through fields and patches of woods, and lingered
behind the nearest of the half seen walls.
Then we understood it was the lack of definition that had furnished at first that pleasant deception. The wall against the trees, for instance, became the torn and eyeless front of a factory. Behind it there was nothing, and our hearts sank, for of all the fragments of buildings we could see from that point, the factory was distinctly the largest.
It is the approach of Gerbéviller from the plateau that makes its tragedy insupportable. It has been so far permitted to very few to inspect this record of the German invasion, this monument to the Teutonic campaign of terribleness. To those who have driven down like us from the plateau must have come the thought:
"After all the French have exaggerated. It might have been necessary to bombard the garrison defending the place. And the destruction isn't really as shocking as in Nancy."
Then, as the shrubbery has fallen away, exposing the skeleton, every visitor must have cried as we did:
"But this is incredible! This isn't bombardment. It is systematic and wanton destruction."
"There was no garrison here," the officer said. "When the army retreated at the first shock only
