One of our neighbours was taking his cows out of the stable. Suddenly one of them seemed to smell some enlivening odour—was it that of powder?—she bent a frolicsome head on one side, lifted up her sprightly nostrils, raised a swaggering tail, and, as fast as she could tear, went full gallop towards the meadows, the brooklet, the rosy horizon where the setting sun pleased her. The owner took to his heels in his turn, and fled after the giddy-pated creature. The better to run, he tore off his jacket, and succeeded in getting hold of the tether. Then he stopped panting, all in a sweat, and rapped out a tremendous oath.
As if by miracle, a gendarme happened to stand there, his note-book in hand.
"Card, card...."
"Ah! oh, it is in my jacket pocket...."
The jacket was smiling in the distance, a small spot lying on the green.
"Ach!" the Prussian said with a sneer, "not fetch: fine."
Cost fifty francs.
Rascally cow!
I treat the matter as a joke. Sometimes we did joke. We could not have our minds always on the stretch. We already were half-crazy, and we should have gone quite mad if we had not occasionally laughed. We often laughed, with rage, with an empty stomach, with our brain confused after a troubled night. Our race needs to laugh in the midst of tears, and tears are shed in secret, whereas laughter bursts forth in public.
When the Germans laugh, it is always a peal. As to tears, they trickle down their cheeks for a trifle; they bathe in them, they pour them forth everywhere. I had always looked upon this lachrymal faculty so often spoken of as a legend, but we have come to the conclusion that there is nothing more real.