the morning mists.

'Bloody fog!' he murmured. 'We're not going to be able to fight blindfold.'

Then, after a pause, and apparently at random, he said,

'What day is it today?'

'Thursday,' answered Weiss.

'Thursday, that's right... Damn it all! We don't even know where we are, you'd think the world had ceased to be!'

But just then, above the incessant rumbling of the cannon came a fierce burst of gunfire, right on the edge of the fields, five or six hundred metres away. And it was like a sudden, dramatic change of scene: the sun began to come up, the mists of the Meuse evaporated into fine shreds of muslin, and blue sky appeared, clear and limpid. It was an exquisite prelude to a sublime summer's day.

'Ah!' exclaimed Delaherche. 'They're crossing the railwayhigh winds. A young girl was seen rushing panic-stricken across the road, without getting hit. Then an old man, a peasant dressed in a smock, stubbornly determined to lead his horse back into the stable, was struck right between the eyes, with such force that it sent him flying into the middle of the road. The church roof had just been blown in by a falling shell. Two more shells had set houses on fire, and now they blazed in the bright light, with a crackling of timbers. And the inhabitants who'd preferred to die where they stood rather than flee to Belgium, were finally driven mad by the sight of the wretched Françoise, lying mangled near her sick child, the peasant with a bullet in his skull,