Mademoiselle Fifi had taken Rachel on his knee, and, getting excited, at one moment he kissed the little black curls on her neck and at another he pinched her furiously and made her scream, for he was seized by a species of ferocity, and tormented by his desire to hurt her.  He often held her close to him and pressed a long kiss on the Jewess’ rosy mouth until she lost her breath, and at last he bit her until a stream of blood ran down her chin and on to her bodice.

For the second time she looked him full in the face, and as she bathed the wound, she said:  “You will have to pay for, that!” But he merely laughed a hard laugh and said:  “I will pay.”

At dessert champagne was served, and the commandant rose, and in the same voice in which he would have drunk to the health of the Empress Augusta, he drank:  “To our ladies!” And a series of toasts began, toasts worthy of the lowest soldiers and of drunkards, mingled with obscene jokes, which were made still more brutal by their ignorance of the language.  They got up, one after the other, trying to say something witty, forcing themselves to be funny, and the women, who were so drunk that they almost fell off their chairs, with vacant looks and clammy tongues applauded madly each time.

The captain, who no doubt wished to impart an appearance of gallantry to the orgy, raised his glass again and said:  “To our victories over hearts.” and, thereupon Lieutenant Otto, who was a species of bear from the Black Forest, jumped up, inflamed and saturated with drink, and suddenly seized by an access of alcoholic patriotism, he cried:  “To our victories over France!”

Drunk as they were, the women were silent, but Rachel turned round, trembling, and said:  “See here, I know some Frenchmen in whose presence you would not dare say that.”  But the little count, still holding her on his knee, began to laugh, for the wine had made him very merry, and said:  “Ha! ha! ha!  I have never met any of them myself.  As soon as we show ourselves, they run away!” The girl, who was in a terrible rage, shouted into his face:  “You are lying, you dirty scoundrel!”

For a moment he looked at her steadily with his bright eyes upon her, as he had looked at the portrait before he destroyed it with bullets from his revolver, and then he began to laugh:  “Ah! yes, talk about them, my dear!  Should we be here now if they were brave?” And, getting excited, he exclaimed:  “We are the masters!  France belongs to us!” She made one spring from his knee and threw herself into her chair, while he arose, held out his glass over the table and repeated:  “France and the French, the woods, the fields and the houses of France belong to us!”

The others, who were quite drunk, and who were suddenly seized by military enthusiasm, the enthusiasm of brutes, seized their glasses, and shouting, “Long live Prussia!” they emptied them at a draught.

The girls did not protest, for they were reduced to silence and were afraid.  Even Rachel did not say a word, as she had no reply to make.  Then the little marquis put his champagne glass, which had just been refilled, on the head of the Jewess and exclaimed:  “All the women in France belong to us also!”