this infernal machine into the next room; but he came back
immediately and shut the door. The Germans all stood expectantly,
their faces full of childish, smiling curiosity, and as soon as
the explosion had shaken the chateau, they all rushed in at once.

Mademoiselle Fifi, who got in first, clapped his hands in delight
at the sight of a terra-cotta Venus, whose head had been blown
off, and each picked up pieces of porcelain, and wondered at the
strange shape of the fragments, while the major was looking with
a paternal eye at the large drawing-room which had been wrecked
in such a Neronic fashion, and which was strewn with the
fragments of works of art. He went out first, and said, with a
smile: "He managed that very well!"

But there was such a cloud of smoke in the dining-room, mingled
with the tobacco smoke, that they could not breathe, so the
commandant opened the window, and all the officers, who had gone
into the room for a glass of cognac, went up to it.

The moist air blew into the room, and brought a sort of spray
with it, which powdered their beards. They looked at the tall
trees which were dripping with the rain, at the broad valley
which was covered with mist, and at the church spire in the
distance, which rose up like a gray point in the beating rain.

The bells had not rung since their arrival. That was the only
resistance which the invaders had met with in the neighborhood.
The parish priest had not refused to take in and to feed the
Prussian soldiers; he had several times even drunk a bottle of
beer or claret with the hostile commandant, who often employed