But Magen, the rear-guard, about to shut the door, lays down his lantern, produces a good-sized box, and thrusts it into my hands in a manner that is almost timid. “_Da_,” he explains to me in German, “my wife sent me a hamper this morning.”—“Oh, thanks,” I reply. But he hastens off with his lantern to join the _Feldwebel_ in No. 18. Greatly touched by this unexpected mark of friendship, I turn to Guido. We tell over the contents of the box. Five apples; two walnuts; a piece of thick pancake, smelling of the _gnädige Frau_ Magen’s frying-pan; and half a bilberry tart! What luck! Monsieur Magen, Bavarian as you are, you are a brother, _ein Bruder_, a true comrade! I love you! I give Guido his share. I put mine away in the haversack of papers. I go to sleep to the thought that to-morrow, instead of the wretched thin coffee with rye and barley bread, I shall have a succulent fruit breakfast. This thought immediately transports me to Dully, to Fontainebleau, to Lablachère. But what is there that does not transport me there, visions of longing and of hope? Thus it is that to-day, at earliest dawn, slowly pacing the deserted “salon,” I make the first good breakfast since my imprisonment. THE FIRST LETTER _October 8, 1914._ Yesterday the rumour was current, derived, it was said, from the guard, that we were going to be permitted to write to our families. A similar report has stirred the fort two or three times before, but has hitherto always proved false. Consequently the pessimists and all the disciples of Heraclitus and the Porch—headed by Guido—had a fine time of it in the casemates making fun of the comrades who were jubilantly commenting on the news. On the glacis, at three o’clock, I met Sergeant Feutrier walking with Corporal Heuyer. “Riou,” observed the sergeant, “it’s the first fine day of our imprisonment!” “No, no, my friend,” I said, half-heartedly aping Guido’s pessimism, “it is raining.” It was, in fact, drizzling; the sopping grass spirted as we trod. But Heuyer answered: “Don’t tease Feutrier to-day; he is too happy.” That evening, when I was working as usual at my side of the table, I was deluged with requests: “Riou, could you lend me your pen and ink?”—“Can you spare a sheet or two of paper?” There was a regular procession of them. The mere thought, or rather the conviction, that they would be able to write home transfigured them. Home, the fireside! The loved ones, the familiar objects, the birthplace, the motherland! From this secret universe, at ordinary times deep buried beneath the surface of their minds, but suddenly exposed by the delvings of hope, there arose a powerful incense which intoxicated them all. What will they feel like at the prospect of going home, if the still dubious possibility of writing can arouse such an outburst of cheerful excitement?