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I have had a letter from my brother, who announces his speedy

arrival at Bald Hills with his wife. This pleasure will be but a

brief one, however, for he will leave us again to take part in

this unhappy war into which we have been drawn, God knows how or

why. Not only where you are-at the heart of affairs and of the

world-is the talk all of war, even here amid fieldwork and the

calm of nature-which townsfolk consider characteristic of the

country-rumors of war are heard and painfully felt. My father

talks of nothing but marches and countermarches, things of which

I understand nothing; and the day before yesterday during my

daily walk through the village I witnessed a heartrending

scene.... It was a convoy of conscripts enrolled from our people

and starting to join the army. You should have seen the state of

the mothers, wives, and children of the men who were going and

should have heard the sobs.