I went to get some chocolates at a little shop near the hospital.
The woman of the shop counted me out the heap of chocolates one by one in their silver paper.
She was a thin pale little woman with the sort of blue eyes that are always sad. Her eyes looked as if they had cried and cried, in her worn faded little face. She had the little woollen cape of the quarter around her shoulders and her pale hair was rather grey.
While she was counting the chocolates the postman came. He brought a big square yellow envelope addressed in that special writing, surely, of a little soldier, and with the franchise militaire.
I thought—It is a letter from her son.
She took it, thanking the postman, and put it down on the table and went on counting out the chocolates.
"But, Madame," I said, "are you not going to read your letter?"
She turned and I saw that she was crying.
"It is from my son," she said.
She began putting the chocolates in handfuls into a paper bag.