"Why are my things lent when I am absent? My armchair—dirty, soiled, torn! Paul's picture—there is a hole in the corner. Who made that hole in the corner?"
"I didn't," said Fanny feebly, wishing that she were dressed and upon her feet.
"Madame, a Turkish officer made the hole. I spoke to him about it; he said it was the German colonel who was here before him. But I am sure it was the Turk."
"A Turk!" said Philippe's mother in bewilderment. "So you have allowed a
Turk to come in here!"
"Madame does not understand."
"Oh, I understand well enough that my house has been a den! The house where I was born—All my things, all my things—You must give that lamp back!"
"Dear madame, I will give everything back, I have hurt nothing—"
"Not ruined my carpet, my mother's carpet! Not soiled my walls, written your name upon them, cracked my windows, filled my room downstairs with rubbish, broken my furniture—But I am told this is what I must expect!" Fanny looked at her, petrified. "But I—" she began.
"You don't understand," said the young concierge fiercely. "Don't you know who has lived here? In this room, in this bed, Turks, Bulgars, Germans. Four years of soldiers, coming in one week and gone the next. I could not stop it! When other houses were burnt I would say to myself, 'Madame is lucky.' When all your china was broken and your chairs used for firewood, could I help it? Can she help it? She is your last soldier, and she has taken nothing. So much has gone from this house it is not worth while to worry about what remains. When you wrote to me last month to send you the barometer, it made me smile. Your barometer!"
"Begone, Elsie."