"Lieutenant, what a sight you are! You've got mud in your hair, and mud on your eyeglass—you ought to look in a mirror!"
"Listen, mon petit, it is not necessary to speak of it, because if one looks around himself here, he always ends up by finding someone very unhappy——"
"Very true, lieutenant, because instead of being in a lot of mud we could easily find ourselves up to our necks in something a whole lot worse!"
That night I am in the home of M. and Mme. Louis at Verdun.
The good woman has a great wood fire going—May God bless her!
I am so numb with cold that I cannot undress—my shirt is frozen to my back——
This good and sweet creature assists me and, hearing my teeth chatter, weeps softly and murmurs:
"What would his poor mother say if she saw him in this condition——"