ir old fire. If the theme of war slipped in it was discussed with an
intellectual contempt, and loose-lipped old men found a frightful mirth
in the cut-throat exploits of Moroccans and Senegalese, in the bestial
orgies of drunken Boches, and in the most revolting horrors of
bayonet charges and the corps-a-corps. It was as though they
wanted to reveal the savagery of war to the last indescribable
madness of its lust. "Pah!" said an old cabotin, after one of these
word-pictures. "This war is the last spasm of the world's barbarity.
Human nature will finish with it this time. . . . Let us talk of the women
we have loved. I knew a splendid creature once--she had golden hair,
I remember--"

One of these shabby old gentlemen touched me on the arm.

"Would Monsieur care to have a little music? It is quite close here,
and very beautiful. It helps one to forget the war, and all its misery."

I accepted the invitation. I was more thirsty for music than for vin
ordinaire or cordiale Medoc. Yet I did not expect very much round the
corner of a restaurant frequented by shabby intellectuals... That was
my English stupidity.

A little group of us went through a dark courtyard lit by a high dim
lantern, touching a sculptured figure in a far recess.

"Pas de bruit," whispered a voice through the gloom.

Up four flights of wooden stairs we came to the door of a flat which
was opened by a bearded man holding a lamp.

"Soyez les bienvenus!" he said, with a strongly foreign accent.

It was queer, the contrast between the beauty of his salon into which
we went and the crudeness of the restaurant from which we had
come. It was a long room, with black wall-paper, and at the far end of
it was a shaded lamp on a grand piano. There was no other light, and
the faces of the people in the room, the head of a Greek god on a
pedestal, some little sculptured figures on an oak table, and some
portrait studies on the walls, were dim and vague until my eyes
became accustomed to this yellowish twilight. No word was spoken
as we entered, and took a chair if we could find one. None of the
company here seemed surprised at this entry of strangers--for two of
us were that--or even conscious of it. A tall, clean-shaven young man
with a fine, grave face--certainly not French--was playing the violin,
superbly; I could not see the man at the piano who touched the keys
with such tenderness. Opposite me was another young man, with the
curly hair and long, thi