In a day the last veil of mist that had shrouded his feelings and thoughts, making them numb and sterile, vanished; in a day Hugo found himself—or believed that he had; in a day his life changed and flung itself on the course which, in a measure, destined its fixation. He never forgot that day.

It began in the early morning when the anchor of the freighter thundered into the harbour water. The crew was not given shore leave until noon. Then the mysterious silence of the captain and the change in the ship’s course was explained. Through the third officer he sent a message to the seamen. War had been declared. The seaways were unsafe. The Katrina would remain indefinitely at Marseilles. The men could go ashore. They would report on the following day.

The first announcement of the word sent Hugo’s blood racing. War! What war? With whom? Why? Was America in it, or interested in it? He stepped ashore and hurried into the city. The populace was in feverish excitement. Soldiers were everywhere, as if they had sprung up magically like the seed of the dragon. Hugo walked through street after street in the furious heat. He bought a paper and read the French accounts of mobilizations, of a battle impending. He looked everywhere for some one who could tell him. Twice he approached the American Consulate, but it was jammed with frantic and frightened people who were trying only to get away. Hugo’s ambition, growing in him like a fire, was in the opposite direction. War! And he was Hugo Danner!

He sat at a café toward the middle of the afternoon. He was so excited by the contagion in his veins that he scarcely thrilled at the first use of his new and half-mastered tongue. The garçon hurried to his table.

“De la bière,” Hugo said.

The waiter asked a question which Hugo could not understand, so he repeated his order in the universal language of measurement of a large glass by his hands. The waiter nodded. Hugo took his beer and stared out at the people. They hurried along the sidewalk, brushing the table at which he sat. They called to each other, laughed, cried sometimes, and shook hands over and over. “La guerre” was on every tongue. Old men gestured the directions of battles. Young men, a little more serious perhaps, and often very drunk, were rushing into uniform as order followed order for mobilization. And there were girls, thousands of them, walking with the young men.