"Certainly!"
"But ... but ...! May I go there?"
"I must advise you not to, for it is extremely dangerous, but if you like...."
"Very well, sir, then I shall go there!"
CHAPTER IV
VISÉ DESTROYED: A PREMEDITATED CRIME
One of the first things I have to deal with is also one of the most fearful I ever saw, and I only hope that I may never again witness the like of it.
I have mentioned already the reign of terror with which the Germans ruled the wretched townlet ever since they entered it. Something fateful might happen any moment, and actually occurred during the night of August 15th and 16th.
On that evening the soldiers, rough fellows from East Prussia, had been revelling in the cafés, shouting filthy ditties in the streets, and most of them in a very advanced state of intoxication. At ten o'clock suddenly a shot was heard. The fellows took their rifles, which they had placed against the walls, or on the tables of the cafés, and ran into the street shouting in a mad rage: "They have been shooting!" The most tipsy began to shoot at doors and windows simultaneously in various parts of the town, which made the people in the houses scream, and this excited the mad drunken soldiers all the more. They forced their way into several houses, knocking down the frightened inhabitants when these tried to stop them.