er
scream, for he was seized by a species of ferocity, and tormented by his
desire, to hurt her. He often held her close to him, as if to make her
part of himself, and put his lips in a long kiss on the Jewess's rosy
mouth, until she lost her breath; and at last he bit her until a stream
of blood ran down her chin and onto her bodice.

For the second time, she looked him full in the face, and as she bathed
the wound, she said: "You will have to pay for that!" But he merely
laughed a hard laugh, and said: "I will pay."

At dessert, champagne was served, and the commandant rose, and in the
same voice in which he would have drunk to the health of the Empress
Augusta, he drank: "To our ladies!" And a series of toasts began, toasts
worthy of the lowest soldiers and of drunkards, mingled with obscene
jokes, which were made still more brutal by their ignorance of the
language. They got up, one after another, trying to say something witty,
forcing themselves to be funny, and the women, who were so drunk that
they almost fell off their chairs, with vacant looks and clammy tongues,
applauded madly each time.

The captain, who no doubt wished to impart an appearance of gallantry to
the orgy, raised his glass again, and said: "To our victories over
hearts!" And thereupon Lieutenant Otto, who was a species of bear from
the Black Forest, jumped up, inflamed and saturated with drink, and
suddenly seized by an excess of alcoholic patriotism, he cried: "To our
victories over France!"

Drunk as they were, the women were silent, and Rachel turned round with
a shudder, and said: "Look here, I know some Frenchmen, in whose
presence you would not dare to say that." But the little count, still
holding her on his knee, began to laugh, for the wine had made him very
merry, and said: "Ha! ha! ha! I have never met any of them, myself. As
soon as we show ourselves, they run away!" The girl, who was in a
terrible rage, shouted into his face: "You are lying, you dirty
scoundrel!"

For a moment, he looked at her steadily with his bright eyes upon her,
like he had looked at the portrait before he destroyed it with revolver
bullets, and then he began to laugh: "Ah! yes, talk about them, my dear!
Should we be here now, if they were brave?" And getting excited, he
exclaimed: "We are the masters! France belongs to us!" She jumped off
his knees with a bound, and threw herself into her chair, while he rose,
held out his glass over the table, and repea