me, and burst out: ‘Farewell, farewell! All is over—I’m going into the river!’
“ ‘God forbid,’ cried I—I could feel that I went white. ‘That is no place for you, my dear.’ And I held her as tightly as decorum permitted. ‘What has happened?’ ‘What has happened!’ she cried, all trembling. ‘They’ve got at the silver, Wunderlich! That’s what has happened! And Jean lies there with erysipelas and can’t do anything—he couldn’t even if he were up. They are stealing my spoons, Wunderlich, and I am going into the river!’
“Well, I kept holding her, and I said what one would in such cases: ‘Courage, dear lady. It will be all right. Control yourself, I beg of you. We will go and speak with them. Let us go.’ And I got her to go back up the street to her house. The soldiery were up in the dining-room, where Madame had left them, some twenty of them, at the great silver-chest.
“ ‘Gentlemen,’ I say politely, ‘with which one of you may I have the pleasure of a little conversation?’ ‘They begin to laugh, and they say: ‘With all of us, Papa.’ But one of them steps out and presents himself, a fellow as tall as a tree, with a black waxed moustache and big red hands sticking out of his braided cuffs. ‘Lenoir,’ he said, and saluted with his left hand, for he had five or six spoons in his right. ‘Sergeant Lenoir. What can I do for you?’
“ ‘Herr Officer,’ I say, appealing to his sense of honour, ‘after your magnificent charge, how can you stoop to this sort of thing? The town has not closed its gates to the Emperor.’
“ ‘What do you expect?’ he answered. ‘War is war. The people need these things. . . .’
“ ‘But you ought to be careful,’ I interrupted him, for an idea had come into my head. ‘This lady,’ I said—one will say anything at a time like that—‘the lady of the house, she isn’t a German. She is almost a compatriot of yours—she is a Frenchwoman. . . .’ ‘Oh, a Frenchwoman,’ he repeated. And then what do you suppose he said, this big swashbuckler?
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