The moment I came within the safe confines of that room the whole attitude of my captor changed.  His mask of friendliness dropped away.  Perhaps his spirit responded and adapted itself to the official atmosphere of the headquarters.  Anyhow, at once he froze up into the most rigid formality.  Sitting down, he wrote out what I deemed was the report of the morning’s proceedings.  I watched him writing with all the semblance and precision of a machine, except for a half-smile that sometimes flickered upon his close-pressed lips.

He was a machine, or, more precisely, a cog in the great fighting machine that was producing death and destruction to Belgium.  Just as the Germans have put men through a certain mold and turned out the typical German soldier, in like manner through other molds they have turned out according to pattern the German secret service man.  He is a kind of spy-destroyer performing in his sphere the same service that the torpedo-boat destroyer does in its domain.  This man was the German reincarnation of Javert, the police inspector who hung so relentlessly upon the flanks of Jean Valjean.  In his stolid silence I read an iron determination to “get” me, and in that flickering smile I saw an inhuman delight in putting the worst construction upon my case as he wrote it down.  Hereafter he shall be known as Javert.

Towards Javert I sustain a very distinct aversion.  This is not the result of any evil twist put into my constitution by original sin.  Quite the contrary.  Hitherto I have always felt that I, like the man in Oscar Wilde’s play, could forgive anybody anything, any time, anywhere.  One can forgive even a hangman for doing his duty, however it may thwart one’s plans.  Some men must play the part of prosecutor and devil’s advocate.

But such was the cold, cynical delight in this fellow’s doing his duty, such was his arrogant, overbearing attitude toward the helpless peasant prisoners, that I know my prayers for the end of the war were not motivated entirely by selfless considerations.  I am hankering to get into the neighborhood of this fellow when he doesn’t hold all the trump cards.  In justice to Javert, I must say that he reciprocated my feeling magnificently, and, inasmuch as he was the cat and I the mouse, and a very small one at that, he probably found much more spiritual satisfaction in the exercise of his feelings than I did in mine.  That is why I was anxious to have the war end and embrace the first opportunity to change our roles.  I yearned to give him his proper place in the sun.

Having completed my case, he demanded my papers, and then bade me open the door.  There was a soldier waiting, and with him ahead and Javert behind, I was escorted into the courtyard.  Here a double-door was opened, and I was thrust into a room filled with a motley collection of persons guarded by a dozen soldiers with rifles ready.

The sight was anything but reassuring.  I turned toward Javert and asked, somewhat frantically, I fear:  “What is all this for?  Aren’t you going to do anything about my case?”