 Only this, read by Sophie Okanado. That night the frost was very heavy. It covered the hedges and whitened the grass and the fields, so that it seemed almost as though it had been snowing. But the night was clear and beautiful and bright with stars, and the moon was nearly full. The cottage stood alone in a corner of the big field. There was a path from the front door, which led across the field to a style, and on over the next field to a gate, which opened onto the lane about three miles from the village. There were no other houses in sight, and the country around was open and flat, and many of the fields were under the plow because of the war. The light of the moon shone upon the cottage. It shone through the open window into the bedroom where the woman was asleep. She slept, lying on her back, with her face upturned to the ceiling, with her long hair spread out around her on the pillow. And although she was asleep, her face was not the face of someone who was resting. Once she had been beautiful. But now there were thin furrows running across her forehead, and there was a tightness about the way in which her skin was stretched over the cheekbones. But her mouth was still gentle, and as she slept she did not close her lips. The bedroom was small, with a low ceiling, and for furniture there was a dressing table and an armchair. The clothes of the woman lay over the back of the armchair where she had put them when she undressed. Her black shoes were on the floor beside the chair. On the dressing table there was a hairbrush, a letter, and a large photograph of a young boy in uniform who wore a pair of wings on the left side of his tunic. It was a smiling photograph, the kind that one likes to send to one's mother, and it had a thin black frame made of wood. The moon shone through the open window, and the woman slept her restless sleep. There was no noise anywhere, save for the soft, regular noise of her breathing, and the rustle of the bed-clothes as she stirred in her sleep. Then, from far away, there came a deep, gentle rumble.