Mireille shut her eyes and thought about the Germans. She knew a great deal about them. Frieda had taught her—with the aid of a weekly paper from Munich called Fliegende Blätter—all the characteristics of the nation. The Germans, Mireille had gathered, were divided into two categories—Professors and Lieutenants. The Professors were old men, bald and funny; the Lieutenants were young men, aristocratic and beautiful. The Professors were so absent-minded that they never knew where they were, and the Lieutenants were so fascinating that girls fainted away and went into consumption for love of them. Frieda admitted that there were a few other Germans—poets, who were mostly dead; and housewives, who made jam; and waiters, who were sent to England. But obviously the Germans that had got into Belgium this evening were the Lieutenants and the Professors. Mireille nestled into her pillow and went to sleep. She dreamed that they had arrived and were very amiable and much impressed by her pink dress.
She was awakened by a deafening roar, a noise of splintering wood and falling glass. With a cry of terror she started up; then a flash blinded her, another roar filled the air, and it seemed as if the world were crashing to pieces.
"Mireille!" Her mother's arms were around her and Chérie had rushed in from her room with an ashen face.
"Loulou, let us go at once—let us go to the Bourgmestre or to the Curé! We cannot stay here alone!"
"Yes ... let us go ..." stammered Louise. "But who will carry our things?"
"What things? We take no things. We are fugitives, Loulou! Fugitives!... Quickly—quickly. Take your money and your jewels—nothing else."
"Quickly, quickly," echoed the whimpering Mireille.
"If we are fugitives," sobbed Louise, looking down at her floating chiffon gown, "we cannot go out into the world dressed like this."
"We cannot stop to change our clothes ... we must take our cloaks and dark dresses with us," cried Chérie. "Only make haste, make haste!"
But Louise seemed paralysed with fear. "They will come, they will come," she gasped, gazing at the shattered window; the throbbing darkness beyond seemed to mutter the words Florian had spoken: "Outrage, violence, and slaughter ... outrage, violence, and slaughter...."