We had a long conversation to-day. We were in the shed seated across a ladder, and, in spite of the coldness of the damp air which came to us from the forest all laden with the smell of moist wood and damp earth, we felt as much pleasure in breathing it as two dormice coming forth from their holes. Goudeloup was smoking a curiously-shaped pipe he has made out of a snail’s shell, and he did so with an exaggerated appearance of satisfaction and content not devoid of mischief. In spite of my longing to smoke, I have already several times refused to use his tobacco, well knowing how it has been procured, and always expecting to see some shreds of the blue cloth of which the Prussian uniforms are made. As he caught me sniffing the delightful fragrance of tobacco, which tantalised me, he said, with that cunning smile of the peasant which puckers up their eyes, leaving their lips thin and crafty: —Well! come! you won’t smoke? . . . MYSELF. No, thank you. I have already told you I do not wish for any of your tobacco. GOUDELOUP. Because I have taken it out of their pockets? Yet I had every right to do so. They have robbed me enough, for me to be able to rob them also, and a few handfuls of bad tobacco won’t pay for all my corn and oats . . . MYSELF. With this difference, that these people have given you your life, whereas you . . . GOUDELOUP. Yes, it is true they have given me my life, but they have burnt down my farm—my poor farm! I built it myself . . . and my beasts and my harvest, fifteen acres of crops! It was all insured against hail, fire, and lightning; but who would have thought that, so near Paris, with all the taxes we pay to have good soldiers, I ought to have insured myself against the Prussians? Now I have nothing left. Are not such catastrophes worse than death? . . . Ah yes, the wretches; they gave me my life! They gave it me to beg from door to door with my wife and children. Don’t you see that when I think of all this, a furious passion seizes me, and a thirst for blood, for . . . [Picture: Goudeloup waiting and watching] MYSELF. What, you have not killed enough? . . . GOUDELOUP. No, not enough yet . . . I must even make a confession, Mr. Robert. You are an easy-going man; you have received me kindly, and a chimney-corner like yours is not to be despised in this weather. And yet, all the same, there are moments when I am weary of being here. I want to escape, to begin lying in wait by the roadside again. It is such fun waiting for one of those thieves to pass; to watch for him, dog his footsteps, and say to oneself, “Not yet . . .” and then, quick, you jump on him and finish him . . . Another one who will not eat up my corn! MYSELF.