You can’t possibly imagine how I felt when I got your letter. I was still in the hospital where I had been for five months with a bad foot, and, to tell you the truth, I didn’t care much whether I ever went out of it again. I can’t explain it very well, but there is something about the war and this filthy, brutal way of living that makes it unbearable to lose any pleasures or joys out of life. You get to believe that nothing matters except being happy. And you _are_ my happiness. When I thought I’d lost you, I didn’t care about going on. Of course, there’s your country, and your family, and your ambition, and so on, but somehow they don’t seem _real_. I thought of you all the time. I wrote and wrote, and didn’t get any answer. Then I asked Vincent to look you up, but he wrote that you’d moved and he couldn’t trace you. I don’t quite see how I could have gone back on the firing-line again if you hadn’t written. It’s bad enough anyway, but it wouldn’t be bearable without some sort of guiding star. Don’t think I’m getting sentimental, Angelica, but you are that, you know, to me. I hope this will soon be over. It’s worse than I thought it would be; but I’m glad I came. I wouldn’t like other fellows to be doing this job for me. But when I get home! It seems like a vision of Paradise--you waiting for me, and my home, and good food and a nice, clean bed, and hot water! I don’t want you to think that I’ve deteriorated, that I’m always thinking of physical things, because I’m not. When you’re always uncomfortable, you can’t help thinking too much about comfort; but I think much more about other things. I think a lot about what is the best way to use a life. I can see lots of things I’ve done wrong. I look forward awfully to making a fresh start. It will all seem so new, like being born again. Everything will seem remarkable and interesting--all sort of things I didn’t use to notice.