Just then there was a knock at the door.
At the lieutenant's "Come in!" the door opened and the curé of the village entered. He was a man of about fifty, with a friendly and melancholy yet firm expression of face.
"I come, sir," he began, "to ask you for permission to speak with the prisoners."
The lieutenant rose and put on his coat, while he offered the curé a seat on the sofa. But when he had buttoned up the coat tightly and felt the stiff collar close round his neck, it seemed as though his nobler organs were compressed, and as though his blood stood still in coursing through secret channels to his heart. Placing his hand on the copy of Schopenhauer, and leaning against the writing-table, he said: "I am at your service, Monsieur le Curé, but I do not think the prisoners will pay you much attention, for they are busy playing billiards."
"I think, sir," answered the curé, "that I know my people better than you do. One question. Do you intend to have these young fellows shot?"
"Naturally," answered Von Bleichroden, quite prepared to assume his rôle. "It is the states which wage war, Monsieur le Curé, not individuals."
"Pardon me, sir, are you and your soldiers not individuals?"
"Pardon me, Monsieur, not for the present."
He slipped the letter to his wife under the blotting-paper and continued, "I am just now only a representative of the German Confederation of States."
"But, sir, your amiable Empress, whom may God ever protect, was also a representative of the German Confederation when she issued her proclamation to German women to help the wounded, and I know of hundreds of individual Frenchmen who bless her, although the French nation curses your nation. Sir, in the name of Jesus the Redeemer" (here the curé stood up, seized his enemy's hands and continued in a tear-choked voice), "could you not appeal to her?"