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.