accustomed to lies and snares that it would probably take days to
persuade them that they were actually safe home in France.

As the battle-song for which they had suffered shook the air their
lips rustled like leaves. There was hardly any sound--only a hoarse
whisper. Then, all of a sudden, words came--an inarticulate, sobbing
commotion. Tears blinded the eyes of every spectator, even those who
had witnessed similar scenes often; we were crying because the singing
was so little human.

"Vive la France! Vive la France!" They waved flags--not the
tri-colour, but flags which had been given them in Switzerland. They
clung together dazed, women with slatternly dresses, children with
peaked faces, men unhappy and unshaven. A woman caught sight of my
uniform. "Vive l'Angleterre," she cried, and they all came stumbling
forward to embrace me. It was horrible. They creaked like automatons.
They gestured and mouthed, but the soul had been crushed out of their
eyes. You don't need any proofs of Hun atrocities; the proofs are to
be seen at Evian. There are no severed hands, no crucified bodies;
only hearts that have been mutilated. Sorrow is at its saddest when
it cannot even contrive to appear dignified. There is no dignity
about the repatriés at Evian, with their absurd umbrellas, sauce-pans,
patched-boots, alarm-clocks and bird-cages. They do not appeal to one
as sacrificed patriots. There is no nobility in their vacant stare.
They create a cold feeling of bodily decay--only it is the spirit that
is dead and gangrenous.

There is a blasphemous story by Leonid Andreyev, which recounts the
bitterness of the after years of Lazarus and the mischief Christ
wrought in recalling him from the grave. After his unnatural return