Maupassant's short stories《Mother Sauvage》

Fifteen years had passed since I was at Virelogne. I returned there in the autumn to shoot with my friend Serval, who had at last rebuilt his chateau, which the Prussians had destroyed.
我有十五年不到韦尔洛臬去了。今年秋末，为了到我的老友塞华尔的围场里打猎，我才重新去了一遭。那时候，他已经派人在韦尔洛臬重新盖好了他那座被普鲁士人破坏的古堡。

I loved that district. It is one of those delightful spots which have a sensuous charm for the eyes. You love it with a physical love. We, whom the country enchants, keep tender memories of certain springs, certain woods, certain pools, certain hills seen very often which have stirred us like joyful events. Sometimes our thoughts turn back to a corner in a forest, or the end of a bank, or an orchard filled with flowers, seen but a single time on some bright day, yet remaining in our hearts like the image of certain women met in the street on a spring morning in their light, gauzy dresses, leaving in soul and body an unsatisfied desire which is not to be forgotten, a feeling that you have just passed by happiness.

我非常心爱那个地方，世上真有许多美妙的角落，教人看见就得到一种悦目的快感，使我们不由得想亲身领略一下它的美。我们这些被大地诱惑了的人，对于某些泉水，某些树林子，某些湖沼，某些丘陵，都保存着种种多情的回忆，那固然是时常都看得见的，然而却都象许多有趣味的意外变故一样教我们动心。有时候，我们的思虑竟可以回到一座树林子里的角落上，或者一段河岸上，或者一所正在开花的果园里，虽然从前不过是在某一个高兴的日子里仅仅望见过一回。然而它们却像一个在春晴早起走到街上撞见的衣饰鲜明的女人影子一般留在我们心里，并且还在精神上和肉体上种下了一种无从消磨和不会遗忘的欲望，由于失之交臂而引起的幸福感。

At Virelogne I loved the whole countryside, dotted with little woods and crossed by brooks which sparkled in the sun and looked like veins carrying blood to the earth. You fished in them for crawfish, trout and eels. Divine happiness! You could bathe in places and you often found snipe among the high grass which grew along the borders of these small water courses.

在韦尔洛臬，我爱的是整个乡村：小的树林子撒在四处，小的溪河像人身的脉络一样四处奔流，给大地循环血液，在那里面捕得着虾子，白鲈鱼和鳗鱼！天堂般的乐趣！随处可以游泳，并且在小溪边的深草里面时常找得着鹧鸪。

I was stepping along light as a goat, watching my two dogs running ahead of me, Serval, a hundred metres to my right, was beating a field of lucerne. I turned round by the thicket which forms the boundary of the wood of Sandres and I saw a cottage in ruins.

当日，我轻快得像山羊似地向前跑，瞧着我两条猎狗在前面的草里搜索。塞华尔在我右手边的一百公尺光景，正穿过一片苜蓿田。我绕过了那一带给索德尔森林做界线的灌木丛，于是就望见了一座已成废墟的茅顶房子。

Suddenly I remembered it as I had seen it the last time, in 1869, neat, covered with vines, with chickens before the door. What is sadder than a dead house, with its skeleton standing bare and sinister?

突然，我记起在一八六九年最后那次见过的情形了，那时候这茅顶房子是干干净净的，包在许多葡萄棚当中，门前有许多鸡。世上的东西，哪儿还有比一座只剩下断壁残垣的废墟，更令人伤心的？

I also recalled that inside its doors, after a very tiring day, the good woman had given me a glass of wine to drink and that Serval had told me the history of its people. The father, an old poacher, had been killed by the gendarmes. The son, whom I had once seen, was a tall, dry fellow who also passed for a fierce slayer of game. People called them “Les Sauvage.”

我也记起了某一天我在很乏的时候，曾经有一位老妇人请我到那里面喝过一杯葡萄酒，并且塞华尔当时也对我谈过那些住在里面的人的经历。老妇人的丈夫是个以私自打猎为生的，早被保安警察打死。她的儿子，我从前也看见过，一个瘦高个子，也像是一个打猎的健将，这一家子，大家都叫他们做“蛮子”。

Was that a name or a nickname?

这究竟是一个姓，或者还是一个诨名？

I called to Serval. He came up with his long strides like a crane.

想起这些事，我就远远地叫了塞华尔一声。他用白鹭般长步儿走过来了。

I asked him: “What’s become of those people?”

