e-eminence in the face of all town-planning; a street
leading to the Town Hall; a dark street full of jewellers' shops
and ornamented women and correctness and the triumph of
correctness; a street of the "best" shops, of high rents, of famous
names, of picturesque signs; a street where the wheels of traffic
were continually interlocking, but a street which would not, under
any consideration, have widened itself by a single foot, because its
narrowness was part of its prestige. Well, German gunnery has
brought that street to an end past all resuscitation. It may be rebuilt--
it will never be the same street.

"What's the name of the street?" I asked.

None of the officers in the party could recall the name of the
principal business street in Arras, and there was no citizen within
hail. The very name had gone, like the forms of the houses. I have
since searched for it in guides, encyclopaedias, and plans; but it
has escaped me--withdrawn and lost, for me, in the depths of
history.

The street had suffered, not at all on its own account, but because it
happened to be in the line of fire of the Town Hall. It merely received
some portion of the blessings which were intended for the Town
Hall, but which overshot their mark. The Town Hall (like the
Cathedrals here and at Rheims) had no military interest or value,
but it was the finest thing in Arras, the most loved thing, an
irreplaceable thing; and therefore the Germans made a set at it, as
they made a set at the Cathedrals. It is just as if, having got an aim
on a soldier's baby, they had started to pick off its hands and feet,
saying to the soldier: "Yield, or we will finish your baby." Either the
military ratiocination is thus, or the deed is simple lunacy.

When we had walked round to the front of the Town Hall we were
able to judge to what extent the beautiful building had monopolised
the interest of the Germans. The Town Hall stands at the head of a
magnificent and enormous arcaded square, uniform in architecture,
and no doubt dating from the Spanish occupation. Seeing this
square, and its scarcely smaller sister a little further on, you realise
that indeed you are in a noble city. The square had hardly been
touched by the bombardment. There had been no shells to waste
on the square while the more precious Town Hall had one stone left
upon another. From the lower end of the square, sheltered from the
rain by the arcade, I made a rough sketch of what remains of the