And now the hotel wakes right up, and dozens of sleepy, worn, hollow-cheeked officers and soldiers in dirty boots come down the red-carpeted stairs clamouring for their café-au-lait.
The morning is very cold, and they shiver sometimes, but they are better after the coffee and I watch them all go off smoking cigarettes.
Poor souls! Poor souls!
After the coffee, smoking cigarettes, they hurry away, to....
The day is past sunrise now, and floods of golden light stream over the city, where already great crowds are moving backwards and forwards.
Cabs drive up continually to the great railway station opposite with piles of luggage, and I think dreamily how very like they are to London four-wheelers, taking the family away to the seaside!
And still the city remains marvellously calm, in spite of the ever-increasing movements. People are going away in hundreds, in thousands. But they are going quietly, calmly. Processions of black-robed nuns file along the avenues under the fading trees. Long lines of Belgian cyclists flash by in an opposite direction in their gay yellow and green uniforms. The blue and red of the French and English banners never looked brighter as the wind plays with them, and the sunlight sparkles on them, while the great black and red and gold Belgian flags lend that curious note of sombre dignity to the crowded streets.
But not a word of regret from anyone. That is the Belgian way.
Belgians all, to-day I kneel at your feet.
Oh God, what those people are going through!