and said to
myself, "There is nothing surprising in this. There is nothing
surprising in this." Everything had gone dark before my eyes. My heart
seemed to stop beating.

Marie laughed and the sound of her cracking, high-pitched laugh came to
me from far off.

The officer said something to her, and she stopped abruptly as though
some one had clapped a hand over her mouth.

"What did he say?" I managed to articulate. My own language seemed to
have deserted me.

"He says it is a matter for tears, not laughter."

Her voice was sharp and anxious. I was relieved at the spite and vanity
in his words. They made the situation more normal. I felt myself
breathing again, and my stomach began to tremble uncontrollably.

I kept my eyes where they were, fighting for my self-control. So many
terrifying thoughts were trying to penetrate my consciousness. I tried
to shut out everything but my realization of what I was looking at. I
kept my eyes glued on the officer's boots; shiny black boots they were,
that fitted him without a crease, with spurs fastened to the heels. I
shall never forget the stiff, red striped trouser-legs and those shiny
black boots that didn't seem to belong on the body of a living man, but
on the wooden form of some dummy.

Janchu began to cry from the bedroom, and Marie got up to go to him.
Quickly a plain-clothes man with horn-rimmed spectacles slipped in
between her and the door. The officer, who had now seated himself behind
the table, raised his hand.

"Let no one leave the room," he said in German.

"But my baby is crying," Marie began.

"Let him cry!" And he busied himself pulling papers out of his
portfolio.

Soon Janchu, seeing that no one paid any attention to him, toddled in
and climbed into Marie's lap. He sat there sucking his fingers and
looking out at the roomful of strange men.

An army officer entered and spoke to the head of the secret service. He
wore a dazzling, gold-braided uniform, and preened himself before us,
looking at us curiously over his shoulder. When he had gone, the head
told us that we were to have a personal examination in the salon of the
_pension_.

A secret-service man escorted each of us, and we walked down the
corridor, past the squad of soldiers with their bayonets, and into the
salon, where we were delivered into the hands of two women spies. They
undressed us, and we waited while our clothes were passed out to the
secret-service men outside. Panna Lolla t