And in the invaded territory thousands and thousands of people have gone to bed at six, because they have no light, no fire, and no dinner. And the others are there. They read the papers. They praise whatever the German army does, they admire the German soldiers, they approve all high-handed measures, and those who are at home, as well as those away from home, lift up their eyes towards the sky, and thank God for not being like the rest of mankind. Ah no, you are not like the rest of mankind! Could we shout it loud enough? Is there any cry that might pierce your dull conscience? Are there maledictions of sufficient vehemence to penetrate the carapace in which you have wrapped up your understanding? Ah, I wish I were hundred-tongued, and gifted with more than human genius, the better to proclaim your infamy, the better to cry out upon the sufferings width which you do not cease to load us. I can but repeat what I have seen, what I have heard, what I have borne. I shall never be weary of lifting up a corner of the veil in which you wrap yourselves, you dissemblers, you false-faced, false-hearted men! On your features of brutality and violence you wear a benignant, canting mask, you assume a candid, astonished look, and turn round to the neutrals, to Europe, to all civilised powers, saying: "We are charged with evil deeds! Look if it is like us?" You resemble the woman of whom the Bible says: "She wipes her mouth, and says: I have done no harm." You reject with a shrug of your shoulders those of your actions which might make you uneasy. Your accommodating consciences do away with them, and they immediately fall into oblivion. But we are sure to remember what you forget. You have shown yourselves openly, and we know your real faces only too well, their unrelenting harshness, their falseness, their incomprehension, and in your double face we spit out the horror and scorn you rouse in us. And yet we admire you. Your presence was attended with murder, fire, acts of violence and plunder; you have displayed a powerful, splendid, hideous bestiality, and it is that bestiality which we admire in you. Do not reject the title of Barbarians. It is the only one that suits you. You might have been fine Barbarians, but for a long time to come you will be only shabby civilised men. I had rather see you stand on a pedestal, and hear you shout, exaggerating your misdeeds, overstraining your cruelty, your vices, your animality: "Yes, we are Barbarians! and then?" Thus you might have been great, and since you are strong, since you know how to fight, you would have been like a hero who defends himself as he is, and not like a little girl about to be whipped, who tries to deny her fault, and weeps. Believe me, you will cut no figure in history as saints. Where your horses have trodden, the grass will not spring up again for long. So make up your minds, unmask yourselves, and cry out: "We are _the_ Barbarians!"