ent he kissed the little black curls on her neck and at another he
pinched her furiously and made her 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 and pressed a long kiss on the Jewess' rosy mouth until she
lost her breath, and at last he bit her until a stream of blood ran down
her chin and on to 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 the other, 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 access of alcoholic patriotism, he cried: "To our
victories over France!"

Drunk as they were, the women were silent, but Rachel turned round,
trembling, and said: "See here, I know some Frenchmen in whose presence
you would not dare 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, as
he had looked at the portrait before he destroyed it with bullets from
his revolver, 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 made one
spring from his knee and threw herself into her chair, while he arose,
h