"Some of the people went into the street to see the Germans enter the village. But we watched from a window in your father's house…. They were Uhlans, who came first. They were so drunk that they could hardly sit on their horses. Their lieutenant took a sudden fancy to Marie Lebrun, but when he tried to kiss her, she slapped his face…. That seemed to sober him…. Old man Lebrun had leapt forward to protect his daughter.
"'Are you her father?'" asked the Lieutenant.
"'Yes,'" said the old man.
"'Bind him,'" said the lieutenant, and then he gave an order and some men went into the house and came out dragging a mattress…. They dragged it into the middle of the street…. They held old man Lebrun so that he had to see everything…for some hours, as many as wanted to…. Then the lieutenant stepped forward and shot her through the head, and then he shot her father…. Your father and mother hid me in the cellar of their house, as well as they could…. But from the Germans nothing remains long hidden…. Your father and mother tried to defend me…tied them to their bed…and…set fire to the house."
The Idiot's granite-gray face showed no new emotion.
"And you?"
She shook her head violently.
"What you cannot imagine," she said. "I have forgotten…. There have been so many…. No street-walker has ever been through what I have been through…. There's nothing more to say…I wanted to live…to bear witness against them…. For you and me everything is finished…"
"Almost," said the Idiot. "You talk as if you no longer loved me."
The granite-gray of his face had softened into the ruddy, sun-burned coloring of a healthy young soldier, long in the field, and she could not resist the strong arms that he opened to her.