From this new phase of contest resulted an advantage for us and a hindrance for the French. The demolition of the houses permitted them to place some new pieces, but the men were unprotected. To our misfortune, we could not avail ourselves of this because of the explosions. Fright made us think the danger multiplied a hundredfold, when in reality it was diminished. Not wishing to do less than they in that fiery duel, the Saragossans began to burn the houses in the Calle de Pabostre which they could not hold. Besiegers and besieged, desirous of coming to an end of this, and not being able to attain it in such intricate burrowing warfare, began to destroy, one side by mining, the other by burning, remaining unprotected like the gladiator who throws away his shield. What an afternoon! What a night! Arriving here, I pause, wearied and breathless. My recollections are obscured, dimmed as my thoughts and my feelings were dimmed on that dreadful night. There came indeed a moment when being unable to resist longer, my body, like that of others of my comrades who had the fortune or misfortune to be still alive, dragged itself back across the gutters, stumbling over unburied bodies that seemed less than human among the debris. My feelings had flung me into an extreme of delirium, and I did not clearly know where I was. My idea of living was a confused, vague mixture of unheard-of miseries. It did not seem as if it was day, because in so many places the murk hung low, obscuring everything. Nor could I think it night, for flames like those we imagine in hell reddened the city on every side. I only know that I dragged myself, stepping upon bodies, some dead and some still moving, and that farther on, always farther on, I thought I might find a piece of bread and a mouthful of water. What horrible mental dejection! What hunger! What thirst! I saw many running swiftly. I cried out to them. I saw their strange shadows throwing grotesque figures upon the neighboring walls. They were going and coming, I know not whence nor where. I was not the only one who, with body and soul exhausted after so many hours of fighting, had given out completely. Many others who had not the steel nerves of the Aragonese were dragging themselves along like myself, and we begged one another for a little water. Some, more fortunate than the rest, had the strength to look about among the corpses and find crusts of rations not eaten, fragments of meat, cold and dirty on the ground, which they devoured with avidity.