Everything betrays the stimulus of hunger. Hunger is here the universal mother of artistic, commercial, and industrial inventions; it even induces devotion to the collectivity, for the performance of a public service commonly secures an extra ration. Work or starve, such is the rule. Each one makes his plans, exercises his ingenuity, does the best for himself. The aim is simple: not to die of hunger, to keep oneself going, if possible to improve in appearance and to grow fat. Some, too, having filled their stomachs, try to line their pockets. The strong try to get the better of the weak; the cunning, of the stupid; those who know a little German, of those who know none at all. Hence arises extreme inequality, tangible, crying inequality, shown by the cheeks, the eyes, the gait—the inequality between those who are hungry and those who are fed. Here is one running upstairs, happy, and lively as a cricket, for he has eaten his fill. Unashamedly he overtakes and passes a poor devil, a man quite well off in civil life, but who has had a visit from the body stripper when lying in a swoon on the field of battle; he makes his way up with great difficulty, breathless, shaky, clinging to the banister, finding the flight of stairs interminable. Sad thoughts assail me as I walk. This battle without rifles or artillery, exempt from immediate risk of death, baser than war because it is more hypocritical, more crafty, and carried on under the Christian ægis—is it not life itself? Is not life immoral in its very essence?