The brutality of the soldiers, their deliberate, nasty dirtiness during the first two years of the War seemed due rather to their officers’ orders than to an anti-human disposition of their own.  Many of the soldiers in Belgium, in Brussels, turned round—­so to speak—­and conceived a horror of what they had done, of what they had been told to do.  Men who on the instigation of their officers—­and these last, especially the Prussians, seemed fiends incarnate—­had offered violence to young Belgian women, ended by offering to marry them, even showed themselves kind husbands, only too willing to become domesticated, groaning at having to leave their temporary homes and return to the terrible fighting on the Yser or in France.

There were, for example, the soldiers stationed at the Villa Beau-sejour and at the Oudekens’ farm.  Vivie had a growing desire to find out what had happened to her mother’s property.  One day, late in February, 1918, when there was a premature breath and feeling of Spring in the air, she called on her friend—­as he had become—­the Directeur of the Prison of Saint-Gilles, and asked him—­since she herself could not deign to ask any favour or concession of the German authorities—­to obtain for her a permit to proceed to Tervueren, the railway service between Brussels and that place having been reopened.  She walked over—­with what reminiscences the roads and paths were filled—­to the Villa, and showing her pass was received, not uncivilly, by the sergeant-major in charge.  Fortunately the officers had all gone, voting it very dull, with Brussels so near and yet so far.  After their departure the sergeant-major and his reduced guard of men had begun to make the place more homelike.  The usual German thrift had shown itself.  They had reassembled the remains of Mrs. Warren’s herd of cows.  These had calves and were giving milk.  There were once more the beginnings of a poultry yard.  The rooms had been cleaned at any rate of their unspeakable filth, though the dilapidations and the ruined furniture made tears of vexation stand in Vivie’s eyes.  However she kept her temper and told the sergeant that it was her property now; that she intended to reclaim it at the end of the War, and that if he saw to it that the place was handed back to her with no further damage, she would take care that he was duly rewarded; and as an instalment she gave him a good tip.  He replied with a laugh and a shrug “That may well come about.” ("Das koennte wohl geschehen.”)

He had already heard of the Englaenderin whom the Kommandantur was afraid to touch, and opened his heart to her; even offering to prepare her a little meal in her own salle a manger.  With what strange sensations she sat down to it.  The sergeant as he brought in the oeufs au plat said the soldiers were already sick of the War.  Most wanted to go back to Germany, but a few were so much in love with Belgium that they hoped they might be allowed to settle down there; especially those who spoke Platt-deutsch, to whom Flemish came so easy.