We went to sleep as straight as arrows, one on each side of the bed; we woke up in the morning twisted into knots, one against the other, like two shivering cats. Despair drove Yvonne from one extreme to the other; either she lay half-smothered with heat under an enormous eider-down, or benumbed with cold under a thin cotton blanket. The authors of our hardships tasted the honey-dew of sleep upon beds of down; they knew not that threatening fists were shaken at them upstairs, and that bitter invectives vowed them to execration. Yet I think that when logs unexpectedly tumbled down, and pieces of furniture joined the dance, they gave a start and felt uneasy. But on the whole, as quiet as Vert-Vert at the Visitandines, they led a happy life, got up between nine and ten, saw about their convoy, fed well at the village inn, often went shooting, or, if they had a mind, drove out to Laon, came back home to rest a while and dress for dinner, and then about ten, eleven, or midnight, got back into their rooms and their comfortable beds. I hinted that war, conducted in this fashion, was not disagreeable. Barbu knew that I was laughing at them. "But our comrades ... who are fighting...." "Do not lead such a pleasant life ... I am sure of it." "And I think ... French convoys take their ease too." "Well, I hope so." But really, Barbu, it was only right that you should live in comfort, for none knew better than you how to appreciate it! One day, going in to return a newspaper he had lent me, I surprised this lover of comforts seated in an arm-chair, his feet on the fender, his head resting on a cushion, his back on another, a book in his hand, a lamp behind him. He looked a perfect picture of self-satisfaction. But such delights cannot last for ever. "The present convoys are going to the front," some people said. Do you hear, Barbu? You will go to the front. You will change your carpet for the mud of the trenches, your pleasant fire for an icy fog, the studious light of your lamp for the red glare of the shells! You will go to the front! They did not go to the front. They were to pass one or two nights in our house, and they stayed a month! The village groaned under the reign of the invaders. Every morning the housewives on their way to the baker poured out their complaints. "Have yours decent manners?" "Oh, mine are very hard to please!"