Claude Debussy to a friend

Le Molleau, 3 Dec 1916

I go on with this waiting life, waiting-room life, I might say, for I

am a poor traveler waiting for a train that will never come

again. They tell me it's the morphine! No! Something is

broken in this strange mechanism that used to be my brain.

Who's to blame? Perhaps this miserable war that loses

some of its nobility with every passing day. Who's to blame?

It was stupid enough to trust the Bulgarians. But it's even

worse to trust the Greeks for anything! And good King George

looks like a hawker of lead pencils with no lead in them.

Of course, rumors spread like weeds. Everyone appoints a

new commander-in-chief every morning. It's like a

hunchback changing his tailor in hope that the new one will

be able to conceal his hump......and after all, what does

it matter?