In fact, the tumult increased every minute; the cattle, wagons, and people seemed eager to get away over each other's shoulders. They no longer had any command of themselves: they were howling and striking about them in their desire to escape. Materne pushed the door open, and seeing the women more dead than alive, white and dishevelled, he shouted, striking his stick on the ground: "What, mother, have you too gone mad? What! you, who owe a good example to your daughters,--have you lost courage? it is a shame." The old woman turned round and said in a broken voice: "Ah, my poor Materne, if you only knew--if you only knew!" "Well, what then? The enemy is coming: they won't eat you." "No; but they devour everything without mercy. Old Ursula, of Schlestadt, came here yesterday evening. She says that the Austrians only want 'Knöpfe' and 'Nudel,' the Russians 'Schnapps,' and the Bavarians 'Sauerkraut.' And when they have stuffed all that down their throats, they cry out with their mouths still full, 'Schocolat! schocolat!' O Lord, how can we feed all these people?" "I know well that is difficult," said the old hunter: "you can never satisfy a jay with white cheese. But, first of all, where are these Cossacks, these Bavarians, these Austrians? All the way from Grandfontaine we have not met even one." "They are in Alsace, on the Urmatt side, and they are coming here." "While waiting for them," said Kasper, "give us a bottle of wine. Here is a three-crown piece: you will hide it easier than your barrels." One of the girls went to the cellar, and, at the same time, several other persons entered: an almanac-seller from Strasbourg, a wagoner from Sarrebrück in a blouse, and two or three townspeople from Hutzig, Wisch, and Schirmeck, who were flying with their herds, and were exhausted with shouting. All sat down at the same table, before the windows overlooking the road. Wine was served them, and each began to relate what he knew. One said the allies were in such numbers that they had to sleep side by side in the valley of Hirschenthal, and they were so covered with vermin that, after their departure, the dead leaves walked of themselves in the woods; another, that the Cossacks had set fire to a village in Alsace, because they had been refused candles for dessert after dinner; that some of them, especially the Calmucks, ate soap like cheese and bacon-rind like cake; that many drank brandy by the pint, after having taken care to season it with handfuls of pepper; and that it was necessary to hide everything from them, for nothing came amiss to them for eating and drinking.