Where are the beloved ones? The mothers are at prayers, the mothers are crying; sisters, wives, all that love shrink with horror at the sights that pass before their eyes. Where are the beloved ones? They have been dead perhaps these last six months. Their bodies may be rotting among barbed wire; they may have been blown to pieces by an explosion, or swollen by asphyxiating gas, or burnt in the flames, or crushed beneath earthworks, or riddled by grape-shot, or torn by balls. Their bodies which have been cherished, cared for, kissed! And we go on hoping for them, thinking them alive, safe and sound. When shall we know whether they are dead or alive, whether strong and healthy or moaning upon a bed in hospital? Our souls, our eager hearts are longing for delivery, and the day it comes will perhaps bring with it the bitterest sorrows. Most families will have to mourn a dead one; the whole country will be sunk in grief: Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted. We shall be despoiled and stripped of everything; we live but for the hope of meeting again our loved ones, and how many will never come back! And while they die, we receive their murderers! They sleep under our roofs, eat the fruits of our labour, and reign over us. The want of news, the presence of the Germans, such were the saddest things of our life. Oh, they were present, always present! It was impossible to forget them even for one moment. They pursued us in our dreams, they haunted us. How often I have found myself stretched on a road, on an icy cold road in a barren country. And men came galloping up with loud shouting, and I could not move, the cavalcade was going to crush me: The Hussars! the Hussars!... Once more I set up a cry; I woke up. Steps, voices resounded in the street. The officers' evening party was at an end. The key fumbled at the lock; Bubenpech was coming back. It was one o'clock, or two, or three. I heard the dogs patter along the yard, they wanted to identify the visitor. The cannon rumbled with a sluggish sound. The hours were slow, slow. At breakfast, Antoinette often said charitably: "Just mind what I say, mother, one morning you will see the whole of us come up singing, dancing, laughing, perfectly fit for Bedlam."