我问他：“那所房子里的人现在都怎么样了？”

This was his story:

于是他就向我说了这件故事。

When war was declared the son Sauvage, who was then thirty-three years old, enlisted, leaving his mother alone in the house. People did not pity the old woman very much because she had money; they knew it.

普法之间已经正式宣战的时候，小蛮子的年纪正是三十三岁。他从军去了，留下他母亲单独住在家里。他们并不很替她担忧，因为她有钱，大家都晓得。

She remained entirely alone in that isolated dwelling, so far from the village, on the edge of the wood. She was not afraid, however, being of the same strain as the men folk – a hardy old woman, tall and thin, who seldom laughed and with whom one never jested. The women of the fields laugh but little in any case, that is men’s business. But they themselves have sad and narrowed hearts, leading a melancholy, gloomy life. The peasants imbibe a little noisy merriment at the tavern, but their helpmates always have grave, stern countenances. The muscles of their faces have never learned the motions of laughter.

她单独一人留在这所房子里了，那是座落在树林子边上并且和村子相隔很远的一所房子。她并不害怕，此外，她的气性和那父子两个是一般无二的，一个严气正性的老太太，又长又瘦，不常露笑容，人们也绝不敢和她闹着耍。并且农家妇人们素来是不大笑的。在乡下，笑是男人们的事情！因为生活是晦暗没有光彩的，所以她们的心境都窄，都打不开。男人们在小酒店里，学得了一点儿热闹的快活劲儿，他们家里的伙伴却始终板起一副严肃的面孔。她们脸上的筋肉还没有学惯那种笑的动作。

Mother Sauvage continued her ordinary existence in her cottage, which was soon covered by the snows. She came to the village once a week to get bread and a little meat. Then she returned to her house. As there was talk of wolves, she went out with a gun upon her shoulder – her son’s gun, rusty and with the butt worn by the rubbing of the hand – and she was a strange sight, the tall “Sauvage,” a little bent, going with slow strides over the snow, the muzzle of the piece extending beyond the black headdress, which confined her head and imprisoned her white hair, which no one had ever seen.

这位蛮子大妈在她的茅顶房子里继续过着通常生活。不久，茅顶上已经盖上雪了。每周，她到村子里走一次，买点面包和牛肉以后就仍旧回家。当时大家说是外面有狼，她出来的时候总背着枪，她儿子的枪，锈了的，并且枪托也是被手磨坏了的。这个高个儿的蛮子大妈看起来是古怪的，她微微地偻着背，在雪里慢慢地跨着大步走，头上戴着一顶黑帽子，紧紧包住一头从未被人见过的白头发，枪杆子却伸得比帽子高。

One day a Prussian force arrived. It was billeted upon the inhabitants, according to the property and resources of each. Four were allotted to the old woman, who was known to be rich.

某一天，普鲁士的队伍到了。有人把他们分派给居民去供养，人数的多寡是根据各家的贫富做标准的。大家都晓得这个老太婆有钱，她家里派了四个。

They were four great fellows with fair complexion, blond beards and blue eyes, who had not grown thin in spite of the fatigue which they had endured already and who also, though in a conquered country, had remained kind and gentle. Alone with this aged woman, they showed themselves full of consideration, sparing her, as much as they could, all expense and fatigue. They could be seen, all four of them, making their toilet at the well in their shirt-sleeves in the gray dawn, splashing with great swishes of water their pink-white northern skin, while La Mere Sauvage went and came, preparing their soup. They would be seen cleaning the kitchen, rubbing the tiles, splitting wood, peeling potatoes, doing up all the housework like four good sons around their mother.

那是四个胖胖的少年人，毛发是金黄的，胡子是金黄的，眼珠是蓝的，尽管他们已经熬受了许多辛苦，却依旧长得胖胖的，并且虽然他们到了这个被征服的国里，脾气却也都不刁。这样没人统率地住在老太太家里，他们都充分地表示对她关心，极力设法替她省钱，教她省力。早上，有人看见他们四个人穿着衬衣绕着那口井梳洗，那就是说，在冰雪未消的日子里用井水来洗他们那种北欧汉子的白里透红的肌肉，而蛮子大妈这时候却往来不息，预备去煮菜羹。后来，有人看见他们替她打扫厨房，揩玻璃，劈木柴，削马铃薯，洗衣裳，料理家务的日常工作，俨然是四个好儿子守着他们的妈。

But the old woman thought always of her own son, so tall and thin, with his hooked nose and his brown eyes and his heavy mustache which made a roll of black hair upon his lip. She asked every day of each of the soldiers who were installed beside her hearth: “Do you know where the French marching regiment, No. 23, was sent? My boy is in it.”

