Those women who did not cry at the station, what absurd things they sobbed over, afterwards, at home--his golf sticks in the corner, his untidy writing-table, the clothes, all sorts, he had left flung about the room. How many of them will remember always that second pair of boots he had to take with him, that simply couldn't be got, that had to be hunted over Paris for, desperately, as if of utmost importance, all his last day? However could she have got through that last day if it had not been that she must keep up because of the boots? In the afternoon, at the Rond Point of the Champs Elysées, my fiacre was held up for the passing of a regiment on its way to some station. A woman and a little boy were marching along beside one of the men, going with him just as far as they might go. The woman had no hat, and the sun was very hot. Her hair was tumbled across her eyes. The little boy was holding tight to the edge of his father's long blue coat. Thursday, August 6th Poor little Charlotte's baby was born to-day, the day after its father went out. And it is dead. A boy--and he had so wanted it to be a boy. Friday, August 7th To-day I went with a friend of mine to Notre Dame des Victoires, where she prayed. All those starry lights, and all that dusk of kneeling, beseeching people. Saturday, August 8th In the afternoon went with Chantal to the Gare d'Orsay, then to the Austerlitz, and the Lyon, trying to find a way for her and the babies to go home to the Vaucluse. People are camped out about the stations; all the streets are full of them, waiting to get places in the line before the ticket windows. Foulques came to dine. It is his last night. He goes out to-morrow. He was very quiet. I have never seen him quiet like that before. Last night, down in the country, he had got through with all the good-byes--Claire, and his home, and the little son; I suppose there was nothing left for him to feel. Old Madame Boudet has a letter from her son, who went on Tuesday. She is very happy because he says his next letter will be from Berlin. She is a little anxious because he speaks no German. Father Boudet forgets that he is socialist and anti-militarist, because he is so proud that his son should be a soldier of France. His shirt-sleeves are no longer symbolic, they mean just that, for thinking of the hero, he has no time to think of his coat. Sunday, August 9th Mimi's birthday: cake with six candles, and the little girl from upstairs come with her Miss to tea. Monday, August 10th There is a sort of dreadful comfort in knowing that their going off is over. They are gone. The women saw them off, helped them hurry their things together--those bundles, boots, something to eat in the train. Every one had laughed.