This is all the news I have to send you, and I cannot even send a hopeful message for 1916. The end looks farther off for me than it did at the beginning of the year. It seems to me that the world is only now beginning to realize what it is up against.
XX
January 23, 1916
Well, I have really been to Paris, and it was so difficult that I ask myself why I troubled.
I had to await the pleasure of the commander of the Cinquième Armée, as the Embassy was powerless to help me, although they did their best with great good will. I enclose you my sauf-conduit that you may see what so important a document is like. Then I want to tell you the funny thing—/ never had to show it once. I was very curious to know just how important it was. I went by the way of Esbly. On buying my ticket I expected to be asked for it, as there was a printed notice beside the window to the ticket-office announcing that all purchasers of tickets must be furnished with a sauf-conduit. No one cared to see mine. No one asked for it on the train. No one demanded it at the exit in Paris. Nor, when I returned, did anyone ask for it either at the ticket-office in Paris or at the entrance to the train. Considering that I had waited weeks for it, had to ask for it three times, had to explain what I was going to do in Paris, where I was going to stay, how long, etc., I had to be amused.
I was really terribly disappointed. I had longed to show it. It seemed so chic to travel with the consent of a big general.
Of course, if I had attempted to go without it, I should have risked getting caught, as, at any time, the train was liable to be boarded and all papers examined.
I learned at the Embassy, where the military attaché had consulted the Ministry of War, that an arrangement was to be made later regarding foreigners, and that we were to be provided with a special book which, while it would not allow us to circulate freely, would give us the right to demand a permission—and get it if the military authorities chose. No great change that.
The visit served little purpose except to show me a sad-looking Paris and make me rejoice to get back.
Now that the days are so short, and it is dark at four o'clock, Paris is almost unrecognizable. With shop-shutters closed, tramway windows curtained, very few street-lights—none at all on short streets—no visible lights in houses, the city looks dead. You 'd have to see it to realize what it is like.