And you who look at them cannot speak or think or feel either, and you
have not one tear. A path has been cleared through the straw from door
to door down the middle of the immense hall, a narrower track goes all
round it in front of the litters that are ranged under the walls, and
you are taken through and round the Show. You are to see it all. The
dear little Belgian lady, your guide, will not let you miss anything.
"_Regardez, Mademoiselle, ces deux petites filles. Qu'elles sont jolies,
les pauvres petites._" "_Voici deux jeunes maries, qui dorment. Regardez
l'homme; il tient encore la main de sa femme._"
You look. Yes. They are asleep. He is really holding her hand. "_Et ces
quatre petits enfants qui ont perdu leur pere et leur mere. C'est
triste, n'est-ce pas, Mademoiselle?_"
And you say, "_Oui, Mademoiselle. C'est bien triste._"
But you don't mean it. You don't feel it. You don't know whether it is
"_triste_" or not. You are not sure that "_triste_" is the word for it.
There are no words for it, because there are no ideas for it. It is a
sorrow that transcends all sorrow that you have ever known. You have a
sort of idea that perhaps, if you can ever feel again, this sight will
be worse to remember than it is to see. You can't believe what you see;
you are stunned, stupefied, as if you yourself had been crushed and
numbed in the same catastrophe. Only now and then a face upturned (a
face that your guide hasn't pointed out to you) surging out of this
incredible welter of faces and forms, smites you with pity, and you feel
as if you had received a lacerating wound in sleep.
Little things strike you, though. Already you are forgetting the faces
of the two little girls and of the young husband and wife holding each
other's hands, and of the four little children who have lost their
father and mother, but you notice the little dog, the yellow-brown
mongrel terrier, that absurd little dog which belongs to all nations and
all countries. He has obtained possession of the warm centre of a pile
of straw and is curled up on it fast asleep. And the Flemish family who
brought him, who carried him in turn for miles rather than leave him to
the Germans, they cannot stretch themselves on the straw because of him.
They have propped themselves up as best they may all round him, and they
cannot sleep, they are too uncomfortable.
More thousands than there is room for in the straw are fed three times a
day in the inner hall, leading out of this dreadful dormitory. All round
the inner hall and on the upper story off the gallery are rooms for
washing and dressing the children and for bandaging sore feet and
attending to the wounded. For there are many wounded among the refugees.
This part of the Palais is also a hospital, with separate wards for men,
for women and children and for special cases.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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