He went on toward the village—­a mass of black walls with a few houses still intact, and a roofless bell tower with its cross twisted by fire.  Nobody in the streets sown with bottles, charred chunks of wood, and soot-covered rubbish.  The dead bodies had disappeared, but a nauseating smell of decomposing and burned flesh assailed his nostrils.  He saw a mound of earth where the shooting had taken place, and from it were protruding two feet and a hand.  At his approach several black forms flew up into the air from a trench so shallow that the bodies within were exposed to view.  A whirring of stiff wings beat the air above him, flying off with the croakings of wrath.  He explored every nook and corner, even approaching the place where the troopers had erected their barricade.  The carts were still by the roadside.

He then retraced his steps, calling out before the least injured houses, and putting his head through the doors and windows that were unobstructed or but half consumed.  Was nobody left in Villeblanche?  He descried among the ruins something advancing on all fours, a species of reptile that stopped its crawling with movements of hesitation and fear, ready to retreat or slip into its hole under the ruins.  Suddenly the creature stopped and stood up.  It was a man, an old man.  Other human larvae were coming forth conjured by his shouts—­poor beings who hours ago had given up the standing position which would have attracted the bullets of the enemy, and had been enviously imitating the lower organisms, squirming through the dirt as fast as they could scurry into the bosom of the earth.  They were mostly women and children, all filthy and black, with snarled hair, the fierceness of animal appetite in their eyes—­the faintness of the weak animal in their hanging jaws.  They were all living hidden in the ruins of their homes.  Fear had made them temporarily forget their hunger, but finding that the enemy had gone, they were suddenly assailed by all necessitous demands, intensified by hours of anguish.

Desnoyers felt as though he were surrounded by a tribe of brutalized and famished Indians like those he had often seen in his adventurous voyages.  He had brought with him from Paris a quantity of gold pieces, and he pulled out a coin which glittered in the sun.  Bread was needed, everything eatable was needed; he would pay without haggling.

The flash of gold aroused looks of enthusiasm and greediness, but this impression was short-lived, all eyes contemplating the yellow discs with indifference.  Don Marcelo was himself convinced that the miraculous charm had lost its power.  They all chanted a chorus of sorrow and horrors with slow and plaintive voice, as though they stood weeping before a bier:  “Monsieur, they have killed my husband.” . . .  “Monsieur, my sons!  Two of them are missing.” . . .  “Monsieur, they have taken all the men prisoners:  they say it is to work the land in Germany.” . . .  “Monsieur, bread! . . .  My little ones are dying of hunger!”