The old ones had grown accustomed to the rooms. They had suffered and been unhappy in these rooms, and when they had to go away they did not want to go. They had nothing left but the place and people of their suffering, and they found, when they had to go, that they loved the place and the people they had grown so used to. They seemed to be afraid to go away. To all the weariness was added this new weariness. And now the wards are full of new ones. The new ones lie very still. Deaths It is quite simple. If it can be that the priest comes, it is very well. All that the priest does is beautiful. The feet and hands, the eyes, the lips have sinned, and the touch of forgiveness upon them is exquisite. It is exquisite, that last entering in of the Divine Body to the body that is dying. But if for any reason no priest comes, if no one cares or troubles to ask for him, or if there is no time, God is most surely there and understands. And one is comforted to find that there is no need to fear for them, as they die. They die so quietly. I am glad to know how quiet a thing it is to die. There was only one who was not quiet. They bound ice about his head, and then he did not shriek and fling himself about any more, but lay quite quietly until he died. Another Winter, Thursday, October 7th When the rain had gone over, in the late afternoon, and the clouds were lifted and drifted a little, we saw that there was snow on all the near mountains, through the pines, upon the pastures. The cold wet street was full of excited swallows. Here was the cold. The cold was come too soon. They never yet had gone south so early. Dear me, dear me--where would they stop the night? Up under all the old shaggy rusty eaves, that reach out over the narrow streets, hundreds and hundreds of swallows were crowding each other in and out of sheltered places, such a fluttering and twittering. Under thatch and tiles, along the ledges of fine proud old stone windows, and of wine-red wooden balconies, they pushed and crowded each other, and in and out of the brown clayey nests that summer had abandoned. People in the streets stopped to watch, laughing a little. People in the cold, wet streets stopped to watch the swallows, women and old people and children. "They have seen the snow on the mountains," said the people to one another, laughing a little. And then always, every one said, each to the other, the same thing. The one thought of all of them together, "Another winter." PART III Paris Monday, October 11th I was thinking all night in the train--how can I look at them, how can I speak to them in their depth of grief? I was thinking--when the old woman comes to open the door, what can I say to her? When the old man comes to take my big dressing-case and my little dressing-case, and my strap of books, how can I face him? Their son is dead. The son of our concierge is dead. "Mort au Champ d'Honneur."