The twilight shadows were welcome, for they swallowed up all the phantasmagoria of the day and we relapsed into silence. It was one of those moments when Reality, or the fear of it, battles with our courage and each one grew thoughtful as he neared the great city, dreading to meet the spectre he feared. The wheels of the cars sang on in a hollow, monotonous tune, the windows rattled systematically and outraged brakes screeched at every recurrent jolt. Finally we saw a dim row of lights and a long, thin whistle from our engine told us that the journey was done. Again was that noticeable lack of excitement: everyone calmly took his personal belongings and prepared to get down when the guard, in an unimportant voice, should call out "_Paree_," which you would not hear if you were not listening. After the Customs, I was in a frenzy to get out into the street, to be welcomed back, as one always is here, and to be cheered and warmed by the bright lights--the flashing eyes of Paris. But the streets were dim, the shops and restaurants closed and few people circulating about. How different it all was! I felt like Rip van Winkle after his twenty-years' sleep, for at the apartment (I thought I had come to the wrong house) was a new concierge, young and pretty, replacing the old, white-haired one. Had we gone back twenty years instead? The rooms were empty--all my friends had disappeared, the dust was inches thick, the furniture pushed mostly into the middle of the rooms and some of the beds were gone. Thickly sprinkled over the floor of my room and on my bed were pieces of the window glass, broken like all the others in the house, by a German bomb which fell and exploded in front of the Prince of Monaco's house, two doors from us--not one hundred and fifty feet away. Half dazed, I dusted a place large enough for my hat and coat, extracted some clean linen from the closet and went to bed, sick at heart. _November 12th, Thursday._ Paris! after a four days' tiring journey which in happier times takes only five hours. But it doesn't matter--it is home again. Anywhere is home which is out from under that yoke of infamous tyranny. I rage in proportion as the minutes separate me from this odious thing that closes its iron fingers around the necks of my friends. No! It is not to be borne. Let every man, woman and child on the earth rise up until we have right. Do I not know? Have I not experienced the mailed fist? And yet, how little in comparison to others; but it is enough.