Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/322

294 contribute to elevating it in the eyes of the oligarchs. It was composed, for the major part, only of poor devils and vagabonds; of conscripts and paid volunteers. But millionaires brought up in the cult of money recognized no difference between poverty and vagabondage. The army had good reason to think the garrison of Antwerp the most inhospitable. Soldiers sent into these unsympathetic surroundings soon presented a constrained expression. In the street they instinctively effaced themselves and ceded the right of way to the bourgeiosie. They wore, not the uniform of warriors, but the livery of pariahs. Instead of representing an army, of emanating from the patriotism of a people and incarnating the best of its blood and youth, they were conscious of their position of pensioners.

The people of Antwerp confused these soldiers of a neutral country with indigents succored by public charity, with the inhabitants of orphan asylums and almshouses.

And, by a strange anomaly, the prejudice of the bourgeoisie of Antwerp against the soldier blinded the common people, even those who intended serving or had served, and fathers whose sons were or were to become soldiers.

It was no longer a question of class hatred, but of a true incompatability of habits, of an historic hatred that Antwerpians imbibe, as if from a tradition inherent in the air they breathed, or the milk with which they were suckled.

In roadside inns, working women often refused to dance with soldiers. In other lands, in the eyes of the women military uniform lends an irresistible smartness to any gallant; here it is a blot upon the most