但是她却不住地记挂她自己的那一个，这个老太太，记挂她自己的那一个瘦而且长的、弯钩鼻子的，棕色眼睛，嘴上盖着黑黑地两撇浓厚髭须的儿子。每天，她必定向每个住在她家里的兵问：“你们可晓得法国第二十三边防镇守团开到哪儿去了？我的儿子在那一团里。”

They invariably answered, “No, we don’t know, don’t know a thing at all.” And, understanding her pain and her uneasiness – they who had mothers, too, there at home – they rendered her a thousand little services. She loved them well, moreover, her four enemies, since the peasantry have no patriotic hatred; that belongs to the upper class alone. The humble, those who pay the most because they are poor and because every new burden crushes them down; those who are killed in masses, who make the true cannon’s prey because they are so many; those, in fine, who suffer most cruelly the atrocious miseries of war because they are the feeblest and offer least resistance – they hardly understand at all those bellicose ardors, that excitable sense of honor or those pretended political combinations which in six months exhaust two nations, the conqueror with the conquered.

他们用德国口音说着不规则的法国话回答：“不晓得，一点不晓得。”后来，明白她的忧愁和牵挂了，他们也有妈在家里，他们就对她报答了许多小的照顾。她也很疼爱她这四个敌人；因为农人们都不大有什么仇恨，这种仇恨仅仅是属于高等人士的。至于微末的人们，因为本来贫穷而又被新的负担压得透不过气来，所以他们付出的代价最高；因为素来人数最多，所以他们成群地被人屠杀而且真地做了炮灰；因为都是最弱小和最没有抵抗力的，所以他们终于最为悲惨地受到战争的残酷祸殃；有了这类情形，他们所以都不大了解种种好战的狂热，不大了解那种激动人心的光荣以及那些号称具有政治性的策略；这些策略在半年之间，每每使得交战国的双方无论谁胜谁败，都同样变得精疲力竭。

They said in the district, in speaking of the Germans of La Mere Sauvage:

当日地方上的人谈到蛮子大妈家里那四个德国兵，总说道：

“There are four who have found a soft place.”

“那是四个找着了安身之所的。”

Now, one morning, when the old woman was alone in the house, she observed, far off on the plain, a man coming toward her dwelling. Soon she recognized him; it was the postman to distribute the letters. He gave her a folded paper and she drew out of her case the spectacles which she used for sewing. Then she read:

谁知有一天早上，那老太太恰巧独自一个人待在家里的时候，远远地望见了平原里，有一个人正向着她家里走过来。不久，她认出那个人了，那就是担任分送信件的乡村邮差。他拿出一张折好了的纸头交给她，于是她从自己的眼镜盒子里，取出了那副为了缝纫而用的老光眼睛；随后她就读下去：

MADAME SAUVAGE: This letter is to tell you sad news. Your boy Victor was killed yesterday by a shell which almost cut him in two. I was near by, as we stood next each other in the company, and he told me about you and asked me to let you know on the same day if anything happened to him.

蛮子太太，这件信是带一个坏的消息给您的。您的儿子威克多，昨天被一颗炮弹打死了。差不多是分成了两段。我那时候正在跟前，因为我们在连队里是紧挨在一起的，他从前对我谈到您，意思就是他倘若遇了什么不幸，我就好当天告诉您。

I took his watch, which was in his pocket, to bring it back to you when the war is done.

我从他衣袋里头取出了他那只表，预备将来打完了仗的时候带给您。

CESAIRE RIVOT,

现在我亲切地向您致敬。

Soldier of the 2d class, March. Reg. No. 23.

第二十三边防镇守团二等兵黎伏启

The letter was dated three weeks back.

