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IN THE REAR OF THE FOURTH ARMY 159
Von Behr sang Schumann, Wagner, and Richard Strauss to
von Eichstedt’s accompaniment, and the rest of us sat silent
hke statues and Ustened. And while the soft sounds of the
music were lulhng my senses, my thoughts began to wander
and I wondered what kind of man it was who, only a month
ago, lived in this house and had so lovingly adorned the
walls of his drawing-room with portraits of his wife and
children. Then came a day when he had to leave his home
in haste, to join the army himself and to carry his family
into safety. And now his house has become the home of others.
It is usually considered bad taste to examine too closely
another man’s furniture. But the war sweeps away all
conventions, and I cannot take my eyes off the objects sur-
rounding me, not on their own account, but because one has a
feeling as if the owner and his family were haunting the room
and as if one heard their voices in the sharp tick of the clock
on the mantelpiece. Their eyes have fallen daily on the
expensive bureau between the windows, their feet have trod
the carpet, and they have sat at that very writing-table and
entrusted their fears and hopes to note-paper and envelope,
whilst the chandelier had shed its light upon them until the
last night before they departed in hurried flight. Why did this
unfortunate war come to disturb their peaceful life ? Was it
necessary for the welfare of France ?
Above the writing-table hangs a war painting by Détaille,
and from its shelf stares, gloomy and dark, a bronze bust of
Bonaparte—not the Emperor, but the victorious General
of the Italian war of 1796. A legendary glamour hovers around
this image, whose look seems to be strangely penetrating
into every corner of the room. However attentively I listened
to the song and music and whatever else might attract my
attention, my eyes always travelled back to the bronze figure
on the writing-table. If it were alive and could talk ! What
would the Emperor say to the French ? " The Prussians
hated me ; they had a right to do so as my hand had been
heavy upon them. But England was my enemy as she was
that of France. And Russia assisted her with forces the
strength of which I did not realise until it was too late."
Who is host and who is guest in this house ? I feel that
I am the guest of my German friends as far as we are not all
guests—I in a double measure—in the Frenchman’s house.
For I presume it is, after all, the owner who is the host. Yet,
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