When communications were opened the news we got was not consoling. First phase of the battle closed six days ago--with the Germans in Douaumont, and the fighting still going on--but the spirit of the French not a jot changed. Here, among the civilians, they say: "Verdun will never fall," and out at the front, they tell us that the poilus simply hiss through their clenched teeth, as they fight and fall, "They shall not pass." And all the time we sit inactive on the hilltop holding that thought. It's all we can do. We were livened up a bit last week because the village clown was on his home leave. He is a lad of twenty-three with a young wife and a little three-year-old girl, who has learned to talk since "dada" saw her, and is her father right over--full of fun, good-humor, and laughter. I have told you that we almost never hear war talk. We did hear some while our local clown was home, but how much was true and how much his imagination I don't know. Anyway, his drollery made us all laugh. His mother-in-law had died since he left, and when his wife wept on his shoulder, he patted her on the back, and winked over his shoulder at his admiring friends, as he said: "Chut, ma fille, if you are going to cry in these days because someone dies, you'll have no time to sleep. Only think of it, the old lady died in bed, and that is everything which is most aristocratic in these days." I regret to say that this did not console wife one bit. As he never can tell anything without acting it out, he was very comic when he told about the battle in which the Prussian Guard was wiped out. He is in the artillery, and he acted out the whole battle. When he got to the point where the artillery was ordered to advance, he gave an imitation of himself scrambling on to his gun, and swaying there, as the horses struggled to advance over the rough road ploughed with shell, until they reached the field where the Guard had fallen. Then he imitated the gesture of the officer riding beside the guns, and stopping to look off at the field, as, with a shrug, he said: "Ah, les beaux gars" then swung his sabre and shouted: "En avant!" Then came the imitation of a gunner hanging on his gun as the gun- carriage went bumping over the dead, the sappers and pétrole brigade coming on behind, ready to spray and fire the field, shouting: "Allez aux enfers, beaux gars de Prusse, et y attendre votre kaiser!" It was all so humorous that one was shocked into laughter by the meeting of the comic and the awful. I laughed first and shuddered afterward. But we do that a great deal these days.