In a few hours the park had prepared itself for winter. What was going to become of the marvelous hothouse, at the coming of frost? Perhaps I should be able to get into it by reason of that death which had flung the Germans off their guard.
I made my way obliquely in its direction, but what I saw from a distance made me quicken my steps.
The door of the hothouse was open, and smoke escaped from it—acrid and foul—and also made its way through the openings in the glass.
I went in.
The Rotunda, the Aquarium and the third hall, were a picture of confusion. They had pillaged, broken and burned everything. Heaps of filth were accumulated in the middle of the three halls. I there found jumbled together, broken plants, shattered pots, bits of glass and sea anemones, flowers defiled, close to dead beasts.
In short,—three disgusting rubbish heaps, wherein the triple palace beheld the end of its pleasant, moving, or repulsive marvels. Some rags were still burning in a corner. In another, a heap of branches—the most compromising ones—were just hissing embers.
No doubt the assistants had worked feverishly at this task of destruction, in order that no vestige of their labors should remain, and the storm alone had prevented me from hearing them, but it was not likely they had stopped short there in their congenial task.
To make sure of that, I examined the shambles near the cliff. In that gaping ditch there was nothing but bones and carcasses of unimportant animals, some without a skull, others without a head. Klotz was no longer there. Nell was not there.
The sack of the laboratory gave me the impression of a masterpiece. It proved the innate capacity of men in general, and certain nations in particular, for this sort of diversion.
I ransacked the house at will; all the doors banging and clashing as the wind caught them.