Yesterday Roulin left. It was touching to see him with his children on the last day, above all with the very little one when he made her laugh and bounce on his knees and sang for her. His voice had a strangely pure, moved timbre which to my ear contained a sweet, distressed wet-nurse’s song and something like a distant echo of the clarion of revolutionary France. He wasn’t sad, though, on the contrary, he had put on his brand-new uniform, which he’d received the same day, and everyone was making much of him.