Yes, it is true they have given me my life, but they have burnt down my farm—my poor farm! I built it myself . . . and my beasts and my harvest, fifteen acres of crops! It was all insured against hail, fire, and lightning; but who would have thought that, so near Paris, with all the taxes we pay to have good soldiers, I ought to have insured myself against the Prussians? Now I have nothing left. Are not such catastrophes worse than death? . . . Ah yes, the wretches; they gave me my life! They gave it me to beg from door to door with my wife and children. Don’t you see that when I think of all this, a furious passion seizes me, and a thirst for blood, for . . .
Myself.
What, you have not killed enough? . . .
Goudeloup.
No, not enough yet . . . I must even make a confession, Mr. Robert. You are an easy-going man; you have received me kindly, and a chimney-corner like yours is not to be despised in this weather. And yet, all the same, there are moments when I am weary of being here. I want to escape, to begin lying in wait by the roadside again. It is such fun waiting for one of those thieves to pass; to watch for him, dog his footsteps, and say to oneself, “Not yet . . .” and then, quick, you jump on him and finish him . . . Another one who will not eat up my corn!
Myself.
You, whom I have known so quiet and gentle, how can you talk like that without showing the least feeling?
Goudeloup.
One would think there was an evil spirit within me that the war has called forth . . . But I must say that the first time it happened, I was startled myself. It was that transport soldier I met the evening of my misfortune. I struck with all my might at the uniform, hardly realising there was a man inside it; then, when I felt that huge form give way and the warm stream of blood inundate me, then I was afraid. But remembering directly the torn and ripped-up sacks of flour lying in my yard, I again became desperate.