The strange thing is that we all stand it so well. If anyone had told me that I could have put up with the life I have been living for two winters and be none the worse for it, I should have thought him heartless. Yet, like the army, I am surely none the worse for it, and, in the army, many of the men are better for it. The youngsters who come home on leave are as rugged as possible. They have straightened up and broadened their chests. Even the middle-aged are stronger. There is a man here who is a master mason, a hard-working, ambitious, honest chap, very much loved in the commune. He worked on my house, so I know him well. Before the war he was very delicate. He had chronic indigestion, and constantly recurring sore throats. He was pale, and his back was beginning to get round. As he has five children, he is in an ammunition factory. He was home the other day. I asked him about his health, he looked so rosy, so erect, and strong. He laughed, and replied: "Never so well in my life. I haven't had a cold this winter, and I sleep in a board shanty and have no fire, and I eat in a place so cold my food is chilled before I can swallow it. My indigestion is a thing of the past. I could digest nails!" You see I am always looking for consolations in the disaster. One must, you know. XXII March 2, 1916 We are living these days in the atmosphere of the great battle of Verdun. We talk Verdun all day, dream Verdun all night--in fact, the thought of that great attack in the east absorbs every other idea. Not in the days of the Marne, nor in the trying days of Ypres or the Aisne was the tension so terrible as it is now. No one believes that Verdun can be taken, but the anxiety is dreadful, and the idea of what the defence is costing is never absent from the minds even of those who are firmly convinced of what the end must be. I am sending you a Forain cartoon from the Figaro, which exactly expresses the feeling of the army and the nation. You have only to look on a map to know how important the position is at Verdun, the supposed-to-be-strongest of the four great fortresses-- Verdun, Toul, Epinay, and Belfort--which protect the only frontier by which the Kaiser has a military right to try to enter France, and which he avoided on account of its strength.