How could I go on this everyday commonplace life, eating, drinking, sleeping, caring for the children, cheering them ... in such a wicked and imbecile world! I looked up and down the bare, sun-flooded square. All about me were other women, caring for little children. And for the most part, those other women were in mourning. But they were there under that cruel, careless sunshine, caring for their children, cheering them.... I put the little mitten on; I walked forward to the bench, the little singing voices died away to a ripple again. "Oh, this is fine! See, little brother, here is a cave already. Let me have that stick!" "No, me! _Me!_" That was what was sounding in my ears. But what I heard was a muffled voice saying scornfully: "Re-education ... courage, taking up our lives again ... oh yes, whatever you please to imagine to distract our attention! But we are finished men, done for ... lost!" My children played before me in the sunshine, but what I saw were the scarred, mutilated, sightless faces of young men in their prime, with long lives of darkness before them. And as I sat there, then, that instant, other young men in their prime were being blinded, were being mutilated for life. My fatigue deepened till it was like lead upon me. Under it I was cold. The sun did not warm me. It fell like a mockery upon a race gone mad, upon a world bankrupt in hope. Yes, what we suffered was not the worst, not even what _they_ suffered, the men at the front; what was worst was the fact that the meaning of it all was hopelessness, was the end, a black end to all we had looked forward to, striven for ... paralysis, death in life. And an indifferent sun shining down on it, as it had on our illusions. * * * * * After a time the children tired of sand. "Mother, mayn't we go in the big church? You never have taken us inside. What does it look like?" Their restless upspringing life thrust my paralysis aside as an upspringing young tree cleaves the boulder which would hamper it. We pushed open the heavy leather door and stepped into the huge cavern, our eyes so full of the glare of the sunshine that, as we walked forward up the nave, we could see nothing but velvety darkness, faintly scented with mold and incense. The silence was so intense that I could hear my sore, angry heart beating furiously in my breast.... Further along before us, where rich-colored patches lay, on the stone pavement, there was the light from the great rose-windows.... We stood there now, our eyes slowly clearing, the blackness slowly fading out into twilight, to a sweet, clear translucent dimness which hid nothing. Silence, long, shadowy veiled aisles, hushed immensity ...