"The boy was down and out," said Brand. "What could I say? It is one of those miseries for which there is no cure. He began to talk about his sister when they had been together at home, in Paris, before the war. She had been so gay, so comradely, so full of adventure. Then he began to curse God for having allowed so much cruelty and men for being such devils. He cursed the Germans, but then, in most frightful language, most bitterly of all he cursed the people of Lille for having tortured a woman who had been starved into weakness, and had sinned to save her life. He contradicted himself then, violently, and said 'It was no sin. My sister was a loyal girl to France. In her soul she was loyal. So she swore to me on her crucifix. I would have killed her if she had been disloyal.'. . . So there you are! Pierre Nesle is broken on the wheel of war, like so many others. What's the cure?"
"None," I said, "for his generation. One can't undo the things that are done."
Brand was pacing up and down his bedroom, where he had been telling me these things, and now, at my words, he stopped and stared at me before answering.
"No. I think you're right. This generation has been hard-hit, and we shall go about with unhealed wounds. But the next generation?. . . Let's try to save it from all this horror! If the world will only understand"
The next day we left Verviers, and crossed the German frontier on the way to the Rhine.