这封信是三星期以前写的。

She did not cry at all. She remained motionless, so overcome and stupefied that she did not even suffer as yet. She thought: “There’s Victor killed now.” Then little by little the tears came to her eyes and the sorrow filled her heart. Her thoughts came, one by one, dreadful, torturing. She would never kiss him again, her child, her big boy, never again! The gendarmes had killed the father, the Prussians had killed the son. He had been cut in two by a cannon-ball. She seemed to see the thing, the horrible thing: the head falling, the eyes open, while he chewed the corner of his big mustache as he always did in moments of anger.

她看了并没有哭。她呆呆地待着没有动弹，很受了打击，连感觉力都弄迟钝了，以至于并不伤心。她暗自想道：“威克多现在被人打死了。”随后她的眼泪渐渐涌到眼眶里了，悲伤侵入她的心里了。各种心事，难堪的，使人痛苦的，一件一件回到她的头脑里了。她以后抱不着他了，她的孩子，她那长个儿孩子，是永远抱不着的了！保安警察打死了老子，普鲁士人又打死了儿子……他被炮弹打成了两段，现在她仿佛看见那一情景，教人战栗的情景：脑袋是垂下的，眼睛是张开的，咬着自己两大撇髭须的尖子，像他从前生气的时候一样。

What had they done with his body afterward? If they had only let her have her boy back as they had brought back her husband – with the bullet in the middle of the forehead!

他的尸首是怎样被人拾掇的，在出了事以后？从前，她丈夫的尸首连着额头当中那粒枪子被人送回来，那末她儿子的，会不会也有人这样办？

But she heard a noise of voices. It was the Prussians returning from the village. She hid her letter very quickly in her pocket, and she received them quietly, with her ordinary face, having had time to wipe her eyes.

但是这时候，她听见一阵嘈杂的说话声音了。正是那几个普鲁士人从村子里走回来，她很快地把信藏在衣袋里，并且趁时间还来得及又仔仔细细擦干了眼睛，用平日一般的神气安安稳稳接待了他们。

They were laughing, all four, delighted, for they brought with them a fine rabbit – stolen, doubtless – and they made signs to the old woman that there was to be something good to east.

他们四个人全是笑呵呵的，高兴的，因为他们带了一只肥的兔子回来，这无疑是偷来的，后来他们对着这个老太太做了个手势，表示大家就可以吃点儿好东西。

She set herself to work at once to prepare breakfast, but when it came to killing the rabbit, her heart failed her. And yet it was not the first. One of the soldiers struck it down with a blow of his fist behind the ears.

她立刻动手预备午饭了；但是到了要宰兔子的时候，她却失掉了勇气。然而宰兔子在她生平这并不是第一次！那四个兵的中间，有一个在兔子耳朵后头一拳打死了它。

The beast once dead, she skinned the red body, but the sight of the blood which she was touching, and which covered her hands, and which she felt cooling and coagulating, made her tremble from head to foot, and she kept seeing her big boy cut in two, bloody, like this still palpitating animal.

那东西一死，她从它的皮里面剥出了鲜红的肉体；但是她望见了糊在自己手上的血，那种渐渐冷却又渐渐凝住的温暖的血，自己竟从头到脚都发抖了；后来她始终看见她那个打成两段的长个儿孩子，他也是浑身鲜红的，正同那个依然微微抽搐的兔子一样。

She sat down at table with the Prussians, but she could not eat, not even a mouthful. They devoured the rabbit without bothering themselves about her. She looked at them sideways, without speaking, her face so impassive that they perceived nothing.

她和那四个兵同桌吃饭了，但是她却吃不下，甚至于一口也吃不下，他们狼吞虎咽般吃着兔子并没有注意她。她一声不响地从旁边瞧着他们，一面打好了一个主意，然而她满脸那样的稳定神情，教他们什么也察觉不到。

All of a sudden she said: “I don’t even know your names, and here’s a whole month that we’ve been together.” They understood, not without difficulty, what she wanted, and told their names.

忽然，她问：“我连你们的姓名都不晓得，然而我们在一块儿又已经一个月了。”他们费了好大事才懂得她的意思，于是各人说了各人的姓名。

That was not sufficient; she had them written for her on a paper, with the addresses of their families, and, resting her spectacles on her great nose, she contemplated that strange handwriting, then folded the sheet and put it in her pocket, on top of the letter which told her of the death of her son.

这办法是不能教她满足的；她叫他们在一张纸上写出来，还添上他们家庭的通信处，末了，她在自己的大鼻梁上面架起了眼镜，仔细瞧着那篇不认得的字儿，然后把纸折好搁在自己的衣袋里，盖着那封给她儿子报丧的信。

When the meal was ended she said to the men:

饭吃完了，她向那些兵说：

“I am going to work for you.”

