drawn up in line beyond the bridge, and were told to wait.

The gentle April twilight had already enveloped the brow of the slopes, and the lower red-brick front looking into the ditch lay hidden in the gathering darkness as if in ambuscade. French prisoners were bunched round the windows. With laughing faces they defied the commandant, stiff and dapper, doing sentry-go on the glacis. Under his very nose they began to hum the Russian national them. But the Russians did not come. The great black gate, buttressed between the mossy walls of the counterscarp, starred with anemone and colt's-foot, remained obstinately shut. Impatience grew. At length the outer sentry whistled, the Hauptmann went forward, and the gate opened.

an

The distribution of the convoy was effected in the Prussian manner. Each headman went to take delivery of his Russians outside, behind the gate, and conducted the supplementary squad to his casemate. This took half an

The

hour. In Indian file, following their French corporal or sergeant, they went along at a quick step, but noiselessly in their supple jack-boots; they were muffled in huge gray overcoats, and their size was increased by enormous fur caps. Night fell. dead color of their uniforms melted away in the darkness. The silence was absolute. Pale Scythian faces, flat-nosed Tatar faces, Asiátic types with wide cheek-bones, Samoyed beards, downy and curled-all the Russians were passing. We looked on. When they had crossed the bridge the fort swallowed them.

In the interior, to the scandal of our

masters, French rule prevailed. Notwithstanding the order confining us to our rooms, the "Frantsuz" crowded to the thresholds to greet the "little fathers."

"Good day, Russkis!" they cried, regardless of the Boches. "Germania kaput!" They made roguish gestures indicating freedom.

The Russians got on little faster in the corridors of Fort Orff than in the attack upon Lowicz, where their advance was obstructed by barbed wire. Every door was an ambush, every Frenchman an obstacle. Cigars and cakes rained upon them. And then the hand-shakings and the amicable clappings on the shoulder!

The little fathers had had nothing to eat since the previous day. The quartermaster served them out a morsel of cheese, but no bread.

"Germania niet hleb" ("There is no bread in Germany"), said the Russians. "Ja, nichts Brot," rejoined the French in their bad German; "but France Brot, plenty Brot." Thus communicating with their friends in nigger talk, they emptied their haversacks before the men.

The Germans laughed on the wrong side of their mouths. They had expected war; what they saw was love.

Until nine o'clock the turmoil was incredible. Every room was treating its new recruits. The poorer rooms offered crusts of white bread baked in Saintonge, or lower Brittany. In the well-to-do quarters the men brewed chocolate and served it with rusks. Since in my room, that of the interpreters, there were no Russians, I went to Casemate 16, the casemate of Corporal Dumoulin, my comrade-at-arms. Dinner was finished. Seated on their paillasses, doubled over, our allies were digesting the good things sent by French mothers. Near the window. a hair-dresser was already dealing with the great mops of hair.

"You see," said Dumoulin, "I want to smarten them up. But how pious and ceremonious they are! Of course we divided our food with them. They all kissed my hand. Then they took off their caps, said their prayers, and fed. After that they got up, said their prayers again, and kissed my hand once more. But what have you got there?"

"I have no Russians, so I shall adopt yours.

But unfortunately they have al

ready dined."

"Don't bother about that; they will dine ten times over this evening."

It was my turn to be embraced. Gingerbread, Easter eggs, jam, petitbeurre biscuits, dates, cigarettes-I was kissed between each course. One of the Russians, a hairy corporal, a thick-set man with dog-like eyes, was not satisfied with my hand, but kissed me on the lips. I suppose it is the custom of the country. Some of them overwhelmed me with profound genuflexions, as if I had been the white elephant.

Throughout the evening there was an intoxication of generosity. Thrifty men at ordinary times, the French now gave all they had. The huge, round loaves kneaded in the family kneading-trough and baked in the village oven, the apples and

nuts of the last harvest, old saus spiced with garlic and thyme, everyth even the "surprises" secretly prepared the maman for her boy in captivit everything was handed over. L Stéphanus of St.-Denis, who has lost hearing through a wound in the h and who, being an orphan, would rec nothing from France were it not for and Mme. Weiss, had only his fifth loaf of potato bread. He gave it. comrades from the invaded regions, have to live on the provisions of t "adopted brothers," were greatly distre that they had nothing to share but t poverty.

sane.

pr

But if charity was lively, gaiety was The little fathers were stupe with astonishment. They looked upor as legendary bariny (seigniors), as C suses flowing with milk and honey magicians proof against misfortune, to make the desert, and even the pavement, blossom like the rose. Wh change for them! They had been serfs of the Boche sergeants in the L feld camp, their backs were still smar from the canings administered to reve the loss of Przemysl, and from this were suddenly transported to bec guests at the feast of the parable!

