Lambert’s rug has made me feel warmer. I have taken from my haversack the manual of French-German conversation the commandant has lent me. I read the dialogue which deals with agricultural life. _Wiese_, _Wald_, _Gebüsch_, _Saatfeld_, _Ackerfurche_, _Herde_, _Mühle_, _Landhaus_. These humble words seem friendly. I read them again. I murmur them to myself half aloud. Laying the book on my knee, I repeat them slowly by heart. Is there some magic charm in these simple vocables? Called up by the sounds, images of freshness, so soothing to my fever, come to keep me company. I forget Soulier and his music. I no longer hear the wrangles of the card-players. The misery of being nothing better than a poor sick mole at the bottom of a crypt is gradually effaced from my mind. The magic of words! Yet these words are the words of the enemy. My brain finds relief. My eyes are caressed by pure colours. My ears are delighted with the supple cadences of melodies which recall the scent of hay and pastoral quietude. It seems to me that I am in a sun-kissed village. In front of the pillared porch of the white church, dazzling white against the limpid blue sky, apple-cheeked girls are playing games. How charming is the aspect of their flaxen plaits against their mauve aprons! How graceful their movements! How angelic the clear ring of their voices! They smile in a comradely way as they look at me. But you are the daughters of the enemy, little sisters singing so sweetly, little sisters whom I love.… DINNER _September 20, 1914._ It is exactly a month since we were taken prisoner. Here is the great event of this day of jubilee. It is a culinary event. None but the famished could appreciate it. I dressed hastily, for I had to be upon the upper slopes at seven o’clock. I had an appointment with a peasant woman, small, thin, with scanty hair, who comes here from time to time to cut the grass. Yesterday she brought me two pounds of sugar. The price was sixty pfennig. I gave her a mark, telling her to keep the change for her two girls. These latter, working bare foot in the damp grass, rewarded me with a profusion of reiterated _Danke schön_, and I had said to myself that they were good folk. Acting on this impression, I commissioned them to buy chocolate to the value of three marks, to be delivered next day at seven o’clock. _Morgen früh, sieben Uhr._ This matter having been settled, I took possession of the wheelbarrow, heavy with damp grass, and, as fast as I could, followed by the three breathless Bavarians, I trundled my load as far as the guardhouse, nearly slipping a dozen times on the smooth slopes.