“我来给你们做事。”

And she began to carry up hay into the loft where they slept.

于是她搬了许多干草搁在他们睡的那层阁楼上。

They were astonished at her taking all this trouble; she explained to them that thus they would not be so cold; and they helped her. They heaped the stacks of hay as high as the straw roof, and in that manner they made a sort of great chamber with four walls of fodder, warm and perfumed, where they should sleep splendidly.

他们望见这种工作不免诧异起来，她对他们说明这样可以不会那么冷；于是他们就帮着她搬了。他们把那些成束的干草堆到房子的茅顶那样高，结果他们做成了一间四面都围着草墙的寝室，又暖又香，他们可以很舒服地在那里睡。

At dinner one of them was worried to see that La Mere Sauvage still ate nothing. She told him that she had pains in her stomach. Then she kindled a good fire to warm herself, and the four Germans ascended to their lodging-place by the ladder which served them every night for this purpose.

吃夜饭的时候，他们中间的一个瞧见蛮子大妈还是一点东西也不吃，因此竟担忧了。她托词说自己的胃里有些痛。随后她燃起一炉好火给自己烘着，那四个德国人都踏上那条每晚给他们使用的梯子，爬到他们的寝室里了。

As soon as they closed the trapdoor the old woman removed the ladder, then opened the outside door noiselessly and went back to look for more bundles of straw, with which she filled her kitchen. She went barefoot in the snow, so softly that no sound was heard. From time to time she listened to the sonorous and unequal snoring of the four soldiers who were fast asleep.

那块做楼门用的四方木板一下盖好了以后，她就抽去了上楼的梯子，随后她悄悄地打开了那张通到外面的房门，接着又搬进了好些束麦秸塞在厨房里，她赤着脚在雪里一往一来地走，从容得教旁人什么也听不见，她不时细听着那四个睡熟了的士兵的鼾声，响亮而长短不齐。

When she judged her preparations to be sufficient, she threw one of the bundles into the fireplace, and when it was alight she scattered it over all the others. Then she went outside again and looked.

等到她判断自己的种种准备已经充分以后，就取了一束麦秸扔在壁炉里。它燃了以后，她再把它分开放在另外无数束的麦秸上边，随后她重新走到门外向门里瞧着。

In a few seconds the whole interior of the cottage was illumined with a brilliant light and became a frightful brasier, a gigantic fiery furnace, whose glare streamed out of the narrow window and threw a glittering beam upon the snow.

不过几秒钟，一阵强烈的火光照明了那所茅顶房子的内部，随后那简直是一大堆骇人的炭火，一座烧得绯红的巨大焖炉，焖炉里的光从那个窄小的窗口里窜出来，对着地上的积雪投出了一阵耀眼的光亮。

Then a great cry issued from the top of the house; it was a clamor of men shouting heartrending calls of anguish and of terror. Finally the trapdoor having given way, a whirlwind of fire shot up into the loft, pierced the straw roof, rose to the sky like the immense flame of a torch, and all the cottage flared.

随后，一阵狂叫的声音从屋顶上传出来，简直是一阵由杂乱的人声集成的喧嚷，一阵由于告急发狂令人伤心刺耳的呼号构成的喧嚷。随后，那块做楼门的四方木板往下面一坍，一阵旋风样的火焰冲上了阁楼，烧穿了茅顶，如同一个巨大火把的火焰一般升到了天空；最后，那所茅顶房子整个儿着了火。

Nothing more was heard therein but the crackling of the fire, the cracking of the walls, the falling of the rafters. Suddenly the roof fell in and the burning carcass of the dwelling hurled a great plume of sparks into the air, amid a cloud of smoke.

房子里面，除了火力的爆炸，墙壁的崩裂和栋梁的坠落以外，什么声音也没有了。屋顶陡然下陷了，于是这所房子烧得通红的空架子，就在一阵黑烟里面向空中射出一大簇火星。

The country, all white, lit up by the fire, shone like a cloth of silver tinted with red.

雪白的原野被火光照得像是一幅染上了红色的银布似地闪闪发光。

A bell, far off, began to toll.

一阵钟声在远处开始响着。

The old “Sauvage” stood before her ruined dwelling, armed with her gun, her son’s gun, for fear one of those men might escape.