wildered and

mute, ignorant of our language, as we were ignorant of theirs, and having no other means of showing us their gratitude, they kissed us in season and out, and they prostrated themselves before us as before their own icons. You may have heard of Graby, one of the two famous comic cyclists known in Paris, and indeed throughout Europe, under the name of the Brothers Abbins. In Dumoulin's room I was being melted almost to tears under the Russian kisses, when Graby bursts open the door, and, quite out of breath, exclaimed:

"Riou, old chap, my Slav poilus are making ready to dance. I invite you to the party.' He dragged me off. His

casemate is at the other end of the fort. On the way he explained that he has discovered a sort of interpreter, a Pole who has been in New York, and who knows a few words of English. "You'll see, now we 're going to have high jinks to-night."

There are indeed high jinks. An assemblage of kepis and fur caps beneath a huge candelabra, improvised by the hosts, and ornamented with aëroplanes and flags cut out of paper. A horrible menagerie odor fills the room. The banquet is over. Tea is being handed round in old tins. Graby, looking even more like street Arab than usual, is doing the honors, assisted by big Ménard, erect, smart, as clean shaven as a British guardsman, and with the suspicion of an English accent. Prompted by Abbins, the Pole introduces me as a French writer familiar with Russian authors.

"Friends!" "Friends!" "Comrades!" "Sayousniki!"

"Bravo!" "Hurrah!"

More tea, more cigarettes. We ask for the Russian national anthem. You know it. It seems to me as heavy as a convict's fetters. To relieve my ears, I demand the "Marseillaise." Boude sings the couplets, and we take up the chorus. The swing of it, the decision, the thrill, as of a victorious charge, astonish the Russians. My neighbor the Pole weeps.

"You are crying?" I say to him in English.

"You can't understand," he makes answer. "That air represents liberty. You possess it; you don't know the value of it. We dream of it." His debased English comes interspersed with Polish phrases that ring with a sort of Latin sweetness. "Don't you know that we are slaves?"

"This war will free you."

"You think so? We have fought well enough. My comrades stood firm when they were being mown down before Lowicz. Yes, we have fought fiercely for the czar even while feeling that his victory would serve only to make our chains heavier. Poor Poland! Poor Poland!"

Around us the others are enjoying themselves like brothers reunited. Graby is begging Ménard to sing the American "Row! Row! Row!" I long to take my companion out on to the slopes, and there, amid the silence, to let him talk at length, to listen, and to make him feel that I share his dreams, that France is the friend of every nation that yearns for freedom.

NEXT day the Bavarians of the guard could hardly believe their eyes. In the courts, in the ditches, everywhere, among basins and heaps of underclothing, quite a tribe of naked little fathers were glistening in the sunshine. How thin they were! To what skeletons they had been reduced by two months in Germany! Smiling, making awkward little gestures, each one of them allowed himself to be manipulated by a Frenchman, who soaped him. all over, rubbed him down, pummeled him,

dried him, and finally dressed him as a French infantryman. "Now, then, we must wash your duds. Come along." And the French mama led his great little Slav to the well, helped him to pump some water, arranged him a bench. Then both set to work and scrubbed.

In the evening, when the roll was called, the Hauptmann exclaimed:

"But where on earth are the Russians?"

"There they are," answered Junot, sergeant-major of Casemate 46.

"But what is the meaning of this masquerade?"

"Mon commandant, their clothes are drying on the slopes, and you see they could not attend muster in a loin-cloth."

These first days were pleasant. It was good to make friends. To share without thought of the morrow, to live without calculation, to act solely as the heart dictated-it was like paradise. Even the veterans of Manchuria and the Afghanistan campaigns, with all their tinsmith's shop of commemorative medals and their grizzled heads, even the sergeants with three stripes, had become our little

brothers.

EVERY evening the French and the Russians walk arm in arm on the slopes. In less than no time a conventional language has sprung into being. It does not lead very far. No matter. When the mimic When the mimic vocabulary is exhausted, the friends walk side by side in silence. But if a Bavarian sentry passes, the conversation is resumed, the same things being emphatically repeated; they clap one another on the back, they exchange head-gear, kepi for toque, fatigue-cap for its Russian equivalent. After a few days the Russian buttons, stamped with the two-headed eagle, had found their way to our coats, while the French grenade buttons were displayed upon the huge, earth-colored Russian cloaks. Tatar feet were incased in French army shoes, while red trousers were tucked into the supple boots of Ukraine leather. Early Christian communism prevailed. Every one dressed as he fancied, mixing

brilliant gray-green, embroidered in black at the collar and wristbands, was his great triumph.

