“I know; it is an Englishman. And it is by my orders he is there.”
“Impossible! You have never given such a barbarous order, to have a man tied up for four hours in this cold weather. They have not understood you, and, moreover, I am convinced that your rules—inhuman and incomprehensible as they seem to us—do not authorise——”
“Hold your tongue! You forget that you are a prisoner; you have not the right to speak to me like that.”
“I think it is my duty to let you know that a man is being tortured more than your rules allow, and I thought to spare your conscience the remorse of homicide ... through forgetfulness.”
“A man! Come! It is an Englishman! What interest have you in defending an Englishman? It is only an Englishman!”
“I know, but he is, nevertheless, a man. He suffers as we do, even more than we French do, since the lot that you reserve for them is more painful than ours.”
“The English are pigs!”
“Allow me to tell you that I have many good friends among them, and a long stay in England has enabled me to know that one meets among them certainly less of those animals than in another country I am acquainted with.”
“What! You insult me! You call the Germans pigs! Very well; you shall come with me to the lieutenant.”
“One moment! you mistake me. I did not say—— But, after all, let us go and see the lieutenant. Perhaps he still has a little human feeling.”