Our third day in billets brings us the sweetness of friendly weather.
The inveterate deluge of our time in the first line relents a little,
and the sun shows itself timidly.

Our situation, which has been pleasant enough during the last two
months, may now be expected entirely to change.

The impregnability of the positions threatens to make the war
interminable; one of the two adversaries must use his offensive to
unlock the situation and precipitate events. I think the high command
faces this probability--and I hardly dare tell you that I cannot regret
anything that increases the danger.

Our life, of which a third part is flatly bourgeois and the two other
parts present just about the same dangers as, say, chemical works do,
will end by deadening all sensibility. It is true we shall be grieved to
leave what we are used to, but perhaps we were getting too accustomed to
a state of well-being which could not last.

My own circumstances are perhaps going to change. I shall probably lose
my course, being mentioned for promotion to the rank of corporal, which
means being constantly in the trenches and various duties in the first
line. I hope God will continue to bless me.

. . . I feel that we have nothing to ask. If there should be in us
something eternal which we must still manifest on earth, we may be sure
that God will let us do it.