Some collapsed like half-emptied sacks; others
rebounded from the ground like balls; some leaped like gymnasts, with
upraised arms, falling on their backs, or face downward, like a swimmer.
In that human heap, he saw limbs writhing in the agony of death. Some
soldiers advanced like hunters bagging their prey. From the palpitating
mass fluttered locks of white hair, and a feeble hand, trying to repeat
the sacred sign. A few more shots and blows on the livid, mangled mass
. . . and the last tremors of life were extinguished forever.
The officer had lit a cigar.
"Whenever you wish," he said to Desnoyers with ironical courtesy.
They re-entered the automobile in order to return to the castle by the
way of Villeblanche. The increasing number of fires and the dead bodies
in the streets no longer impressed the old man. He had seen so much!
What could now affect his sensibilities? . . . He was longing to get
out of the village as soon as possible to try to find the peace of the
country. But the country had disappeared under the invasion--soldier's,
horses, cannons everywhere. Wherever they stopped to rest, they were
destroying all that they came in contact with. The marching battalions,
noisy and automatic as a machine were preceded by the fifes and drums,
and every now and then, in order to cheer their drooping spirits, were
breaking into their joyous cry, "Nach Paris!"
The castle, too, had been disfigured by the invasion.
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