Late in the night my mother comes into my room. She thinks I am asleep, and I pretend to be so. To talk, to stay awake with one another, it is too hard. She sits long into the night although she is in pain and often writhes. At last I can bear it no longer, and pretend I have just wakened up. "Go and sleep, mother, you will catch cold here." "I can sleep enough later," she says. I sit up. "I don't go straight back to the front, mother. I have to do four weeks at the training camp. I may come over from there one Sunday, perhaps." She is silent. Then she asks gently: "Are you very much afraid?" "No, mother." "I would like to tell you to be on your guard against the women out in France. They are no good." Ah! Mother, Mother! You still think I am a child--why can I not put my head in your lap and weep? Why have I always to be strong and self-controlled? I would like to weep and be comforted, too, indeed I am little more than a child; in the wardrobe still hang my short, boy's trousers--it is such a little time ago, why is it over? "Where we are there aren't any women, mother," I say as calmly as I can. "And be very careful at the front, Paul." Ah, Mother, Mother! Why do I not take you in my arms and die with you. What poor wretches we are! "Yes, mother, I will." "I will pray for you every day, Paul." Ah! Mother, Mother! Let us rise up and go out, back through the years, where the burden of all this misery lies on us no more, back to you and me alone, Mother! "Perhaps you can get a job that is not so dangerous." "Yes, mother, perhaps I can get into the cook-house, that can easily be done." "You do it then, and if the others say anything----" "That won't worry me, mother----" She sighs. Her face is a white gleam in the darkness. "Now you must go to sleep, mother." She does not reply. I get up and wrap my cover round her shoulders. She supports herself on my arm, she is in pain. And so I take her to her room. I stay with her a little while. "And you must get well again, mother, before I come back." "Yes, yes, my child." "You ought not to send your things to me, mother. We have plenty to eat out there. You can make much better use of them here." How destitute she lies there in her bed, she, that loves me more than all the world. As I am about to leave, she says hastily: "I have two pairs of under-pants for you. They are all wool. They will keep you warm. You must not forget to put them in your pack." Ah! Mother! I know what these underpants have cost you in waiting, and walking, and begging! Ah! Mother, Mother! how can it be that I must part from you? Who else is there that has any claim on me but you. Here I sit and there you are lying, and we have so much to say, that we could never say it. "Good-night, mother." "Good-night, my child." The room is dark. I hear my mother's breathing, and the ticking of the clock. Outside the window the wind blows and the chestnut trees rustle.