up
for three months in that wretched hole.

There was a knock at the door, and when the commandant said, "Come in,"
one of the orderlies appeared, and by his mere presence announced that
breakfast was ready. In the dining-room they met three other officers of
lower rank--a lieutenant, Otto von Grossling, and two sub-lieutenants,
Fritz Scheuneberg and Baron von Eyrick, a very short, fair-haired man,
who was proud and brutal toward men, harsh toward prisoners and as
explosive as gunpowder.

Since he had been in France his comrades had called him nothing but
Mademoiselle Fifi. They had given him that nickname on account of his
dandified style and small waist, which looked as if he wore corsets; of
his pale face, on which his budding mustache scarcely showed, and on
account of the habit he had acquired of employing the French expression,
'Fi, fi donc', which he pronounced with a slight whistle when he wished
to express his sovereign contempt for persons or things.

The dining-room of the chateau was a magnificent long room, whose fine
old mirrors, that were cracked by pistol bullets, and whose Flemish
tapestry, which was cut to ribbons, and hanging in rags in places from
sword-cuts, told too well what Mademoiselle Fifi's occupation was during
his spare time.

There were three family portraits on the walls a steel-clad knight, a
cardinal and a judge, who were all smoking long porcelain pipes, which
had been inserted into holes in the canvas, while a lady in a long,
pointed waist proudly exhibited a pair of enormous mustaches, drawn with
charcoal. The officers ate their breakfast almost in silence in that
mutilated room, which looked dull in the rain and melancholy in its
dilapidated condition, although its old oak floor had become as solid as
the stone floor of an inn.

When they had finished eating and were smoking and drinking, they began,
as usual, to berate the dull life they were leading. The bottles of
brandy and of liqueur passed from hand to hand, and all sat back in their
chairs and took repeated sips from their glasses, scarcely removing from
their mouths the long, curved stems, which terminated in china bowls,
painted in a manner to delight a Hottentot.

As soon as their glasses were empty they filled them again, with a
gesture of resigned weariness, but Mademoiselle Fifi emptied his every
minute, and a soldier immediately gave him another. They were enveloped
in a cloud of strong tobacco smoke, and seemed