The room resounds to the noise of snoring. They are lying to the right and left of me, and if I turn over on my back, I am staring up at the wooden planking of a bed. For the cots extend all along the wall from door to window, one above the other, and in every cot a soldier is lying asleep. Now and again one or other tosses about, and rolls heavily over to the other side. Further away, near the window, some one is mumbling in his sleep. Suddenly he shouts out aloud: "And that wasn't me. I ain't touched a bit of the wire. D'you take me for a thief?" It sounds exactly as if he were wide-awake. I am on the point of speaking to him. Then all is silence again, and I lie listening intently for what is going to happen next. But he keeps quiet, and goes on dreaming. He is still in the midst of his workshop; yet tomorrow he is going to be carted out to war. And nothing but sleeping and snoring men all round me. Wonder if any one else in barracks is lying wide-eyed and staring into the future? My thoughts flit homeward. Wonder whether she slept well to-night? Wonder if she has chanced to be thinking of me? Wonder how the little chap is getting on? His teeth were giving him trouble.... It is not good to marry so young; the unmarried men who are called out now are better off. Wonder whether the war will last long? We have put by a little nest-egg. But what's the good of that in these times of famine prices? The allowance for wife and children is so small that it won't even cover rent. Where's she to turn for money when the post-office savings book is finished? She will have to go out sewing. But what's to happen when hundreds of thousands of others have to go out sewing too? Well, then she will have to start a little business, open a greengrocer's shop. But what's to happen when hundreds of thousands of others have to start a shop? The State is taking charge of your wives and children, that's what it said in the regimental orders yesterday. Well, there is no use in imagining the very worst at the start. The war may be over quickly. Perhaps it will never get as far as big battles. Perhaps they will think better of it, and give way yet. And then my mind feels at ease again. In spirit I see myself back again at my office-desk and writing invoices. A glance at the clock--it's close on the hour--only a few more strokes of the pen. So let's finish up quickly. Let's hang up our office coat on the nail and slip into another. And then get out into the street, for Dora must be waiting supper.