蛮子大妈在她那所毁了的房子跟前站着不动，手里握着她的枪，她儿子的那一杆，用意就是害怕那四个兵中间有人逃出来。

When she saw that it was ended, she threw her weapon into the brasier. A loud report followed.

等到她看见了事情已经结束，她就向火里扔了她的枪。枪声响了一下。

People were coming, the peasants, the Prussians.

许多人都到了，有些是农人，有些是德国军人。

They found the woman seated on the trunk of a tree, calm and satisfied.

他们看见了这个妇人坐在一段锯平了的树桩儿上，安静的，并且是满意的。

A German officer, but speaking French like a son of France, demanded:

一个德国军官，满口法国话说得像法国人一样好，他问她：

“Where are your soldiers?”

“您家里那些兵到哪儿去了？”

She reached her bony arm toward the red heap of fire which was almost out and answered with a strong voice:

她伸起那条瘦的胳膊向着那堆正在熄灭的红灰，末了用一种洪亮的声音回答：

“There!”

“在那里面！”

They crowded round her. The Prussian asked:

大家团团地围住了她。那个普鲁士人问：

“How did it take fire?”

“这场火是怎样燃起来的？”

“It was I who set it on fire.”

她回答：“是我放的。”

They did not believe her, they thought that the sudden disaster had made her crazy. While all pressed round and listened, she told the story from beginning to end, from the arrival of the letter to the last shriek of the men who were burned with her house, and never omitted a detail.

大家都不相信她，以为这场大祸陡然教她变成了痴子。后来，大家正都围住了她并且听她说话，她就把这件事情从头说到尾，从收到那封信一直到听见那些同着茅顶房子一齐被烧的人的最后叫唤。凡是她料到的以及她做过的事，她简直没有漏掉一点。

When she had finished, she drew two pieces of paper from her pocket, and, in order to distinguish them by the last gleams of the fire, she again adjusted her spectacles. Then she said, showing one:

等到说完，她就从衣袋里面取了两张纸，并且为了要对着那点儿余火的微光来分辨这两张纸，她又戴起了她的眼镜，随后她拿起一张，口里说道：

“That, that is the death of Victor.” Showing the other, she added, indicating the red ruins with a bend of the head: “Here are their names, so that you can write home.” She quietly held a sheet of paper out to the officer, who held her by the shoulders, and she continued:

“这张是给威克多报丧的。”又拿起另外一张，偏着脑袋向那堆残火一指：“这一张，是他们的姓名，可以照着去写信通知他们家里。”她从从容容把这张白纸交给那军官，他这时候正抓住她的双肩，而她却接着说：

“You must write how it happened, and you must say to their mothers that it was I who did that, Victoire Simon, la Sauvage! Do not forget.”

“您将来要写起这件事的来由，要告诉他们的父母说这是我干的。我在娘家的名姓是威克多娃—西蒙，到了夫家旁人叫我做蛮子大妈。请您不要忘了。”

The officer shouted some orders in German. They seized her, they threw her against the walls of her house, still hot. Then twelve men drew quickly up before her, at twenty paces. She did not move. She had understood; she waited.

这军官用德国话发了口令。有人抓住了她，把她推到了那堵还是火热的墙边。随后，十二个兵迅速地在她对面排好了队，相距约莫二十米。她绝不移动。她早已明白；她专心等候。

An order rang out, followed instantly by a long report. A belated shot went off by itself, after the others.

一道口令喊过了，立刻一长串枪声跟着响了。响完之后，又来了一声迟放的单响。

The old woman did not fall. She sank as though they had cut off her legs.

这个老婆子并没有倒在地下。她是弯着身躯的，如同有人斩了她的双腿。

The Prussian officer approached. She was almost cut in two, and in her withered hand she held her letter bathed with blood.

那德国军官走到她的跟前了。她几乎被人斩成了两段，并且在她那只拘挛不住的手里，依然握着那一页满是血迹的报丧的信。

My friend Serval added:

我们的朋友塞华尔接着又说：

“It was by way of reprisal that the Germans destroyed the chateau of the district, which belonged to me.”

“德国人为了报复就毁了本地方的古堡，那就是属于我的。”

I thought of the mothers of those four fine fellows burned in that house and of the horrible heroism of that other mother shot against the wall.