There is a moment when it seems as if it were a stranger, the boy lying there, in the bed that is one of such a long row of beds. His people stand, a little dazed, down by the door. The long ward, the two long rows of beds against its walls, the stretcher-beds down the middle of it; and all those boys who lie so still--how strange it seems to them! And their boy, who does not wave his hand or shout to them, who scarcely lifts his head--his smile has changed, has come to be quite a different smile. Hospital, Sunday, October 17th Number 24 Number twenty-four is dying. I am very glad. It is much better for him that he should die. But it takes so long. It is terrible that it should take so long to die. He calls me, "Ma petite dame." "My little lady, what time is it?" Strange, how they ask that, so many of them, when they are dying. There is a clock on the wall opposite his bed. They tell me that for three weeks he has not been able to see it. He says the room is full of mist. He says, "My little lady, can you see the clock?" I always answer, "No, I cannot see the clock." He says, "You cannot see it because of the mist." And I say, "I cannot see it, because of the mist." La Mort d'un Civil The old Monsieur is dying. He has been dying for days and days and days. He is dying at a time when death is very cheap. Every one is dying. The youth of the whole world is being taken away. What does it matter at all that an old man, who has no part in the war, is taken away? Who, except his elderly maiden daughter, has time to care? Cousine Gertrude is very kind. She comes every evening, after the hospital, and stays for two hours, sitting in the room, knitting grey socks, while his daughter rests a little. Her boy François, aged twenty-one, went out on the first day. He has been all the time in the trenches, except for one leave of six days. He is in the trenches now, in Champagne. The man dying here has everything that is possible done for him. He has the best that can be had of doctors and nurses. These boys in the trenches one dares not think of how it may be with them. His daughter is very brave. She never cries. She remembers that Cousine Gertrude would like a cup of tea. She knows that the son of Cousine Gertrude is young and beautiful. Death, in these days, is young and beautiful. And her father is old. His death is only a dreary thing. She understands that even people as good as Cousine Gertrude must grudge it its place in the world. Canal In all the mornings and nights, going to the hospital and coming back from it, I love my canals. The canals of Venice, of Holland, rivers and great waterfalls and fountains and the waterways of kings' gardens, that people travel far to find beautiful, are beautiful for all the world. But my canal is beautiful for just me.