The Dark Star

Neeland had undressed, bathed his somewhat battered body, and had then

thrown himself on the bed, fully intending to rise in a few moments

and await breakfast.

But it was a very weary young man who stretched himself out for ten

minutes' repose. And, when again he unclosed his eyes, the austere

clock on the mantel informed him that it was five--not five in the

morning either.

He had slept through the first day of general mobilisation.

Across the lowered latticed blinds late afternoon sunshine struck red.

The crests of the chestnut trees in the rue Soleil d'Or had turned

rosy; and a delicate mauve sky, so characteristic of Paris in early

autumn, already stretched above the city like a frail tent of silk

from which fragile cobweb clouds hung, tinted with saffron and palest

rose.

Hoisting the latteen shades, he looked out through lace curtains into

the most silent city he had ever beheld. Not that the streets and

avenues were deserted: they swarmed with hurrying, silent people and

with taxicabs.

Never had he seen so many taxicabs; they streamed by everywhere,

rushing at high speed. They passed through the rue Soleil d'Or; the

rue de la Lune fairly whizzed with them; the splendid avenue was

merely a vista of flying taxis; and in every one of them there was a

soldier.

Otherwise, except for cyclists, there seemed to be very few soldiers

in Paris--an odd fact immediately noticeable.

Also there were no omnibuses to be seen, no private automobiles, no

electric vehicles of any sort except great grey army trucks trundling

by with a sapper at the wheel.

And, except for the whiz and rush of the motors and the melancholy

siren blasts from their horns, an immense silence reigned in the

streets.

There was no laughter to be heard, no loud calling, no gay and

animated badinage. People who met and stopped conversed in undertones;

gestures were sober and rare.

And everywhere, in the intense stillness, Red Cross flags hung

motionless in the late afternoon sunshine; everywhere were posted

notices warning the Republic of general mobilisation--on dead walls,

on tree-boxes, on kiosques, on bulletin boards, on the façades of

public and ecclesiastical buildings.

Another ordinance which Neeland could read from where he stood at the

window warned all citizens from the streets after eight o'clock in the

evening; and on the closed iron shutters of every shop in sight of his

window were pasted white strips of paper bearing, in black letters,

the same explanation: "Fermé à cause de la mobilisation."

Nowhere could he see the word "war" printed or otherwise displayed.

The conspiracy of silence concerning it seemed the more ominous.