which he filled with gun powder, and through the neck of which he
carefully introduced a long piece of tinder, lighted it and, running,
carried this infernal machine into the next room.

Then he returned quickly and closed the door behind him. All the
Germans stood up and waited, their faces wreathed in childlike smiles
of curiosity, and as soon as the explosion shook the Chateau, they
hurried in all at once.

Mademoiselle Fifi, who had been the first one to rush in, was
deliriously clapping his hands in front of a terra cotta Venus,
whose head at last had been blown off; and each picked up broken
pieces of China, wondering at the strange indentation of the
fragments, examining the new damage done, claiming that some of
the damage had been caused by previous explosions. And the Major
was contemplating, with a paternal look, the large salon upset by
this Neronian firework and strewn with the debris of the objects of
Art. He came out first, declaring good- naturedly: "It was very
successful this time!"

But such a spout of smoke had invaded the dining-room, mixing
with the smoke of tobacco, that it was impossible to breathe. The
Commander opened the window, and all the officers, who had come
back to drink a last glass of cognac, crowded near it.

The damp air blew into the room bringing in a kind of water dust,
which sprayed and powdered the beards, and a smell of inundation.
They were looking at the tall trees bending under the shower, the
broad valley darkened by this outflow of the black low clouds[*],
and in the distance the Church spire rising like a gray point in