"Here, my dear fellow," he said, "I leave you the goatskin provided for the use of the officer on duty. I should have liked to give it you well warmed, but I feel like an icicle myself." G. was nevertheless glad to have it. After wishing him good luck, I left him to get back to my hut, for, in spite of my cloak, the frost was taking hold of me too. The faithful Wattrelot had done his best to keep our little stove going. Profiting by La G.'s example, I stretched myself on two chairs, with my feet towards the fire. I gradually got warmer, and at the same time somewhat melancholy. What a curious Christmas Eve! Certainly I had never passed one in such a place. The walls were made of a greyish, friable earth, which still showed the marks of the pick that had been used for the excavation. The furniture was simple and not very comfortable. At the back was the bed, made out of a little straw already well tossed over by a number of sleepers. This straw was kept in by a plank fixed to the ground and forming the side of the modest couch. Against the wall, opposite the stove, was the table. This table, which had to serve for writing and feeding, and perhaps for a game of cards, this table, which was required to fill the part of all the tables of all the rooms of any house, was, strange to say, a night-table. I wondered who had brought it there, and who had chosen it. But, such as it was, it served its purpose pretty well. We used it for dinner, and found it almost comfortable, and upon it I signed a number of reports and orders. Together with the two chairs, the stove, the bed, and some nails to hang my clothes on, that table completed the furniture of the "home" where I meditated on that December night. The candle, stuck in a bottle, flickered at the slightest breath, and threw strange shadows on the walls.