Their reception was surly; the place was little else
than a barrack of disorderly soldiers and insolent officers. Any
search for clothes or books was a mockery. Nothing was to be found
in the chests of drawers that belonged to them; only stale food and
unnameable horrors or military equipment articles. The garden was
trampled out of recognition. There had been a beautiful vine in the
greenhouse. It was still there, but the first foliage of spring hung
withered and russet coloured. The soldiers, grinning when Vivie
noticed this, pointed to the base of the far spreading branches. It
had been sawn through, and much of the glass of the greenhouse
deliberately smashed.
On their way back, Mrs. Warren, who was constantly in tears,
descried waiting by the side of the road the widow of their
farmer-neighbour, Madame Oudekens. She asked the orderly that they
might stop and greet her. She approached. Mrs. Warren got out of the
car so that she might more privately talk to her in Flemish. Since
her husband's execution, the woman said, she had had to become the
mistress of the sergeant-major who resided with her as the only
means, seemingly, of saving her one remaining young son from exile
in Germany and her daughters from unbearably brutal treatment;
though she added, "As to their virtue, _that_ has long since
vanished; all I ask is that they be not half-killed whenever the
soldiers get drunk.
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