Traffic stopped; and when it stopped civilization fell away from the travelers. That was strange. Take the afternoon of the day war was declared, the date being Aug. 1, in the year of our Lord 1914, and the hour 7:30 P.M., Berlin time. It was the last train that reached the frontier from Paris. Between Delle and Bicourt lies a neutral zone about three kilometers--say, nearly two and a half miles--in extent. On one side France and invasion and terror and war; on the other side of the zone the relative safety of Switzerland. Six hundred passengers poured out of the French train at noon into that neutral zone and started to walk to Swiss safety. A blazing August sun; a road of pebbles and stinging, upblown dust.
The passengers had been permitted to bring on the train only what luggage they could carry; so they were laden with bags and coats, dressing bags and jewel cases--all they had deemed most valuable. Mostly women. German ladies fleeing for refuge; Russian ladies; English, American; and a crowd of men, urgent to reach their armies, German, Swiss, Russian, Austrian, Servian, Italian; withal many of the kind of American men who go to Switzerland in August.
And the caravan started in the dust and heat of a desert. A woman let fall her heavy bag and plodded on. Another threw away her coats. Men shook off their bundles. The heat was stifling. And through the clouds of dust a panic terror crept. It was the antique terror of the God Pan--the God All; it was a fear as immense as the sky.
A woman screamed and began to run, throwing away everything she had safeguarded so she might run with empty hands. A score followed her. Men began to run. They thrust the women aside, cursing; and ran. And for over two miles the road was covered thick with coats and bags, with packages and jewel cases. The greed of possession died out in the causeless fear.
These hoarse, pushing men, these sweating, shameless women had gone back 10,000 years into prehistoric savagery. Lightly they threw away all the baubles and gewgaws civilization had fashioned for adorning and disguising their raw humanity, and the habits of civilization as well.
They had touched but the outermost edge of war, and their very clothes fell off them.