r 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!" Then a series of toasts began,
toasts worthy of the lowest soldiers and of drunkards, mingled with
filthy 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!" Thereupon Lieutenant Otto, who was a species of bear from the
Black Forest, jumped up, inflamed and saturated with drink, and seized
by an access of alcoholic patriotism, 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 knees, 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 revolver
bullets, and then he began to laugh: "Ah! yes, talk about them, my
dear! Should we be here now, if they were brave?" Then 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 repeated: "France and the
French, the woods, the fields, and the houses of France belong to us!"

The others, who were quite drunk, and who were suddenly seized by
military enthusiasm, the enthusiasm of brutes, seized their glasses,
and shouting, "Long live Prussia!" emptied them at a draught.

The girls did not protest, for they were reduced to silenc