only ourselves; and we were very unhappy and unquiet in the
solitude. Almost every window was broken; every wall was chipped;
chunks had been knocked out of walls, and at intervals there was
no wall. One house showed the different paperings of six rooms all
completely exposed to the gaze. The proprietor evidently had a
passion for anthracite stoves; in each of the six fireplaces was an
anthracite stove, and none had fallen. The post office was
shattered.

Then the railway station of Arras! A comparatively new railway
station, built by the Compagnie du Nord in 1898. A rather
impressive railway station. The great paved place in front of it was
pitted with shell-holes of various sizes. A shell had just grazed the
elaborate facade, shaving ornaments and mouldings off it. Every
pane of glass in it was smashed. All the ironwork had a rich brown
rust. The indications for passengers were plainly visible. Here you
must take your ticket; here you must register your baggage; here
you must wait. We could look through the station as through the ribs
of a skeleton. The stillness of it under the rain and under the echoes
of the tireless artillery was horrible. It was the most unnatural,
ghostly, ghastly railway station one could imagine. As within the
station, so on the platforms. All the glass of the shelters for
passengers was broken to little bits; the ironwork thickly encrusted.
The signals were unutterably forlorn in their ruin. And on the lines
themselves rampant vegetation had grown four feet high--a
conquering jungle. The defence of German soil is a mighty and a
far-reaching affair. This was on July 7th, 1915.