Paths of Glory by Irvin S. Cobb — Read

As we went along next day through the town of Maubeuge we heard singing; / and singing was a most rare thing to be hearing in this town. In a / country where no one smiles any more who belongs in that country, / singing is not a thing which you would naturally expect to hear. So we / turned off of our appointed route.

There was a small wine shop at the prow of a triangle of narrow streets. / It had been a wine shop. It was now a beer shop. There had been a / French proprietor; he had a German partner now. It had been only a few / weeks -- you could not as yet measure the interval of time in terms of / months -- since the Germans came and sat themselves down before Maubeuge / and blew its defenses flat with their 42-centimeter earthquakes and / marched in and took it. It had been only these few weeks; but already / the Germanizing brand of the conqueror was seared deep in the galled / flanks of this typically French community. The town-hall clock was made / to tick German time, which varied by an even hour from French time. / Tacked upon the door of the little cafe where we ate our meals was a / card setting forth, with painful German particularity, the tariff which / might properly be charged for food and for lodging and drink and what / not; and it was done in German-Gothic script, all very angular and / precise; and it was signed by His Excellency, the German commandant; and / its prices were predicated on German logic and the estimated depth of a / German wallet. You might read a newspaper printed in German characters, / if so minded; but none printed in French, whether so minded or not.