Monsieur J. was released as hostage at seven o'clock P. M. and returned to the fold. This evening, as all was still, we played a little game of Bridge, as in the old days when life was a pleasant dream. Suddenly a dozen rifle shots, in quick succession, rang out in the air and the cards fell from our nerveless fingers as a stray ball rattled against the iron shutters of our windows. Instinctively we crouched into sheltered corners and waited; another volley and another followed, until finally Monsieur S. whispered in a hoarse voice, "À la cave." The household, including the servants, delighted to be any place where we were not, made a lightning dash, Indian file, for the cellar. Quite unperturbed and loath to leave her cozy, warm kitchen, the old, fat cook was the last to waddle down the stairs, repeating her usual "They cannot hurt me. I am Dutch." She was the calmest of us all, for those intermittent shots and the possibility of retrieving lost balls had raised a tremor of excitement as well as our hasty descent into the realms of Bacchus, in common words—the wine cellar. By the thin rays of a candle the scene was comic; there we were, fourteen of us huddled together in a twelve by twenty foot vault, earthen floor and stone walls. Expecting at any moment an onslaught of we did not know what, each one was bracing himself for the blow, in different attitudes of mind and body. Madame X. was pale, her daughter stolid and ready for the defensive—the true, fighting blood of the Belgians on fire: the old butler, attentive to the slightest sound, was shaking his gray head with ominous pessimism and one of the maids was weeping hysterically and audibly in the arms of her husband, the young footman. At first we just stood and looked at each other as periodic volleys resounded now and again. Then we relaxed as well as we could on dusty cases and rounding barrels or whatever was at hand. An hour passed before the shooting ceased and then we discovered that we were cramped and uncomfortable and cold—chilled through with that deathlike dampness which pervades subterranean chambers. What misery for those who had to live in them for days! Another hour elapsed before the danger was really over and we dared to come out from cover; then we crawled upstairs to bed on our hands and knees to keep below the level of the window ledges.[2]
Madame de H. made an attempt to go to Brussels by a military train which, however, was derailed ten kilometres from here. Some disagreeable officers took the second automobile for military service, in spite of the signed permission which Count Moltke has given the family. Did I tell you that Madame X.'s children are related by marriage to a high official of the Imperial Court? I do not know at all if this fact accounts for the extreme courtesy which they have always received from the soldiers, but at any rate some of their friends have not been so favored.[3]
Madame T., who had a charming Villa at S., was one of the unfortunate ones. She was obliged to entertain the officers of some passing troops at lunch recently, after which they had coffee in the garden. The Captain glanced around at the flowers and said, "Madame, very pretty, very pretty, tomorrow, nothing." That night her villa and several other neighboring ones were burned to the ground.
The Germans are constantly forcing the Belgian old men, women and children to march in front of their attacking armies. What kind of soldiers can it be that does these things, but brutes and barbarians?
My revulsion for it all is so great that the words fairly scorch my fingers as I write them.
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