Mademoiselle Fifi | Page 7

whose presence
you would not dare say such things."
But the little Markgraf, still holding her on his knees, began to laugh,
having become exceedingly exhilarated by the wine: "Ah! Ah! Ah! I
never met any myself. As soon as they see us, they run away."
The girl exasperated, shouted in his face: "You lie, you dirty pig!"
For a second he fixed on her his clear eyes, as he used to fix them on
the paintings the canvas of which he riddled with revolver shots; then
he laughed: "Oh yes! let us speak of it, you beauty! Would we be here
if they were brave?"--and he became more and more excited: "We are
their masters; France belongs to us!"
She sprang off his knees and fell back on her chair. He rose, held out
his glass over the table and repeated: "France, the French, their fields,
their woods and their houses belong to us!"
The others, who were thoroughly intoxicated, suddenly shaken by
military enthusiasm, the enthusiasm of brutes, seized their glasses and
shouted vociferously: "Long live Prussia!" and emptied them at a
draught.
The girls did not protest, reduced to silence and frightened. Even
Rachel kept silent, unable to reply.
Then the little Markgraf placed on the head of the Jewess his glass of
Champaign, refilled, and said--"The women of France belong to us!"
She jumped up so quickly that the glass was upset and spilled the
yellow wine in her black hair, as for a baptism; it fell broken to pieces
on the floor. Her lips quivering, she looked defiantly at the officer; the

latter kept laughing; she stammered in a voice choked with rage: "That,
that is not true! you shall never have the women of France!"
He sat down to laugh at his ease and tried to imitate the Parisian accent:
"That is a good one! that is a good one! And what are you doing here,
you little one?"
Confused, at first, she did not answer, as she did not, in her excitement,
understand fully what he said; then, as soon as the meaning of it
dawned on her mind, she shouted at him indignantly and vehemently:
"I, I, I am not a woman! I am a prostitute! and that is all a Prussian
deserves!"
Hardly had she finished, that he slapped her face violently; but, as he
was raising his hand again, maddened with rage she caught on the table
a small silver-bladed dessert knife, and so quickly that nobody noticed
it, she stabbed him right in the neck, just at the hollow where the breast
begins.
A word, that he was about to mutter, was cut short in his throat, and he
remained stiff, with his mouth open and a frightful look.
All shouted and got up tumultuously; but having thrown her chair in the
legs of Lieutenant Otto, who collapsed and fell down at full length, she
ran to the window, opened it before they could catch her, and jumped
out in the night, under the rain that was still falling.
In two minutes Mademoiselle Fifi was dead. Then Fritz and Otto drew
their swords and wanted to massacre the women, who threw themselves
to their knees; the Major, not without difficulty, prevented the butchery
and had the four bewildered girls locked up in a room and guarded by
two soldiers; and then, as if he were disposing his men for battle, he
organized the search for the fugitive[*], quite certain that he would
catch her.
[*][Note from Brett: The original uses "fugutive," but, again, I think
this is a typographical error as there is no such word.]

Fifty men, whipped by threats, were launched on her trail in the park;
two hundred others searched the woods and all the houses of the
Valley.
The table, cleared in an instant, was turned into a mortuary bed, and the
four officers, straight, rigid and sobered up, with the harsh faces of
warriors on duty stood near the windows, searching and scanning the
night.
The torrential rain was continuing. An incessant rippling filled the
darkness, a floating murmur of water that falls and water that runs,
water that drops and water that gushes forth.
Suddenly a rifle shot was heard; then another far away; and thus for
four hours one heard from time to time, near or distant reports of firing
and rallying cries, strange words shouted like a call by guttural voices.
At daybreak everybody returned. Two soldiers had been killed and
three others wounded by their comrades in the eagerness of the chase
and the confusion of the nocturnal pursuit.
They had not been able to find Rachel.
Then the inhabitants were terrorized, the houses searched most
carefully, the whole region combed, beaten, scoured. The Jewess did
not seem to have left any