DISAPPOINTMENT 265 OH, DEAR! 267 THE RUSSIANS 271 VASSILI 289 THE COMMON PEOPLE OF GERMANY AND THE WAR 291 CROSSING SWITZERLAND 312 THE DIARY OF A FRENCH PRIVATE REMINISCENCES OF A PREVIOUS JOURNEY _September 2, 1914._ Here I am a prisoner. What a journey! I am bitter at soul; it makes me sick to think of it. Across Rhenish Prussia, the Palatinate, the grand duchy of Baden, Würtemberg, and Bavaria, for three days and three nights, at every station, and even as we pass through the countryside, groups of peasants and gloomy crowds of citizens hurl execrations at us, stamp, and shake their fists, making signs that they would like to cut our throats and tear out our eyes. From the streets of country towns, lost amid the sweltering plains, troops of children assemble, waving flags. They form up in line beside the track. When the train comes in, moving slowly like a funeral convoy, they beg for our képis; they vociferate in their own language, “Paris _kaput_! Death to the French!” The sight of the red cross armlet produces paroxysms of fury. “Death,” they scream, “death to the red cross men! These are they who finish off our wounded!” The shouting becomes strident, terrible, mad. Sometimes they try to take the train by storm, and are stopped only by the bayonets of the German soldiers on guard in each compartment, who growl out threats. The women are even more horrible than the men. The murderous glance, the clawed fingers, working and tearing as if in the dream of a tigress, the nostrils dilated and twitching, the lips cyanosed, grimacing hatred—never before have I seen such faces of damned souls, such Medusa heads. Who could believe that women should appear so horrible!… When the train stops for any time, richly dressed matrons parade beside it, offering our guards mugs of beer, cigars and cigarettes, bread-and-butter and jam, steaming sausages. Sick with hunger and fatigue, we look on at this prodigality. “Above all,” they say, “give nothing to these French! Let them starve!” We are offered water. Everywhere, at the stations, from the steeples, the factories, the inns, huge flags are waving. Chime answers chime across the rivers. The big cathedral bells make the hills re-echo. All Germany is holiday-making, drunk with blood, thrilling with the prospect of victory. Is this the Germany I knew last year?