter I watched the
movements of these little beasts. They were as pretty as a Japanese
print, with the inside of their ears rosy like a shell. And then another
time w