"I answered that nothing would change my resolution. Jérôme and Rosalie also implored me to leave. But what is the good? I intend to remain."
Once again Paul stopped. There was a page missing in this section of the diary; and the next page, the one headed 18 August, was torn at the top and the bottom and contained only a fragment of what Élisabeth had written on that day:
". . . and that is why I have not spoken of it in the letter which I have just sent to Paul. He will know that I am staying on and the reasons for my decision; but he must not know of my hopes.
"Those hopes are still so vague and built on so insignificant a detail. Still, I feel overjoyed. I do not realize the meaning of that detail, but I feel its importance. The captain is hurrying about, increasing the patrols; the soldiers are polishing their arms and crying out for the battle; the enemy may be taking up his quarters at Èbrecourt, as they say: what do I care? I have only one thought: have I found the key? Am I on the right road? Let me think. . . ."
The page was torn here, at the place where Élisabeth was about to explain things exactly. Was this a precautionary measure on Major Hermann's part? No doubt; but why?
The first part of the page headed 19 August was likewise torn. The nineteenth was the day before t on which the Germans had carried Ornequin, Corvigny and the whole district by assault. What had Élisabeth written on that Wednesday afternoon? What had she discovered? What was preparing in the darkness?
Paul felt a dread at his heart. He remembered that the first gunshot had thundered over Corvigny at two o'clock in the morning on Thursday and it was with an anxious mind that he read, on the second half of the page:
"I have got up and opened my window. Dogs are barking on every side. They answer one another, stop, seem to be listening and then begin howling again as I have never heard them do before. When they cease, the silence becomes impressive and I listen in my turn to try and catch the indistinct sounds that keep them awake.
"Those sounds seem to my ears also to exist. It is something different from the rustling of the leaves. It has nothing to do with the ordinary interruption to the dead silence of the night. It comes from I can't tell where; and the impression it makes on me is so powerful that I ask myself at the same time whether I am just listening to the beating of my heart or whether I am hearing what might be the distant tramp of a marching army.