With all possible speed the orderly went to fetch the officer. Bubenpech came back as fast as he could, shut himself up with the little dame, and did not move until four o'clock in the afternoon, forgetful of his lunch. And the orderly, who timidly presented himself for duty, was roughly sent away from the closed door.
"Oh," said Mme. Valaine, shocked, "such impudence! in my house!"
The neighbours made jokes and watched the door. They even laid wagers: they will come out; they won't. At last the couple came out, and disappeared on foot towards Laon.
A moment after a murmur was heard:
"What does it mean?"
To show his disregard of decency, Bubenpech had thrown his window wide open before going out. And now the whole village gathered about our windows and jeered at the shameless disorder of the room and bed.
So, while some officers clearly belonged to such and such a category, they all possessed to a certain degree the qualities peculiar to the other classes. But there were real mongrels among them. For instance, you can imagine for yourself a sentimental-fine-talker and a sybarite-who-cared-for-his-skin or a brutish-reveller. And there was a sameness in all, a family resemblance. Prussian militarism, hypocrisy, and haughtiness were smeared over them all like a thick coat of paint. All showed an extreme satisfaction with their own race and person. In short, you have but to scratch the Prussian to find the barbarian. Should an opportunity offer, or even no opportunity, they can all be unreasonable, harsh, unrelenting.
These gentlemen enjoyed themselves.
In a physical sense, you can easily picture to yourself those revellers. They were not handsome—at least we never came across one we thought handsome, in spite of our efforts to be impartial. Save Bouillot, we never saw a very tall one. They were either long and threadlike, or short and fat. Those who thought they had a look of Apollo you might reproach with thick wrists and ankles, large hips, and heavy feet. Most of them had shapely hands, and very often well-kept nails. Their features were unpleasing from being shockingly irregular or freezingly regular; their hard eyes belied the false kindness of their smile. At a distance, their stiff and starched gait, their mechanical movement; at close quarters, their voice, their smell, their whole being made us bristle with hostility. For a trifle we would have snarled at them like a dog, and every day their presence lay heavier on our hearts.
Their smell! Some people deny its reality. Let them go to the North of France! When you have lodged Prussian officers—very clean people, no doubt—you may air the room eight days running, and it will not lose the smell sui generis which impregnates it, and every inhabitant of the village, from the Mayor down to the smallest child, would turn up his nose on entering the room, and say: