Soon the men themselves flushed and excited by the female flesh spread under their nose and within reach of their hands, lost all restraint, roaring, breaking the plates, while behind them impassive soldiers were waiting.

The Commander only kept some restraint.

Mademoiselle Fifi had taken Rachel on his knees and deliberately working himself up to a pitch of frenzy, kissed madly the ebony curls on her neck, inhaling through the thin interstice between the gown and her skin, the sweet warmth of her body and the full fragrance of her person; through the silk, he pinched her furiously making her scream, seized with a rabid ferocity and distracted by his craving for destruction.  Often also holding her in his arms, squeezing her as if he wanted to mix her with himself, he pressed long kisses on the fresh lips of the Jewess and embraced her until he lost breath; but suddenly he bit her so deep that a dash of blood flowed down the chin of the young girl and ran into her waist.

Once more she looked at him, straight in the face, and washing the wound, she muttered:  “You will have to pay for it!” He began to laugh, with a harsh laugh:  “All right, I shall pay!” said he.

At dessert, champagne was served.  The Commander rose and with the same tone as he would have taken to drink the health of the Empress Augusta, he said: 

“To our ladies!” And a series of toasts were then drunk, toasts with the gallantry and manner of drunkards and troopers, mixed with obscene jokes, rendered still more brutal by their ignorance of the language.

They were rising one after the other, trying to be witty, making efforts to be funny; and the women, so intoxicated that they were hardly able to sit up, with their vacant look, their heavy, clammy tongues, applauded vociferously each time.

The Captain, no doubt intending to lend the orgy an atmosphere of gallantry, raised once more his glass and pronounced:  “To our victories over the hearts!”

Then Lieutenant Otto, a kind of bear from the Black Forest, jumped up, inflamed, saturated with drinks, and suddenly, carried away by alcoholic patriotism, he cried:  “To our victories over France!”

Intoxicated as they were, the women kept silent and Rachel, shuddering with rage, retorted:  “Well!  I know some Frenchmen in whose presence you would not dare say such things.”

But the little Markgraf, still holding her on his knees, began to laugh, having become exceedingly exhilarated by the wine:  “Ah!  Ah!  Ah!  I never met any myself.  As soon as they see us, they run away.”

The girl exasperated, shouted in his face:  “You lie, you dirty pig!”

For a second he fixed on her his clear eyes, as he used to fix them on the paintings the canvas of which he riddled with revolver shots; then he laughed:  “Oh yes! let us speak of it, you beauty!  Would we be here if they were brave?”—­and he became more and more excited:  “We are their masters; France belongs to us!”