When I went to my door just now, I found it locked from the outside.
I have tried the other door. That is locked, too.
What does it mean, I wonder?
Here I am in a little room about twelve feet by six, with one window looking on to the back wall of one of the Antwerp theatres.
I can hear the sounds of fierce cannonading going on in the distance, but the noise within the hotel close at hand is so loud as to deaden the sounds of battle; for the Germans are running up and down the corridors perpetually, shouting, singing, stamping, and the pianos are going, too.
Nobody comes near me. I knock at both the doors, but gently, for I am afraid to draw attention to myself. Nobody answers. The old woman and the two little children have left the room on my right, the old man has left the room on my left. I am all alone in this little den. I dress as well as I can, but the room is just a tiny sitting-room; there are no facilities for making one's toilette. I have to do without washing my face. Instead, I rub it with Crême Floreine, and the amount of black that comes off is appalling.
Then I lie down at full length on my mattress and wonder what is going to happen next.
Hour after hour goes by.
In a corner of the room I discover an English weekly history of the War, and lying there on my mattress I read many strange stories that seem somehow to mock a little at these real happenings.
Then voices just outside in the corridor reach me.