"Mon fils! Mon fils!"
Since I heard that old man weeping I want to creep to the feet of Christ and the Mother of Christ, and implore Their healing for these poor innocent broken hearts, trodden under the brutal feet of another race of human beings.
At four, unable to sleep, I rose and dressed and went downstairs.
In the dim, unswept palm court I saw a bearded man with two umbrellas walking feverishly up and down, while the sleepy night porter leaned against a pillar yawning, watching for the cab that the chass had gone to look for. It came at last, and the bearded gentleman, with a sigh, stepped in, and drove away into the dusky dawn, a look of unutterable sadness seeming to cloak his face and form as he disappeared.
"Il est triste, ce monsieur là," commented our voluble little Flemish porter. "He is a Minister of the Government, and he must leave Antwerp, he must depart for Ostend. His boat leaves at five o'clock this morning."
"So the Government is really moving out," I think to myself mechanically.
A little boy runs in from the chill dawn-lit streets.
It is only half-past four, but a Flemish paper has just come out.—Het Laatste Nieuws.
The boy throws it on the table where I sit writing to my sister in England, who is anxious for my safety.