Luckily, there was a diversion, in the shape of a cart which drove up. Everyone crowded round. The baggage-master! His horse was foundered. He had got mail-bags of letters and parcels which he had collected at Charny, and shouted to us: "I've been chasing you for the last three days!" Guillaumin took possession of our bundle, and, mounted on a heap of flints, began the distribution. A sea of humans surrounded him, faces stretched forward feverishly, arms raised tirelessly--De Valpic in the front row between Bouillon and Humel. I had been pushed forward. What did I expect? A line from my father when he heard the terrible news? Hm! He would hardly have got mine. No. I expected nothing. One by one the names escaped: Gaudéreaux, Descroix, Lieutenant Henriot. Comrades answered to a certain number of them. "Missing! Killed!" Brief words which froze. I suddenly felt as if I'd had a blow on the head. "Dreher!" shouted Guillaumin, looking round for me. Lamalou handed me a letter. My eyes dimmed, my head swam. That writing.... I freed myself from the crush round me. I fled, half demented. I pinched, and weighed the envelope. How light and yet how heavy it was! I just missed charging into the captain who was also hanging about waiting.... I went twenty, fifty, yards, then threw myself down in a field, at the foot of an apple-tree. My heart was still beating a mad measure, and I could hardly get my breath. I hesitated for a long time before tearing the thin envelope, then slowly and cautiously pulled out the double sheet which I fingered and turned over.... That stamp too.... Yes, yes, I knew it! But I was impatient to revel in the happy certainty: I flew to the signature. Jeannine! Jeannine! I shouted the name aloud in a transport of delight. Then I hurriedly glanced through the first page.... And instantly I understood that Happiness was descending upon me.... As if afraid of so much joy, I hid myself, so to speak, from my ecstasy for a few seconds behind such reflections as: "The post hasn't lost much time!" or "That's what you might call a real letter!" As lovers at their meetings cloak the emotion of the first moments with trivial remarks. Eight pages! She had written eight pages! I began to read them with tender deliberation. One long, dear harmonious poem! Each line held a joy in store for me; at each page I turned I was torn betwixt my regret at seeing it finished and my rapture that the next was beginning. I could repeat those sentences to-day without hesitating over a single syllable.