But I went back
again and bent over my paper, concentrating on the picture of war
which I was trying to set down so that the world might see and
understand, until once again, ten minutes later or so, my will-power
would weaken and the little devil of fear would creep up to my heart
and I would go uneasily to the door again to listen. Then once more to
my writing. . . Nothing touched the house in the rue Amiral Courbet
while we were there. But it was into my bedroom that a shell went
crashing after that night in March when Amiens was badly wrecked, and
we listened to the noise of destruction all around us from a room in
the Hotel du Rhin on the other side of the way. I should have been
sleeping still if I had slept that night in my little old bedroom when
the shell paid a visit.
There were no lights allowed at night in Amiens, and when I think of
darkness I think of that city in time of war, when all the streets
were black tunnels and one fumbled one's way timidly, if one had no
flash-lamp, between the old houses with their pointed gables, coming
into sharp collision sometimes with other wayfarers.
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