Gazing from the bridge into the water, it seemed a very Paradise. Every little star was reflected in the river, and a yellow crescent moon rode low in the heavens. No sound save the murmur of the sea. Suddenly there fell upon our ears the strains of a mandoline in the distance that transported us of a sudden to the sunny shores of the Adriatic.
Our delay might have cost us dear, for on our arrival home my attic was on fire, some clothing that my companion had put on the stove pipes to air having caught, smouldered, and set light to linoleum and woodwork. Another ten minutes and nothing could have saved this jerry-built wooden villa. It was dawn before we slept, and, needless to remark, I feel like a kipper to-day, the smell of the smoke is so strong; or some amphibious animal, for the floor is inundated with water.
March 23rd. The news of victories and losses in the outside world affects us greatly, and the fall of Przemysl to the Russians has had a very good effect on our spirits.
For ourselves, we are growing accustomed to alarms. We have so many Zeppelin scares that they begin to be of no interest. A horn is sounded. The French sentries on the bridge grow seemingly agitated; the French guard turn out. Groups of people stand gazing Calais-wards into the sky. An aeroplane comes over—scouting—and that is all.
Apparently, however, the biplane that passed so close that it seemed almost on top of our balcony yesterday, was one of those which dropped bombs on Dover! Our first conscious sight of hostile craft, this, though we saw something strangely resembling a periscope on the glassy waters.
March 26th. A strange little tragedy is being enacted in our kitchen. Our landlady's husband was reported "missing," and whilst she was gone in search of further information a neighbour, who had been fighting by his side, came in to confirm the worst fears. He was killed by a sniper, we were told, after only one month in the trenches; and but yesterday the poor little woman was spending one franc fifty to send him a fourpenny piece of sausage.
She came in happily content, having learned no particulars, talking cheerfully of the now fashionable khaki uniforms the women are adopting, and the weeping figures in the kitchen pulled themselves together and pretended nothing had occurred.
March 29th. When the news was broken they feared for her reason. For the last three days she has lain foodless and sleepless, hugging the portrait of her husband to her heart, sorting out his old letters, whilst groups of weeping, crêpe-swathed friends throng the stuffy, unventilated room.
The Boulogne regiment, it seems, has had a bad cutting-up. Hardly a woman who is not a widow now. "Mort pour la patrie!" they cry sadly—"et après la guerre?"
To us any condition of "après la guerre" has become unthinkable. Sometimes it seems it must be the end of the world.