CHANSON TRISTE
Chilly and wet to-day in Brussels.
And oh, so triste, so triste!
Never before have I known a sadness like to this.
Not in cemetery, not in ruined town, not among wounded, coming broken from the battle, as on that red day at Heyst-op-den-Berg.
A brooding soul—mist is in the air of Brussels. It creeps, it creeps. It gets into the bones, into the brain, into the heart. Even when one laughs one feels the ghostly visitant. All the joy has gone from life. The vision is clouded. To look at anything you must see Germans first.
Oh, horrible, horrible it is!
And hourly it grows more horrible.
Its very quietness takes on some clammy quality associated with graves.
Movement and life go on all round. People walk, talk, eat, drink, take the trams, shop. But all the while the Germans are there, the Germans are in their hotels, their houses, their palaces, their public buildings, Town Hall, Post Office, Palais de Justice, in their trams, in their cafés, in their restaurants—