Bertram took a seat at a vacant table, and ordered some wine to pay for his place. He sat there, staring at the dancers and the people at the tables. Some of the girls were astonishingly pretty in the German type, with blonde hair and blue eyes. There was one who reminded him of Joyce, and he felt a sharp touch of pain at the thought. She had the same kind of gold-spun hair and slim figure, but her face was painted, which was not a habit of Joyce’s, and it was plain to see that she was a girl of “easy virtue” by the way her eyes roved around the group of men, with inviting smiles. She sat alone, smoking a cigarette, with her elbows on the table. The men were mostly of a repulsive type. There were several of them with shaven heads, or so closely cropped that they were nearly bald, as he had seen Prussian officers when, as prisoners, they had thrown away their shrapnel helmets.
Other men here were foreigners, a few English, a group of Americans, a number of Jews of unguessable nationalities. The women mingled with them, drank with them, ogled them, and they did not resent these German houris.
Bertram had never seen such dancing. It was perfectly respectable, but grotesque because of the stiff way in which the Germans interpreted the modern steps with a kind of mechanical jig.
The girl like Joyce—horribly like her—came round to Bertram’s table and sat deliberately in front of him.
“English boy?” she asked.
“English,” he said.
“You do not drink your wine. Shall I help you?”
“As you like.”
She poured herself out a glass of Niersteiner, and touched Bertram’s glass and said “Prosit!” before taking a sip.
“Why are you sad?” she asked.