He warned others not to bring down upon themselves a like vengeance.
As those being led to spend the night in the fields looked across to those marked for death they saw old friends, neighbors of long standing, men of their own household.

The officer bellowing at them from the cart was illuminated by the headlights of an automobile.

He looked like an actor held in a spotlight on a darkened stage.
It was all like a scene upon the stage, unreal, inhuman.

You felt it could not be true.

You felt that the curtain of fire, purring and crackling and sending up hot sparks to meet the kind, calm stars, was only a painted backdrop; that the reports of rifles from the dark ruins came from blank cartridges, and that these trembling shopkeepers and peasants ringed in bayonets would not in a few minutes really die, but that they themselves and their homes would be restored to their wives and children.
You felt it was only a nightmare, cruel and uncivilized.