been dead. When they were saying, "Give us this day our daily
bread" they were thinking, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,"
if ever their turn came.

A satirist might have repeated the apochryphal naïveté of Marie
Antoinette, who asked why the people wanted bread when they could
buy such nice cakes for a sou! For all the pâtisserie shops were
open. Brussels is famous for its French pastry. With a store of
preserves, why shouldn't the bakeshops go on making tarts with
heavy crusts of the brown flour, when war had not robbed the bakers
of their art? It gave work to them; it helped the shops to keep open
and make a show of normality. But I noticed that they were doing little
business. Stocks were small and bravely displayed. Only the rich
could afford such luxuries, which in ordinary times were what ice-
cream cones are to us. Even the jewellery shops were open, with
diamond rings flashing in the windows.

"You must pay rent; you don't want to discharge your employees,"
said a jeweller. "There is no place to go except your shop. If you
closed it would look as if you were afraid of the Germans. It would
make you blue and the people in the street blue. One tries to go
through the motions of normal existence, anyway. But, of course, you
don't sell anything. This week I have repaired a locket which carried
the portrait of a soldier at the front and I've put a mainspring in a
watch. I'll warrant that is more than some of my competitors have
done."

Swing around the circle in Brussels of a winter's morning and look at
the only crowds that the Germans allow to gather, and any doubt that
Belgium would have gone hungry if she had not received provisions