"I don't understand!" he stammered. "Haven't these people any pride? This show of friendliness—what does it mean? I'd rather they scowled and showed their hatred than stand round fawning on us. . . . And our men! They don't seem to bear any malice. Look at that fellow gossiping with those two girls! It's shameful. . . . What have we been fighting for if it ends in this sort of thing? It makes it all a farce!"
He was so disturbed, so unnerved by the shock of his surprise, that there were tears of vexation in his eyes.
I could not argue with him, or explain things to him. I was astonished myself, quite baffled by a German friendliness that was certainly sincere and not a mask hiding either hatred or humiliation. Those people of Malmédy were pleased to see us! As yet I could not get the drift of their psychology, in spite of what the young French-speaking German had told me. I gave Harding the benefit of that talk.
"This is a frontier town," I said. "These people are not real Germans in their sympathies and ideas."
That seemed to comfort Harding a little. He clung on to the thought that when we had got beyond the frontier we should meet the hatred he expected to see. He wanted to meet it. He wanted to see scowling looks, deep humiliation, a shameful recognition of defeat, the evil nature of the people we had been fighting. Otherwise, to him, the war was all a lie. For four years he had been inspired, strengthened, and upheld by hatred of the Germans. He believed not only in every atrocity story that appeared in English newspapers, but also, in accordance with all else he read, that every German was essentially and unutterably vile, brutal, treacherous, and evil. The German people were to him a race apart—the Huns. They had nothing in common with ordinary human nature, with its kindliness and weakness. They
