Those were stirring, extraordinary, unprecedented days! And yet, by remaining indoors, one might have lived through the first of them without suspecting anything unusual. The troops entered quietly, too contented, apparently, to be done with past strife to plunge into more. Numbers of them sought concealment in Belgium, rather than go back to the discord they expected at home, openly stating they did not wish to return to Germany. These were not deserters, but men known to have come direct from the front. It was a strange experience, and one of peculiar psychological interest, to watch these battle-worn men, soiled, weary, and haggard, crossing the city all with the same look of internal perplexity, as though just waking from a nightmare whose meaning they were trying to solve. They appeared to have no set purpose,—probably none, but the leaders had,—nor did they evince the slightest humiliation at returning vanquished through conquered lands. On the contrary, their attitude toward the people of Brussels was kindly, almost friendly; they seemed even to expect applause from the throngs that gradually gathered to gaze upon them. Some of those watching would doubtless have given them a cry of farewell, in sheer satisfaction at their departure (if not in compassion for the guiltless among them), but for the hideous memories their uniforms evoked. Despite those memories, a genial or joking word was thrown them occasionally from the crowd, and replied to in the same spirit. If, even _one_ year earlier, some trustworthy reader of the future had predicted such a scene, not one of that gaping crowd would have considered it possible; for, as History has never recounted a conflict so frightful, so it has never seen so astounding a termination of war, such a mingling of tragedy and comedy! In those extraordinary street-scenes humanity was visibly struggling on the one side against the follies of tradition, and on the other against the cruel ache of unforgettable wounds. The German troops, repentent, broken, realizing that they had been fighting for nothing higher than a pride founded on their enslaved souls, seemed to crave recognition of their emancipation—looked for some sign of pardon and good fellowship from the people they had obediently ground to earth.