But now he had just seen the primitive realities of war.  The same as that of thousands of years ago!  The men with the helmets were proceeding in exactly the same way as those ferocious and perfumed satraps with blue mitre and curled beard.  The adversary was shot although not carrying arms; the prisoner died of shot or blow from the gun; the civilian captives were sent in crowds to Germany like those of other centuries.  Of what avail was all our so-called Progress?  Where was our boasted civilization? . . .

He was awakened by the light of a candle in his eyes.  The Warden’s wife had come up again to see if he needed anything.

“Oh, what a night, Master!  Just hear them yelling and singing!  The bottles that they have emptied! . . .  They are in the dining room.  You better not see them.  Now they are amusing themselves by breaking the furniture.  Even the Count is drunk; drunk, too, is that Commandant that you were talking with, and all the rest. . . .  Some of them are dancing half-naked.”

She evidently wished to keep quiet about certain details, but her love of talking got the better of her discretion.  Some of the officers had dressed themselves up in the hats and gowns of her mistress and were dancing and shouting, imitating feminine seductiveness and affectations. . . .  One of them had been greeted with roars of enthusiasm upon presenting himself with no other clothing than a “combination” of Mademoiselle Chichi’s.  Many were taking obscene delight in soiling the rugs and filling the sideboard drawers with indescribable filth, using the finest linens that they could lay their hands on.

Her master silenced her peremptorily.  Why tell him such vile, disgusting things? . . .

“And we are obliged to wait on them!” wailed the woman.  “They are beside themselves; they appear like different beings.  The soldiers are saying that they are going to resume their march at daybreak.  There is a great battle on, and they are going to win it; but it is necessary that everyone of them should fight in it. . . .  My poor, sick husband just can’t stand it any longer.  So many humiliations . . . and my little girl . . . .  My little girl!”

The child was her greatest anxiety.  She had her well hidden away, but she was watching uneasily the goings and comings of some of these men maddened with alcohol.  The most terrible of them all was that fat officer who had patted Georgette so paternally.

Apprehension for her daughter’s safety made her hurry restlessly away, saying over and over: 

“God has forgotten the world. . . .  Ay, what is ever going to become of us!”