room were, and that they were going to have meat and noodle
soup for dinner.

No Frenchman, Englishman, or American could be taught, let alone achieve
of his own free will, the utter self-forgetfulness with which this vast
creature, every muscle tense, breathing like a race-horse, roared, or
rather exploded: "Herr Hauptmann! Mannschafts-Kuche-desten-Landwehr-
Regiments! Belegt-mit-einem-Unter-offizier-und-zehn-Mann! Wir essen
heute Suppe mit Nudeln und Fleisch! Zu Befehl!"

He had stepped down a century and a half from the grenadiers of the
Great Frederic, and even our hosts may have smiled. It was different
with the soldiers' salute, or the ordinary coming to attention, which we
saw repeated scores of times a day. Whatever men might be doing,
however awkward or inconvenient it might be, whether any one saw them or
not, they stopped short at the sight of these long, gray-blue coats and
stiffened, chin up, eyes on their superior, hands at their sides. If
they were talking, they became silent; if laughing, their faces smoothed
out, and into their eyes came an expression which, when you have seen it
repeated hundreds of times, you will not forget. It is a look of
seriousness, self-forgetfulness, of almost religious devotion, not to
the individual, but to the idea for which he stands. I saw a soldier
half-dressed, through a barracks window under which we passed, sending
after his officer, who did not even see him, that same look, the look of
a man who has just volunteered to charge the enemy's trench, or who sees
nothing absurd in saying the Germans fear God and nothing else in the
world!

One seemed to see the soul of Germany, at least of this "great time," in
these men's eyes. The Belgian soul we did not see much of, but there
came glimpses of it now and then.

In Antwerp we stopped in a little cafe for a cup of chocolate. It was a
raw, cheerless morning, with occasional snowflakes whipping by on the
damp north wind, the streets were all but deserted, and in the room that
used to be full of smoke and talk there were only empty tables, and you
could see your breath.

A man was scrubbing behind the bar, and a pale girl in black came out
from behind the cashier's counter to make our chocolate. It was good
chocolate, as Antwerp chocolate is likely to be, and as we were getting
ready to go out again I asked her how things were. She glanced around
the room and answered that they used to have a good business here,