The Pretty Lady | Page 6

In fact,
one might say that he carried generosity in details to excess. But
naturally with Americans it was necessary to be surprised at nothing.
The rouquin said steadily that war would not break out. He said so until
the day on which it broke out. He then became a Turk. Yes, a Turk. He
assumed rights over her, the rights of protection, but very strange rights.
He would not let her try to return to Paris. He said the Germans might
get to Paris, but to Ostend, never--because of the English! Difficult to
believe, but he had locked her up in the complete flat. The Ostend
season had collapsed--pluff--like that. The hotel staff vanished almost
entirely. One or two old fat Belgian women on the bedroom floors--that
seemed to be all. The rouquin was exquisitely polite, but very firm. In
fine, he was a master. It was astonishing what he did. They were the
sole remaining guests in the Astoria. And they remained because he
refused to permit the management to turn him out. Weeks passed. Yes,
weeks. English forces came to Ostend. Marvellous. Among nations
there was none like the English. She did not see them herself. She was
ill. The rouquin had told her that she was ill when she was not ill, but lo!
the next day she was ill--oh, a long time. The rouquin told her the
news--battle of the Marne and all species of glorious deeds. An old fat
Belgian told her a different kind of news. The stories of the fall of
Liége, Namur, Brussels, Antwerp. The massacres at Aerschot, at
Louvain. Terrible stories that travelled from mouth to mouth among
women. There was always rape and blood and filth mingled. Stories of
a frightful fascination ... unrepeatable! Ah!
The rouquin had informed her one day that the Belgian Government
had come to Ostend. Proof enough, according to him, that Ostend could
not be captured by the Germans! After that he had said nothing about
the Belgian Government for many days. And then one day he had
informed her casually that the Belgian Government was about to leave
Ostend by steamer. But days earlier the old fat woman had told her that
the German staff had ordered seventy-five rooms at the Hôtel des
Postes at Ghent. Seventy-five rooms. And that in the space of a few
hours Ghent had become a city of the dead.... Thousands of refugees in
Ostend. Thousands of escaped virgins. Thousands of wounded soldiers.

Often, the sound of guns all day and all night. And in the daytime
occasionally, a sharp sound, very loud; that meant that a German
aeroplane was over the town--killing ... Plenty to kill. Ostend was
always full, behind the Digue, and yet people were always leaving--by
steamer. Steamers taken by assault. At first there had been formalities,
permits, passports. But when one steamer had been taken by assault--no
more formalities! In trying to board the steamers people were drowned.
They fell into the water and nobody troubled--so said the old woman.
Christine was better; desired to rise. The rouquin said No, not yet. He
would believe naught. And now he believed one thing, and it filled his
mind--that German submarines sank all refugee ships in the North Sea.
Proof of the folly of leaving Ostend. Yet immediately afterwards he
came and told her to get up. That is to say, she had been up for several
days, but not outside. He told her to come away, come away. She had
only summer clothes, and it was mid-October. What a climate, Ostend
in October! The old woman said that thousands of parcels of clothes for
refugees had been sent by generous England. She got a parcel; she had
means of getting it. She opened it with pride in the bedroom of the flat.
It contained eight corsets and a ball-dress. A droll race, all the same,
the English. Had they no imagination? But, no doubt, society women
were the same everywhere. It was notorious that in France....
Christine went forth in her summer clothes. The rouquin had got an old
horse-carriage. He gave her much American money--or, rather,
cheques--which, true enough, she had since cashed with no difficulty in
London. They had to leave the carriage. The station square was full of
guns and women and children and bundles. Yes, together with a few
men. She spent the whole night in the station square with the rouquin,
in her summer clothes and his overcoat. At six o'clock in the evening it
was already dark. A night interminable. Babies crying. One heard that
at the other end of the square a baby had been born. She, Christine, sat
next to a young mother with a baby. Both mother and baby had the
right arm bandaged. They had