Gradually the little fathers came to understand that they must not kiss our hands, and that genuflexions were by no means to our taste. It must be admitted that they found this repugnance somewhat troublesome-the repugnance of men who make a cult of equality. They love direct demonstrations. They are near to the days of the "Iliad," fond of physical endearments, like children and the early Greeks, and a trifle fawning. But so winsomely! Besides, they had to show us their gratitude. If instead of the forbidden gestures they made us an oration, we raised our hands to heaven, saying, "Nye ponimayu" ("I don't understand"); what were they to do? Yesterday one of them, in despair, threw himself upon the ground, kissing my footsteps in a transport of delight. Impatiently I seized him, and dragged him to his feet rather roughly. You should have seen him, awkward, speechless. speechless. His silence seemed to say: "Why do you forbid me to embrace you, to kiss the dust beneath your feet? Do you not care for my gratitude?"

It was thus that they reasoned within themselves, timid and embarrassed, when we repelled their embraces. Then, struck with a sudden idea, they took the brooms from our hands, they seized the shoes that we were polishing, they ran to fetch water for us. They did all our work for us. Soon it was impossible for the Frenchmen

to find any occupation for their hands. In the dark corridor leading to the great well, where the prisoners have to wait in a long queue for their turn, shouldering pitchers stamped with blue lozenges, one now saw none but Russians; in the kitchens, when the potatoes were being peeled, none but Russians; in the corner of the courts where the laundrymen install buckets and tables, none but Russians. We had to take severe measures, and to insist that France should take a hand in all the hard work.

But amid this fine zeal the Moslem Tatars take their ease on their paillasses, quiet and blissful. Let others perform all the arduous tasks. Christians and Jews can scour the cement floors of the casemates, shake the rugs, fold up the bedding, carry the Kartoffelbrot1 from the tumbrel to the store-room. Impassive, crushing you by the glassy immobility of their introspective gaze, as indolent as mandarins, whom they resemble in their yellow tint, their wide cheek-bones, and their fine, shining mustaches, it seems as if the prophet had furnished them with an opiate against all the accidents of life. Nothing moves them. They ask for nothing. They never share anything. They never pray. Do them a service, give them something from your own narrow resources, they take it all as a matter of course. • Some of them have two or three wives. Without a sign of tenderness, they show you the portraits of these wives, fraternizing in a single photograph. scarcity, cold, heat, a concourse, solitude, war, exile-everything is alike to them. Life breaks impotently against the bovine torpor of their fatalism.

Plenty,

But when the Christian Russians say their morning prayer, standing bareheaded, multiplying triple signs of the cross, kissing the Testament, and abasing themselves before the little painted icon. in a glass case fixed to the wall above their paillasse, it sometimes happens that the inhuman eyes of the Moslems blaze. They utter a raucous cry, "Your Lord Jesus Christ he 's no good." Thereupon

1 Potato bread.

the devotees break off their paternosters, and attack the scoffers with foot or with fist in order to avenge the insult to their deity.

In Casemate 34 there are ten Frenchmen, twelve Russians, and one Jew. Thin, sickly, with a stoop, a sallow complexion, a timid and plaintive expression, this Jew is the most unobtrusive of men. He seems afraid of taking up too much room. When spoken to he is abashed and stammers. He never asks for anything. He is always content. If you merely smile at him, he looks at you humbly, with a dumb, gentle gratitude.

As he knows some German, I have been able to talk to him. He is a good little soul, peaceful and inoffensive, rather dullwitted. He contemplates the knout and the pogroms without indignation, accepting them as a farmer accepts hail. The only pleasure he knows is the negative one of being left unnoticed, but this pleasure he welcomes as a wonderful act of grace. In a word, he is one of the humble of heart to whom the Rabbi rejected of the rabbis has promised the kingdom of heaven.

One day, when I was bringing him an orange, his compatriots leaped upon me from their paillasses, surrounding me and restraining me by force from approaching the Jew, pointing him out with a gesture of disgust, as if to preserve me from a horrible contagion.

"Jew! Jew!" they cried with flashing

eyes.

They were all speaking at once, so that I was bewildered by their volubility and their passionate gesticulations. Desiring to clear up the difficulty, I sought an interpreter, and as soon as we returned, the cries were redoubled.

"What are they all saying?" I demanded of Issajoff, the interpreter. "Why are they holding me back like this?" Issajoff smiled.

"Here is something," he said, "which wins me over to France. You 're astonished that these Russians prevent you giving help to a Jew, that they insist on assuring you that he is a Jew. To them it seems self-evident that as soon as you