The Count, noticing his evident interest in the noise, interrupted his German chat to explain.

“It is the cannon.  A battle is going on.  Soon 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, meanwhile, was thinking of his family living in Cassel.

“There are eight children, Monsieur,” he said with a visible effort to control emotion.  “The two eldest are preparing to become officers.  The youngest is starting school this year. . . .  He is just so high.”