There he was scarcely twenty yards away, his large eyes open and looking towards us ... beyond us ... very far. But I know where!!! The day begins quietly. Doubtless the enemy is meditating a revenge for yesterday’s surprise; not a shot on our side or on the other. It is the silence after the storm. I begin to hope for a sudden attack which will let us go out and bring back our wounded. A man brings the letters with our morning coffee. There was one for him and I call and tell him. He answers with a sigh. I guess rather than hear what he wants. “Read me the letter, very loud so I can hear it.” And in a voice which I force myself to make firm and almost joyous, while sobs choke me, I read this letter: “My darling Papa: “You did not expect a letter from me to-day for it’s not my usual day. I wanted to surprise you. To-morrow is mamma’s birthday. With the economies I made out of the allowance, I had my picture taken. I put on for the occasion her beautiful necklace and pretty red silk blouse which is so becoming to me. The neighbors already see how much I look like her. “And that my little souvenir might be still more precious, I have copied on the back of the picture the song which you taught me when I was very small so that I could sing it before mamma’s portrait. “This song, now that you are no longer here, tells all that my heart would say to you on this day I long for you, mamma’s birthday. It has become my evening prayer. “‘_Oh! si tu savais, loin de foi,_ _Combien les heures sont amères,_ _Pleines d’attristantes chimères,_ _Et comme désert est le toit,_ _Va, j’ai beau remplir par l’étude_ _Et par le travail, tous mes jours,_ _C’est toi que je cherche toujours_ _Tout au fond de ma solitude._’” Then, before I finished my reading, his voice continued the song of the child as he lay there on the point of death. In the hour of death his grave voice had a celestial accent; the simple song went up like a superhuman song, a seraphic song, above men, beyond all things. It penetrated to the bottom of our souls and probed our hearts and brought tears. The barbarians on the other side of the trench, themselves fathers, husbands, brothers, understand that a father is dying calling to his child; that a past common to us all lives again in that last agony. And their arms rest inert, their guns are lowered, and all the fierce warriors remain motionless, dreaming, lost in the contemplation of their inner dreams. Alone, their hearts beat and bleed. * * * * * Suddenly someone shouts an oath from the German trench. A brute blasphemes, “_Halt dein Maul_.” A shot sounds. A bullet puts an end to that beatific agony. Then, there was no need of a signal or an order. Tears dried spontaneously; rage bit our lips and lighted our eyes.