"Listen," she said. "The old people would not leave the village,--your father and mother...so I stayed. At that time it was still supposed that the Germans were human beings..." "And my father and mother?" asked the Idiot. "Some of the people went into the street to see the Germans enter the village. But we watched from a window in your father's house.... They were Uhlans, who came first. They were so drunk that they could hardly sit on their horses. Their lieutenant took a sudden fancy to Marie Lebrun, but when he tried to kiss her, she slapped his face.... That seemed to sober him.... Old man Lebrun had leapt forward to protect his daughter. "'Are you her father?'" asked the Lieutenant. "'Yes,'" said the old man. "'Bind him,'" said the lieutenant, and then he gave an order and some men went into the house and came out dragging a mattress.... They dragged it into the middle of the street.... They held old man Lebrun so that he had to see everything...for some hours, as many as wanted to.... Then the lieutenant stepped forward and shot her through the head, and then he shot her father.... Your father and mother hid me in the cellar of their house, as well as they could.... But from the Germans nothing remains long hidden.... Your father and mother tried to defend me...tied them to their bed...and...set fire to the house." The Idiot's granite-gray face showed no new emotion. "And you?" She shook her head violently. "What you cannot imagine," she said. "I have forgotten.... There have been so many.... No street-walker has ever been through what I have been through.... There's nothing more to say...I wanted to live...to bear witness against them.... For you and me everything is finished..." "Almost," said the Idiot. "You talk as if you no longer loved me." The granite-gray of his face had softened into the ruddy, sun-burned coloring of a healthy young soldier, long in the field, and she could not resist the strong arms that he opened to her. "They have not touched your soul," said the Idiot. [signed] Gouverneur Morris Memories of Whitman and Lincoln "When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd" --W. W. Lilacs shall bloom for Walt Whitman And lilacs for Abraham Lincoln. Spring hangs in the dew of the dooryards These memories--these memories-- They hang in the dew for the bard who fetched A sprig of them once for his brother When he lay cold and dead.... And forever now when America leans in the dooryard And over the hills Spring dances, Smell of lilacs and sight of lilacs shall bring to her heart these brothers.... Lilacs shall bloom for Walt Whitman And lilacs for Abraham Lincoln.