Mon Mari was sitting in a big chair by the window, looking out over some rain-drenched purple cabbages.
He was a little old Belgian, shrivelled and trembling. He had been shot in the thigh on that appalling August day when Louvain attempted to defend herself against the murderers. He was lame, broken, useless, aged. But his sense of humour survived. It flamed up till I felt a red glow in that chilly room looking over the rain-wet cabbages, and laughter warmed us all three among the ruins, myself, and the little old woman, and Mon Mari.
"Yesterday," he said, "an American Consul was coming in my shop. He was walking with a German Colonel. The American says: 'How could you Germans destroy a beautiful city like Louvain?' And the Alboche answered, 'We didn't know it was beautiful'!"
And the old woman echoes ponderingly:
"Didn't know it was beautiful!"
CHAPTER XXVI
THE RETURN FROM BRUSSELS
From Brussels to Ninove, from Ninove to Sottegem, from Sottegem to Ghent, from Ghent to Antwerp; that was how I got back!
At the outskirts of Brussels, on a certain windy corner, I stood, waiting my chance of a vehicle going towards Ghent.