MARS
515
Dusk was falling. Tepid rain mixed with snow fell haltingly
from the sky. A servant girl built a fire, and the officers, chattering
away, crossed the threshold....
The Comte de Villeneuf snapped his fingers as he whistled the
first bars of the
Marseillaise.
A heavy Provenc;al with bulging eyes
and a suffering snout-like mouth threw his head back with a groan
and shook a powder smelling vilely of camphor down his short throat,
while a comrade-in-.arms who might have been his twin tickled him
with a horsewhip. A rosy young lieutenant roared madly for sauer–
kraut. The host intending to turn on the light reached too far and
cursing his mistake lighted the colorful little bulbs of the luxuriating
vine wreaths instead. A blinding darkness filled the low room; the
uncurtained windows had grown blue-black.
"Ooh la la," exclaimed the thick Southerner, ripping something
from
his
belt. A shot cracked out, the vine wreath swayed, and a
reddish grape trickled down with a clink ... thunder and lightning
in one. The officers hailed the good shot and carried him on their
shoulders to the table. It was ready, and set with two glasses at each
place.
Uneasily the host hastened to show the menu; he lit the chan–
delier and extinguished the embarrassing bulbs-in the light the green–
brown leaves looked like shrunken moths. To kitchen and cellar he
forwarded the orders for Riesling, Burgundy and Nackenheimer,
boiled chicken with rice, lettuce, young pigeons, venison with cran–
berries, and the like. Under his breath he ordered the wine before
the venison, thinking a well-moistened palate would not be too dis–
cerning.
An
officer with graying temples motioned him to his side
and whispered something in hs ear, showing
his
tongue as if he were
tasting alum. Presently a lovely girl, daughter of the steward, brought
the drinks, eluding the men's groping hands and curtly acknowledging
their toasts or squealing when one of them reached for her calves.
The officers, still sober, and bored because of their empty stom–
achs, sauntered about the room, set up chessmen on the game tables
only to overturn them at once, and examined the little parlor with
that male blindness which becomes seeing only with sensual excite–
ment and raised spirits. Some pushed billiard balls about with indif–
ferent hands. The Provenc;al, who was considered an honorable man,
