BRUSSELS
Finally, after a wild and breathless drive of thirty-five miles through
rich orchard-country all the way, and always between German patrols, we
entered Brussels. Crowds of German officers and men were dashing about
in motor cars in all directions, while the populace moved by them as
though they were ghosts, taking not the slightest notice of their
presence. The sunlight had faded now, and the lights were being lit in
Brussels, and I gazed about me, filled with an inordinate curiosity. At
first I thought the people seemed to be moving about just as usual, but
soon I discovered an immense difference between these Brussels crowds,
and those of normal times and conditions. It was as though all the red
roses and carnations had been picked out of the garden. The smart world
had completely disappeared. Those daintily-dressed, exquisite women, and
elegant young and old men, that made such persuasive notes among the
streets and shops of Brussels in ordinary times, had vanished completely
under the German occupation. In their place was now a rambling, roaming
crowd of the lower middle-classes, dashed with a big sprinkling of
wide-eyed wrinkled peasants from the Brabant country outside, who had
come into the big city for the protection of the lights and the houses
and the companionship, even though the dreaded "Allemands" were there.
Listlessly people strolled about. They looked in the shop windows, but
nobody bought. No business seemed to be done at all, except in the
provision shops, where I saw groups of German officers and soldiers
buying sausages, cheese and eggs.
Crowds gathered before the German notices, pasted on the walls so
continuously that Brussels was half covered beneath these great black
and white printed declarations, which, as they were always printed in
three languages--German, French and Flemish--took up an enormous amount
of wall space. Here and there Dutch journalists stood hastily copying
these "_affiches_" into their note-books. Now and then, from the crowd
reading, a low voice would mutter languidly "Les sales cochons!" But
more often the Brussels sense of humour would see something funny in
those absurd proclamations, and people were often to be seen grinning
ironically at the German official war news specially concocted for the
people of Brussels. It was all the Direct Opposite of the news in
Belgian and English papers. _We_, the Allies, had just announced that
Austria had broken down, and was on the verge of a revolution. _They_,
the Germans, announced precisely the same thing--only of Servia! And the
Brussels people coolly read the news and passed on, believing none of
it.
And all the time, while the Belgians moved dawdlingly up and down, and
round about their favourite streets and arcades, the Germans kept up one
swift everlasting rush, flying past in motors, or striding quickly by,
with their firm, long tread. They always seemed to be going somewhere in
a hurry, or doing something extraordinarily definite. After I had been
five minutes in Brussels, I became aware of this curious sense of
immense and unceasing German activity, flowing like some loud, swift,
resistless current through the dull, depleted stream of Brussels life.
All day long it went without ceasing, and all night, too. In and out of
the city, in and out of the city, in and out of the city. Past the
deserted lace shops, with their exquisite delicate contents; past the
many closed hotels; past the great white beauties of Brussels
architecture; past the proud but yellowing avenues of trees along the
heights; past those sculptured monuments of Belgians who fell in bygone
battles, and now, in the light of 1914, leapt afresh into life again,
galvanised back into reality by the shriek of a thousand _obus_, and the
blood poured warm on the blackened fields of Belgium.
We drove to an old hotel in a quiet street, and our driver jumped down
and rang the courtyard bell.
Then the door opened, and an old Belgian porter stood and looked at us
with sad eyes, saying in a low voice, "Come in quickly!"
We all got down and went through the gateway.
We found ourselves in a big old yellow stone courtyard, chilly and
deserted.
The driver ran out and returned, carrying in his arms the long flat
seat-cushion from the carriage.
Then the old porter locked the gate and we all gathered round the brave
little Flemish driver who was down on his knees now, over the cushion,
doing something with a knife.
Next minute he held up a bundle of letters, and then another and then
another,--
"And here is your English passport, Madame," Jean said to me.
Unknown to most of us, the driver and Jean, while we waited at Enghien,
had made a slit in the cushion, had taken out some stuffing, and put in
instead a great mass of letters and papers for Brussels, then they had
wired up the slit, turned the cushion upside down, and let us sit on it.
It was rather like sitting on a mine.
Only, like the heroine of the song: "We didn't care, we didn't KNOW!"