"Dites, donc!" said Hélène, who was sitting on the hearthrug looking up at his powerful profile, which reminded me always of a Norman knight, or, sometimes, of a young monk worried about his soul and the Devil.
He had that monkish look now when he answered.
"I don't know," he said. "I have felt like that often. But I have come to think that the sooner we get blood out of our eyes the better for all the world. I have seen enough dead Germans—and dead English and dead French—to last a lifetime. Many of the German soldiers hate the war, as I know, and curse the men who drove them on to it. They are trapped. They cannot escape from the thing they curse, because of their discipline, their patriotism"
"Their patriotism!" said Madame Chéri.
She was really angry with Brand, and I noticed that even Hélène drew back a little from her place on the rug and looked perplexed and disappointed. Madame Chéri ridiculed the idea of German patriotism. They were brutes who liked war except when they feared defeat. They had committed a thousand atrocities out of sheer joy in bestial cruelty. Their idea of patriotism was blood-*lust and the oppression of people more civilised than themselves. They hated all people who were not savages like themselves.
Wickham Brand shook his head.
"They're not all as bad as that. I knew decent people among them before the war. For a time, of course, they went mad. They were poisoned by the damnable philosophy of their leaders and teachers."
"They liked the poison," said Madame Chéri. "They lapped it up. It is in their blood and spirits. They are foul through and through."
"They are devils," said Hélène. She shuddered as though she felt very cold.
