My walk was not at all satisfying. From the summit I had aimed at, I could see nothing but another ridge, crowned with a dark fringe of trees. There was no outlet through which I could get a view. I came back, tired and disappointed. Up there I had tried for a moment to give rein to my imagination. Here is my country--Lorraine, I said to myself, and I looked in vain for that serene melancholy, that voluptuous calm, in the landscape.... It was obviously yet another example of poetic exaggeration. It was not unpleasing country, but it was more like--oh, anything you like to name, Perche, or the country round Paris. I went back. On the way I heard myself hailed from behind a hedge. It was Playoust's voice. I went up and found the whole set of sergeants from the 22nd. De Valpic alone was missing. I was surprised to catch sight of Guillaumin, with cards in his hands. "What! You don't mean to say you're playing?" I said. "Yes, they're teaching me!" He explained with great gusto that they had come to fetch him to make up a second four (Frémont was there too). He had no gift for it. But he was sticking to it all the same. He had already lost one and threepence! "And what about you, old boy? Do you know their blooming game?" "Yes," I replied coolly, "but it doesn't appeal to me, you know!" I did not linger. I bore him a grudge. If he was going over to that lot he was quite at liberty to do so, of course, but he need no longer count, as a matter of course, on my society--Oh dear, no! I went to lie down. I yawned. I was bored to tears. For the sake of something to do I emptied my pockets of their miscellaneous contents. On pulling out the packet of letter cards which I had brought quite by chance, I thought: Hello, why shouldn't I write a letter? But to whom should it be? Not to my father. I had nothing to tell him. As for my brother, I had not even got his complete address. I did not know what company he was in. My brother Victor!... Why should I be thinking of him particularly just now?... Where was he?... Somewhere in the Woevre. Not very far from me, no doubt. What spirits was he in? War was the dream of their life, their goal, their one passion, to all these soldiers. What a bizarre idea it was. Simply a case of suggestion! What did they hope for from it, after all? For the space of a second I had a strikingly clear vision of him, calm and resolute, with his cap well down over his eyes, issuing his orders. The idea again occurred to me of writing to someone--whom I knew. But I counted on my fingers; it was only three days; and it would be better to wait until I had something worth writing about. When I went out again I found myself face to face with Henriot. "Halloa, how are you getting on, Dreher?" he said. "Pretty well, sir!" "Pity we get no papers!"