looking with consternation at those occupying the places of
his wife, children and the Lacours. . . .

They were speaking in German among themselves, but those having a
limited knowledge of French frequently availed themselves of that
language in order that their guest might understand them. Those who
could only mumble a few words, repeated them to an accompaniment of
amiable smiles. All were displaying an amicable desire to propitiate the
owner of the castle.

"You are going to lunch with the barbarians," said the Count, offering
him a seat at his side. "Aren't you afraid that we may eat you alive?"

The Germans burst into roars of laughter at the wit of His Excellency.
They all took great pains to demonstrate by word and manner that
barbarity was wrongly attributed to them by their enemies.

Don Marcelo looked from one to another. The fatigues of war, especially
the forced march of the last days, were very apparent in their persons.
Some were tall and slender with an angular slimness; others were stocky
and corpulent with short neck and head sunk between the shoulders.
These had lost much of their fat in a month's campaign, the wrinkled and
flabby skin hanging in folds in various parts of their bodies. All had
shaved heads, the same as the soldiers. Around the table shone two rows
of cranial spheres, reddish or dark. Their ears stood out grotesquely,
and their jaw bones were in strong relief owing to their thinness. Some
had preserved the upright moustache in the style of the Emperor; the
most of them were shaved or had a stubby tuft like a brush.

A golden bracelet glistened on the wrist of the Count, stretched on
the table. He was the oldest of them all and the only one that kept
his hair, of a frosty red, carefully combed and glistening with pomade.
Although about fifty years old, he still maintained a youthful
vigor cultivated by exercise. Wrinkled, bony and strong, he tried
to dissimulate his uncouthness as a man of battle under a suave and
indolent laziness. The officers treated him with the greatest respect.
Hartrott told his uncle that the Count was a great artist, musician
and poet. The Emperor was his friend; they had known each other from
boyhood. Before the war, certain scandals concerning his private
life had exiled him from Court--mere lampoons of the socialists and
scandal-mongers. The Kaiser had always kept a secret affection for
his former chum. Everybody remembered his dance, "The Caprices of
Sc