And in flaunting placards the Germans beg the citizens of Louvain to understand that they will meet with nothing but kindness and consideration from Das Deutsche Heer, as long as they behave themselves. I step into a little shop as a motor car full of German officers dashes by. "How brave you are to keep on," I say to the little old woman behind the counter. "It must be terribly sad and difficult." "If we had more salt," she says, "we shouldn't mind! But one must have salt. And there is none left in Louvain. We go to Brussels for it, but it grows more and more difficult to obtain, even there." "And food?" "Oh, the English will never let us starve," she says. "Mon Mari, he says so, and he knows. He was in England forty years ago. He was in the household of Baron D., the Belgian Ambassador in London. Would you like to see Mon Mari." I went into the room behind the shop. 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. The train-lines were still cut, and the only way of getting out of Brussels was to drive, unless one went on foot. At the windy corner, accompanied by Jean and his two sisters, I stood, watching a wonderful drama. There were people creeping in, as well as creeping out, peasants on foot, women and children who had fled in terror and were now returning to their little homes. It seemed to me as if the Germans must purposely have left this corner unwatched, unhindered, probably in the hope of getting more and more to return. Little carts and big carts clattered up and came to a standstill alongside an old white inn, and Jean bargained and argued on my behalf for a seat. There was one tiny cart, drawn by a donkey, with five young men in it. The driver wanted six passengers, and began appealing to me in Flemish to come in. "I will drive you all the way to Ghent if you like," he said. "How much?" "Ten francs."