When the Germans laugh, it is always a peal. As to tears, they trickle down their cheeks for a trifle; they bathe in them, they pour them forth everywhere. I had always looked upon this lachrymal faculty so often spoken of as a legend, but we have come to the conclusion that there is nothing more real. An untoward event, a deception, bad news, or simply home-sickness and melancholy--anything is an excuse for tears. Here is a famous example. Those who have visited the battlefields of Mars-la-Tour and Gravelotte have seen the famous monument--a granite armchair in the midst of a lawn, surrounded with a balustrade. This noble simplicity should speak to the soul of itself. Yet an inscription explains: "During the battle of Mars-la-Tour, the Emperor Wilhelm the First sat here and wept." Of course he thought the game was lost. But if his descendants are faithful to tradition, where will they get the torrents of tears they will have to shed within a short time! However, we are not always crying. We even tried to enjoy the summer, to make up for the sad spring we had spent. As we had to plead a practical object to obtain leave to take walks out of the village, we begged to be allowed "to go and fetch wood." And, lying on the grass in the open country, we tried to forget the war for a few moments, Geneviève and I, lost in the surrounding calm and beauty; but distant rumours soon belied our short-lived illusions, and dispelled the poor creations of the fancy. No, it was not peace. Our stomachs, always clamouring for food, never failed to tell us so. During the month of June we hardly ate anything except asparagus and cherries. These things are not highly nutritious. No potatoes, a slice of horrid, sticky, sour German bread. Then came carrots, green peas, and artichokes, and we no longer starved; and when in the second fortnight of August there arrived the food sent by the Spanish-American Board of Relief, we thought we had been transported to a Land of Cockayne. Twenty grammes of bacon daily, a dish of rice on Sunday, a dish of beans on Thursday, eatable bread; what would you ask more? No matter. I wonder, when we are once out of this vale of hunger, how long it will be before we recover our former health. During the month of July we spent the hot hours of the day out of doors stretched on the grass. Being near a field of corn, we put out a timid hand and from time to time broke off ripe ears; we rubbed them between our fingers, and their plump grains, stripped of the husks, seemed to us delicious food. It was strictly forbidden to pluck corn, "however small the quantity might be." "Our leather bags may be searched," we thought, "but they cannot make a post-mortem examination of us to make sure of a possible theft." For there is no doubt that we were committing highway robbery to the prejudice of the Germans.