By the last red rays of the sun setting on the heights to the north of the Somme, we reached the lines through the open path which passed by the camp kitchens and reached the hill of the Château de Cappy.
Twilight passed, followed by the most varied colors.
The red sun as it plunged behind the black poplars on the wide horizon flooded the sky with a great yellow light, fiery, burning yellow, like the gold of flames which gradually grew thin and pale, and became light like an immense head of hair.
A little later mauve and violet precursors of approaching clouds passed slowly from pale to dark to end in night.
The clear moon came up above the plateau of the road from Amiens. We walked on, one behind the other, in silence.
He stopped to look at the sky and I heard him murmur, “How beautiful it is.”
This twilight must have recalled to him the skies of the Orient.
“Yes, the sunsets on the sea, in the Indies, in the Red Sea. I am homesick for the light and the sea. The light, the sea, the woman; the greatest joys, the greatest sorrows!!!”
He fell into his revery again.