I took lunch in the same restaurant in which I’d had breakfast. Cirq! With many hours to wait for the train to Barcelona, and feeling in an extravagant mood, I had my hair waved - for five cents. As extra words were only ten centimes each, I added ‘Love,’ which I had n’t done, because of the expense, in my telegram sent from St. (You will all be proud to know he has already ‘risen from the ranks,’ and is now a lieutenant in the Loyalist Army.) My baggage was then looked at gently the amount of money I had was written on my passport I passed through the hands of several other bureaux, and then came out into the street, where my first act was to send a telegram to Pierre. At Port Bou, there was trouble over my papers, and I had to produce a letter from Pierre, telling of his leave of absence, which proved him a miliciano. I felt that I could n’t live another minute without him! Throwing my clothes into my smallest suitcase, and adding two quartiers d’oic, two packages of coffee, one kilo of sugar, and apples and oranges, I gulped down an omelette and a glass of milk - and away I dashed to the station. For that letter said that Pierre’s leave would begin to-morrow, and was for only eight days instead of fifteen so I’d not see him unless I rushed immediately to Barcelona, to have just four days with him.
And won’t he appreciate home cooking after semi-starvation! PORT BOU, SPAIN ApYesterday the postman brought me a letter - from Pierre! Ripping it open excitedly, I read, then rushed wildly upstairs, threw myself broken-heartedly upon my bed, and sobbed into my pillow. If he had only had his life insured, I know he’d live another century. Anyway, before he left, Pierre and I both made out our wills, with the Sabates as witnesses, and that ought to make Pierre live to be a hundred. ‘And when he’s killed, how shall we know it?’ Martha cried. With coal so scarce that there is only one train a day to the frontier of France, letters taking at least eight days to come from Barcelona, and with strict censorship, Pierre won’t be able to give me much information about what he is doing and what life is like there. The 16,000 Italian soldiers who had landed a few days before the offensive began entered the city singing ‘Giovinezza.’ They dragged the men out of the houses and herded them in groups of fifty, which they turned over to the Arab soldiers to mutilate with their knives, before the machine guns put a merciful end to their suffering. This week, after five days of violent and unremitting bombardment of Málaga by air and sea, the city fell. P.!) When Pierre last heard from his father, he told us that Ricardo was in Málaga. Had he gone a month ago, I should n’t have been so pessimistic, but this week has been disastrous for us ‘anti-Fascists.’ (I can’t say ‘Republicans,’ because it makes me feel allied with the G. Of course there is only one cause for my gloom. CIRQ-LA-POPIE, LOT FebruDEAREST FAMILY: - I have n’t written for two weeks because I have n’t felt cheerful enough, and nothing is worse than a gloomy letter.
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