“They were our enemies,” said Brand.
Eileen was silent for another moment, staring down at those queer beads of hers in her lap, and before she spoke again I think her mind was going back over many episodes and scenes during the German occupation of Lille.
“It was a long time—four years. A tremendous time for hatred to hold out against civility, kindness, and—human nature.... Human nature is strong; stronger than frontiers, nations, even patriotism.”
Eileen O’Connor flung her beads back, rose from the low chair and turned back her hair with both hands with a kind of impatience.
“I’ve seen the truth of things, pretty close—almost as close as death.”
“Yes,” said Brand in a low voice. “You were pretty close to all that.”
The girl seemed to be anxious to plunge deep into the truth of the things she had seen.
“The Germans—here in Lille—were of all kinds. Everything there was in the war, for them, their emotion, their pride in the first victories, their doubts, fears, boredom, anguish, brutality, sentiment, found a dwelling-place in this city behind the battle-front. Some of them—in the administration—stayed here all the time, billeted in French families. Others came back from the battlefields, horror-stricken, trying to get a little brief happiness—forgetfulness. There were lots of them who pitied the French people and had an immense sympathy with them. They tried to be friends. Tried hard, by every sort of small kindness in their billets.”
“Like Schwarz in Madame Chéri’s house,” said Brand bitterly. It seemed to me curious that he was adopting a mental attitude of unrelenting hatred to the Germans, when, as I knew, and as I have told, he had been of late on the side of toleration. That was how his moods swung when as yet he had no fixed point of view.
“Oh, yes, there were many beasts,” said Eileen quickly.