The officer said, with a wave of his hand:
“If I had been in command, I'd have taken Paris, burned everything, killed everybody. No more France!”
The Englishman, through politeness, replied simply:
“Ah! yes.”
He went on:
“In twenty years all Europe, all of it, will belong to us. Prussia is more than a match for all of them.”
The Englishmen, getting uneasy, no longer replied. Their faces, which had become impassive, seemed made of wax behind their long whiskers. Then the Prussian officer began to laugh. And still, lolling back, he began to sneer. He sneered at the downfall of France, insulted the prostrate enemy; he sneered at Austria, which had been recently conquered; he sneered at the valiant but fruitless defence of the departments; he sneered at the Garde Mobile and at the useless artillery. He announced that Bismarck was going to build a city of iron with the captured cannon. And suddenly he placed his boots against the thigh of M. Dubuis, who turned away his eyes, reddening to the roots of his hair.
The Englishmen seemed to have become indifferent to all that was going on, as if they were suddenly shut up in their own island, far from the din of the world.
The officer took out his pipe, and looking fixedly at the Frenchman, said:
“You haven't any tobacco—have you?”