oon we shall join in the
dance."

The possibility of having to give up his quarters here, the most
comfortable that he had found in all the campaign, put His Excellency in
a bad humor.

"War," he sighed, "a glorious life, but dirty and deadening! In an
entire month--to-day is the first that I have lived as a gentleman."

And as though attracted by the luxuries that he might shortly have to
abandon, he rose and went toward the castle. Two of the Germans betook
themselves toward the village, and Desnoyers remained with the other
officer who was delightfully sampling his liquors. He was the chief of
the battalion encamped in the village.

"This is a sad war, Monsieur!" he said in French.

Of all the inimical group, this man was the only one for whom Don
Marcelo felt a vague attraction. "Although a German, he appears a good
sort," meditated the old man, eyeing him carefully. In times of peace,
he must have been stout, but now he showed the loose and flaccid
exterior of one who has just lost much in weight. Desnoyers surmised
that the man had formerly lived in tranquil and vulgar sensuousness, in
a middle-class happiness suddenly cut short by war.

"What a life, Monsieur!" the officer rambled on. "May God punish well
those who have provoked this catastrophe!"

The Frenchman was almost affected. This man represented the Germany that
he had many times imagined, a sweet and tranquil Germany composed of
burghers, a little heavy and slow perhaps, but atoning for their natural
uncouthness by an innocent and poetic sentimentalism. This Blumhardt
whom his companions called Bataillon-Kommandeur, was undoubtedly the
good father of a large family. He fancied him walking with his wife and
children under the lindens of a provincial square, all listening with
religious unction to the melodies played by a military band. Then he
saw him in the beer gardens with his friends, discussing metaphysical
problems between business conversations. He was a man from old Germany,
a character from a romance by Goethe. Perhaps the glory of the Empire
had modified his existence, and instead of going to the beer gardens,
he was now accustomed to frequent the officers' casino, while his family
maintained a separate existence--separated from the civilians by the
superciliousness of military caste; but at heart, he was always the good
German, ready to weep copiously before an affecting family scene or a
fragment of good music.

Commandant Blumhardt,