Love stretched out its hand to the lost soldier of the Legion and spoke to him of happiness to come. Long years hence when the légionnaire would be no longer a légionnaire. The letter's many pages bore traces of tears. I wanted to tear off my uniform, that brand of slavery condemning me to inactivity. Within me all was in a whirl. In the darkness of the ugly court I dreamed dreams of the past and hopes of the future so hopelessly far off. During the four hours from watch to watch I sat motionless in the prison-yard. In these few hours there came to me that energy which meant the beginning of a new life. Then it was my turn for sentry duty again. And then I sat down at the small table in the guard-room while the corporal and the other men slept, and wrote an endless letter with the corporal's pencil on the back of report forms. Page upon page.... The next day a letter from my mother came; a letter that neither asked questions nor held reproaches. It only spoke of love and anxiety for me. This letter solved the riddle of how my whereabouts had been discovered. After long months of waiting and wondering the people who loved me got the idea that I might be in the Foreign Legion, since the last letter they received from me had been dated from the French fortress, Belfort. My mother wrote to the general in command of the fortress and to the French Secretary of War. The answer was long delayed, but at last the news came that I had joined the Foreign Legion at Sidi-bel-Abbès--that I was the légionnaire number 17889! With that hour in the Arab prison which brought me the first letter, the days of suffering began. I performed my duty and did my work like a machine, thinking of nothing but the letters which the next post would bring me. I hardly spoke a word to anybody in those times. When I was off duty I went for long walks in the still paths by the fortifications in order to be alone. Finally only one idea governed my thoughts: Flight! Week after week I received letters every day, begging and beseeching me to have patience. I was to remember that all hopes for the future would be shattered if I was caught deserting. Better to wait for years than to risk everything. But I could not wait. And one day there came a registered letter from my mother. When I opened it, I held banknotes for a large sum of money in my hand.... This meant freedom! I crossed the court of the barracks as one in a dream. This money in my pocket meant new life for me--my mother had for the second time given me life. I knew what a sacrifice this money meant; how hard it must have been for my mother with her tiny widow's pension to scrape together such a sum of money for me. And all at once a wave of happiness overcame me--I should be free! I should be able to thank those loving ones who were helping me.... * * * * *