Having made the supremest sacrifice they can make, short of
offering up their own lives, they now make another and hide their grief
away from sight. Surely, this war spares none at all--neither those who
fight nor those who stay behind.
Toward dusk the streets will fill up with promenaders. Perhaps a
regiment or so of troops, temporarily quartered here on the way to the
front, will clank by, bound for their barracks in divers big music
halls. The squares may be quite crowded with uniforms; or there may be
only one gray coat in proportion to three or four black ones--this last
is the commoner ratio. It all depends on the movements of the forces.
To-night the cafes will be open and the moving-picture places will run
full blast; and the free concert will go on and there will be services
in the cathedral of Charlemagne. The cafes that had English names when
the war began have German ones now. Thus the Bristol has become the
Crown Prince Cafe, and the Piccadilly is the Germania; but otherwise
they are just as they were before the war started, and the business in
them is quite as good, the residents say, as it ever was.
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