"But are you quite sure," she asks, "that they won't return?"
I reply to her in a fashion that pleases her:
"Madam, you can bet your own child's cap upon it!"
We are well abed when there sounds a heavy knocking on the door of the barn, which my men have already firmly closed.
"Pannechon! Pannechon! Come out, mon vieux!"
Pannechon is my orderly. I hear him emerging from the hay and stumbling over sleepers who do not scruple to tell him what they think of him.
Then the door opens creakingly. Pouf!… What a smell! It seems to be compounded of skim-milk, rats, perspiration, and other indescribable things. It is sharp and nauseous, and quite turns me. What on earth can smell so vilely? All at once the stench revives an old memory; brings back to my mind the picture of one of the Boche "assistant's" rooms at the Lakanal Lyceum. I used to go there from time to time to wile away an hour or so, and, at the same time, to acquire fluency in his language. This was in the course of a remarkably hot summer, and he used to take off his coat and vest and put himself at his ease, so that when I opened the door that same stench struck me in the face, seized me by the throat, as it were. He used to grin, half of his fatuous face hidden by tortoise-shell spectacles and greet me with his heavy, guttural tones:
"Mon Ongle Penchamin! Splendeed, splendeed! And so teepigally Vrench!"
I remember I used to push my chair as far back as possible, until, in fact, my back was against the wall, and finish up by saying:
"Let us go out into the park, shall we? We shall be able to breathe better out there than here."